3 May 2013

Kuwaitis allocate 10% of budget for electronics

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Local FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

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Local Spotlight

Lipstick-free

ANNAR: Experience the experienced

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net

W

hen an old friend of mine told me about his wife’s long time dream to set up her own project, which I later found was to set up a restaurant, I thought it would turn out to be another typical Kuwaiti project in which women open an outlet selling cupcakes or pizzas. I was not really interested because opening a new restaurant is something we hear about every day in Kuwait. In fact, most people who live in Kuwait complain of obesity because rich food is part of a life style and gorging on it almost a hobby. So gaining weight is easy and losing it is hard.

Three months later, I was invited to an event which this wonder woman and her husband had organized but unfortunately, I could not make it as I felt sick on that particular day. I knew it was prefect because all my colleagues who went to that event were talking about the fantastic food which they had tasted and which left them amazed. I did not think too much about it all, and thought of it as just another restaurant, I said to myself.

Recently, it was my son’s birthday. He was about to hit 25 years

of age. He loves Iranian food, which usually has meat, chicken, rice and the delicious Iranian sweets. I assumed it would be as good as many other well known Iranian dishes, so I ordered some of these dishes. When I received the menu by email for me to choose from, I loved the idea. I spoke with my friend’s wife, Ms. Farida Bakhtir, and decried to give this project a chance.

At first glance, I thought it was quick, easy and professional. A good start, I assumed. I went through the menu which was well crafted and seemed attractive. I made my choice of the dishes that my son loves. I replied back and noted down all the items that I had chosen and the details thereof. I also received a confirmation email and when the big day showed up, I ate like I had never eaten before.

On that day, I was amazed to explore the wide array of amazing Iranian food and unlike many restaurants which care less about quality and presentation, this ANNAR thing had it all. Quality and quantity, both. Believe me that this is a very rare thing to achieve in Kuwait. This two-in-one formula is hard to find. But I felt that this lady has worked so hard not only to realize her dream as a chef in a best fashionable and possible way but also the food arrived on my table piping hot.

Annar means a magic touch of Persian cuisine, I say this without any fear of exaggeration. Everyone enjoyed the lunch. Faridah made me so proud even though I had to pay her. I was not sad for the money I paid, since it was worth every dinar. I believe this lady is entitled to say, “Yes, I realized my life’s dream by bringing happiness to others.”

Kuwait’s my business

Kuwait entrepreneurs give up control for opportunity

By John P Hayes

local@kuwaittimes.net

I

f you invest several million dollars to open an upscale, fine dining restaurant, would you expect to select the cutlery yourself, or prefer that someone else do it for you? Your answer will reveal a great deal about your personality, as well as your strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur.

“I’m not a big fan of giving up control, so I’m not a big fan of franchises,” said Dr. Sulaiman T. Al-Abduljader, chairman of the Kuwait investment firm, REMAS, which recently acquired rights to Cavalli Caffe and opened it at Grand Avenues. “However,” continued Dr. Sulaiman, who is also head of Finance and Economics at GUST, “for such a major investment we are not risking anything. All the details for the restaurant are furnished for us by the franchisor,” and that includes the branded cutlery.

Calculated risk takers Even though Dr. Sulaiman and his partners are capable of selecting cutlery, and even though he prefers independent ownership over buying a franchise, he realized something far more important.

“We are not experts in fine dining restaurants,” he explained, “so for this type of investment we required a brand name. If it’s a worthwhile brand then it will add value and quality to our relationship, and in that case we are willing to let the franchisor dictate to us.” In entrepreneur-speak, that’s called calculated risk taking, and it’s a tremendous strength.

Reasonable people might be asking right about now, “Why would anyone invest millions of dollars in a business that they know so little about? Owning a restaurant is risky, so why invest in one if you’re not an expert?” Well, that’s what entrepreneurs do. However, most of them make matters riskier by failing to recognize their limitations and insisting on making all the decisions, including selecting the cutlery!

Filling a gap As to why REMAS would step outside of its expertise and open a fine dining restaurant in Kuwait, Dr. Sulaiman offered a reasonable explanation. “People in Kuwait know fine dining,” he said. “When Kuwaitis travel we go to the hotel concierge and ask for the best restaurants. Worldwide, and especially in Europe and the USA, we’ve experienced fine dining. But in Kuwait, that level of cuisine is under-served. Kuwait has many mid-range restaurants, but fine dining is limited. We have recognized this gap for several years and we’ve been looking for an opportunity to fill the gap.” Thus, the investors decided Cavalli Caffe was the answer.

For years, the name Cavalli represented quality in the fashion industry, and more recently the brand has become an opportunity

for entrepreneurs. Flamboyant Italian designer, Roberto Cavalli, has enjoyed years of success dressing some of the world’s most famous personalities, but, like any smart entrepreneur, he realized the importance of extending his brand into new categories. So far, he’s lending his name to lifestyle and food ventures. Perhaps you’ve visited the Cavalli Club Dubai? Or a Cavalli Caffe in Delhi or Beirut?

Now you can enjoy Cavalli Caffe at Grand Avenues, and if plans come together as expected, you’ll also find Cavalli Caffe in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - all thanks to the entrepreneurial vision of REMAS. Lest you get the idea that Dr. Sulaiman and his partners merely surrendered their control (and their money) to Cavalli, here’s something else of interest. “When things are not under your control,” explained Dr. Sulaiman, “you still have opinions and convictions about what is right, especially when cultural differences exist. This is frustrating (to the entrepreneur) because you have to convince the franchisor why something needs to be changed or added. But some things will not work in Kuwait and so it’s important that the franchisor have an open mind.”

Why a soft opening?

Cavalli, for example, didn’t understand why their Kuwait franchisee insisted on a “soft opening.” The franchisor preferred a grand opening where the customers pay for their food. Most franchisors are likely to think that a “soft opening,” where diners eat free, is a waste of money, not to mention a loss of the royalties the franchisor would collect. After all, the franchisor has spent years perfecting its system, including its menu, so the restaurant doesn’t need a try out.

“They wanted us to go for perfection and just open our doors for business,” continued Dr. Sulaiman, “but we insisted on a soft opening because we knew it would be appreciated in Kuwait.” It would also be worth the expense to get critical feedback. As Dr. Sulaiman explained, when Kuwaitis know a restaurant is in soft opening, they understand that mistakes will be made and they won’t be shy to point them out. But once the restaurant opens for business, Kuwaitis will not freely criticize the restaurant. “During our two week soft opening we served close to 1,000 guests (including Kuwaitis and expats) and we received valuable comments and other data that helped us make changes and adjustments,” said Dr. Sulaiman. In fact, a franchisor isn’t likely to allow a franchisee to make changes without in-depth, and costly, data. REMAS’s determination, and Cavalli’s open mindedness, speak well for the future success of this collaboration.

But don’t take my word for it. Cavalli Caffe has now officially opened its doors for business, i.e. you will pay for your food! Go see what you think, and don’t be shy with your critique. Like the best of entrepreneurs, Dr. Sulaiman wants to know what you really think, right down to the choice of cutlery.

Dr John P Hayes is the head of Business Administration at GUST and he conducts training programs for numerous local companies. Contact Dr. Hayes at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

I

t was surprising for me that the Turkish Airlines has banned their hostesses from wearing bright-colored lipstick. To me, thanks to the flood of serials we have been watching on our channels over the past decade, I was under the impression that the Turks are very liberal.

Actually, their serials had immensely influenced society everywhere in the Middle East.

In Jordan, taxi drivers are narrating or waiting for this or that Turkish serial to start. The same is the case with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon too. Everyone is affected and becomes a fan of the Turkish soap operas. I am sure all of you have heard of Noor and Mohannad. How famous did Mohannad become in the Arab World? He has become a star. Girls put his pictures everywhere - in their rooms, cars or on the walls of their cabinets. He is their dream man.

The same applies to Noor and other serials from Turkey.

I cannot recall their names because I myself am not a soap opera fan, but sometimes it is forced on me. Once I was in a taxi in Amman riding with my sister. The driver was in a rush and was speeding. He said he was late to take his mother to watch her favorite soap opera. My editor heard me and said that the same happens in Bulgaria. She said, “When the Turkish soap opera starts, the country almost comes to a standstill, waiting for its favorite characters.”

People in the office also exchange the latest news from the episodes as if they are discussing their own families’ troubles. These soap operas reflect the real life of a country and the people’s habits, clothes and all. It gave the impression that Turkish people live in a very liberal atmosphere. It was surprising to find out that Turkish Airlines can ban its hostesses from using sexy lipstick colors. If it were to happen in case of a Saudi Airline, I would have understood the change.

What’s it with the lipstick? Does it freak out the passengers or the children? Why the ban? Is it considered indecent make-up? Are they afraid of an assault from passengers who could possibly be mesmerized by the hostesses’ lip color? Or are they trying to avoid clashes on the plane as passengers squabble over airhostesses, and want to play it safe and ensure a smooth flight? This news reminded me of a theatre play called: “No Sex Please, We’re British.” Now, I say: “No lipstick please, we’re Turkish!” Whatever you decide, Turkish Airlines, I wish you good luck!

KUWAIT: It is the weekend- the time of outdoor activities. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

By Nawara Fattahova

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any women love playing football and are interested in practicing this sport, but they do not have enough opportunities in Kuwait to do so. Although some clubs had some provision for women to play football, it was not enough. But now such women can practice their hobby at the Fitfootball club, situated close to the Kuwait Towers on the seaside.

The club started three years ago, when it was just for men.

Later, the kids category was added. Last Tuesday Fitfootball launched the women’s category, becoming the first club to offer football training for women in Kuwait. “Today is the first day of women’s football classes and 14 women have joined us. Many Kuwaiti women love football, and used to play inside chalets. But now they can enjoy practicing it outside with two coaches,” Rawya Al-Hajiri, Managing Director of Fitfootball, told the Kuwait Times.

Fitfootball offers a unique football experience, as it brings together the best of both worlds by combining football with physical fitness. “We believe football can also be undertaken as a weight loss program. Exercise is a vital component of losing weight, and you get plenty of it by playing football. Our experienced trainers and coaches will stimulate players both technically and tactically by putting them into concrete game situations, enhancing the player’s overall game ability. Since we started, we have already had about 1,500 men and kids that took classes at our club,” she added.

“We haven’t set the timetable for the classes yet. It might be one to two classes per week, depending on the number of participants. Registration is open for women of all ages and nationalities.

During the women’s classes, the place is closed to all except women so they can feel comfortable to practice and play freely.

Even the driver who takes them to the club is a woman,” explained Al-Hajiri.

It was surprising when Al-Hajiri stated that some male participants joined classes to lose weight. “The classes are not purely football classes; there are other physical exercises too. So people come here to be fit, lose weight, and enjoy playing football as well.

People weigh themselves before starting and then weigh again after a few weeks. They are pleased with the result. I think many women as well will come to enjoy fitness in a friendly and fun environment,” she pointed out.

For women, there are two professional trainers from the Fawziya Al-Sultan Rehabilitation Institute, which has a partnership with Fitfootball. One of them is for football training and the other is for physical training.

Xsenia is the football coach training women and boys aged 5-8 years old. “I trained the women today, and the class is two hours long. But, I think it’s more challenging with the kids. The women were great and they worked hard. They are also more committed as they come to enjoy their time. But some kids are forced by their parents to come and don’t like to play, so they are not very interested in this activity,” she stated.

Fitness coach Ma’aali Salmeen, who also provides training in street fighting, noted that football and fitness training also improves the psychological health of the participants. “Playing football doesn’t mean that the women lose their femininity. Even street fighting is for self-defense. Women should be strong enough to feel confident to be able to defend themselves in case they are attacked. But they can still retain their femininity. Going to the gym for workouts is boring, so woman come here to work out and combine it with football to have fun. If a woman leaves this place looking the same as when she came, then I know that the training didn’t work properly. She must sweat and shouldn’t have to bother herself with checking if everything is in place,” she said.

“Training also means socializing, as they meet new people and improve their mood. It’s better than going to a psychiatric or sit-

Rawya Al-Hajiri ting at home. After finishing training they go home, have a good dinner, and go to sleep with a clear mind. It’s better than taking your problems to bed, and waking up the other morning with headache,” Salmeen further said.

The participants will experience an environment which will motivate, challenge and inspire them to meet and exceed their targets and achieve their goals. “It’s a unique opportunity for personal growth and socialization. If you want to have fun while being physically healthy, Fitfootball is the program that will suit you.

Titles and prizes are awarded to the best players in each group.

The best time for learning football is at an early age. Getting youngsters involved in football at an early age can help them get off to a productive start. The best age to develop physical skills is from 4-12. This is the time when kids develop their motor skills.

Youth football programs give them an early opportunity to show their natural talent while learning football. They will learn essential skills like teamwork, work ethic and tackling and blocking techniques. They will also improve coordination, flexibility and quickness while having fun and staying safe,” stressed Al-Hajiri.

Fitfootball organizes football-related events for individuals and corporate services, such as organizing sports days for companies and their employees, as well as for tournaments and other events.

Each class includes a maximum of 25 men, and the club currently hold three classes for men each week. The season is always for four months and then there is a break.

Local FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Part of Anthony’s collection

Little ʻgoldilocksʼ collector, now a ʻbusinessmanʼ

By Ben Garcia

A

t first he collected car models. Then it gradually became boring. He started collecting old coins. This also did not hold his interest for too long. With time, he found collecting airplane models very satisfying. Very soon, the models that he collected reached into hundreds. Some of his friends liked his hobby. In fact, when they used to see his collection, they used to be so amazed that some would return home with one model from his collection. That made him think that instead of him buying and then giving these away, he should be selling these models to his classmates.

Meet Anthony Romello Salandy, a BritishKuwaiti boy, of 12 years of age, who once was an avid collector and hobbyist but is now a little but very smart businessman. He started collecting these models with his own pocket money when he was ten, though his hobby of collecting airplane models started when he was six. “When I used to travel with my parents, I used to ask them to buy me some of the airplane models displayed at the airport to add to my collection,” he stated.

Most of his collection reflected his personal choices, but some were given to him by family, friends and some as gifts. “When friends of my mom or dad discovered I was collecting airplane models, they began giving these to me and each of them contributed one or even two,” Anthony beamed. Just like any other child, Anthony is jolly and playful. But he likes reading books, especially about history and

politics of the world. He wants to be an actor and become a famous chef like ‘James Oliver’ one day. However, he also wants to become a pilot and fly a big aircraft. “I imagined piloting all of these aircrafts I have in my collections.

I play a lot with them since I find happiness and peace seeing my collection. I just love them. If I stop liking any of the models, or if become fed up with a particular aircraft model or I need space, I sell them,” he laughed.

Anthony is a grade seven student at the New

Anthony Romello Salandy

English School. His father is from Britain and his mother is a native Kuwaiti. Kuwait’s nationality law denies Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men the right to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses, a right Kuwait men married to foreign spouses have.

Foreign husbands of Kuwaiti women have no legal right to remain in the country without a residency permit. That is why his father needs to get a residency permit or work here

legally before he could be allowed to stay or live in Kuwait where his Kuwaiti wife was born.

As a teenage boy, Anthony is not bothered though he does sometimes ask questions. “I used to ask my parents regarding my status but they told me, I have a British-born father, so I am not a Kuwaiti. Gradually, I stopped asking,” he said.

Anthony was born in the United States back in 2000. He moved to Kuwait with his parents when he was four. “My mother wants to spend his life here. I like it here. I like the sun, I like the summer. I like the people I meet every day. I made many friends here. But I see myself becoming a successful actor and a singer,” he quipped. Like other children from his school, he likes to play rugby and basketball. But at 12, his body is quite robust, something that most Kuwaiti children have. “How can you enjoy harsh weather outdoors? I really like to enjoy and play with my peers, but cannot, because of the weather. So I am stuck indoors,” he smiled.

Asked for his advice to would be collectors, Anthony said, they should be smart enough to select only the best ones. “I only seek out an airplane model which is beautiful. If I like a model of an airplane that I cannot afford, I ask my parents to buy me one. Collect only the best and if there are vintage models, or some very old models, go for these as these could add a particular flavor to your collection,” he said. Though this is a bit early, he thinks he would become a successful businessman one day, but again, a chef and an actor, too, at the same time.

Local FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Unemployment a time-bomb Court acquits opposition tweeter

By B Izzak KUWAIT: State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah described the unemployment problem as a time-bomb, but said that unemployment rate among Kuwaitis this year is just 4.9 percent which includes some job seekers who were offered jobs but refused it. Speaking during a special session to discuss unemployment among citizens, Sheikh Mohammad said that around 19,500 Kuwaitis are currently listed as unemployed.

He vowed that the government will do anything possible to resolve the problem and provide jobs to all Kuwaitis seeking employment. Officials of the Civil Service Commission said that 82,000 expatriates are among 325,000 people employed by the government, with most of the expatriates concentrated in the ministries of health and education. They also said the state paid around KD1.7 billion between 2001 and the end of last month on social and children allowances for 58,000 Kuwaitis employed in the private sector.

The officials said that out of the 19,500 Kuwaitis listed as unemployed, there are 5,100 females aged 40 and above and 8,751 holding intermediate degrees and lower. MPs however expressed reservations at the government measures regarding unemployment. MP Nasser Al-Marri said Kuwait government needs around 9,000 jobs annually and the number of jobs available in the private sector every year is 109,000 but the private sector has fired 1,750 Kuwaitis.

MP Ahmad Lari said the government has not answered several questions about unemployment especially why Kuwaitis seek jobs in the public sector and shun private jobs. He said the government has not provided any strategy to resolve the unemployment problem, adding that there is no true will to resolve the problem. At the end of the debate, MPs passed non-binding recommendations calling for speeding up the activation of a law stipulating unemployment benefits and for continuing to pay salaries for Kuwaitis dismissed by private sector businesses following the global financial crisis.

They also called for starting the privatization program but by safeguarding the rights of Kuwaiti employees and for creating real job opportunities and to accelerate measures to transform Kuwait into a financial and trade hub.

During the debate, some MPs clashed with State Minister for Development Affairs Rula Dashti over allegations that she has appointed nonKuwaitis in key posts. The minister denied the allegations.

In another development, the criminal court yesterday acquitted opposition activist Sager AlHashash from charges that he insulted the Amir and undermined his authorities through remarks on his Twitter in October last year. Judge Adnan AlJasser pointed out that there has been no evidence that Hashash meant the Amir in his tweets. Earlier in the week, the appeals court cut Hashash twoyear jail term to just one year for similar charges but in another case. The activist is also on trial in a third case.

Kuwait families may allocate 10% budgets to electronics Internet providers urged to re-think over extravagant fees

KISR’s section at Geneva exhibition.

Kuwait promotes efforts against organic pollutants GENEVA: Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) has underlined its activities and accomplishments at an international workshop currently held on means to combat hazardous substances namely organic pollutants. KISR participated in the event, alongside with the regional center of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants for the West-Asia region and delegations of more than 190 signatory states of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions on combating hazardous chemical materials and substances.

The institute set up a national pavilion at the exhibition. Dr Lulwa Nasser Ali, KISR’s coordinator of the regional center for West Asia, briefed Jim Willis, the executive secretary of the secretariat of the three conventions, while inspecting the Kuwaiti pavilion about the center efforts - namely its organization of four regional scientific workshops for building potentials in the realm of organizing pollutants.

These workshops had tackled various issues including - the usage of technolo-

gy and management of pollutants’ waste. The center has coordinated with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to establish a forum for Arab Gulf states on employment of technology and best means for disposal of organic pollutants waste of industrial origin. The Kuwaitbased center had organized two consultative meetings with regional foundations to study plans for coping with organic waste.

Dr Lulwa also mentioned that KISR had conducted scientific studies on organizing pollutants in the air, potential resources in Kuwait and contamination caused by inner parts of vehicles. The signatory states of the Stockholm Convention selected KISR, in 2009, to be one of the regional centers of the convention, considering its eminent scientific status at the regional level and experience in studying resources of pollution.

The Kuwaiti delegation taking part in the workshops included figures from KISR, Environment Public Authority, Kuwait General Administration of Customs and the Foreign Ministry. — KUNA

KUWAIT: With the fast pace of technical gizmos appearing on the shelves of electronic stores, it has become a costly obsession of many Kuwaitis to keep buying the latest iteration of a cell phone or an IPad or a laptop, often straining their budgets to do so. It has been estimated that Kuwaiti families spend from 5 to 10 percent of their budgets on acquiring high tech products or paying bills to keep them operating or paying charges for downloading software, etc.

A lot of Kuwaitis, particularly young ones, can’t seem to do with one cell phone, opting to keep two or more which of course means they have to pay extra to keep them all running and operational. Wishing to dig a little deeper to find out what people think about acquiring high tech products, KUNA went around the governorates of Hawalli and Farwaniya to check out the electronic stores in those areas where it met with a number of buyers and store salespeople.

One such buyer at an electronics store, Yousif AlKhaldi, voiced amazement at some Kuwaiti families that shelled out about KD150 (about $400) a month to pay for Internet charges, citing the fact that these charges are much lower in other countries. He appealed to Internet providers to re-think their extravagant monthly fees on Kuwaiti families that often get the Internet to help their children with their school work.

A student, Fahad Al-Enizi, while acknowledging the benefits of laptops and IPads and smart phones to students who might resort to them in doing, say, their homework, nevertheless wished that high tech manufacturers updated their products even faster than they currently do, which brings up the point of just why do people get the latest edition of say a smartphone, that they had purchased only a few months ago. This penchant to get the absolute latest version of a high tech product seems to tax the pockets of many people, said Al-Enizi.

He noted with some surprise that youngsters showed the greatest degree of desire to get high tech products because they tap into social network features available to them on these products such as facebook, twitter, and instagram. Hamad Al-Mutairi, an employee, said that numerous Kuwaiti families bore not only the monthly fees for the use of high tech products but also the fees for such services as whatsapp and tango and viber used profusely by their servants at home who use them to speak to their families abroad.

Electronic store salesman Sheikh Shakoor noted that chief among his sales were cell phones and smart phones followed by I Pads. He said there was stiff competition among electronic stores to sell these products. Another salesman, Mansour Abd Rabboh, said his average monthly sale of such products ran between 70 and 100 items and that 80 percent of his

store customers were Kuwaitis, many of whom he said were swayed by glitzy advertisements from high tech manufacturers. — KUNA

‘Marry me or you return my money’ KUWAIT: “Make her either marry me or return my money,” a Kuwaiti man told the Shamiya police as he begged for help and even offered to give his beloved more money if she agreed to marry him. According to the man, he came to know a divorced woman and fell in love to an extent that he was prepared to do anything to marry her. Taking advantage of his infatuation, the woman asked for KD 50,000 but when he asked her whether she wanted anything else, she asked him to ‘get lost’. “I am still willing to marry her if she agrees,” said the man. The woman is being summoned for further investigations.

Juvenile sodomized A young police officer of the rank of First Lieutenant was recently arrested along with a juvenile whom he had been sodomizing inside a vehicle at Mubarak hospital’s parking lot, security sources said.

Case papers indicated that a police patrol caught the duo red handed. The officer admitted to sodomising the boy. A case was filed.

Manager threatened A section manager at the Surra phone PBX center complained that a policeman insulted and threatened him at his office, security sources said. The manager said earlier too, he had received a threat from one of his employees for having punished her for violating work regulations. He added that the woman became very angry, insulted him and then called the police. As a result, a policeman showed up and threatened him.

A case was filed and both the woman and the policeman were being summoned for further investigations.

‘Wanted man’ nabbed A citizen, wanted in nine cases, was recently arrested in Sulaibikhat, security sources said, noting that the suspect was stopped just by chance at a check point where he betrayed nervousness. Sources said he drove off quickly but was chased by the police till he abandoned the car and began running. Eventually, he took refuge inside a house but was turned in by the landlord.

Local FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Kuwait urges Havana to safeguard ‘right of living’ Kuwait donates $500,000 to IOM GENEVA: Kuwait asked Cuban government yesterday in front of the United Nation for Human Rights council to safeguard “right of living” for its natives as a state policy priority, namely at times of coping with diverse catastrophes, as well as pursuing cooperation with other countries in the health field. The State of Kuwait welcomes positive measures that have been taken by Cuba since it presented the last report in this respect at the council, said the advisor of the Kuwaiti mission, Malek Hussein AlWazzan, in a speech addressed at the UN council session, held for regular review of Cuba’s file in the field of human rights.

Al-Wazzan praised Cuba for “methodical and transparent” manner of preparing the national report in this respect, thus reflecting its abidance by the relevant assurances as well as “boosting human rights,” in addition to its fruitful cooperation with international organizations at this level. Cuba’s report illus-

trates the tremendous efforts that have been exerted to ensure bolstering of human rights, as well as realizing a “large part of objectives specified for the millennium by fall of 2015.”

In another development, Kuwait’s permanent representative to the United Nations and international organizations Ambassador Dharar Abdul Razak Rezouqi said yesterday that Kuwait’s donation of $500,000 to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) aims to strengthen its role in the crisis areas in which it operates. Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) following a meeting with the Director-General of the Organization William Swing, Rezouqi praised the role of the organization in a number of Arab countries in particular and has played an effective role in acute crises similar those which occurred in Libya, in addition to its continuous role in Sudan and the Horn of Africa.He also recalled the historic role of

the organization immediately after the liberation of Kuwait, where it provided assistance in the preparation of plans and programs for the displaced and had a major role in solving a lot of problems.

He also recalled its role during natural disasters in Africa and some countries in Latin America and Asian regions.

He noted that Kuwait’s donations to United Nations organizations with humanitarian objectives such as UNHCR or WHO and others complement each other within the framework of the work of these organizations in many areas, especially in the Arab and Islamic countries. He said that the UN has always extolled Kuwait’s pioneering role in supporting humanitarian work at various levels as reflected in the praise of the results of the International Donors’ Conference under the auspices of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and its success. — Agencies

KTS to celebrate Thalassemia Day KUWAIT: Kuwait Thalassemia Society (KTS) is set to celebrate the World Thalassemia Day tomorrow, with plans of hosting entertainment events for children suffering the disease.

KTS secretary Dr Sundus Al-Shereeda said that the event, which will be at Baroue store in Discovery Mall, aims to put a smile on the faces of children who suffer continuously of needles pain and blood transfer. Thalassemia is a form of inherited recessive blood disorder caused by the weakening and destruction of red blood cells, requiring that patients receive blood transfers about every two weeks. The disease is usually discovered in children less than two years old. The symptoms include paleness, and enlargement of both liver and spleen.

“Thalassemia can cause bone deformities if patients did not receive proper medical care, which could lead to changes in the face features,” AlShereeda warned, noting that current treatments include blood transfer and the intake of iron supplements.

Al-Shereeda said that the Head of the Scientific Committee in the society Dr Najat Rouhaldeen formed a new team, consisting of 12 psychiatrics who volunteered to morally support patients and their families to face challenges of this disease. — KUNA

Japan’s AOC to sell Norway upstream unit to Kuwait TOKYO: Japan’s AOC Holdings said yesterday its upstream unit, Arabian Oil Co, has agreed to sell the entire stake in its Norwegian operations to Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec). The sale, whose value was not disclosed, will give the wholly-owned unit of state oil firm Kuwait Petroleum Company access to a 5 percent stake in the producing Gyda oil field and a 10 percent stake in the troubled Yme oil field, both in the North Sea off Norway.

AOC, which in February projected net loss of 7.7 billion yen ($79.10 million) for the fiscal year ended in March, said it may post an additional loss of around 6 billion yen from the sale. The deal is likely to be finalized in June after Norwegian government approval, the company added. AOC had been looking to sell its stake in the Yme field.

It is also trying to find a buyer for a 50-percent stake in the Northwest October block in the Gulf of Suez in Egypt, which is unlikely to produce oil anytime soon. The Japanese firm in December announced plans to effectively pull out of upstream oil and gas development by transferring its upstream business employees to JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration, which has been seeking to expand its business. — Reuters

2013-No Haj for expats KUWAIT: Undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic affairs Dr Adel Al-Falah announced that the pilgrimage supreme committee tends to use the whole Kuwait quota of pilgrims this year for Kuwaitis only. Speaking form Jeddah, Al-Falah said that the 8000 quota would be allocated to bedoons and some exceptions would be made for expats with Kuwaiti relatives. Al-Falah justified this to the limited quota allocated by Saudi Hajj authorities per country in view of the expansion and construction works going on at the Holy Mosque in Makkah.

Crisis management course KUWAIT: The National Security College’s Leaders Preparation Centre yesterday concluded its fourth Crisis Management Training Course held for senior leaders from the National Guards, the Customs

D e p a r t m e n t . The course which was organized under the aegis of the MOI’s assistant undersecretary for training and education affairs, Lt General Ahmed Nawaf Al-Ahmed also witnessed the pres-

ence of the National Security College’s assistant dean, Brigadier Fauzi AlSuwailam and the manager of the Leaders’ Preparation Center, Colonel Nasser Ibrahim Al-Houtti.

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Indian ‘spy’ dies in Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Dalbir Kaur, sister of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian death row prisoner who died in Pakistan, gestures as she addresses media representatives yesterday. — AFP LAHORE: An Indian man on death row in Pakistan for spying died yesterday nearly a week after he was attacked by fellow prisoners, who were swiftly charged with murder as New Delhi demanded justice.

Sarabjit Singh, who was sentenced 16 years ago over deadly bombings, died in the early hours as a result of the savage assault in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail, a senior doctor at Jinnah hospital in the eastern city told AFP. The 49-year-old went into a coma after suffering numerous serious injuries when six prisoners attacked him on April 26, hitting him on the head with bricks and fracturing his skull. “The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on Sarabjit Singh must be brought to justice,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on his official Twitter page.

India complained that its diplomats were denied access to the prisoner as he fought for his life, and the premier said it was “particularly regrettable” that Pakistan had not responded to appeals “to take a humanitarian view of this case”. The prime minister added that New Delhi would make the necessary arrangements to bring his body home for funeral rites, after earlier negotiations to treat the jailed spy in India or a third country failed.

There were angry protests in Singh’s native Bhikhiwind village in northern Punjab state, where Pakistan flags were burned.

Narendra Modi, a senior leader in India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told an election rally in southern Mangalore: “I directly blame the government of Pakistan for the murder of Sarabjit Singh. It is an extrajudicial killing.” Pakistan insists regular consular access was granted to Singh and said doctors did everything possible to save him before his death from cardiac arrest.

“The prisoner, who had been in a comatose state and on a ventilator for the last few days, was being provided the best treatment available and the medical staff at Jinnah Hospital had been working round

the clock... to save his life,” the foreign ministry said.

The government provided “all assistance” to Singh’s family and the Indian authorities, and will facilitate “the early completion of all formalities” and hand over his body “at the earliest possible” time, it added in a statement. Singh’s lawyer Owais Sheikh said his body had been moved to the hospital mortuary.

The doctor said arrangements were under way for an autopsy. Two prisoners were taken into custody immediately after the attack and have now been charged with his murder, police official Tariq Mehmood told AFP. The motive was unclear, but Pakistani police say an initial investigation pointed to an exchange of “hot words” with Singh. Sheikh said his client had received threats following the execution of Kashmiri separatist Mohammed Afzal Guru in India. Pakistani analysts doubted the death would have a significant impact on tense relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, nucleararmed neighbours. “It may increase tension for a while as the hawks in India could put pressure on the Indian Congress (ruling party) to criticise Pakistan for lack of security,” retired lieutenant general Talat Masood told AFP. But Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters in Delhi that the India-Pakistan relationship had been hurt by this “terrible tragedy”. Parliament’s lower house was adjourned in uproar yesterday as Speaker Meira Kumar moved a resolution condemning the “inhuman treatment” of Singh.

Singh was convicted for his alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Pakistan’s Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990. His mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former president Pervez Musharraf.

His family insisted he was a farmer who became a victim of mistaken identity after inadvertently straying across the border while drunk. —AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Gaddafi son Saif al-Islam appears in court ZINTAN, Libya: Saif al-Islam, a son of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, appeared in court yesterday in the town of Zintan, where he had been held since his capture by former rebels in Nov 2011. Saif alIslam, at the centre of a legal tussle between Libya and the International Criminal Court (ICC), smiled and told reporters he was in good health during his brief appearance. The powerful armed group in Zintan, which spearheaded the capture of Tripoli from Gaddafi’s forces in Aug 2011, has insisted on keeping Saif al-Islam imprisoned in the town, about 140 km southwest of the Libyan capital.

Once Gaddafi’s presumed heir, Saif al-Islam is wanted by the ICC on war crimes charges, but the case to be heard in Zintan relates to charges that he gave information to an ICC lawyer last year that could endanger national security. He was the only defendant of 13 people who were called to appear in court on those charges, confirming he was in the room when his name was called out and that his lawyers were present. The case was then post-

poned until Sept 19 because the defence’s case was incomplete.

The ICC lawyer, Australian Melinda Taylor, was herself detained for three weeks after a meeting in which Saif al-Islam is accused of handing over sensitive papers and information. Taylor has said her detention proved Saif al-Islam could not get a fair trial in Libya. ICC lawyers also note that he could face the death penalty if convicted in the North African state - an outcome that would be welcome to many Libyans who suffered under Gaddafi’s 42-year rule and in the revolt that toppled him.

Libya, which wants to try Saif al-Islam itself, has yet to indict him for war crimes, although the public prosecutor has said a case is being prepared and will soon go to court. Libyan lawyer Ahmed al-Jehani, who liaises between the ICC and the Tripoli government, said he expected the ICC to decide in May whether Libya can handle Saif al-Islam’s trial and that of Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senussi. “We have submitted a

great deal of evidence and documentation to convince them we are able,” Jehani told Reuters, adding that the dossier included medical reports, confessions and witness

ZINTAN, Libya: Saif al-Islam, son of Libyaís late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, looks on in the accusedís cell as he stands trial yesterday for illegally trying to communicate with the outside world in June last year. — AFP

Chad foils ‘coup’ Opposition lawmaker among arrestees N’DJAMENA: Chad has arrested a group of people for conspiring in what the government described as a “destabilisation plot” in the landlocked central African country, which has a history of instability. The government serving under President Idris Deby Itno, who himself came to power in a 1990 coup, said a “small group” was involved while police and opposition sources said one of the detainees was an opposition lawmaker. The situation appeared calm in the Chadian capital yesterday, with residents going about their usual day-today activities normally. A police source said soldiers and civilians also took part in the alleged plot.

“A small group of ill-intentioned individuals attempted to carry out a destabilisation plot against the institutions of the republic,” the government said in a statement Wednesday. The government said the army had “neutralised” the group and that the arrested ringleaders had been handed over to prosecutors for investigation. “This small group... had been conspiring for more than four months to jeopardise the country’s hard-won peace,” it said.

Between 2005 and 2010, the former French colony was wracked by civil war.

On Saturday, Deby told Radio France Internationale that “mercenaries”, currently in Libya’s second largest city Benghazi, were trying to “regroup Chadians”. A police source said that “several civilians and soldiers, including Saleh Makki,” an opposition lawmaker, had been arrested Monday. Opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo said in an email to AFP that he received reports of “numerous” arrests in the capital N’Djamena and that “several sources” had confirmed to him that Makki was among those arrested.

France yesterday said it had noted the latest events in Chad “with concern”, and called on the country’s government and opposition to engage in “calm and constructive dialogue” with each other.

Chad, once known as one of the world’s

YAMOUSSOUKRO: File photo taken on Feb 27, 2013 shows Chadís President Idriss Deby Itno arriving to attend an ECOWAS Heads of State ordinary summit at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Foundation. — AFP poorest nations, has had a history of instability. In March 2006, the government said soldiers and police had thwarted a bid to overthrow Deby’s regime and kill him by shooting down his aircraft. The regime has also faced rebellions in the last few years, especially in the east of the country, which borders the Sudanese region of Darfur.

In 2008 rebels from the border region came close to overthrowing the Deby regime, briefly entering the capital before being pushed back with the help of French forces. Deby himself first came to power in a coup in December 1990 when he overthrew Hissen Habre, who seized power in 1982 after a two-year civil war. Deby had been Habre’s military adviser. Six years later he won the sub-Saharan nation’s first multi-party presidential election since independence from France in 1960.

Earlier this year, Chad sent around

2,000 troops to Mali to contribute to a French-led military offensive to dislodge Islamist extremists who had seized large swathes of the north last year. Its parliament voted this month to gradually withdraw the troops, which are highly trained, well equipped and experienced in desert warfare. Analysts saw Deby’s deployment of the largest African force to Mali as a bid to carve out a role as a force for regional stability.

But ousted Central African Republic (CAR) leader Francois Bozize accused his former Chadian allies in neighbouring Chad of militarily backing the rebels who unseated him in March. Chad, which had months ago ordered troops into the CAR to act as a buffer against the rebels, denies the charge. Congolese officials said Chad’s foreign minister attend a meeting yesterday in Brazzaville to discuss the crisis in the Central African Republic. — AFP

statements. “No one can say whether he will get the death penalty,” he said when asked if Saif al-Islam was at risk of being executed in Libya. “It is up to the judge,” he added.

Senussi was handed over to Libya by Mauritania in September after his arrest in Nouakchott in March 2011 started a tug of war between Libya, France and the ICC for his extradition. Jehani said Taylor, the ICC lawyer, who was among the 13 charged in Zintan yesterday, could be tried in absentia. The ICC, which is only allowed to try cases if national legal systems are unable or unwilling to deal with them, declined to comment on the proceedings in Zintan.

The president of Libya’s Human Rights Commission pointed to Saif al-Islam’s appearance as an indication he was being looked after in jail and could be tried fairly within the country. “As you can see he is in good health...

I can assure you he is being treated well and I wish that all of Libya’s detainees could have the same treatment,” Mohammad Al-Alagi told a news conference in Zintan. — Reuters

Tunisia hunting jihadists near Algeria border TUNIS: Tunisian security forces were yesterday hunting two armed jihadist groups near the Algerian border, the interior ministry said, as the authorities battle an Islamist threat that has grown increasingly dangerous. “There are two groups, one of about 15 to 20 people in Mount Chaambi... Another group is in the Kef region near the Algerian border,” ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP. “There are no (direct) clashes taking place. We are combing the region with guns,” he added. A security source said on Wednesday that troops clashed with around 50 armed jihadists in the Chaambi region, which is completely surrounded by the army, with the group comprising both Tunisians and Algerians.

A defence ministry source was unable to give more details about those targeted in the operation, or about the second group in the Kef region, around 100 km to the north. “I have no idea about their number. The Chaambi region is huge. We are in the process of trying to track them down. For the moment no one has been arrested,” Colonel Mokhtar Ben Naceur told AFP. Tunisian forces have been hunting for the group holed up in the mountainous western region since Monday. The authorities have described them only as “terrorists”.

In the operation to flush them out, around 15 soldiers and members of the national guard have already been wounded, some seriously, by homemade landmines laid by the gunmen in parts of the border region. Asked about cooperation with Algeria, the colonel said that Tunisia’s neighbour was assisting but only at the level of intelligence-sharing.

“When there is concrete information, it is shared. There is no joint action on the ground,” he said. The defence ministry said on Wednesday that no direct fighting had taken place and that troops were demining the mountain with the help of “small arms and mortars.” But the area covers around 100 sq km, 60 of which are forested.

Since the mass uprising that toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Jan 2011, radical Islamists suppressed by the former dictator have become increasingly assertive and been blamed for a wave of deadly attacks across the country.

Members of the armed forces involved in the search have told media that the Mount Chaambi group is well-armed and organised, with some saying veteran Islamist militants who fought in northern Mali are among them. The current government, led by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, has fully recognised the jihadist threat facing Tunisia, warning that groups linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were infiltrating its borders. But it has been strongly criticised by the opposition, who accuse Ennahda of failing to rein in Islamist militants, or facing up to the threat they pose too late, despite the security problems they have caused since the revolution. —AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Japan signs nuke cooperation deal with UAE ABU DHABI: Japan and the United Arab Emirates signed yesterday a nuclear cooperation agreement during a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who stressed Tokyo’s cooperation with its Middle East partners. Abe is on a regional tour he began in Saudi Arabia, in a push to sell Japanese nuclear technologies. The cooperation agreement over a peaceful use of nuclear energy was signed in Dubai, in the presence of Abe and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, WAM state news agency said. The UAE also agreed to extend an oil concession agreement with Japan’s Abu Dhabi Oil Co. adding a new zone, WAM said.

Making his second visit to the Gulf country as prime minister, Abe arrived late on Wednesday in the UAE, Japan’s eighth largest world economic partner, to take part in a Japan-UAE Business Forum. Abe announced at the forum that Japan would sign a nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

“Japan can contribute to UAE energy supplies by means of nuclear energy conservation and renewable energy,” he said according to translation from Japanese. The UAE announced in midJuly that it would begin building two of four nuclear power plants - each with a capacity of 1,400 megawatts - in part-

nership with a South Korean consortium, as part of plans to produce electricity from 2017.

Despite being a major oil exporter, the UAE has opted to develop nuclear power, seeing it as a proven, environmentally promising and commercially competitive source of electricity. With four plants scheduled to be operational by 2020, the UAE hopes that nuclear energy would provide up to a quarter of its electricity needs, which are forecast to soar to 40 gigawatts from 15.5 currently. Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Yutaka Yokol told reporters that Tokyo will “provide a small part of the technology for the facility,” which is being built by a South Korean consortium.

A Japanese-French consortium has won a $22 billion contract to build a nuclear power plant on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, a senior energy ministry official said yesterday. For his part, UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei, called for stable world oil prices at the forum. “We seek as an energy-producing country stability in world prices, to enable exporting and consuming countries to steadily develop and build their economies,” he said. Nearly a third of the UAE production of crude oil and petrol derivatives go to Japan

Aussie held on terror charges in Saudi Arabia SYDNEY: An Australian is being detained on terrorism-related charges in Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Bob Carr revealed yesterday, with the man’s brother claiming he has been tortured. Shayden Thorne, 25, has been held in a jail outside Riyadh for almost 18 months, reportedly after a laptop, which his family says he borrowed from a mosque, was allegedly found to have terrorist material on it. “We know that he has been charged with terrorism-related offences, but that is all we’ve been informed of at this stage,” Carr’s Bob Carr spokeswoman told AFP. Carr later urged a speedy resolution to the case. “We want it resolved faster. It’s been going on for too long,” he told a media conference, adding that 50 representations had been made on Thorne’s behalf to Saudi authorities. “I make no comment on his innocence or guilt - we can’t do that, but we can make representations on his behalf,” said the minister. But he added: “You are subject to the law of the country you are in. Shayden has chosen to live there for 12 years and the laws of Saudi Arabia apply to him or anyone else in his position.” The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said the man’s 23-year-old brother, Junaid Muhammed Thorne, was also jailed for several months after protesting against his brother’s arrest, before being released. It reported that his passport has been confiscated by Saudi authorities and he was in hiding, which Carr confirmed.

Junaid said Shayden, who is originally from Perth, had been tortured in prison. “When he managed to see his lawyer, he told him that, yes, he was beaten very badly, that he was lashed with cables - many, many sorts of torture was exercised on him,” Junaid told ABC from Saudi Arabia. “They took a very, very long time to charge him,” he added. “I mean, he stayed for a yearand-a-half, a total of 18 months without any charges. And then suddenly out of the blue came, I think, six to seven terrorist charges, which is very, very weird, with no proof at all.”—AFP

DUBAI: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stands with Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and UAE prime minister yesterday. — AP while the oil-rich country’s liquefied natural gas production has been used to generate electricity in Tokyo since 1977, according to Mazrouei. The UAE exports 0.8 million barrels of oil to Japan per day and 5.5 million tonnes of natural gas. “Japan can make a new contribution to provide new energy to the UAE including saving energy, renewable energy or atomic energy,” said Yokol.

Abe said Japan aims “to closely cooperate and coordinate with coun-

tries in the region,” adding that “stability and prosperity of the Middle East is directly connected to the prosperity of international society and Japan.”

Elsewhere the Japanese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters that oil exports from Iran, which is hit by international sanctions over its nuclear programme, are becoming “dramatically smaller”. Japan is among 20 countries exempted from tough US sanctions imposed on nations buying oil from Iran. — AFP

New virus kills 5 Saudis All deaths and infections in Ahsaa province RIYADH: Five Saudis have died of a new SARS-like virus during the past few days and two more are being treated in an intensive care unit, the health ministry said. In a statement cited by the Saudi SPA agency late on Wednesday, the ministry said that all the deaths as well as the infections occurred in the Ahsaa province in the oil-rich eastern region of the kingdom. Known as novel coronavirus or hCoV-EMC, the virus was first detected in mid-2012 and is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts. hCoV-EMC stands for human coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Centre, after the Dutch health institution that identified it.

The health ministry said it is taking “all precautionary measures for persons who have been in contact with the infected people... and has taken samples from them to examine if they are infected.”

However, the ministry gave no figures for how many people have been examined to see if they have the lethal disease. Sixteen people have now died from 23 cases detected in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and Britain. Riyadh has accounted for most of the deaths, with 11 people including the five new fatalities.

In Geneva, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation would not comment on why so many of the cases have occurred in the Saudi kingdom. “We have received a formal notification from the Saudis about these cases,” spokesman Glenn Thomas told AFP. When asked if the WHO is planning to issue a travel warning for Saudi Arabia, he said this was “unlikely” since “there has been no change in the risk assessment.”

RIYADH: A foreign staff nurse walks on her way to a hospital in the Saudi capital yesterday. — AFP Coronaviruses cause most common colds and pneumonia, but are also to blame for unusual conditions such as SARS which killed more than 800 people when it swept out of China in 2003. The new virus is different from SARS, in that it can cause rapid kidney failure. The strain is shrouded in mystery, and the WHO does not yet know how it is transmitted or how widespread it is. The WHO said a 73year-old Saudi man died in Germany in March from the lethal new virus. He had been travelling in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia before falling ill, and was transferred to Munich from Abu Dhabi on March 19. Six research monkeys infected with novel human coronavirus were found to quickly develop pneumonia, according to a letter by National Institutes of Health experts published in the New England Journal of Medicine. After being

exposed to samples of the virus, the rhesus macaques fell ill within 24 hours, with symptoms including elevated temperature, lack of appetite, coughing and fast breathing. The letter is the first to describe animal research on the virus. In March, scientists reported in Nature magazine that the virus appears to infect the body via a docking point in lung cells, and suggested that bats may be a natural reservoir for it.

Researchers believe the virus can be transmitted from human to human, although such occurrences appear to be uncommon. Current research has been limited to studying cases in people who have been hospitalised with severe illness. It remains unknown whether the disease is truly rare and acute, or if it may be more abundant but mild so as to escape detection most of the time. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Somalia’s war surgeons learn skills of peace MOGADISHU: Not yet named but much loved by watchful parents, a newly born baby boy is a small symbol of change: a birth, not a death for Somalia’s key war hospital.

After more than two decades of bloody civil war, Somalia remains a very dangerous place, but security has slowly improved, with Islamist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda on the back foot despite launching a deadly bombing campaign.

For the surgeons of Medina hospital, whose specialised war wound operating theatres were set up shortly after the collapse of the government in 1991, that gradual reduction has meant they can start to focus on more everyday health problems for the first time, and not just bomb blasts or bullet wounds.

“Medina... is the thermometer of the temperature of the security in the city,” said hospital director Mohamed Yusuf Hassan. Surgeons now are tackling elective surgeries - scheduled operations, not emergencies - and the decrease in war wounds the Mogadishu hospital treats shows how the “situation has improved”, he added. While the war wounded last year made up almost all of the hospital’s cases - 95 percent, Hassan estimates - that has now eased to around three-quarters. “Step by step security is improving,” Hassan said, adding he hoped that in the year ahead elective surgeries could rise to as many as half the hospital’s cases.

In Somalia, however, improvements are relative. In the emergency ward, a government soldier rests by the bedside of a colleague, shot in the belly last week. Beds crowd even the corridor, with more than a dozen people all shot or wounded in recent attacks by Shebab Islamist extremists, or clashes between rival groups within the often violent city awash with guns. But in the obstetrics ward,

60 killed in Darfur mine col KHARTOUM: Dozens of people have been killed in a gold mine collapse in Sudan’s Darfur, said the chief of the district where fighting over gold in January led to the region’s worst unrest in years. It is not known how many people may still be missing after Monday’s accident. “The number of people who died is more than 60,” Haroun Al-Hassan, the local commissioner in Jebel Amir, North Darfur, said yesterday, adding that rescue operations were still taking place. “I cannot give exact figures because no one got precise numbers of how many people were going inside the tunnel,” which went down 40 metres, he said. Rescuers were using traditional tools to try to reach the victims, he said, without specifying whether anyone might still be alive.

“We cannot use machines because if they came near, the ground will collapse. People are using traditional tools and because of this, the rescue is very slow,” Hassan said.

Seven weeks of clashes between two Arab tribes in Jebel Amir during January and February killed more than 500 members of the Beni Hussein tribal group, a Benni Hussein member of parliament for the area said earlier. The violence uprooted an estimated 100,000 people. Fighting erupted on Jan 5 between Beni Hussein and another Arab tribe, the Rezeigat, when a Rezeigat leader who is an officer in Sudan’s Border Guard force apparently laid claim to a gold-rich area in Beni Hussein territory, Amnesty International said.

Humanitarian sources said at the time that the incident was the worst example of inter-Arab violence to emerge in the past two years as government-linked Arab groups got “out of control” and turned on each other. One humanitarian source said the Beni Hussein had refused to pay newly imposed government mining fees adding up to “huge, huge money”. Gold has become a key commodity for cashstrapped Sudan since South Sudan separated two years ago with the loss of about 75 percent of the country’s oil production. — AFP

Shurkri Abdi recovers from a Caesarean section performed to deliver her seventh baby - and her first child born inside a hospital. “I was living in the bush and I didn’t expect to come to the hospital,” Abdi said, her still unnamed child sleeping in a cot beside her. “But I fell down and my baby was in danger so they took me here.” For Nimo Abdi Hassan, the doctor who delivered the child, such cases signal a shift in Somalia’s fortunes. “War-wounded patients only used to be received here,” she said. But since the number of cases involving gunshot wounds or shell injuries has fallen, staff are treating a greater variety of cases, she explained. “If peace continues, we could transfer from an emergency hospital to a general hospital for all cases,” she said.

Always busy, overstretched surgeons rarely had time for cases that emergency rooms in less-violent cities would tackle, meaning many doctors simply had to drop procedures that are routine in other parts of the world.

Now, as the cases of war wounds diminish, doctors in Somalia are for the first time able to start tackling common conditions like appendicitis, ovarian cysts or hernias.

“We need training... but in terms of the actual surgical skills, well we have that,” Hassan said, adding his doctors are hugely experienced, even if they are not necessarily up to date with the latest techniques or know little but basic operating wards. “They have surgeon’s hands... completing surgery after surgery with so much experience,” he added. The World Health Organisation is supporting efforts to train doctors like them in Somalia in the skills needed to treat these everyday health problems often ignored during the years of conflict. But there is still a long way to go. Even as the hospital director speaks, the sharp

rattle of multiple rounds of rifle fire echoes close by.

Shortly after, a man with gunshot wounds is rushed into the hospital for the surgeons to try to patch up. “Before, when there was fighting close by, stray bullets would even injure people inside the hospital, bullets coming through the roof,” Hassan said, on a rare break from his work, resting in the shade of a tree in the grounds of the sprawling hospital compound. “It’s better now, but still, I don’t know how long it will take to become a normal city.”

Still, those improvements in security have also meant people can reach the hospital more easily, meaning the doctors in Mogadishu are busier than ever. In 2011, heavily fortified trenches and sandbag walls cut the city in two, marking the slow street-by-street progress of the African Union (AU) and Somali government troops creeping forward to wrest territory from the Shebab. Today, those frontlines are gone, after the overnight pullout of fixed positions by the Shebab in Aug 2011. Student doctors once filled the medical school at Mogadishu University, but the compound is now overgrown with thick bushes, the buildings in ruins or inhabited by displaced people, and the main grounds occupied by sandbagged positions of Burundian troops from the AU force. “So much was destroyed in this city during the years of fighting, it will take a long time to return to what Somalia once was,” said Abdi Shuib, a former history lecturer at the university, now working as a translator for the Burundians. In the school’s place, AU military doctors provide a clinic for locals in need of healthcare.

“Things have changed in Somalia, but I still dream of the university opening again, and training returning,” Shuib said, on a break between translating for Somalis receiving medical support in a basic army tent. —AFP

Somali famine killed 258,000 Half of the dead young children NAIROBI: Almost 260,000 people, half of them young children, died of hunger during the last famine in Somalia, according to a UN report yesterday which admitted the world body should have done more to prevent the tragedy. The toll is much higher than was feared at the time of the 20102012 food crisis in the troubled Horn of Africa country and also exceeds the 220,000 who starved to death in the 1992 famine. “The report confirms we should have done more before the famine was declared,” said Philippe Lazzarini, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

“Warnings that began as far back as the drought in 2010 did not trigger sufficient early action,” he said in a statement.

Half of those who died were children under five, according to the joint report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

“Famine and severe food insecurity in Somalia claimed the lives of about 258,000 people between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under five,” said the report, the first scientific estimate of how many died. Somalia was the hardest hit by extreme drought in 2011 that affected over 13 million people across the Horn of Africa. “An estimated 4.6 percent of the total population and 10 percent of children under five died in southern and central Somalia,” the report said, saying the deaths were on top of 290,000 “baseline” deaths during the period, and double the average for subSaharan Africa. Lazzarini said that about 2.7million people are still in need of lifesaving assistance and support to build their livelihoods.

Famine was first declared in July 2011 in Somalia’s Southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, but later spread to other areas, including Middle Shabelle, Afgoye and inside camps for displaced people in

MOGADISHU: A photo taken on April 24, 2013 shows a malnourished Somali baby at the Banadir hospital. — AFP war-ravaged Mogadishu. In Lower Shabelle 18 percent of children under five died, the report said. The United Nations declared the famine over in February 2012. During the famine, it was feared that tens of thousands had died, whereas the report now shows more people died than in Somalia’s 1992 famine, when an estimated 220,000 people died over a year.

Famine implies that at least a fifth of households face extreme food shortages, with acute malnutrition in over 30 percent of people, and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to the UN definition. Somalia, ravaged by nearly uninterrupted civil war for the past two decades, is one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers and one of the regions that needs them most. However, security has slowly improved in recent months, with Islamist fighters linked to AlQaeda on the back foot despite launching a deadly bombing campaign. At the time, most of the famine-hit areas were under their control, and the crisis was exacerbat-

ed by their draconian ban on most foreign aid agencies.

The aid agency Oxfam said the “deaths could and should have been prevented”.

“Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures,” Oxfam’s Somalia director Senait Gebregziabher said in a statement. “The world was too slow to respond to stark warnings of drought, exacerbated by conflict in Somalia and people paid with their lives.”

Over a million Somalis are refugees in surrounding nations, and another million displaced inside the country. Next Tuesday, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and British Prime Minister David Cameron will co-host a conference in London to discuss how the international community can support Somalia’s progress. More than 50 countries and organisations are due to take part. Oxfam said leaders should “ensure that this was Somalia’s last famine” by helping generate jobs and “ensuring trained, accountable security forces”. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Neo-Nazi trial raises questions for Germany BERLIN: A German neo-Nazi murder trial starting Monday over the killings of 10 people has raised uncomfortable questions about murky links that the police and the intelligence services have with the extreme right. In Nov 2011, the German public was shocked to learn that a group calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU) had claimed responsibility for the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek shopkeeper and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. Until then, investigators had directed their probe against Germany’s large Turkish community itself, suspecting a gangland dispute among rival mafia syndicates behind what the media long dubbed the “kebab murders”.

Meanwhile the three NSU members - Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, who died in November 2011 in an apparent murder-suicide, and Beate Zschaepe, who turned herself in -lived a low-profile existence in the eastern state of Thuringia while allegedly gunning down their victims and robbing banks. “We must admit today with great shame that few, too few of us, thought it was possible that (such crimes) could take place in Germany,” Thuringia interior minister Joerg Gelbert said in a speech a few months after the NSU killing spree came to light. The far right, barely a blip on the national

Probe into rally against Putin haunts Russia MOSCOW: Moscow resident Alexei Gaskarov was in the middle of remodelling his apartment and living with his parents late last month when he went out to get some food for his cat. He didn’t make it to the store: outside, two cars full of Russian riot police were waiting to arrest the 28year-old on suspicion that he hit a policeman at a protest one year ago whose participants have been the subject of an aggressive crackdown by President Vladimir Putin’s regime. Gaskarov is now under arrest, charged with using violence against a policeman, the latest member of the diverse group of two dozen people probed over the May 6, 2012 protest on the eve of Putin’s return to the presidency.

For the opposition, the case has become a symbol of injustice and political repression in Putin’s Russia, which they say has echoes of the repression of political opponents in Soviet times. Twenty-six protestors have been accused in the case. Two have already been jailed - one for four and a half years, the other for two and a half - and 15 are languishing in pre-trial detention. Those arrested come from a wide span of Russian society-from a retired geologist who allegedly threw a plastic bottle at policemen to a former marine who was attending his first opposition rally.

“It is a signal to everyone who participates or sympathises with the protest movement,” said Carnegie Center analyst Maria Lipman. The message the authorities are sending, she said, is: “This is not safe. You are risking your freedom.” Held one day before Vladimir Putin’s motorcade glided into the Kremlin for his third inauguration, the rally on Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow attracted tens of thousands of people. Many of them brought their children, hand-drawn protest signs and balloons. Most were confused when the peaceful march to the square suddenly stopped and descended into violence, with more than 100 arrests and police helmets floating in the Moscow river.

In the fuzzy video published by investigators along with the official statement about Gaskarov’s charges, a man resembling him is seen pulling a man in riot-police uniform away from a protester lying on the pavement. He is not seen hitting a policeman in the short clip. In another video published by friends and supporters of Gaskarov, an opposition activist, he is on the ground himself. A riot policeman standing over him in full gear swings his foot and kicks him in the head. He had to get three sets of stitches and filed a complaint about the police violence.

The complaint was ignored.—AFP

electoral map, suddenly revealed itself as capable of what prosecutors say was a years-long terrorist campaign. Police say the suspects had the direct or indirect assistance of 129 people - proof that the NSU trio were not “lone wolves”. Nearly all the alleged accomplices had ties to the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany, which the nation’s 16 states are trying to have banned by the country’s top court.

During the ongoing probe into what went wrong in the NSU case, Germany has uncovered oversights, missteps and stunning negligence by the police and the domestic intelligence services that hobbled the murder investigation. Above all, Germany realised that the security services had chronically played down the danger of the rightwing extremists in its midst, staining the country’s reputation of having learned the lessons of its Nazi past. Heinz Fromm, director of the domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, resigned last July after staff admitted to shredding files relevant to the case. Media reports said the documents revealed that two of their informants had ties to the NSU. The scandal exposed a sprawling web of contacts between the secret services and the far right in which the state systematically exchanged cash for informa-

tion. In the case of the NPD, the party was often aware of the informants in its ranks. “In many cases, the money paid was shared with the party which filtered the information provided in exchange,” said Gideon Bortsch, an expert on the far right at the University of Potsdam outside Berlin. Furthermore, surveillance of the neo-Nazi scene was reined in after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, with resources poured into keeping tabs on Islamic extremism.

“There is a consensus today that that decision was a mistake,” said Sebastian Edathy, a deputy from the opposition Social Democrats who chairs a parliamentary committee investigating the NSU fiasco. The police, too, appeared to ignore that the murders could have a political bent. “It scares me that the public sphere as a whole completely failed to see that all these crimes could be linked,” Borscht said. “There was a complete blindness to the racist nature of these killings.” The NSU affair is just one case feeding suspicion of possible collusion between the security services and the far right. The federal interior ministry reported recently that 266 neoNazis with outstanding arrest warrants were still at large, many of them accused of violent crimes or even murder—AFP

Benedict back at Vatican to live out retirement Ex-pope to maintain low profile VATICAN CITY: Two months after his historic resignation, Benedict XVI returned to the Vatican yesterday, where he will live in a former monastery in an unprecedented arrangement that will see a pope and a former pope both housed in the tiny state. It was a relatively low-key return for the 86year-old pope emeritus, off-limits to all but the Vatican’s own media service. The service announced shortly after his arrival that expected video coverage would not be provided, sparking doubts over the state of his health. Benedict had looked extremely frail at his last public appearance in March, and has said that he will live “hidden from the world”.

The unique decision to accommodate both a pope and his predecessor within the tiny city state provoked surprise in some quarters, with critics worried that Benedict’s presence may make it more difficult for Francis to make St Peter’s chair his own. Benedict’s secretary Georg Gaenswein is confusingly also the head of Francis’s papal household. But during his two-month stay at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence for centuries, Benedict was careful not to be seen to interfere in any way in the papal election or the beginning of Francis’s reign - and is expected by many to maintain his low profile. Benedict left by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo outside Rome, the papal lakeside residence where he has been staying since he stepped down at the end of February, and touched down in the Vatican at 1450 GMT, where he was met by top officials including the secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone. Pope Francis welcomed him “with great and fraternal cordiality” at the door of the former monastery which is his new home, the Vatican said in a statement. The pair then retired to pray together.

The current pontiff has made repeated gestures of friendship towards Benedict, visiting him in Castel Gandolfo, calling him

on his birthday and holding mass for him.

The German-born former pope, who resigned because of old age, moves into the Mater Ecclesiae monastery building within the Vatican grounds - an oasis of calm with its own vegetable garden and blooming flowerbeds - which has been renovated for him. There Benedict plans to carry out a life of quiet contemplation and academic research.

The visit in March between Francis and Benedict sparked concerns over the latter’s health, after television footage showed the ex-pontiff visibly aged and struggling to keep up with his successor, even with the aid of a walking stick. “He is old, weakened by age, but he is not ill,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said. In the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, Benedict will live with four housekeepers from a lay religious order that has looked after him until now, as well as with Gaenswein. A room will also be reserved for Georg Ratzinger,

the ex-pope’s brother, for when he should visit.

Spread over three floors, the modern complex has 12 monastic cells upstairs, while the ground floor houses a kitchen, living room, library and chapel. The cells are sparsely furnished: the only decorations to be seen are wooden crosses and a few paintings depicting scenes from religious life, according to the Vatican. A stone’s throw from St Peter’s Basilica, the monastery has until now housed Benedictine nuns, the Poor Clares - an order founded by saints Clare and Francis of Assisi - and sisters from the order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, who retired to a convent in November last year.

Benedict, a nature lover who used to take regular walks around the Vatican gardens, may spend his days in the monastery flower garden, where two rare types of rose, the pink “Beatrice d’Este” and white “Giovanni Paolo II”, are grown. —AFP

VATICAN CITY: A helicopter carrying Pope emeritus Benedict XVI lands at the Vatican yesterday. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3 , 2013

Some in US Congress look to update 9/11 law WASHINGTON: A few dozen words rushed into law days after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks have been used to justify US counterterrorism efforts from the war in Afghanistan to warrantless wiretapping and drone strikes, all on orders of the White House - and with little congressional oversight. Now, as criticism grows that the law has been stretched well beyond its original intent to go after militant groups that did not even exist on 9/11, some Democrats and Republicans have begun writing legislation to update the nearly 12-yearold resolution.

That could restoke tensions between Congress and the White House over executive power, which were on display when Republican Senator Rand Paul staged a 13-hour filibuster in March to protest President Barack Obama’s use of unmanned aircraft to conduct targeted killings. “If you look back at the 60-word authorization that was put in place on Sept 18, 2001, and look at where we are today, there’s a very, very thin thread, if any, between that authorization and what is occurring today,” said Senator Bob Corker, a leader of the effort to examine the 2001 resolution. Its formal title is the Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF. The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker said he wanted to spell out the kind of counterterrorism activities that could be authorized, and to bring Congress back into the equation. “Congress has totally outsourced its foreign policy oversight,” he said in an interview. “And a lot of people like it that way. Congress can take credit if things go well, criticize if things don’t go well, but in essence Congress has no ownership over what we are carrying out right now. That’s not an appropriate place for Congress to be.”

The AUMF gives the president authority to “use all neces-

sary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any further acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.” It has no geographic limits or expiration date and, as such, has been the legal justification for drone campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen that have sometimes killed civilians and increased tensions among local populations.

In recent days, debates over US national security policies have been roiled again by the Boston Marathon bombings, and a spreading hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected foreign militants, which Obama pledged - and has failed - to close. While opponents want the AUMF repealed, a group of more moderate legislators wants it adjusted to account for a changing world and to set precedent as other countries build their own counterterrorism especially drone - programs.

It is not yet clear what a revised AUMF would look like.

Some members of Congress want to spell out policies for conducting drone strikes. Many want its scope expanded to include militant groups not directly tied to or found to be “harboring” Al-Qaeda, including some operating in Africa, and to groups that target US allies in its fight against terrorism. Some say a “Son of AUMF” should include more controls, such as defining who can be detained and for how long, including US citizens. Others said there should be some definition of when hostilities under the AUMF would end.

“The current AUMF is too broad, too narrow and too vague,” Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee in March. Most presidents, Obama included, guard their war-making powers jealously. White House officials have suggested they are open to changes in the AUMF, congressional aides said. Publicly at least, they have not offered specifics. Obama, who has pledged more transparency over U.S. drone operations, said in October, “One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making.”

John Bellinger, then a legal adviser to Republican President George W Bush’s National Security Council, helped draft the AUMF “almost on the back of an envelope” when the ruins of the World Trade Center were still smoldering.

Congress passed it three days after the attacks, and Bush signed it on Sept 18. Bellinger said the measure needed an update. He noted, for example, that it was now being used to justify going after targets who were only 8 or 9 years old when the Sept 11 attacks occurred. “It really is getting old,” he said. “It was drafted extremely rapidly after Sept 11 and has covered a whole variety of different activities over the last 12 years that were not originally contemplated.”

Bellinger, now a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter, said there was a tension between those on the left - an important part of Obama’s base - who want to cut the law back or repeal it and those who would revise it to provide authority to engage in more activities. “If people ... were to delve into the legal theories, I think they would find that the administration is probably either really stretching the boundaries of the AUMF to cover some of the individuals or groups that they’re targeting, or, without telling anyone, simply relying on the president’s constitutional authority,” Bellinger said. —Reuters

Boston suspect’s friends charged Trio accused of aiding bombers SEATTLE: Demonstrators back away from a ‘flash bang’ object used by police during a May Day protest on Wednesday. — AP

Clashes at Seattle May Day rally SEATTLE: Eight police officers were hurt and 18 protesters arrested in Seattle on Wednesday when a May Day rally that began peacefully turned violent after dark, with crowds hurling rocks and bottles at police who responded with pepper spray grenades. Protesters threw rocks, bottles and chunks of asphalt at officers, officials said, smashing store and car windows, overturning trash cans and lining up newspaper display racks to block streets. Police in riot gear, some riding in armored SWAT vehicles, responded by repeatedly firing “blast ball” grenades, which emit smoke tinged with pepper spray. “We’re a bigger, better city than this,” Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference. “I’m disappointed that this is the picture the world sees of us.”

Most of the 150-200 protesters who had stayed on the street after darkness fell for a “non-permitted” protest had dispersed by midnight. “We did not start to take action until that group itself started to act violently towards the officers and the community at large,” Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said. The day started with a peaceful march in support of immigrant rights, part of May Day rallies in cities across the USWest planned by a coalition of organized labor activists, students, civil rights advocates and members of the clergy. In Los Angeles, thousands of protesters marched through downtown waving American flags and carrying signs with the slogan, “Stop deportations.” One police officer told Reuters that unofficial estimates put the size of the crowd in Los Angeles at roughly 3,500 people. No arrests were reported. In Arizona, where a state crackdown against illegal immigration was signed into law three years ago, several hundred people joined a late-afternoon rally outside the state Capitol in Phoenix, ahead of a march through downtown. — Reuters

BOSTON: The surviving suspected Boston Marathon bombing suspect, just hours before he and his brother allegedly gunned down a university police officer, exchanged text messages with a friend who had become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face being flashed on television, authorities say. The friend and two others now stand accused of aiding the suspected bombers. Dias Kadyrbayev, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, texted his college buddy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying he looked like one of the bombing suspects. Kadyrbayev and his roommate Azamat Tazhayakov, both from Kazakhstan, were charged Wednesday with conspiring to destroy emptied fireworks and other evidence linking their friend to the deadly April 15 blasts.

Another man, Robel Phillipos who graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School with Tsarnaev in 2011, was charged with lying to investigators about the April 18 visit to his friend’s dorm room to retrieve the items. Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded on April 15 when two bombs exploded near the marathon’s finish line. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a gunfight with police days later. Younger brother Dzhokhar was captured and remains in a prison hospital.

“Tsarnaev’s return texts contained ‘lol’ and other things Kadyrbayev interpreted as jokes such as ‘you better not text me’ and ‘come to my room and take whatever you want,’” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.

Tazhayakov also told authorities that during a meal about a month before the terror attacks that Tsarnaev informed him and Kadyrbayev “that he knew how to make a bomb”. That is significant because, before he

BOSTON: This courtroom sketch shows defendants Dias Kadyrbayev (left) and Azamat Tazhayakov appearing in front of Federal Magistrate Marianne Bowler at the Moakley Federal Courthouse on Wednesday. — AP was advised of his rights not to speak with authorities, the 19-year-old bombing suspect allegedly said that his older brother had only recently recruited him to be part of the attack. According to the FBI account, just hours after surveillance camera photos of the two suspects were flashed around the world April 18, Tsnarnaev’s friends suspected he was one of the bombers and removed the backpack along with a laptop from Tsarnaev’s room at UMass Dartmouth. One of them later threw the backpack in the garbage, and it wound up in a landfill, where it was discovered by law enforcement officers last week, authorities said. In the backpack were fireworks that had been emptied of their gunpowder. Investigators have not

said whether the pressure cooker bombs used in the attacks were made with gunpowder extracted from fireworks.

The lawyers for the Kazakh students said their clients had nothing to do with the bombing and were just as shocked by the crime as everyone else. Phillipos’ attorney, Derege Demissie, said outside court: “The only allegation is he made a misrepresentation.” The Kazakh students did not request bail at a court hearing and will be held for another hearing May 14. Phillipos was held for a hearing on Monday. If convicted, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov could get up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Phillipos faces a maximum of eight years behind bars and a $250,000 fine. —AP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

China incursion leaves India on verge of crisis NEW DELHI: The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said.

China denies any incursion, but Indian officials say that for two weeks, the soldiers have refused to move back over the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides Indian-ruled territory from Chinese-run land, leaving the government on the verge of a crisis with its powerful northeastern neighbor.

Indian officials fear that if they react with force, the face-off could escalate into a battle with the powerful People’s Liberation Army. But doing nothing would leave a Chinese outpost deep in territory India has ruled since independence.

“If they have come 19 kilometers into India, it is not a minor LAC violation. It is a deliberate military operation. And even as India protests, more tents have come up,” said Sujit Dutta, a China specialist at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi. “Clearly, the Chinese are testing India to see how far they can go,” he said. That is not China’s stated view. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday that Chinese troops had been carrying out normal patrols and had not crossed the boundary. “China is firmly opposed to any acts that involve crossing the Line of Actual Control and sabotaging the status quo,” she said at a daily briefing in Beijing as she was repeatedly questioned about the dispute.

Hua said talks to defuse the dispute were ongoing and that it should not affect relations. “As we pointed out many times, the China-India border issue is one which was left over from the past. The two sides reached important consensus that this issue should not affect the overall bilateral relations,” Hua said. Local army commanders from both sides have held three meetings over the crisis, according to Indian officials.

India’s foreign secretary called in the Chinese ambassador to register a strong protest. Yet the troops did not move, and even pitched a second tent, Indian officials said.

The timing of the crisis, weeks before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is to visit India, has surprised many here. The Chinese leader’s decision to make India his first trip abroad since taking office two months ago had been seen as an important gesture toward strengthening ties between rival powers that have longstanding border disputes but also growing trade relations. Manoj Joshi, a defense analyst at the New Delhibased Observer Research Foundation, said the timing of the incursion raises questions about “whether there is infighting within the Chinese leadership, or whether someone is trying to upstage Li”.

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Wednesday that while he had no plans to cancel a trip to Beijing next week to prepare for Li’s visit, the government could reconsider in the coming week. “A week is a long time in politics,” he told reporters. Indian politicians accused the scandal-plagued government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of floundering in fear before China. “China realizes that India has a weak government, and a prime minister who is powerless,” said Yashwant Sinha, a former foreign minister from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. He demanded a stronger response. “A bully will back off the moment it realizes that it’s dealing with a country which will not submit to its will,” Sinha said.

Former Defense Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav called the government “cowardly and incompetent.” He warned that China was trying to annex more territory to add to the spoils it took following its victory over India in a brief 1962 border war.

Defense Minister A K Antony countered that India is “united in its commitment to take every possible step to safeguard our interests.” Supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena party burned effigies of Singh, Antony and other top officials Wednesday, demanding India retaliate by barring Chinese imports. China is India’s biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade heavily skewed in China’s favor, crossing $75 billion in 2011. Analysts feel linking a troop withdrawal to continued trade could work. —AP

American gets 15 years’ hard labour in N Korea Verdict stokes tensions with United States SEOUL: North Korea said yesterday it had sentenced a Korean-American tour operator to 15 years’ hard labour for “hostile acts”, stoking tensions with the United States which had pleaded for his release. Kim Jong-Un’s isolated regime is likely to use the detainee as a bargaining chip, experts said, as it seeks concessions from the United States following weeks of bellicose threats of missile strikes and of nuclear war. Pae JunHo, known in the United States as Kenneth Bae, was arrested in November as he entered the northeastern port city of Rason. He has been accused of trying to “topple the DPRK” (North Korea). “The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labour for this crime,” according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which said his trial was held on April 30.

Pyongyang has not specified the basis of the offences allegedly committed by Bae, who is reported to be aged 44, but KCNA has previously said that he admitted his crimes.

Seoul-based activist Do Hee-Yoon has told AFP that he suspected Bae was arrested because he had taken photographs of emaciated children in North Korea as part of efforts to

SEOUL: Passersby watch a local television broadcast yesterday showing a report and picture of Kenneth Bae, a KoreanAmerican tour operator detained in North Korea, against the background of a North Korean flag painted on the wall of a building in Pyongyang. — AFP

appeal for more outside aid. The United States had urged North Korea to free the detainee on “humanitarian grounds”, pointing out that he entered the country on a valid visa.

A senior US State Department official said Washington was “working to confirm the reports” of Bae’s sentence through the Swedish embassy, which represents US interests in the North in the absence of diplomatic ties. US politician Bill Richardson failed to secure Bae’s release when he visited North Korea in January with Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and ex-ambassador to the United Nations, was unable to even meet Bae during his trip, which was criticised by Washington as ill-timed following Pyongyang’s rocket launch in December.

Tensions have been running high between the United States and North Korea since Pyongyang carried out a third nuclear test in February. The North reacted furiously to the use of nuclear-capable B-52s and B-2 stealth bombers in recent joint US-South Korean military drills. In a commentary published yesterday, KCNA blamed the United States for the current standoff. “The escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula is entirely attributable to the US heinous hostile policy toward the DPRK,” it said. “The US is seriously mistaken if it thinks it can cover up its sinister scenario by talking about dialogue though it is the arch criminal who drove the situation to the brink of a nuclear war.”

Several Americans have been held in North Korea in recent years. In 2011 a US delegation secured the release of Eddie Jun Yong-Su, a California-based businessman who had been detained for apparent missionary activities. In 2010 former US president Jimmy Carter won plaudits when he negotiated the release of American national Aijalon Mahli Gomes, sentenced to eight years of hard labour for illegally crossing into the North from China. On another mercy mission a year earlier in 2009, former president Bill Clinton won the release of US television journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, jailed after crossing the North Korean border with China.

Experts believe the North is likely to try to use Bae to extract concessions from Washington. “The North will surely try to take advantage of Kenneth Bae as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the US,” said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “But the whole atmosphere is quite different from when similar hostage disputes erupted in the past. The diplomatic and military situation is so tense that the US is unlikely to dramatically change its stance or try to open dialogue with the North just to save this guy,” he said. Last month Pyongyang demanded an end to UN sanctions and to US-South Korean military drills in exchange for talks - conditions that Seoul dismissed as “absurd”. — AFP

Australia smashes S Korea spy ring SYDNEY: A South Korean spy ring has been uncovered in Australia trying to cultivate public servants to obtain trade secrets, a report said yesterday, but officials insisted relations with Seoul remained robust. The Sydney Morning Herald said previously suppressed information revealed that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) had sought “to obtain sensitive information” on trade negotiations between Canberra and Seoul. It reported that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) alleged that a senior Australian agricultural trade specialist was involved in “foreign interference” by the Korean spies and had been “successfully cultivated”.

The man participated in Australia-South Korea free trade agreement talks in late 2009 but lost his security clearance and job with the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

Although engaged in what ASIO described as “inappropriate activities” harmful to Australia’s interests, no South

Korean spies had been expelled from Australia. Instead, in an effort to maintain good relations with the NIS, ASIO took legal action to prevent disclosure of the incident and protect the identities of the South Korean agents.

The details came to light after the trade specialist said his contact with South Korean diplomats was purely social and appealed against his sacking to the Federal Court. In releasing information about the case, the court identified four NIS officers who served under diplomatic cover in Canberra. Foreign Minister Bob Carr declined to comment on the case, but said South Korea was one of Australia’s largest export markets and trading partners and relations were unlikely to be hurt.

“In line with the longstanding practice in Australian governance, I cannot comment on matters of security or intelligence,” he told reporters in Sydney. “I believe the relationship with the Republic of Korea is so strong, so robust, that this will have no effect on it,” he added, when asked about the report. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

B’desh court indicts British Muslim leader DHAKA: Bangladesh’s war crimes court yesterday indicted a Bangladesh-born British Muslim leader and a US citizen for their alleged role in the murder of top intellectuals during the country’s 1971 liberation war.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin has held positions in a host of top Islamic organisations in his adopted homeland and was involved in the setting up of the Muslim Council of Britain. The London-based former journalist, who denies any wrongdoing, was a newspaper reporter in the impoverished South Asian country when what was then East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan.

He is accused of being a leading member of the notorious Al-Badr militia and of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami political party, which fought for the country to remain part of Pakistan. “The court has taken into cognisance the charges of war crimes against Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin and issued a warrant to arrest him,” International Crimes Tribunal registrar Nasiruddin Mahmud told AFP. Mueen-Uddin would face the death penalty if extradited and convicted.

State prosecutor Syed Haider Ali told AFP that Mueen-Uddin “has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide”. “The charges include the killing of the country’s top intellectuals during the

Taleban bomb kills eight Afghan police PULI ALAM, Afghanistan: A Taleban bomb killed eight Afghan police yesterday in Logar province outside the capital Kabul, officials said, four days after the insurgents started their annual “spring offensive”. The members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) force were on a joint patrol with NATO-led coalition forces near Puli Alam town when the blast was detonated. “One of the police vehicles hit an IED (improvised explosive device) in which eight local police were killed and their pick-up truck was totally destroyed,” Rais Khan Sadeq, Logar provincial deputy police chief, told AFP. Din Mohammad Darvish, the provincial spokesman, confirmed the incident and the death toll. “Eight local police are killed in a Taleban bomb,” he said. Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told AFP the insurgent group was responsible for the attack. “A big number of police are dead and a big number of them are wounded,” he said, without giving details. Founded in 2010, the ALP is a controversial unit tasked with community-level policing to suppress violence in some of the country’s most dangerous areas.

It was designed as a homegrown force of locals ready to take on Taleban hardliners in places where the national police and army were scarce, but is often criticised as indisciplined and poorly-trained. The Taleban vowed their annual spring offensive would target international airbases and diplomatic buildings with multiple suicide bombings, as well as featuring “insider attacks” by Afghan soldiers and “special military tactics”. No large-scale attacks have yet been launched, but three British soldiers fighting in the NATO-led coalition were killed by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Helmand on Tuesday. Shah Wali Khan, the head of the High Peace Council in Helmand, was also killed in a similar attack in the province on Wednesday.

More than a decade after the Taleban government was ousted in 2001, Afghanistan remains in the grip of a violent insurgency with militants launching daily strikes on government officials, police and international and Afghan soldiers. Afghanistan’s inexperienced security forces are taking over responsibility for fighting the Taleban, but fears are growing that the country could tip into civil war after NATO military operations cease at the end of next year. This year’s “fighting season” is seen as crucial to Afghanistan’s future as its security forces take the lead in offensives against the insurgents fighting to topple President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government. — AFP

1971 war of liberation,” he added. Another prosecutor, Ziad Al Malum, told AFP Mueen-Uddin faces a total of 16 charges, which include accusations of kidnapping and torture and the murder of 18 top university teachers, journalists and writers.

Malum said he is alleged to have been party to the murder of Sirajuddin Hossain, the executive editor of what was then the country’s largest Bengali daily Ittefaq; of top playwright and Dhaka University professor Muneer Chowdhury; and of popular novelist Shahidullah Kaiser. The head of the tribunal’s investigation agency Abdul Hannan told AFP Mueen-Uddin had fled the country after the war. Mueen-Uddin’s Londonbased lawyer said his client “rejects all these allegations in their entirety” and raised doubts about whether Britain would agree to extradition, given concerns about the death penalty and the impartiality of the court. “Bangladesh will be required to establish that there is a prima facie case against Mr Mueen-Uddin,” said lawyer Toby Cadman in a statement to AFP. “They will also be required to give an undertaking that Mr Mueen-Uddin will not receive the death penalty.”

The court yesterday also indicted Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a United States citizen, on the same charges as Mueen-Uddin. Prosecutor Ali told AFP that Khan, a

Dhaka University student leader who is believed now to be in New York, was “chief executor” for the Al-Badr militia. The tribunal has already charged 12 people with war crimes and sentenced to death two people, including the vice-president of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Bangladesh has struggled to come to terms with its violent birth. The current government says up to three million people were killed in the war, many murdered by locals who collaborated with Pakistani forces. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government established the tribunal in March 2010 to try the collaborators, but it has been hit by a series of controversies. A presiding judge resigned in December last year after his leaked Internet calls showed he was under pressure from the government to deliver a quick judgement.

The war crimes trials have plunged the country into one of its most turbulent chapters since independence, as the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its main ally Jamaat have protested what they view as politically motivated charges. The opposition has called a series of national strikes protesting the trails and clashes over the verdicts have left more than 100 people dead since the first judgement on Jan 21. — AFP

Textile factories reopen after Bangladesh disaster Death toll rises to 433, dozens missing DHAKA: Bangladesh’s garment firms reopened and rushed to complete delayed orders for their Western clients yesterday after an eight-day shutdown caused by the deaths of at least 433 people in a building collapse. Millions of staff returned to production lines around the capital Dhaka that make clothing for retailers such as Walmart and H&M, which have come under huge pressure to review their contracts in the accident-prone country. “All factories have opened today and the workers have returned to work,” said Shahidullah Azim, vice president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

“We don’t have any reports of protests or violence,” he told AFP. Workers walked out en masse the day the eight-storey Rana Plaza compound collapsed in the town of Savar outside Dhaka, the latest in a string of deadly disasters to hit the $20 billion industry. There has been a series of attacks on factories over the last

week, and anger at the conditions of garment workers - many of whom earn less than $40 a month - was the main focus of May Day rallies on Wednesday. Some three million people are employed in the country’s 4,500 textile plants, which are a mainstay of the impoverished nation’s economy.

The shutdown is estimated to have cost the industry about $25 million a day, according to Azim.

Authorities yesterday suspended the mayor of Savar for approving the building and failing to shut the factories when cracks appeared in the structure a day before the tragedy. Mohammad Refayet Ullah, who for the last 14 years has been mayor of the satellite town that is home to scores of garment factories, is the highest official to be suspended over the country’s worst industrial disaster. Local government secretary Abu Alam Shahid Khan told AFP that legal action would be taken against him. Experts inspecting the site said contractors had

SAVAR, Bangladesh: A Bangladeshi relative cries after identifying her daughter’s dead body from the rubble of a collapsed eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka yesterday. — AFP

used shoddy construction materials and the building had been erected on a filled-up pond in a flagrant violation of construction rules. The government has also suspended two engineers who approved and cleared the factories to reopen after the cracks appeared in the structure. They have been arrested along with the building owner and four factory bosses and face charges of causing death due to negligence.

Hundreds of distraught relatives clutching photos of the missing continued to mass at the disaster site as army rescue cranes dug through the mountains of concrete. Mohammad Helal, a 17-year-old, has been at the site for the last eight days looking for his mother. “Before leaving for work on the day of disaster, mother told me to be a good boy and look after your younger sisters,” Helal told AFP, wiping tears from his face. “I know mother won’t be back. But please, I plead with you all, return my mother’s body,” he shouted.

Major General Chowdhury Hassan Suhrawardy yesterday rubbished claims that some bodies were being hidden to lower the body count. “Some quarters have alleged that bodies are disappearing. They are fuelling public anger by spreading rumour that actual casualties are unbelievably high,” he told reporters in a briefing.

The operation was taking some time as the aim was to recover the bodies without any damage, he said, adding: “We will not move until the last body is found.”

Army spokesman captain Shahid Hasan Bhuiyan told AFP that the confirmed death toll in the disaster was now 433, with 2,437 people rescued. The overall toll is expected to top 500 as officials said on Wednesday that 149 people were still unaccounted for.

Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged employees to return to work and criticised reported attacks on some factories. Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China. —AFP

Business FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Europe seeks end to ‘nightmare’ youth unemployment

Manufacturing growth stumbles

PAGE 22

PAGE 20

TOKYO: Boeing Aircraft On Ground (AOG) team members work on All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 at the hanger after the dreamliner’s test flight at the Haneda International airport in Tokyo. — AFP

With 777X, mini-jumbo war beckons Revamp follows pressure from new Airbus A350-1000 jet SEATTLE: Boeing has started offering its longawaited 777X long-range jet, paving the way for a ‘mini-jumbo’ war with European rival Airbus, industry sources said yesterday. The move backed by Boeing’s board means that the commercial aircraft division can begin taking orders for a revamped version of its top-selling widebodied jet, the 777, which could include folding wingtips and new engines from General Electric.

Boeing declined to discuss the outcome of Monday’s board meeting but said it was pushing ahead with the project to update the twinengined jet, in service since the 1990s. “We are taking the next step when it comes to engaging customers on the 777X,” spokesman Doug Alder said. The company has “begun to discuss additional technical, pricing and schedule details with customers”, he added.

Reuters reported on April 24 that Boeing was ready to go ahead with the project “within weeks”, after one of its key customers, British Airways, placed a $6 billion order for A350-1000 jets from rival Airbus. Until now, Boeing has enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the lucrative market for large twin-engined jets, boosting its margins, but Airbus has started challenging that position with its 350-seat A350-1000, due to enter service in 2017. Boeing’s response is a sub-

stantial overhaul in the design of the 777, expected to enter service around 2020.

BOOST FOR SUPPLIERS People familiar with the matter said the Boeing board had approved the so-called “authority to offer”, allowing sales to proceed. The people declined to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss actions of the board. After attracting enough orders, Boeing would go back to the board for permission to start developing and building the jet.

If launched, the program would bring billions of dollars of business to suppliers of aircraft parts.

In March, Boeing chose General Electric to develop the engines, renewing their exclusive partnership on the most recent 777s. The 777X is a planned successor to the industry’s most popular large twin-engined aircraft seating more than 300 passengers. The original 777 was introduced in 1995 and is the last new plane Boeing developed before the 787. Its most popular version is the more recent 777-300ER. The 777X would compete from around the turn of the decade with the Airbus A350-1000 to carve up a potential market of at least 2,000 aircraft worth about $500 billion over 20 years. The cost of the 777X development has not been dis-

closed but after industrial delays followed by a grounding of its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing will hope that upgrading a familiar jet costs significantly less than the $15 billion for an all-new aircraft. “Boeing has been waiting to see what happened with the A350-1000, and the BA order clearly swung their decision,” said Agency Partners analyst Nick Cunningham in London. “It could be an awesome competitor, given the success of 777-300ER, but I suspect it will end up having most of the cost and risk of a complete new program.” Emirates, which runs the biggest fleet of 777s, is among those clamoring for the cost-saving 777X as early as possible. Airbus says that its carbon-composite A350 is lighter and cheaper to run than the 777X, which will keep a metallic body. Boeing is expected to argue that an all-new wing and new engine will make the 400-seat 777X cheaper to operate per seat. Industry sources say that Boeing has been offering the plane informally for months, while fine-tuning the design with focus groups of airlines and lessors. It has also been offering a stretched version of its 787 Dreamliner after a similar but unannounced board decision taken late last year, they added.

HEAD TO HEAD Until this week Boeing had held off granting

the formal “authority to offer” the 777X as it juggles the looming threat from Airbus with the need to avoid undermining the value of a large order backlog of existing 777s. Now that the 777X is being offered to customers, the next move could begin within 12 months, making the end-ofdecade timetable feasible, analysts said.

Timed to dominate discussion at the June 1721 Paris air show, Boeing’s decision allows the 777X to go head to head with the A350-1000 in contests at big hitters such as Japan Airlines or Gulf carriers led by Dubai-based Emirates. After losing to Airbus on part of British Airways’ fleet renewal plans, industry sources say that Boeing is already in informal talks to persuade the European airline to place a parallel order for the main model, the 777-9X. The 777-9X would have about 406 seats and a range of more than 8,100 nautical miles, aiming to leapfrog the 350-seat A350-1000, two sources briefed on Boeing’s plans said. It would have a new carbon-composite wing and folding wing tips to increase wing span without needing more parking space, which would incur additional airport fees. Boeing also is thought to be considering a smaller, longer-range 777-8X. The head of Qatar Airways said on Wednesday that he would be “very interested” in both models. — Reuters

Business FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Scuppered Yahoo! deal hits French business image PARIS: France’s business image was dealt a fresh blow yesterday as France Telecom complained of interference after the state blocked efforts by Yahoo! to buy a majority stake in video-sharing website Dailymotion. Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourgoften at the centre of complaints that France’s Socialist government is antibusiness-admitted on Wednesday to having derailed the US Internet firm’s plans, saying the deal was not in French interests.

But France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard said the firm’s managementand not the government-should be deciding the strategy for Dailymotion, a Paris-based subsidiary. “Dailymotion is a subsidiary of Orange and not the state. It is the company, its management and its board that manages this issue,” Richard told Les Echos business newspaper, using France Telecom’s brand name Orange. “I had refused that Yahoo! have the option of buying all of

Dailymotion and we were on the verge of finding an arrangement,” he said.

Yahoo! Inc. had been in talks to buy a 75 percent stake in Dailymotion, the 12th-largest video-sharing website and an industry leader in Europe, with an estimated value of $300 million (228 million euros). But the government, which holds a 27 percent stake in France Telecom, had insisted on a 50-50 split. Montebourg said Wednesday he had met with Yahoo! executives and blocked the deal because the US firm was seeking to “devour” the French company. He said the government wanted a “balanced” agreement that would allow Dailymotion to retain its identity. “The government is doing its job,” he said yesterday, adding: “We did not think it was a good idea to leave Dailymotion in the hands of a company, Yahoo!, whose health is sometimes unsteady.” Critics have repeatedly accused Montebourg, from the left flank of President Francois Hollande’s

Socialists, of damaging France’s business image with his outspoken views, including last year when he threatened to nationalize an ArcelorMittal steel plant in the country’s northeast.

The junior economy minister, Benoit Hamon, also defended the government’s move, saying it was in the “public interest” to protect the company.

“Let’s stop describing France as some sort of economic wasteland where foreign investors will no longer step foot.

They are coming,” he told France Inter radio. “We are taking decisions to protect our capital, our creations, our ability to innovate,” he said. “Maybe if Europe protected itself much better, it would be much stronger against the United States, China and emerging economies.”

Richard said France Telecom was now on the hunt for other potential partners to work with Dailymotion, which employs about 150 people and is seeking to expand its reach. “Our priori-

Manufacturing growth stumbles Struggling factories underline fragility of world growth LONDON: Manufacturing across the world stumbled last month, underlining the fragility of the global economy and building the case for more action from leading central banks. Gloomy purchasing managers indexes - surveys of factory activity that correlate strongly with economic activity - added to a string of other economic data that has already soured optimism that a budding pickup in the world economy will flower.

Over the past two days, manufacturing indexes for the United States, eurozone - including powerhouse Germany and China have all declined. Britain’s improved but was still signaling contraction. “There is not a great amount of positive news out there. Globally, we do see a weaker second quarter - there are no arguments about that,” said Victoria Clarke, economist at Investec. A survey on Wednesday pointed to a slowdown in the United States, which was soon followed by a signal from the Federal Reserve signal that it would step up its asset purchase program if necessary.

Until recently, analysts had expected the Fed to buy a total of $1 trillion in securities during its ongoing third round of quantitative easing with expectations it would start to take its foot off the accelerator in the second half of this year. In the euro-zone, manufacturing output declined again in April as factory activity in Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the world’s secondbiggest exporter after China, fell for the second month and at a faster pace than in March.

Manufacturers in France, Italy and Spain - the euro-zone’s next biggest economies after Germany - all reported contraction in business. Combined, they pushed Markit’s Euro-zone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), based on a survey of thou-

BEIJING: Peddlers rest on their trishaws as they wait for customers along a street in Beijing yersterday. Manufacturing activity in China slowed slightly in April from the previous month in a sign of further weakness in the world’s second-biggest economy. — AFP sands of companies across the 17-nation bloc, down to 46.7 last month from March’s 46.8. That marked a four-month low but came in ahead of an earlier flash reading of 46.5. Anything under 50 is seen as a contraction. Signs of rot spreading in the euro-zone will bolster already solid expectations for an interest rate cut from the European Central Bank to a new record low of 0.5 percent later.

FRAGILE CHINA Wednesday’s US data from the Institute for Supply Management showed its PMI falling in April to 50.7 from 51.3 with a noticeable pull back in employment growth. China’s growth engine stuttered last month as well. The official PMI fell in April to 50.6 from 50.9 in March, while a comparable HSBC PMI, also reported yesterday, dropped to

50.4 from 51.6 as new export orders fell.

“The tepid growth momentum is carrying over into the current quarter, thus adding risks to expectations that China’s annual economic expansion will pick up to around 8 percent in spring,” said Nikolaus Keis, economist at UniCredit.

A Reuters poll suggested growth would pick up in the second quarter to 8.0 percent after 7.7 percent in the first quarter, but analysts said forecasts were now at risk of a downgrade. But Japan’s PMI, released earlier this week, was the highest in just over a year at 51.1, the latest evidence that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aggressive economic policies are benefiting the economy. South Korea’s overall PMI also rose in April, as domestic new orders more than offset the impact of the cooling in overseas orders. — Reuters

ty is to find an ally who can help develop Dailymotion outside Europe,” he said. “We had looked at more than 60 potential partners in France and abroad before focusing on Yahoo!. Now we will restart our search.” In an editorial headlined “whatawaste.com”, Les Echos lamented the government’s interference, saying the Yahoo! deal would have allowed Dailymotion to finally move beyond its French base.

“France could have become a key piece in Yahoo!’s global puzzle. And a stronger Dailymotion, even under Yahoo! control, would have benefited our digital ecosystem,” it said. The deal was part of efforts by Yahoo! to expand its global reach, with Dailymotion as a potential competitor with Googleowned video-sharing giant YouTube.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, who took over the struggling Internet search pioneer last year, has said she wants to make a priority of markets outside the United States. — AFP

Shell boss announces surprise retirement LONDON: Global energy giant Shell yesterday said in a surprise announcement that chief executive Peter Voser will retire next year, as it also posted falling first-quarter net profits on the back of lower crude oil prices.

“The board of Royal Dutch Shell plc today announced that Peter Voser... has elected to retire from the company in the first half of 2014,” a statement issued by the Anglo-Dutch group said.

In a message to staff, Voser said he wanted to spend more time with his family, after more than 25 years working for Shell. Voser, 54, has been chief executive since July 2009. Shell said it would review internal and external candidates to find a successor.

“After such an exciting executive career I feel it is time for a change in my lifestyle and I am looking forward to have more time available for my family and private life in the years to come,” he wrote to colleagues. Voser added that he would still maintain a “limited” number of non-executive roles at other companies. The news was delivered alongside the announcement of a six-percent drop in Shell’s firstquarter net profits to $8.18 billion (6.21 billion euros).

Earnings after tax in the three months to March compared with $8.7 billion in the same period of last year. “Our industry continues to see significant energy price volatility as a result of economic and political developments,” Voser said in the earnings release.

“Oil prices have fallen recently but Shell is implementing a long-term, competitive and innovative strategy against this volatile backdrop.” Shell said that its current cost of supplies-which strips out gains or losses in the value of inventories-rose four percent to $7.95 billion owing to higher refining margins. Total oil and gas production meanwhile edged higher to 3.559 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the reporting period, from 3.552 million in the same period of 2012.

Output was affected by security problems in Nigeria and divestments. In late morning deals, Shell’s ‘B’ share price rose 1.46 percent to 2,292 pence on London’s FTSE 100 index of leading companies, which was 0.28 percent lower at 6,433.32 points. “The volatility of the oil price is a factor which Shell is trying to mitigate over a period of time, whilst the search for a replacement CEO will be an unwelcome distraction,” noted Richard J Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Gold edges up LONDON: Gold edged up yesterday after the European Central Bank (ECB)cut its main interest rate cut by 25 basis points to a record low of 0.50 percent. Lower interest rates should favor gold as they encourage investors to put money into non-interest-bearing assets like the metal. Gold rose to a session high of $1,461.65 an ounce after the rate decision and was at $1,458.71 by 1211 GMT, up 0.1 percent. The metal had shed more than 1 percent in the previous session-its biggest daily drop since bullion’s historic decline in mid-April-to a low of $1,439.74, the weakest since April 25. US gold for June delivery rose 0.8 percent to $1,457.20 an ounce.

Gains were kept in check by slower physical demand even as China returned from a three-day holiday, while the Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to maintain or boost its bond-purchase program - the central bank currently buys $85 billion worth of bonds each month to support a moderately expanding economy - had little impact. Although the Fed’s printing of money to buy assets is considered supportive for the metal because it tends to be inflationary, analysts said that inflation readings were lower recently and are not likely to show changes in coming months. “The logic was that the more QE was done by central banks the more inflationary pressure we would have but there’s no sign of that and gold is suffering,” Societe Generale analyst Robin Bhar said. Investors turned their attention towards weekly jobless claims in the United States, due at 1230 GMT, as well as the US non-farm payrolls report for April on Friday, which will signal the longer-term prospects for the Fed’s monetary stimulus.

Bullion has now recovered around half of the massive losses incurred between April 12 and 16 on fears of a withdrawal of the Fed’s monetary stimulus and after the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund asked Cyprus to sell reserves as part of a bailout deal. But traders believe downside risks persist. “My view is that the relief rally of last week is over and that we will see lower prices again, not necessarily in the violent way we witnessed a couple of weeks ago, but rather a drift downwards,” Marex Spectron, head of precious metals at David Govett, said in a note.

PHYSICAL MARKET SLOWER Physical market activity slowed after a recent surge in the purchase of gold bars, coins and nuggets across Asia sent premiums for gold bars to multi-year highs. Gold’s second-largest consumer China resumed trading after a three-day holiday, but demand seemed slower than a week ago, while the physical market in Hong Kong was also easier. “The Chinese market opened again overnight, but little in the way of gold buying was seen, which is slightly disappointing given the fact that prices are thirty to forty dollars lower than when they went on holiday,” Marex Spectron said.

Gold’s sell-off last month has widened a disconnect between funds that sold on dissatisfaction over bullion’s underperformance and individual investors who could not get enough physical gold coins and bars at bargain prices. SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.31 percent to 1,075.23 tons on Wednesday, the lowest since September 2009. In other precious metals, silver rose 1.1 percent to $23.83 an ounce.

Platinum was up 0.7 percent to $1,480.76 an ounce. Palladium was down 0.2 percent to $684.22, having hit a two-week high of $700.72 on Tuesday. — Reuters

ECB cuts rates to support flagging Europe economy Main rate cut by 25 basis points to 0.50% BRATISLAVA: The European Central Bank cut interest rates for the first time in 10 months yesterday, driven to act by an economy wallowing in recession and freed to do so by sharply falling inflation. The ECB lowered its main interest rate by a

quarter point to a new record low of 0.50 percent in response to a drop in inflation well below its target level, and rising unemployment. The cut was widely expected, after ECB President Mario Draghi said last month the bank stood

FRANKFURT: The new headquarters of the European Central Bank is under construction in Frankfurt, Germany. The governing council of the ECB met in Slovakia yesterday. — AP

OECD warns Italy to cut its heavy debt MILAN: Italy has taken important steps to correct its public finances but the country’s new government must pursue reforms and cut its heavy debt, the OECD said yesterday as new Prime Minister Enrico Letta met with European leaders in Brussels.

The assessment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development came as Letta seeks allies across Europe for a stronger focus on growth and less pressure on fiscal discipline.

But “with the public debt-to-GDP ratio nearing 130 percent and a heavy debt redemption schedule, Italy remains exposed to sudden changes in financial market sentiment,” an OECD economic survey warned. “Large and sustained reductions in public debt are therefore the top fiscal priority,” the report added. It urged Letta to “consolidate” structural reforms launched by his predecessor Mario Monti and to come up with additional ways to boost growth and productivity, the weak points

of the euro-zone’s third biggest economy. “Fiscal measures should concentrate on spending restraint,” the OECD report added.

Presenting the report in Rome, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said Italy had an “enormous responsibility”. “There have been dangerous moments” when the country risked falling into the clutches of the euro-zone debt crisis in 2011, “and it is for that reason that Italy must succeed, not only for Italy but for Europe, and with Europe, the world,” he said. The OECD said in the report that it did not expect a rapid reduction of Italy’s debt load, forecasting that it would rise to 134 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year, and might increase further barring budget cuts or privatizations.

The previous Italian government forecast that public debt would peak at 130.4 percent of GDP this year and begin to decline after that. EU coun-

tries are supposed to maintain public debt of no more than 60 percent of GDP. As for growth, the OECD expected Italian business activity to decline by 1.5 percent this year before expanding by a slight 0.5 percent in 2014, owing largely to “poor competitiveness, a drop in bank lending and the immediate impact of public spending cuts and tax rises on households and businesses.”

The organization forecast that Italy’s public deficit would stand at 3.3 percent of GDP this year and rise to 3.8 percent in 2014, which means it would remain above the nominal EU limit of 3.0 percent. “Amid recession and rising unemployment it is sometimes difficult to see light at the end of the tunnel. But I am convinced that a commitment to the current reform strategy will result in better living standards and a stronger, more dynamic Italian economy,” the report quoted Gurria as saying. —AFP

ready to act. He will hold a news conference at 1230 GMT to explain the decision.

Economic data over the last month have bolstered the case for action, with unemployment hitting a record high in April, when inflation saw its biggest monthly drop in over four years, to 1.2 percent. “The ECB is playing it safe, even though they know the effect is likely to be limited,” Nordea analyst Anders Svendsen said of the cut. “The key for the market is the tone. If the ECB comes out with other measures as well to help SME (small- and mid-sized enterprise) lending that will be positive but if they say the cut was all they had, I think there will be disappointment.”

The euro rose to $1.3191 and German 10-year government bond futures edged higher after the decision. The sharp drop in inflation, from 1.7 percent in March, pressured the ECB to cut rates to honor its mandate to deliver price stability, which it defines as inflation close to but below 2 percent. The sudden slump in price pressures has also raised the possibility of the ECB having to look at policy tools beyond interest rates to counter any further slide in inflation. “Ultimately, we think the ECB will have to purchase private-sector assets in order to fix the transmission mechanism,” said Andrew Bosomworth at PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund. The ECB wants to improve the transmission of its monetary policy so its low rates reach all corners of the euro- zone. The bloc’s south is not benefiting to the same extent as the north from the ultra-low rates. If they are lending at all, banks there are charging companies and households more for loans than their peers in the north because of higher funding costs and credit risks.

SMALL COMPANIES, BIG PROBLEM The ECB has repeatedly voiced its concern about the impact this has on lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have little alternative to bank funding and are a key engine for growth in the currency bloc. It has said it is studying options to address the problem, but little is expected to have been decided at yesterday’s policy meeting. It is one of two that the ECB holds outside of Frankfurt each year.

“We suspect that the ECB will avoid making any formal statement on a potential SME program ... as it continues to weigh the pros and cons of such measures,” said Frederik Ducrozet, senior eurozone economist at CrÈdit Agricole CIB. Some ECB policymakers are reluctant to try to fix too many of the euro-zone’s problems, eager to push onto governments the issue of dealing with SME lending. Draghi must balance this reluctance with the pressure for action.

In Germany, the ECB has even faced resistance to a rate cut. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week the ECB would have to raise rates if it were looking at Germany alone. German insurers and the county’s dominant savings and cooperative banking sector have also joined up to speak out against looser ECB monetary policy, saying it would have little economic impact and undermined savings needed to protect the country’s rapidly ageing population.— Reuters

Business FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Europe seeking end to ‘nightmare’ youth unemployment BRUSSELS: Europe needs to come up with a plan within weeks to end the “nightmare” of mounting youth unemployment, Italy’s new premier Enrico Letta and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday.

Winding up his first European tour since being sworn in on Sunday, Letta urged the European Union to offer “concrete” measures to its recessionhit citizens and jobless youths in order to revive hope in the EU’s future.

Barroso, often slammed for pushing an austerity agenda that is costing millions of jobs and undermining support for the European project, responded by urging the union’s 27 leaders to come up with a package against youth unemployment at a June 27-28 summit. “We must revive hope, especially for young people,” Barroso said. “We cannot wait for long, we are all aware this is urgent.” The pair spoke at a brief news conference held shortly before the European Central Bank decided whether to cut interest rates to a new low as calls mount across the 17-nation euro-zone for a focus on growth rather than austerity.

In talks in Berlin and Paris, the new leader of the euro-zone’s third largest economy hammered home his message that Italy was “dying from austeri-

ty alone” and must kickstart an economy that shrank seven percent in the five years up to 2012 and is forecast to contract further this year. Letta stressed too that Brussels must show it could deliver by dealing with joblessness that threatens to leave behind a lost generation of European youth.

“Youth unemployment, that is the real nightmare of my country and the

EU,” he said. “It is important for us to have in June some important signals for European citizens in terms of recovering hope and confidence,” Letta added in reference to the June summit.

Letta, who was sworn in after a twomonth political impasse, on Monday announced a series of measures worth around 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to spur growth but pledged in Brussels to

CHATTANOOGA: Donna Van Natten, with The Enterprise Center (left) and Valoria Armstrong with the Tennessee American Water Co converse during a job fair held at the Urban League in Chattanooga, Tenn. — AP

MasterCard profit rises, but economy ‘choppy’ NEW YORK: Payments processor MasterCard Inc. said that its profit and revenue rose in the first quarter as card users spent more. Profit beat the forecasts of Wall Street analysts, though revenue missed slightly and the company’s stock fell in midday trading. Company executives sketched a picture of a mixed global economy and a US consumer suffering from the payroll tax hike that took effect in January. The results showed stronger growth outside the US than at home, with purchases in Asia, the Middle East and Africa growing the most.

The Purchase, NY, company does business all over the world, and its results are a window into how people are spending - and how they’re feeling about the economy on all different income levels. In the US, consumer spending was relatively strong in January after a weak holiday season, MasterCard executives said. But it slowed in February and March, and MasterCard leaders guessed that was because consumers were registering the effect of the higher payroll taxes, a result of negotiations over the federal budget in Washington.

The US economy in the first quarter “was definitely very choppy,” MasterCard Chief Financial Officer Martina Hund-Mejean said in an interview with The Associated Press. She expects the current quarter to be muted as well. “We have still a very high unemployment rate, housing is just starting to get better, all the discussion in Washington about the fiscal debt - that makes people feel uncomfortable,” Hund-Mejean said. “So there are a number of things that are not resolved.”

CEO Ajay Banga said he was pleased that the firstquarter results met the company’s own expectations, despite the “challenging economic conditions.” He said US consumers had also been hurt in the first quarter by high prices for food and gas, as well as winter storms in March.

Sterne Agee analyst Greg Smith described the quarter as “a slow start,” with some measures of revenue lighter than he expected. Overall, though, results were in line with expectations, Smith said in a note to clients. —AP

“maintain the engagements of previous governments” with the Commission to meet euro-zone debt and deficit targets.

Barroso cautioned that while sharing Letta’s view of the urgent need for growth and job-enhancing measures “we are also both firmly convinced that you can only build lasting growth and competitiveness on the back of healthy public finances.” “Every euro spent on debt is a euro not invested in jobs,” he said. But the Commission president acknowledged that a 120billion-euro EU growth pact was proving “below our expectations” and called on leaders of the bloc to sign up to “a more ambitious plan to fight youth unemployment”.

New data this week showing unemployment at a record high of 12.1 percent, or 19 million people, out of work in the 17-nation euro-zone, offered frightening new figures on youth unemployment. One out of four under25s was on the dole in the EU in March but almost two in three in Greece and Spain. The Eurostat statistics agency said that 24 percent of under-25s were jobless in the euro-zone, and 23.5 percent in the 27-nation EU against 22.5 percent and 22.6 percent a year earlier, respectively. —AFP

Qatar M&A drive may cause some to reprice credit risk Blue-chip Qatar firms expanding around Middle East DUBAI: A foreign acquisition drive by Qatari companies is winning the gasrich country international attention and economic influence around the region. But it may have a less positive effect on the bond prices of some of the companies. Blue-chip bond issuers such as Qatar National Bank and telecommunications operator Ooredoo, formerly known as Qatar Telecom, are leading the M&A drive.

In the past, when their business focus was primarily domestic, these partly state-owned companies were viewed by many investors as essentially part of the Qatar government, which is rated AA by Standard & Poor’s. The companies could price bond issues very close to the sovereign curve, with almost no new-issue premium. Spreads on their bonds may now start to reflect the higher risk associated with their global expansion strategy, even though the companies can probably still count on government support if needed.

Investors may look at how much debt the companies take on to fund their acquisitions, and the risks involved in operating in unstable countries in the region. “This raises the question of whether investors in Qtel or QNB bonds are buying Qatar risk, or a combination of Iraq, Indonesia, Tunisia or potentially Morocco risk,” credit analysts at Standard Chartered noted in a research report. “Thus, the increasingly aggressive acquisition

appetite of Qatari credits could start to get priced into credit spreads, with or without rating agency action.”

ACQUISITIVE QNB is probably the most acquisitive bank in the Gulf Arab region. After securing stakes in banks in Egypt, Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, it is scouting for a majority stake in a top-ten Turkish bank. It is not the only Qatari lender which feels the need to move beyond its crowded domestic market. Commercial Bank of Qatar agreed to buy a 70.8 percent stake in Turkish lender Alternatifbank in March, and has reportedly hired two banks for a potential bond sale to boost capital.

Outside the banking sector, Ooredoo is going head-to-head with the UAE’s Etisalat for Vivendi’s stake in Morocco’s Maroc Telecom, which is valued at about $6 billion. “So far Qtel’s acquisitions have been successful, even the ones in the riskier regions such as Iraq,” said Apostolos Bantis, emerging markets credit analyst at Commerzbank in London.

But he voiced caution about the Maroc Telecom stake. “Qtel’s contemplated Morocco transaction is a bit questionable and perhaps if it finally goes ahead may result in some volatility on its bonds.” Last week, S&P placed its long and short-term corporate credit ratings for Ooredoo on creditwatch “negative” after the company submitted a binding bid for the stake. “Any

meaningful debt increases from the acquisition will lead to a downgrade,” said the agency, which currently rates Ooredoo as A. Ooredoo is also majority shareholder in Iraqi telecommunications operator Asiacell and holds 90 percent of Tunisiana in Tunisia.

APPETITE Regardless of acquisition activities, the bonds of Qatari companies are likely to remain in demand among international investors looking for exposure to the Middle East, partly because of the scarcity of investment-grade credits from the region. But the bonds of both QNB and Ooredoo have come under pressure in secondary market trading in recent weeks.

QNB’s most recent issue, maturing in 2020, has struggled in the secondary market since its issue in April. It was bid at 99.296 cents on the dollar yesterday to yield 2.99 percent, up from 2.98 percent last week. The bond is offering over 20 basis points more than National Bank of Abu Dhabi’s 2019 maturity, for an extended maturity of just eight months. Both banks are rated Aa3 by Moody’s. Commerzbank’s Bantis said he believed the underperformance of QNB’s last two bond issues had more to do with overall spread compression in global markets and aggressive pricing than its acquisition activity. But the yield on Ooredoo’s $1 billion, 2023 bond has widened over 20 bps since the beginning of this year. —Reuters

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

THEY ARE THE 99!

99 Mystical Noor Stones carry all that is left of the wisdom and knowledge of the lost civilization of Baghdad. But the Noor Stones lie scattered across the globe - now little more than a legend. One man has made it his life’s mission to seek out what was lost.

His name is Dr. Ramzi Razem and he has searched fruitlessly for the Noor Stones all his life. Now, his luck is about to change - the first of the stones have been rediscovered and with them a special type of human who can unlock the gem’s mystical power.

Ramzi brings these gem - bearers together to form a new force for good in the world.

A force known as ... the 99!

THE FASCINATING STORY OF THE 99 Baghdad lies in ruins, destroyed by the marauding armies of Hulagu Khan. The brave librarians of the great Dar Al-Hikma rush to save the glory of the ancient world’s accumulated wisdom, little knowing that centuries later their efforts will bear strange fruit. While the Noor Stones were created to save the library, their power

Visit the99kids.com for free games featuring THE 99!

has transcended that task and in our own time has provided extraordinary abilities to an international group of young people, the world’s newest superheroes known as… The 99.

THE99FanPage

@THE99Comics

THE99Comics

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

www.the99.org

Opinion FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

In this photo taken on April 27, 2013, a Buddhist (right) and a Muslim man a barricade they set up about a month ago in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township in Yangon. — AP

In Myanmar, living in fear amid religious violence

By Erika Kinetz

T

hey have seen how the troubles start from the smallest things.

They have seen the police powerless before mobs fired with religious zeal and armed with bricks and swords. They have seen on TV and in newspapers the burning homes of people just like them light up the night. And so they have erected rusted barbed-wire barricades and volunteered to sit on street corners, 10 men at time, watching for signs of trouble through the night. Fear courses through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, especially among its Muslim minority. They have watched the country’s spreading religious violence, which threatens to destabilize its fragile democracy, creep closer to home. With little faith in the government’s ability to protect them and a growing movement of Buddhist extremism, some feel they have little choice but to try to defend themselves.

Residents in some neighborhoods have started their own patrols.

They have shuttered Muslim schools, which have been the target of attacks elsewhere. A few lucky enough to get tourist visas to Muslimmajority Malaysia have simply left. The once-bustling streets of Mingalar Taung Nyunt, a Yangon township where Buddhists and Muslims live side by side, grow quiet around 10 pm. An occasional cycle rickshaw passes beneath the few functioning streetlights. Juryrigged roadblocks of desks, street carts and barbed wire barricades dot the corners.

The neighborhood watch volunteers, who man the corners from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., are armed only with mobile phones. Some 50 block leaders have pledged to call each other at the first sign of trouble.

Others patrol the streets in a van and a ramshackle truck plastered with peace stickers. “This group is not just for Buddhists or Muslims, it’s for everybody who lives in this township,” says Khin Maryar Htwee, a 36-year-old Muslim woman who helped organize the group. “We have lived in this community forever. We are afraid this relationship will break up. That’s why all religions are volunteering.”

The religious violence started last year in remote Rakhine state, where at least 192 people died in two outbreaks of violence. Then in March an altercation in a gold shop in Meikhtila in central Myanmar sparked three days of rioting that killed at least 43 while police stood idly by. The chaos reached Okkan, roughly 80 km north of Yangon,

this week. On Tuesday, a Muslim woman and Buddhist monk bumped into each other at a crowded market, knocking the monk’s alms bowl to the ground.

By Wednesday, one man was dead, and nearly 160 mosques, homes and shops had been destroyed. Stunned women and children sat staring at wisps of smoke rising from a field of charred beams and ash where they used to live. Okkan had a neighborhood watch, but it was unable to stop the attack. “This country is like a lawless country,” says Ko Aye Thaung a thickset 48-year-old from one of the Muslim villages in Okkan that were destroyed. “The whole village was burned down, it was like nothing happened.”

Mingalar Taung Nyunt organized its neighborhood watch after the March Meikhtila riots. Tun Kyi, a 45-year-old Muslim activist who helped form the group, says that if trouble comes, he will call in the monks from one of the township’s Buddhist monasteries to restore peace. He does not mention the police. A few weeks ago, a car sped through, driving crazily, packed with boys shouting insults. People took it as a warning.

“We chased them, and they ran away,” says Thant Zaw, a 26-yearold Muslim shopkeeper who naps two hours to make up for the sleep he loses manning one of five informal checkpoints on his street overnight. Next to him, Thura Than, a 25-year-old shopkeeper, gestures to a young man with tattoos running down his muscled arms.

“I’m Muslim and he’s Buddhist,” he says. “We don’t worry about people here. We worry about outsiders.”

Adding to the unease is the growth of a radical Buddhist movement called 969, which was founded late last year. It urges Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores and not to marry, sell property to or hire Muslims. Though 969 professes to be peaceful, some residents of Okkan believe this week’s violence is related to the 969 stickers that now adorn most motorbikes in town, and local politician Myint Thein says 969 supporters were involved in the riots. Tun Kyi, of Mingalar Taung Nyunt township’s neighborhood watch program, says harassment of Muslims has worsened with the spread of 969 in Yangon. “It’s because of the 969 effect,” he says.

The movement has caught on in Kyauk Myaung, a nearby Buddhist-only neighborhood. Even before 969, residents wouldn’t sell or rent their homes to Muslims. Around 10 Islamic religious schools in

Mingalar Taung Nyunt township have been closed, as a precautionary measure, since late March. In Kyauk Myaung, 969 followers have been opening religious schools for Buddhist children. The schools are run by the Hitataya Foundation, which was founded by Wimalar Biwuntha, one of the monks who started the 969 movement. He is part of a network of monks in southern Mon state whose motto is: “We will make fences of our bones if we must.”

“It means it is noble and great to die for the religion,” says 969 supporter Swe Aung. An herbal medicine salesman, Swe Aung spends his Sundays as a volunteer teacher at Hitataya Foundation schools.

Around 20 such schools have opened in Yangon since September, he says, while nationwide there are more than 200. Rows of students in matching brown sashes given to them by the foundation bow before a monk at Zay Ya Mingalar monastery. Organizers say 300 students have registered at this school alone. Teachers say the curriculum focuses on Buddhist morality, history and meditation. “We don’t teach the children to hate,” says Swe Aung.

Swe Aung is also scared, of religious violence and Muslim world domination. A map purporting to show that 64 percent of the world’s population is Muslim hangs at the front of the class. A study by the Pew Research Center and the John Templeton Foundation found that Muslims made up 23.4 percent of the world’s population in 2010. “I’m afraid of the Muslim people, so I want to build a fence,” Swe Aung says. “In Islam, they have the right to kill according to their religion and they can go to heaven. If the Muslim community can guarantee that they will not kill Buddhist people, we will shop and eat in their shops and let them live in our homes.”

When night falls, the residents of Mingalar Taung Nyunt and Kyauk Myaung prefer to stay apart. Near midnight, slim silhouettes appear on the balconies of Mingalar Taung Nyunt, suspicious of the visiting journalists on the rough street below. Who has come? What’s wrong?

Young men come out of their homes and gather near the checkpoint.

They are afraid of 969. Afraid of arrest. Afraid their houses will be burned down. They are afraid of conspiracies they will never be able to prove. They are afraid the tender fabric of their mixed neighborhood, will be torn apart by large, dark forces they cannot control. “It’s a sensitive situation,” says Khin Maryar Htwee, hustling the journalists away. “They’ve had trauma. It can’t be cured.” — AP

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

Top of the bill: Giant rubber duck sails into Hong Kong See Page 37

FOOD

Olive oil

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

O

live oil is the pure oil obtained from the fruit of olive trees. No oil obtained using solvents, re-etherification processes, or mixed with other vegetable oils qualifies under this description. Olive oils described as ‘virgin’ are those that have been obtained from the original fruit without having been synthetically treated. Once the olives have been picked, pressed, and washed, no other process has taken place other than decantation, and centrifugation to extract the oil, and filtration. The best quality of olive oil available is described as ‘extra virgin’.

Since ancient times olive oil has been

truly is liquid gold Just how much do we know about this wonder oil? ing for a natural ‘inhibitor’, you need look no further than olive oil, which has a lipid profile very close to that of human skin.

Olive oil has a large proportion of vitamins A, D, and K, as well as vitamin E, which is a key source of protein needed in the fight against free radicals. This makes olive oil particularly helpful in the fight against skin disorders such as acne, psoriasis, and seborrheic eczemas. More generally, olive oil can be used daily to improve the condition of skin in the following ways:

smooth wrinkles that can form around the eyes.

The health benefits of olive oil are extensive with new positive attributes discovered all the time. One prominent cardiologist recommends at least two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil each day.

At present it is believed that in addition to bolstering the immune system and helping to protect against viruses, olive oil is also effective in fighting against diseases such as the following:

As an exfoliator: Mixing olive oil with sea salt and massaging into an affected area helps remove dead skin and enrich the

Heart Disease: Olive oil helps lower levels of blood cholesterol leading to heart disease. Oxident Stress: Olive oil contains antioxidents such as Vitimin E, carotenoids and phenolic compounds which also help lead to long life.

The SUN (Seguimiento University of Navarra) study with over 6,000 participants found that olive oil intake reduced the incidence of hypertension in men, while another Spanish study published in the American Journal of Hypertension found that a diet containing polyphenol rich olive oil reduced blood pressure in young women with mild hypertension. used as a way to moisturize and help rejuvenate damaged skin. As we age our skin deteriorates and its inner and outer layers (dermis and epidermis) grow much thinner. The stresses and strains of aging also cause the skin to lose elasticity, which soon becomes noticeable as wrinkles.

External factors, such as the sun’s rays can also speed up the aging process by generating what are called ‘free radicals’. The good news is that it’s possible to reduce the damage done to cells by using ‘inhibitors’ that lower the risk. There are many creams and lotions on the market that can help with this but if you’re look-

healthier layers below it. Adding oil to a bath also helps moisturize the whole body.

In nail and cuticle care: Extra virgin olive oil is a simple solution for dry nails and cuticles. By rubbing a few drops into the cuticle area and around the nail, cuticles stay moist, and nails respond with a natural shine.

As an eye makeup remover: A drop or two of extra virgin olive oil on a cotton pad helps to gently and effectively remove eye makeup without irritating the delicate skin. Olive oil also helps to

Cancer: Studies suggest that olive oil exerts a protective effect against certain malignant tumors (breast, prostate, endometrium, digestive tract). A number of research studies have documented that olive oil reduces the risk of breast cancer. Eating a healthy diet with olive oil as the main source of fat could considerably lower cancer incidence.

Blood Pressure: Recent studies indicate that regular consumption of olive oil can help decrease both systolic (maximum) and diastolic (minimum) blood pressure.

Diabetes: It has been demonstrated that a diet that is rich in olive oil, low in saturated fats, moderately rich in carbohydrates and soluble fiber from fruit, vegetables, pulses and grains is the most effective approach for diabetics. It helps lower “bad” low density lipoproteins while improving blood sugar control and enhances insulin sensitivity.

Obesity: Although high in calories, olive oil has shown to help reduce levels of obesity.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Although the reasons are still not fully clear, recent

studies have proved that people with diets containing high levels of olive oil are less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis.

Osteoporosis: A high consumption of olive oil appears to improve bone mineralization and calcification. It helps calcium absorption and so plays an important role in aiding sufferers and in preventing the onset of Osteoporosis.

Olive oil is one of the best sources of monounsaturated fats and has the advantage of being less susceptible to oxidation.

In addition, oleic acid, a fatty acid abundant in olive oil, appears to also protect from oxidation of LDL. It is important to note that to achieve this reduction in bad cholesterol you cannot just add olive oil to a diet rich in saturated and trans fats and expect a miracle. You must replace the unhealthy fats with olive oil in combination with a Mediterranean-style diet.

The SUN (Seguimiento University of Navarra) study with over 6,000 participants found that olive oil intake reduced the incidence of hypertension in men, while another Spanish study published in the American Journal of Hypertension found that a diet containing polyphenol rich olive oil reduced blood pressure in young women with mild hypertension.

Although olive oil is better known for its protection against heart disease and cancer, there is an emerging amount of research regarding the effect of olive oil on cognitive function and, specifically, on cognitive decline associated with aging. Generally, the type of fat consumed can affect cognitive function.

A recent study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, analyzed data from 6,000 women over the age of 65, a subset of the Women’s Health Study.

They found that women who consumed the highest amount of monounsaturated fats, which can be found in olive oil, had better patterns of cognitive scores over time. — Oliveoiltimes.com

FOOD FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Healthy

doughnuts do exist

By Lori Powell

E

verybody can eat doughnuts finally! Well, these baked ones are the way to go to cut the fat and calories. Bake these guilt-free treats for the kids, and plus, we’ll show you how to prepare four different delectable toppings. Firstly the ingredients required to prepare the Buttermilk doughnuts are as follows: Nonstick cooking spray 1 cup whole-wheat flour 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk (1 percent) 2 large eggs 1/4 cup honey 2 tablespoons melted butter 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation 1. Preheat oven to 425∞. Lightly coat a doughnut pan with cooking spray.

2. Combine flours and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk.

3. Combine buttermilk, eggs, honey, butter, and vanilla, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; whisk just until combined.

4. Spoon batter into doughnut pans, filling two thirds full. Bake in middle of oven until doughnuts spring back when touched and are golden on bottom (about 8 minutes). Let cool in pan slightly (about 4 minutes); turn out.

Coat with toppings, if desired.

The following are the ingredients and steps taken to prepare the four different toppings.

Glazed: Combine 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice and 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, stirring well with a whisk. Dip 1 side of the cooled doughnuts into glaze; let cool on a rack, glazed side up.

Chocolate-Hazelnut: Melt 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate in a bowl in microwave until smooth. Dip tops of doughnuts into chocolate and place chocolate side up on a rack to cool. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts; let sit about 10 minutes.

Chocolate Swirl: Melt 4 ounces (1 cup) bittersweet chocolate in microwave until smooth. Fill a small squeeze bottle or zip-top plastic bag (snip a tiny hole in 1 corner of bag) with melted chocolate; pipe chocolate onto tops of doughnuts. Chill doughnuts until chocolate sets (about 10 minutes).

Cinnamon Sugar: Combine 1/4 cup ground cinnamon and 1/4 cup sugar. While still warm, coat doughnuts in sugar; let cool on rack, sugar-coated side up.

Traditional doughnuts are fried in oil, so they’re loaded with fat. We cut the calories and fat by baking ours in a Wilton Doughnut Pan .

So all of you out there why not try some healthy donuts, it’s brilliant! — Health.com

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

‘Ayo Bowan’: The wonder of Sri Lanka S

ri Lanka is an island floating in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Endowed with over a thousand miles of beautiful golden beaches fringed with coconut palms. A large percentage of Sri Lankan hotels and resorts are located along the seacoast. The main attraction for the most part is on the beaches and the resorts and less on the nearby towns and villages. However, some places like Galle on the west coast with its historical heritage, are included in the attraction even without the lure of the sun and sand. You can also stop on the drive down in the west coast for interesting side trips like visiting a batik factory or a turtle hatchery, paying your respects at the local temple or sampling the local fruit.

Sri Lanka is a paradise island offering visitors incomparable beach holidays. With the aquamarine waters of the Indian Ocean gently lapping its pristine shores, Sri Lanka’s beaches are covered with soft warm sand. Home to tropical fish and living corals the waters surrounding Sri Lanka are warm thanks to the tropical climate the island enjoys.

With over 1,300 km of beach on offer, all you have to do is come to Sri Lanka and spend hours of fun in the sun.

Whether you are looking to just relax in the sun and get the perfect tan or if you are looking for more action such as surfing, diving or jet skiing, Sri Lanka has much to offer with its world renowned best beaches. The western and southern coast beaches begins from Negombo, 13 km north of Colombo and curves south

along the coastline for 273 km up to Hambantota. This is definitely the better developed of the two circuits and accounts for most of the hotels and the resorts. South of Colombo is called the ‘Cold Coast’ and the resorts stretch from Mt Lavinia (a suburb of Colombo) along Wadduwa, Kalutara, Beruwala, Bentota, Induruwa, Kosgoda, Ahungalla, Hikkaduwa, Calle, Unawatuna, Koggala, We- ligama, Dickewalla, Tangalle and finally Hambantota. The southern beaches are sandier than the western ones and do not shelve steeply into the sea.

While the eastern and northern coast beaches stretches north in a gentle arc from Arugam Bay till Kuchchaveli approximately 275 km up on the eastern coastline. Fine beaches are typically wide stretches of sand and what seems like miles of clear, shallow water, pretty bays and coves, deep natural harbors, still lagoons and underwater coral gardens. The best ones are those of Nilaveli, Kuchchaveli, Marble Bay, Sweat Bay and Dead Man’s Cove, with its magnificent harbor, north of Trincomalee. The southern section includes the peaceful beaches of Passekudah, Kalkudah and Arugam Bay. Sri Lanka’s beach life is very seasonal. The island has not one but two annual monsoons, which come from different directions and affect different regions. Colombo and other south-west coastal areas are fairly sodden between April and October, so the peak season here is from November to March. The east coast is usually decidedly damp from November until February and at its sunniest from March to October, although travel to this area is not entirely recommended. Meanwhile, inland-particularly in hilly areas, the weather is both sunny and wet all year round. Accommodation is not a problem.

There is a wide choice, not only when it comes to locations, but also quality and price. As mentioned earlier, the most developed are resorts of the south and the west coasts, where luxurious comfort and all the five star amenities, adventure tours, animation are as much a part of the service as fine accommodation and international cuisine. There are also boarding, canoeing, sailing, boating, deep sea fishing, water polo, water gymnastics, water and jet scooter racing and banana boat riding. Seasonal bathing is available off the sea and river fronts of many hotels and of course there is always the fresh or sea water swimming pool. The food is cosmopolitan. Of course, sea food is fresh and plentiful and most hotels innovate creatively with the wide variety available. There is a fairly extensive choice between spicy Sri Lankan food and standard international fare. An abundance of local tropical fruit and fruit juices is an essential feature of the buffet table.

Some of the beaches to be visited in Sri Lanka are as follows. Apart from the ancient monumental structures, Jaffna has some spectacular beaches. These beaches draw the maximum number of tourists and they too love top busk in sunlight in the wonderful sandy beaches of Jaffna. However, of all the beaches in the city, Casuarina Beach is at Karainagar and there are good beaches as well at Santhakulam and Thondaimannar. The Tourism Board of Sri Lanka is of great help in planning tours to Jaffna.

Kalkudah Beach and Passekudah Bay is the ultimate call for all the wanderlust travelers in search of some relaxation com-

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

bined with some exciting action. Whether you want to try out some amazing sport activity like snorkeling, wind surfing or skiing or just bask in the sun along the beaches of Sri Lanka , this place offers everything for everyone. The delightful sights of the rising and falling waves surprises the visitors with the natural beauty that it exhibits. Kalkudah beach on the east coast, is one among the many stunning beaches of Sri Lanka.

Kalkudah Bay is a 2 km long wide stretch of beach, located 32 km north of Batticaloa. Kalkudah and Passekudah are two very fine beaches in the East Coast of Sri Lanka. One of the best stretches of beach in Sri Lanka is the East Coast which runs to more than 300 km. It is well protected from the monsoon by an off shore reef. Passekudah Bay is another wide beach 4 km long just south of Kalkudah. The combined beaches of Kalkudah and Passekudah are ideal for bathing as the sea is clear, calm and reef protected. It is a favorite among the nature lovers and for those looking for some exciting water sport activity. The Kalkudah beach provides a perfect setting for sun bathing, windsurfing , and skiing. The beach also houses a varied number of tropical fishes and exotic coral reefs.

The combined area of Kalkudah and Passekudah was declared as the National Holiday resort in 1973. Kalkudah is one of the finest beaches in the east coast on the way to Batticaloa. It is also emerging as a popular tourist centre with many modern hotel facilities. May to September is considered as the best time to visit east coast, as it is dry during this period and the surfers can go for sun bathing , wind surfing without much difficulty. The beach adorned with coconut palms is truly one of the finest stretch in the east coast of Sri Lanka and no wonder it emerges as a popular tourist destination.

Koggala beach is about 12 km south of Galle. It is one of the most enchanting in Sri Lanka. Stilt fisherman are a familiar sight here. Kalutara Beach is two and a half hour’s drive from the airport, this small yet busy town is well known for its iconic Gangatilaka Vihara. Markets and small shops make up this seaside down and it’s fascinating to watch the locals trade, from coconut fibre products to fresh fish and vegetables. Kalutara’s golden beach is fringed by magnificent palms and is excellent for swimming. Stay at Mermaid, an attractive beachfront hotel

offering excellent value for money.

Mannar Island is probably the driest, most barren area in Sri Lanka. The landscape features many baobab trees, probably introduced from Africa by Arab traders centuries ago. Mannar, the major town on the island, is at the southern end, joined the mainland by a 3 km causeway. It’s not interesting apart from its picturesque Portuguese/Dutch fort. Talaimannar, near the western end, is about 3 km from the pier that was the arrival and departure point of the ferry for India that operated until 1984. A little farther west, an abandoned lighthouse at South Point marks the start of Adam’s bridge, the chain of reefs, sandbanks and islets that almost connects Sri Lanka to India. Mirissa Beach is situated on the Matara road 4 km southeast of Weligama. It marks one of the country’s most beautiful beach. Its headland separates its small fishing harbor from its beautiful curve of sandy beach with calm, clear waters. Mirissa is the alternative for quieter place to Unawatuna or Hikkaduwa.

Mount Lavinia Beach is just 12 km south of Colombo. It is an immediate city suburb and this beach is known even in colonial times. It lies alongside a windswept headland jutting into the waters of the Indian Ocean. The sand is the softest and the waves calm and clear. Negombo Beach, a characteristic fishing town 37 km north of Colombo. Set amid lush groves of coconut palms, it breathes the spirit of the sea. Negombo is a gourmet’s paradise with sea food in plenty. Old world fishing craft like the outrigger canoe and the catamaran bring seer, skip jack, herring and mullet, pomfret and amber - jack while lobster and prawns are caught in the lagoon.

Nilaveli beach is 4 km from Trincomalee. It was the venue for the 1985 International Funboard Championships. The beach has ample water sports facilities including fishing and sea angling. Whale watching in the sanctuary is a speciality.

Pigeon Island, a ten-minute boat ride from the Nilaveli beach, is an ideal place to skin/scuba dive, or to just have a sun bath.

A few metres from the coast is a small rocky island good for snorkeling. Tangalle Beach is situated 195 km from Colombo.

It is one of the nicest spots along the coast, particularly if you want somewhere to find a place to laze and soak up the sun.

Tangalle’s series of bays are the modern attraction, white sandy beach of Medaketiya shimmer away from the northeast to smaller bays on the west. Trincomalee beach is the ideal refuge for the beach addict, with its fine natural harbor and offers some of the best sea bathing in the country. Horatio Nelson, the British admiral of the 18th century had described Trincomalee as the finest harbor in the world. The hot wells and the Pigeon Islands are the important places of tourist interest in the vicinity. There is an old Portuguese/Dutch fort reminiscent of the Colonial era.

Unawatuna beach which is near Galle is a beautiful wide curving golden beach. The beach has been acclaimed amongst 12 best beaches in the world. There is a reef protecting the beach, which makes it safe for bathing. The serene surroundings and the Dutch architecture add to the charm of the place. Weligama Beach is 27 km from Galle with its picturesque bay, and an off shore islet where a French Count built his dream house. It is where you will see the famous stilt fishermen.

Health FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Cheers to water

Are you drinking water when you need it most?

Thirsty? Grab a glass of water. Not only is it free and easily accessible, but it nourishes your body from the inside out.

How do you feel about drinking water?

Naturally, you probably drink some water in the course of a day. Even if you don’t have a glass of clear water, you can find more limited sources of drinking water in beverages like tea and coffee, and in foods such as soups and stews.

Did you know that drinking water could be a lifesaver? Pure, clean drinking water does much to keep your body running smoothly and to guard your health. Want to drink more water to benefit your health? Here are 9 times when your body needs drinking water the most.

1. Drink water when you first get up.

Imagine walking into a dark room and looking for something. Chances are you will stumble and maybe even fall unless you turn on the light.

Or consider starting your car in sub-zero temperatures and putting it into gear without waiting for the engine to warm up. Either situation can lead to problems or even disasters. The same is true of the human body. Without water to “wake up and turn on” the body each day, you may be running on empty, especially if you skip breakfast altogether. Have a glass of cool water right after you wake up in the morning to tell

your body it’s time to get started. Like a gently flowing stream that pushes along debris and rocks, your circulatory system needs fluid to get rid of stubborn free radicals and residue from burned calories that were used during the night’s metabolism. Refresh your system with a drink of water.

2. Drink water before each meal.

Drinking water before a meal helps you feel fuller, so you may be less likely to attack your meal like a starving person. Water helps prepare the stomach for the food that will follow, waking up taste buds on the tongue and moisturizing the stomach lining so brittle or acidic foods won’t be uncomfortable. Having a glass of water clears your mouth of dryness or leftover tastes from earlier dining, drinking, or smoking in anticipation of the food that is coming.

3. Drink water with a snack.

Between meals, if you feel hungry, try some fresh drinking water first to see if you are dehydrated. Sometimes people think they are hungry when they really are just thirsty. If you shop at the grocery store or supermarket while dehydrated, chances are you are going to spend more to subconsciously fill that empty urge. Drinking water before a snack, or with one, will help you feel full faster and perhaps eat less, a habit that could benefit two-thirds of our nation that is considered overweight or obese.

4. Drink water before a workout.

Depending on the temperature, humidity, and your body’s fluid levels, you may need one or several glasses of water, each about eight ounces, to arm yourself against dehydration during an indoor or outdoor workout. Whether you play for a sports team or simply jog for personal fitness, hydration is essential to help guard against heat stroke in warm weather and frostbite in cold temperatures, as your body’s circulation plays a protective role in both seasons.

7. Drink more water to prevent illness following exposures.

If you are around sick people in the hospital or at work and school, drink a little more water than usual to wash away germs and viruses that your body may have picked up from exposure to these people. A well hydrated body helps to move along any invaders before they settle down and multiply in your system. Drinking water each day before or after going out in public can help to prevent certain types of viruses, or lessen their severity.

5. Drink water after a workout.

Following your exercise session, drink up to replace fluids lost by sweating and physical labor. Don’t drink too much too quickly, or you could induce stomach cramps. But make sure you drink enough so you don’t stay dehydrated.

8. Drink more water when you’re ill.

When you do become ill, drink plenty of fluids, the old time recipe still works. Most experts recommend drinking eight glasses of water each day (eight ounces per glass), in addition to other fluids like tea, juice, and soup. People in the hospital often have an IV dripping water into their vein continuously so they can keep hydrated as well as maintain a line to your body if medications are needed.

6. Have water with your medication, if allowed.

If you are allowed to take water with your medication, do so. Water helps to dissolve the medication and spread it throughout your digestive organs for rapid absorption. Water prepares the tissues to receive the substance and put it to work right away.

Water also helps medicine work its way through your system and out the other end, which can be beneficial when you take harsh medications with side effects.

9. Have a glass of water when you’re tired.

Feeling tired? Fatigued? Need a nap but can’t take one? Have a glass of water. Because of its ability to move quickly throughout the body, water can reach your brain and activate it right before a meeting or other situation where you need to pay attention. Cold water, especially, will wake up your body to keep you alert.

—www.lifescript.com

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Photos show equipment on display at the Caterpillar Visitors Center in Peoria, Ill. Caterpillar Inc manufactures heavy equipment that bulldozes, digs, lifts and performs other tasks at construction and mining site. — AP photos

H

ere’s a place where the word caterpillar does not refer to fuzzy little insects. The new Caterpillar Visitors Center is all about the roaring black-and-yellow machines that dig and lift at massive construction and mining sites.

Caterpillar Inc, maker of the heavy machinery ranging from bulldozers and excavators to tunnel-boring machines and giant generators, is based in the central Illinois town of Peoria. The company opened a nearly 50,000-square-foot (4,645-squarefoot) visitors center last fall, investing more than $52 million dollars in the center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum nearby.

My wife was a little dubious about my plans for a family day trip to the Caterpillar center, but my 4year-old-son and I couldn’t wait. My parents tell me my first word was “book” and my second word was “truck.” I’ve been a big fan of both over the past four-plus decades. Now, with a little boy of my own, I had a perfect excuse to satisfy my mania for powerful engines, giant wheels, sturdy shovels and other nifty machines that dig, pound, push, flatten and otherwise manipulate materials in ways that seem beyond the strength of mere mortals. And I’m not alone: The center attracted 50,000 visitors within just four months of opening.

First thing you experience when you enter the center is a movie in a theater that’s built into the bed of a giant truck used for mining. At 24 feet (7 meters) tall, the 797 Mining Truck is the biggest in the industry. When loaded, this truck can carry well over a million pounds (over 450,000 kilograms).

The tops of the wheels are higher than an NBA basketball hoop.

The theater fits 62 people comfortably, and shows a short movie about Caterpillar, its products and some of the jobs that have used Cat equipment. The seats vibrate to the sound of a revving diesel engine and the action-packed movie really makes you feel like you’ve ridden in one of these behemoths.

After the movie, it’s time to hop into the cabs of an excavator, roller, bulldozer and a handful of other giant heavy vehicles. My son had to be pried out of a backhoe. I was doing the prying, since I wanted a chance at the controls.

The wide open main floor area teems with kids (and adults) grinning for photos while perched inside the giant buckets or scoops of the different vehicles. You don’t get to drive them around, of course, or actually cause the equipment to move.

But that doesn’t stop fans from having the time of their lives while playing with the controls and letting their imaginations do the digging.

All the while, the giant mining truck towers above.

Alongside all the black-and-yellow machines are four computer simulators where you can see what it’s like to drive an excavator or bulldozer, using the same controllers you would use in the real equipment. These simulators are used to train operators before they take out the pricey machines. I managed to damage the virtual pipeline I was trying to cover up.

Off the main floor, there are extensive exhibits about the company’s history, engineering innovations and environmental efforts. The displays are media-rich, with many monitors showing neat footage like molten steel being formed into engines.

One of the big surprises to me was Caterpillar’s attention to environmental sustainability. Engines are designed to be rebuilt and interchangeable.

The center has several displays showing how a

worn-out engine can be born anew with new steel fused to old and rebuilt parts added on.

Kathryn Spitznagle, the Caterpillar Visitors Center’s manager, says increasing its energy efficiency - both in its equipment and in this new facility - is a point of pride for the company. The Visitors Center was built with solar panels that supply up to 75 percent of its energy on a given day, mechanical and electrical systems that use 35 percent less energy than a similar-size building, and rain water retention and irrigation systems that reduce potable water usage by 85 percent. The innovations won the building an LEED gold certification, which is awarded by the US Green Building Council to buildings that meet certain standards for energy and environmental design.

Last stop at the center is the gift shop, where you can buy Cat clothes, model equipment, toys and other gifts featuring the familiar yellow-andblack design - though the company also offers items in pink and camo if you prefer. — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Rapper Chris Kelly dies aged 34

The casket for country music legend George Jones lies in the Grand Ole Opry House before his funeral yesterday. — AP

Music City mourns country legend George Jones T

housands of fans are expected to join some of country musicís biggest stars in mourning George Jones. The late country music superstarís funeral will be held Thursday morning at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. Jones died last week at 81. Former first lady Laura Bush will speak at the funeral along with friends and fellow country stars Barbara Mandrell and Kenny Chesney. Jones also will be serenaded by Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Tanya Tucker, Wynonna Judd, Charlie Daniels and Randy Travis, who were all scheduled perform at the public memorial with several others.

The funeral will be broadcast live on cable music television channels CMT and GAC and - in a nod to simpler times when Jones was at his biggest - on all local television networks. He was in the midst of a

farewell tour that was to have wrapped up with an all-star salute in November in Nashville. He postponed two performances two weeks ago and entered the hospital with a fever and irregular blood pressure.

Heíd been ill off and on over the previous year. Jonesí pure, matchless baritone defined the sound of country music for a half century and his death brought universal reaction from the music community and fans. Known for hits like ìWhoís Gonna Fill Their Shoes,î ìWhite Lightningî and ìHe Stopped Loving Her Today,î widely acknowledged as the greatest country song, Jones had No. 1s in four decades from the 1950s to the 1980s and ìPossumî remained a popular figure in Music City until his death.

Once married to Tammy Wynette, he was the living embodiment of the words ìcountry music starî at the height of his career and

continues to have broad influence on the genre, especially with artists who prefer traditional country to todayís pop- and rockinfluenced sounds. Jones also had his troubles as he battled substance abuse and money troubles, but always seemed to slide by with his sense of humor and knowing grin intact. He won a Grammy and two consecutive Country Music Association song of the year awards for ìHe Stopped Loving Her Today,î and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992.He was among the artists honored in Washington at the Kennedy Center in 2008. The Beaumont, Texas, native had been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1956, which makes the setting of Thursdayís ceremony all the more fitting. The Opry House holds more than 4,000 people and was expected to be filled beyond capacity. — AP

Jackson death doctor had huge debts, trial hears

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ichael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray was in dire financial straits when he was hired to care for the US superstar, a policeman testified Wednesday. Murray, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 over Jackson’s death, had tens of thousands of dollars in debts, including unpaid student loans, credit card bills and rent on his business, the policeman said at a trial over the late King of Pop’s 2009 death.

Jackson’s 82-year-old mother Katherine is suing tour promoter AEG Live over her son’s death, accusing it of negligently hiring Murray and ignoring signs that the singer was deeply unwell, in their pursuit of profits. Her lawyers say Murray’s financial woes made him willing to do whatever Jackson wanted-including giving him the drug that killed him-because he desperately needed the $150,000 monthly salary on offer.

Detective Orlando Martinez, who investigated Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009 — days before the tour was due to start-said Murray had debts in various places, including the US states of Nevada and Missouri, some of over $100,000.

“Does this substantiate your opinion that Dr Murray was in dire financial straits?” Katherine Jackson’s lawyer Brian Panish asked Martinez in the Los Angeles Superior Court, where the trial started Monday. “Yes,” replied Martinez. The 50-year-old

singer died from an overdose of powerful sedative and anesthetic propofol, administered by Murray to help the “Thriller” legend deal with chronic insomnia. At the time of his death, he was rehearsing for a series of 50 shows in London, organized with AEG, in an attempt to revive his career and ease his financial woes. In opening statements Monday, Katherine Jackson’s lawyer accused AEG of sacrificing the troubled star in a “ruthless” pursuit of profit in the months before his death.

But Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) lawyer Marvin Putnam argued the mega pop star had hidden the evidence of his addiction and health woes from everyone, including his family and the concert promoters. Putman also said Jackson was some $400 million dollars in debt when he approached AEG in 2008 with the idea of putting on the London shows, which were to be followed by a global tour and a possible Las Vegas residency.

On Tuesday the first witness at the trial, paramedic Richard Senneff, testified that Jackson looked emaciated and like someone at the end of a chronic illness when he arrived at the scene.

Wednesday’s court session was shortened because one member of the six-man, six-woman jury had to attend a family funeral. The trial continue yesterday, with detective Martinez due to take the stand again. —AFP

Chris Kelly of Kris Kross performs on stage at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta during the So So Def 20th Anniversary Concert. — AP photos

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apper Chris Kelly, who shot to fame as part of the 1990s duo Kriss Kross, has been found dead at his home in Atlanta, reports said yesterday. He was 34.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on its website that Kelly’s death was being treated as a possible drug overdose. The rapper-known by fans as “Mac Daddy”-was found unresponsive at his home on Wednesday and rushed to Atlanta Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled for yesterday.

Kelly partnered with Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith to form Kriss Kross in 1990. The duo’s best-known hit was 1992’s “Jump” which sold four million copies in the United States and topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts for eight weeks.

Kelly and Smith were known for wearing their clothes back-to-front, a quirk referenced by the singer’s mother Donna Kelly Pratte in a statement reported by several US media outlets early yesterday. “To millions of fans worldwide, he was the trendsetting, backwards pants-wearing one-half of Kris Kross who loved making music,” she said.

“But to us, he was just Chris-the kind, generous and funloving life of the party. Though he was only with us a short time, we feel blessed to have been able to share some incredible moments with him.” — AFP

Beyonce, JLo to headline London charity concert for women

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eyonce, Jennifer Lopez and Florence & The Machine are teaming up for a four-hour charity concert in London next month to benefit women’s health and education projects around the world. The “Sound of Change Live” concert on June 1 in London’s Twickenham sports stadium could fund at least 120 projects supporting girls and women in more than 70 nations, if all the tickets are sold, organizers said on Wednesday.

Organized by the Chime for Change campaign, founded by Italy fashion house Gucci, every ticket buyer will be able to choose which project their ticket will fund in what organizers said was a world first for such a venture. Beyonce, currently on a European tour, will play a 45-minute set. She will be joined in the venture by singer and dancer Lopez, R&B artist John Legend, British indie sensation Ellie Goulding and rapper Timbaland, with more performers still to be announced.

US actors James Franco, Blake Lively and Jada Pinkett Smith will be among the presenters. —Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Spice Girls musical ‘Viva Forever’ closing in June

“V

iva Forever”? Not as it turns out. Producers announced yesterday that the Spice Girls musical will close at London’s Piccadilly Theater June 29 after a disappointing six-month run. Producer Judy Craymer said despite tweaks since the show opened in December, “we just can’t make it work.” Written by “Absolutely Fabulous” comedian Jennifer Saunders, the show is a modern-day tale of female friendship and mother-daughter bonds set to songs by the 1990s “Girl Power” icons. It set out to take a timely satirical axe to our information-saturated age of Twitter and TV talent shows, but the critics were overwhelmingly hostile.

The Independent newspaper’s Paul Taylor called the show “lacking in any truly original or challenging spark,” while the Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer found it “tawdry, lazy and unedifying.” Others felt that aside from a few hits - “Wannabe,” “Stop,” “Who Do You Think You Are?” - the Spice

File photo shows from left, Mel B, Mel C, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham take the applause on stage at the curtain call for Viva Forever. — AP Girls’ catalogue was not strong enough to support a two-and-a-half hour

show. The five-member group, known for its brash attitude and “Cool

Britannia” branding, shot to fame in 1996 and sold 75 million records around the world. The Spice Girls still have many fans, but, 15 years later they were not enough to sustain a West End show.

Craymer, who produced the megahit ABBA musical “Mamma Mia,” said it was “with a heavy heart that we’ve had to make this very difficult decision to post closing notices for this original show.” “The show has evolved since we first opened and is now brighter, lighter and funnier, but despite the wonderful audiences and extremely positive feedback we just can’t make it work,” she said. Emma “Baby Spice” Bunton tweeted that she was “totally gutted” to learn the show was closing.

In a statement, the Spice Girls thanked the show’s cast and their fans.

“Although ‘Viva Forever’ won’t continue in the West End we are thrilled that the thousands of people who came to the show had as much fun as we did,” the statement said. — AP

Capsule reviews of new movie releases

‘Iron Man 3’ N

o matter how much of a scrap heap of metal-twisting mayhem the “Iron Man” franchise piles on (and it’s a lot), Robert Downey’s sheer charm - his unsentimental, offhand yammering is the real superpower in Marvel’s trilogy. The latest follows not just “Iron Man 2” but the box-office busting “The Avengers.” These global blockbusters are more produced than directed, but it’s nevertheless fitting that Shane Black (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” also with Downey) here inherits the helm from Jon Favreau, the director of the previous two. Black, with co-script writer Drew Pearce, squeezes in as much self-aware, winking wisecracks that give the film some zip. But in a fight between screwball irony and blockbuster bombast, the heavy-metal action unfortunately wins.

Downey’s billionaire Tony Stark (Iron Man) is pulled into a battle with the terrorist Mandarin (a bearded Ben Kingsley), who takes credit for a series of random bombings. Also in the bad guy mix is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), an inventor turned military contractor whom Stark haphazardly jilted back in his partying years. When helicopter missiles collapse Stark’s Malibu estate into the sea, he’s separated from his companion Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and forced to rebuild himself. The action is mostly cut too quickly to enjoy and the 3-D lends a disappointing darkening for what’s been a bright-hued franchise. With Don Cheadle, Rebecca Hall, James Badge Dale and an excellent Ty Simpkins as a mop-headed, fatherless boy who helps Stark. PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content. 130 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.-Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer ‘Love Is All You Need’ The message behind most romantic comedies is the simple-minded sentiment that love is all you need. So when Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (“In a Better World,” “After the Wedding”) takes that title for a departure from somber drama to romance, you might expect her to deliver it with some serious irony. Yet in Bier’s tale, it turns out love really is all you need. And like any old rom-com, it’s the justadd-water, instant mush variety of love that springs up between the unlikeliest of partners because, hey, you’re in the theater to see a love story. This is several steps above the usual Hollywood romance, with nice low-key passion between Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm as prospective in-laws who connect during chaotic preparations for their children’s wedding.

Bier and regular screenwriting partner Anders Thomas Jensen dress things up with gorgeous postcard images of Sorrento, Italy, lovely music, elegant production design and deeper complications and entanglements than we typically see in a screen fling. It’s still standard stuff, though: mostly predictable, mostly gooey and mostly unlike anything resembling our own clunky tales of amour. The film is gentle and good-hearted, but despite a few solemn themes of illness and infidelity, it never rises above slight and diverting. It’s refreshing to see Bier lighten up, yet disappointing she doesn’t find a way to go deeper than the conventional pleasantries explored here. R for brief sexuality, nudity and some language. 116 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four. — AP

This publicity photo released by courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics shows Pierce Brosnan as Philip and Trine Dyrholm as Ida in the film, ‘Love Is All You Need.’ —AP

Actress apologizes for ‘crazy’ comments to trooper

A

ctress Reese Witherspoon recalls that she panicked and said “crazy things” the night she was arrested in Atlanta on a disorderly conduct charge. During an interview on Good Morning America, Witherspoon repeatedly apologized for her behavior during the April 19 traffic stop. A police report states that Witherspoon asked a Georgia state trooper, “Do you know my name?” and added, “You’re about to find out who I am.”

In yesterday’s interview, the Oscarwinning actress said she has “no idea what I was saying that night.” She said she had “one too many” glasses of wine, and panicked after she and her husband were pulled over.

Witherspoon faces a May 22 court hearing. Her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, was charged with drunken driving and is due in court May 23. —AP

This image released by ABC news shows co-host George Stephanopoulos, left, interviewing actress Reese Witherspoon on ‘Good Morning America,’ yesterday in New York. — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Lock of baby s hair, first toothbreast ...

S

trands from baby’s first haircut. The first tooth. Tiny footprints sunk into clay.

Some parents even tuck away the dried stump of the umbilical cord or the stick pregnancy test as a touching memento marking the milestones of their kids. The latest? Breast milk jewelry. Few issues polarize mothers more than breast-feeding, and all things related to breast-feeding, so wearing processed breast milk around the neck or in a bracelet has ignited some passions.

The jewelry, on sale at the handmade marketplace Etsy, is definitely not for writer Ashley McCann, 34, in Naples, Fla. She nursed both her boys, 6 and 9, and loved it, but she feels some sort of gross-out line has been crossed.

“This is the most hilariously absurd trend in mommy A heart locket housing processed breast milk.

jewelry that I have ever heard about in my life,” she said. “I think it is just flat-out weird, to be honest.” In addition to finished jewelry, a search on Etsy produces sellers of breast milk soap and one offering a locket kit for the DIY inclined. A couple purveyors, both moms, said in interviews that they hit on the idea as they sought out unusual keepsakes of their special bonds with their babies during nursing. The two wouldn’t reveal their recipes for processing the milk, which is covered with a glaze or clear resin after it is plasticized or dehydrated, forming a clay-like substance that hardens over time when at least one method is used.

Prices range from $15 for the kit, which includes various locket designs, to $125 for a double pendant in copper bezels with a matching vintage chain. “What a wonderful way to preserve the ‘liquid gold’ that we are only able to make for a certain period of time,” reads the product description for the latter.

A necklace with a charm made of breast milk, one of the items jewelry designer Allicia Mogavero offers on the handmade marketplace site Etsy.

“This can be passed down for generations and what a fantastic gift to give to your child, the root of their survival.”

The passing-down notion prompted more than a few jokes on BabyCenter.com when the subject first came up innocently enough in January. A poster on the site, which has an average 11 million unique views a month, said she had heard of breast milk jewelry and wondered where she could find some, said Rebecca Michals, who manages the message boards. “It may not be for everyone,” Michals offers. “I think it’s a matter of opinion.”

Oh yes. Just as attachment parenting (wearing your child, the family bed) is a matter of opinion, or nursing in public, or those breast-feeding baby dolls of the holiday season last year. “I actually think it’s the attitude behind it,” McCann said as she tried to explain her disdain. Nursing, she said, “is one of my

fondest memories, and honestly I would get pregnant again to nurse another baby. But it was the relationship. There’s something about plasticizing breast milk, which is just food to nurse your baby, that almost seems like some sort of weird worship of nursing.”

Tell that to the 20 or so people who contact Allicia Mogavero each day about the breast milk jewelry she began selling in 2007, then mostly to friends. She put her designs on Etsy about a year ago and has sold about 200 pieces, including pendants, bracelets, lockets and beads of breast milk alone for people to do with what they wish.

She personalizes the jewelry with names in fancy script.

In all, she offers 36 items, using a five-step process to preserve a small amount of milk shipped to her as instructed. Working the milk takes about four weeks and the resin needs a week or two to dry, she said. Mogavero, 34, in Wakefield, R.I., said sales have picked up since the jewelry arose on BabyCenter, producing dozens of posts that seem evenly split between admirers and the repulsed.

“A lot of people are repelled by breastfeeding in general, as crazy as that is. And I think anything having to do with it is probably not anything that they like. It is a body fluid, so maybe that’s why people are somewhat against it,” mused Mogavero, who has shipped to the Philippines, England, Australia and Japan. Mogavero said she has had husbands steal breast milk out of the freezer to surprise their nursing wives with one of her creations.

She sells on Etsy as MommyMilk as she continues to nurse her third child, a 16-month-old girl. Brooke Becker in Summerville, SC, offers the breast milk kits on Etsy under the user name MilkMomBaby. “I think initially you tell some people about it and they say, ‘Oh, that’s gross,’” she said. “Breast milk is pretty personal.

Just sending that off to someone is a little bit of a leap for people.”

That’s why she decided to sell kits, including discreet lockets and a pill box design as vessels. She said she has sold about 48 kits

since October. “It’s something that moms do for themselves,” said Becker, 33. She has shipped jewelry to the United Kingdom and Asia. “It’s more for mothers who are nursing long term, not people who just nurse a couple of months.”

Victoria Cameron, 33, is nursing her 13month-old son and pursuing a master’s in social work in Minneapolis. She went on Etsy in search of mother’s jewelry when she stumbled on the breast milk sellers. She was the first to post about it on a BabyCenter board for bargain hunters. The quick-fire reaction surprised her. “At the same time people were talking about getting cremation remains made into a diamond or a rock, and that was, like, super meaningful, and then people were just like, ‘Oh this breast milk thing is crazy.’ It was very odd,” she said.

The debate has since spread on parenting blogs and social media. In Belleville, NJ, Sharon Valcarcel, 32, nurses her 11-month-old daughter in the evenings after she returns from her job as a high school psychologist. She heard about the jewelry from a friend and thought it was “kind of gross.” —AP

Inter-Korean marriage agent takes on a niche market

T

hese should be tough times for North-South Korean matchmaking, but Hong Seung-Soo says the search for the right husband or wife outtrumps all other considerations-even threats of nuclear war. “None of my clients really care about the threats, or the political situation between the two Koreas. The most pressing issue in their lives is getting married,” Hong says. Korean culture has a long, established tradition of marriage broking, stretching from traditional neighborhood matchmakers to dedicated internet sites.

Few are involved in the specialized market that Hong’s agency caters for. When the newly-divorced Hong re-entered the Seoul dating scene in 2006, he ended up meeting and-much to his surprise-eventually marrying a North Korean defector. “We met at a date arranged by a mutual friend, and I remember thinking, what if she was a communist spy?” Hong told AFP. It turned out she wasn’t and, seven year later, Hong is not only still happily married but has helped to match around 400 South Korean men with brides from the North.

He started off arranging dates between men he knew and defector friends of his wife, before setting himself up as a professional matchmaker. Inter-Korean marriage is about as niche as niche markets can get. Sixty years after

the end of the Korean War, the two Koreas remain technically at war and cross-border contact between ordinary people in the South and North is essentially non-existent. Permanent low-level tensions between the two countries frequently escalate to dangerously high levels.

The current crisis, which grew out of the North’s nuclear test in February, has been marked by angry warnings on both sides, with the North’s bellicose rhetoric including threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

But Hong’s business keeps ticking over regardless.

“No matter what the North says, I just focus on my job, which is finding love for these men and women,” he said.

In reality, the marriages Hong helps broker are probably more founded in pragmatism than romance-on both sides. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, some 25,000 North Koreans have escaped home-most after a deadly famine in the mid-90s-and settled in the South.

About 70 percent are women: a gender discrepancy attributed to stricter controls on the activities of North Korean men that make it harder for them to flee.

Life in the modern, capitalist, hyper-competitive South can be extremely tough for such women, who generally lack marketable skills and are widely discriminated against. With assimilation such a challenge, many look to marriage as a way forward. “I wouldn’t recom-

File photo shows Hong Seung-Woo posing with his wife who defected from North Korea during a trip to Manripo beach in Taean county. —AFP mend marrying another defector if you really want to start a brand new life in the South,” said Choi Hae-In, who fled Pyongyang in 2009 and married a South Korean man a year later. “You can learn things a lot faster and adapt to the new world faster by marrying a southerner,” Choi said, adding most of her defector friends had ended up with South Korean husbands. —AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

The 16.5-metre-tall inflatable Rubber Duck art installation is seen at the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong yesterday. —AFP photos

Giant rubber duck sails into Hong Kong

Top of the bill:

A

n inflatable bright yellow rubber duck six storeys high sailed into Hong Kong harbor yesterday to the cheers of hundreds of people who gathered to watch the classic bath time-inspired artistic creation. The 16.5-metre-tall (54-feet) artwork, conceived by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, dwarfed other craft as it was towed past the city’s iconic skyline by a tugboat a fraction of its size. Since 2007 the duck has travelled to 13 different cities in nine countries ranging from Brazil to Australia in its journey around the world.

Peggy Shieh, 28, made a special trip from Taiwan to see the duck after she learned about it on Facebook. “It takes me back to my childhood memories,” she said. People began queuing from as early as 6 am for a chance to buy a miniature replica. Kathy Cheung, who was second in line, took half a day off work to ensure she got her piece of art history. “I think it’s the first and last time I will see a rubber duck in Hong Kong. It

Dancers perform during a welcoming ceremony of a giant Rubber Duck.

Visitors attend a welcoming ceremony of a giant Rubber Duck.

has a message for peace but for me it’s just fun,” she said.

Hofman said he hopes the duck, which will stay till June 9, will act as a “catalyst” for connecting people to public art.

“It’s about connecting people... don’t take life for granted, your urban space for granted. You walk every day the same route to work, but look and stop going too fast,” he said. The duck has already proved a welcome distraction from the everyday routine of city life, with office workers pressing up against skyscraper windows to take pictures. Twitter and Facebook feeds hailed its arrival, brightening the gloomy weather.

“So there’s a duck in HK harbour...a really really big duck!”, said Twitter user JasonGirard. The southern Chinese city is also exhibiting a land-based collection of inflatable art, including a larger-than-life upside-down cockroach, close to where the rubber duck is moored — AFP

A giant Rubber Duck created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is towed along Hong Kong’s Victoria Habour.

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

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24814764

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22515088

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Bayan

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SHARQIA-1 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG)

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

SHARQIA-2 TAD, THE LOST EXPLORER (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) SPIDERS (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D)

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 5:00 PM 7:00 PM 9:30 PM 12:05 AM

SHARQIA-3 OBLIVION (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG)

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MUHALAB-1 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG)

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MUHALAB-2 THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG)

2:00 PM 4:00 PM 4:00 PM 7:00 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 PM

MUHALAB-3 IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) TAD, THE LOST EXPLORER (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D)

12:30 PM 3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:30 PM 10:00 PM

FANAR-1 THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG)

1:30 PM 3:30 PM 6:00 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:05 AM

FANAR-2 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 12:45 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 2:30 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 4:15 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 6:15 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 8:00 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 9:45 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 11:45 PM FANAR-3 THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (DIG)

2:00 PM 4:30 PM 6:30 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:30 AM

MARINA-1 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG)

1:30 PM

1889988

KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (02/05/2013 TO 08/05/2013) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 3:30 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 5:15 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 7:15 PM WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) 9:00 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 11:00 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 12:45 AM MARINA-2 THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG)

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

MARINA-3 TAD, THE LOST EXPLORER (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D)

2:00 PM 4:00 PM 6:30 PM 9:00 PM 11:45 PM

AVENUES-1 WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG)

1:15 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

AVENUES-2 OBLIVION (DIG) 12:45 PM OBLIVION (DIG) 3:15 PM OBLIVION (DIG) 5:45 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 8:15 PM OBLIVION (DIG) 10:30 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 1:15 AM AVENUES-3 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG)

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

360º 1 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) NO TELL MOTEL (DIG)

1:15 PM 3:15 PM 5:15 PM 7:15 PM 9:15 PM 11:15 PM 1:15 AM

360º 2 FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG) FIRE WITH FIRE (DIG)

2:30 PM 4:45 PM 7:00 PM 9:15 PM 11:30 PM

360º 3 EMPEROR (DIG) EMPEROR (DIG) EMPEROR (DIG) EMPEROR (DIG) EMPEROR (DIG) EMPEROR (DIG)

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

AL-KOUT.1 TAD, THE LOST EXPLORER (DIG-3D) 1:00 PM SPIDERS (DIG-3D) 3:00 PM

IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

5:00 PM 7:30 PM 10:00 PM 12:30 AM

AL-KOUT.2 NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 12:45 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 2:45 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 4:45 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 6:30 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 8:30 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 10:15 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 12:15 AM NO SUN+ TUE+WED AL-KOUT.3 OBLIVION (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG)

1:45 PM 4:15 PM 6:15 PM 8:45 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

BAIRAQ-1 IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D) IRON MAN 3 (DIG-3D)

1:30 PM 4:00 PM 6:30 PM 9:15 PM 12:05 AM

BAIRAQ-2 WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) 12:45 PM THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (DIG) 3:00 PM WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) 5:15 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 7:30 PM WINTER OF DISCONTENT (DIG) 9:30 PM NO TELL MOTEL (DIG) 11:30 PM BAIRAQ-3 THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) OBLIVION (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) THE CALL (DIG) PLAZA SHADOW (DIG) (TELUGU) SHADOW (DIG) (TELUGU) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) NO THU GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) LAILA IRON MAN 3 (DIG) NO MON+TUE+WED IRON MAN 3 (DIG) NO MON+TUE+WED IRON MAN 3 (DIG) NO MON+TUE+WED AJIAL.1 SHADOW (DIG) (TELUGU) SHADOW (DIG) (TELUGU) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU) GREEKU VEERUDU (DIG) (TELUGU)

1:45 PM 3:45 PM 5:45 PM 8:15 PM 10:30 PM 12:30 AM 7:00 PM 10:00 PM 4:00 PM 7:00 PM 10:00 PM 5:45 PM 8:15 PM 10:45 PM

6:45 PM 9:45 PM 3:45 PM 6:45 PM 9:45 PM

39 Pe t s

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

No pet rule brings out the fangs The dogfight between South Florida pet owners, condo associations

S

teve Vincent lives in a pet-free condo in Miami Beach. Fla. The bylaws clearly say so. No one who purchases a unit there can credibly claim otherwise. And yet the Bay Garden Manor Condominium on West Avenue has its share of dogs. A loophole the size of an English sheepdog allows condo owners to keep pets, regardless of the association rules, if they can get them classified as “emotional support animals.” It can be as simple as convincing a physician, a psychiatrist, a social worker or mental health professional to sign a letter saying the animal provides needed emotional support.

“It’s almost an epidemic here at the Beach,” said George Zamora, a property manager for Regatta Real Estate Management, a company that manages 93 condominium associations in Miami-Dade County. Pet-friendly websites also sell emotional support credentials of sometimes dubious value. “It’s highly suspect when people start asking whether or not they can have a pet,” Zamora said, “and all of a sudden, they show up and say they need emotional support. If you legitimately have an issue, you don’t ask.”

Marcela Alvarez, 45, lived in Bay Garden Manor for 14 years with her husband until they divorced in 2012. Unaccustomed to living by herself, she felt emotionally isolated. Her chiropractor suggested she get a pet, so she got Pelusa, now a 1-year-old Jack Russell. But she needed the letter, so she went to the Miami Beach Community Health Center and talked to Dr. Marco Fiore, an endocrinologist.

“When she told me that story, I told her she could see a psychologist, but she said, ‘No, all I need is a letter,’”. said Fiore. “I thought, ‘Oh why not? If you think that’s important to you, then that’s fine with me.’ I grew up with dogs, so for me it was just common sense.” Alvarez walked out the clinic with a letter saying, “She may benefit to have a dog for companionship.” That was enough for her to bring Pelusa into the building.

The loosy-goosy implementation of the rules is no small deal to Vincent. The 49-yearold recently had a kidney transplant and has been told that avoiding fur is a medical imperative. “You come in the elevator and they let your dog sniff you up,” he said. Paul J. Milberg, an attorney for Katzman Garfinkel & Berger, said, “It’s so easy now that everyone is hearing about it. I have board directors calling me all the time. There are people who dislike animals and move to a no-pet community, and now, all of a sudden here is this person with a dog out of the blue.”

He recently conducted a seminar about how to deal with the requests for emotional support animals during the South Florida Condo & HOA Expo. About 50 property managers attended his lecture. He explained what type of questions they can ask, what documentation are needed to verify legitimacy and what methods they can take to protect themselves if they have to grant an accommodation. Emotional support dogs are not to be confused with service dogs, such as seeing-eye canines. The former are covered by the Fair Housing Act, while the latter are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Russell Hartstein is the owner of Fun Paw Care, a company that trains emotional support animals as well as service dogs. Every week, he receives calls from people asking him to train their dogs or provide some type of certification. “When I start digging a little deeper, I usu-

Marcela Alvarez lives in a high-rise condominium on Miami Beach, with her Jack Russell terrier, Pelusa, who is considered an emotional support animal. —MCT photos ally find out that they are not disabled at all,” Hartstein said of those who come to him.

“Eight out of 10 times, it comes down to someone looking just to buy pets to live in these buildings with no-pet rules or just to bring in the airplanes inappropriately. Of course we don’t serve these clients,” Hartstein said. Dog trainer Rose Lesniak has seen the same thing play out. She constantly receives calls, and said she can tell right away if a person doesn’t have a real emotional need.

“They have no clue what they are doing,” she said. “All they want is a letter from me saying their dog is certified and I tell them that’s not the way it works.” When pet-owners can’t find help with trainers or doctors, the next step is sometimes online. Eager to fill in the void are websites like freemypaws.com, registermyserviceanimal.com and nsarco.com. They sell service animal ID cards, certification cards, tags and patches for less for than $100. The buyer needs only to check the boxes confirming they have a condition and their animal is trained.

An organization called Citizens for Pets in Condos is lobbying for a bill that would allow a community to change its bylaws if 51 percent of unit owners voted to allow pets. Currently a three-quarters vote is needed. Maida Genser, 70, founder and president of the group, has two cats, Priya and Spike, that help her go to sleep. She could not imagine living without them.

“Emotional support animals provide the support just by being there,” she said. “If you hold a purring cat, or pet a dog, or watch your dog rolling over, wagging his tale, that can help someone emotionally. “There’s no way your pet in your apartment is going to bother somebody else,” Genser said. Tell that to Steve Vincent, the kidney transplant patient who finds it increasingly more difficult to stay clear of animal fur. “I’m all for everybody being happy and living a healthy life,” he said, “but you can’t do that at other people’s expense.” —MCT

Chris Stein, 47, of Coral Gables, who has cerebral palsy, is accompanied everywhere by Morgan, his 13-year-old service dog, including this Starbucks on Lincoln Road Mall in Miami Beach.

Stars

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Mixed emotions may be the flavor of the day, and trying to sort them out verbally can be a confusing and ultimately unsatisfying process. Half an explanation is better than exhausting dissection of raw nerves, so patch things up as best you can and let circumstances take care of the rest. Issues now are your home, personal life, and closest emotional relationships. You feel more quiet and reflective, and you feel a need to be closer to home and to loved ones. You can draw a lot of strength and satisfaction from your family and loved ones now. You are more emotional and introspective than usual.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You don’t want to follow anybody else’s lead at this time, but fortunately you are able find ways to be yourself and even be a little “crazy” without offending or upsetting others. This is a dynamic and exciting period. Take advantage of any unusual offers or opportunities. The emotional energies are a bit on the cool side today and if you encounter the cold shoulder, don’t be surprised. Take a tentative step in the direction you want to test it out before you take a big leap and end up way over your head in a long fall. People taking themselves too seriously could also interfere with your goals, so try not to be one of them.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Within reason, do what you have to do to get the recognition and rewards you deserve regarding a work situation. A family issue is finally smoothed over, thanks to a younger family member. A household addition is very welcome and something you will appreciate for a long time to come. There are opportunities for deep sharing, and powerful, meaningful contacts with others, especially someone who shares common goals or ideals. Take the time today to have some deep discussion about what you want from a relationship.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Money may be a problem for you at this time. You can trade your way out of a difficulty or borrow money. The latter is not advisable right now as you’ll be tempted to clock up those debts, add more zeros to your credit card and ultimately find yourself cornered by your inability to meet those repayments. Think about strategies for increasing your income and working your way out of this yourself without borrowing any more. new romance or a revitalization of a current one is very likely about this time. The unexpected pleasures of new friends, or a adventurous attitude in your relationships make this time period stimulating. You want a break from your usual routine and in doing so could experience a refreshing change of pace.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Don’t let yourself be coerced or victimized by people who want to harass you. You might encounter someone who is acting more like a salesperson rather than a friend and trying to get you to think their way or act along their lines of misbehavior. Hold your ground and you’ll feel better for it. Warning signals are in the air today, and trying to get the final word on anything will be virtually impossible, and no matter how right you feel in your side of an argument any loose ends turn up that won’t be silenced. Try to keep your words positive, but leave the last word for later.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) This is a time to take in information which can be of real practical assistance to you in reaching a significant long-range goal.

Some news may reach you which will create some minor distress and compel you to re-examine or reassess a position you have taken regarding your career or work in the world. Don’t try to force issues or come to any definite conclusions now and don’t sign any contracts. If you are involved in a love relationship then a deepening of the relationship is likely at this time. You gain an even greater appreciation of each other, and you respect each other more than ever. Mutual understandings and cooperation on issues of importance make you feel very close and even more loving.

Libra (September 23-October 22) You may want a break from the predictability of your usual routine and methods. You’re in the mood to experiment and to learn something new. Offbeat or original ideas excite you and you will seek people who can offer you a different way of looking at things. Discovery, inventiveness, and spontaneity are major themes now. You feel tender and gentle toward others, and you want to please or to be of service to them in some way. Some selfless generosity or an effort on behalf of someone in need will make you feel very happy now. You may just enjoy a good movie or book or feel like escaping from the days realities for a while with a romantic interest. You can appreciate an imaginative approach and may value communal or futuristic ideas.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Your friendly concern for others and your willingness to meet people half way benefits your career, reputation, or public image at this time. This is a favorable time to socialize with people you have professional ties with, as the positive feelings you generate now are likely to be an aid to you in the future. Emotional intensity is very appealing to you now. Relationships can deepen and grow as well as penetrate to a very personal level. This process is sometimes initiated by you and sometimes initiated by the other person, but in either case it leads to a much deeper understanding and bond between you.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You have a special magnetism and attractive power now, and you are feeling intensely loving also. Your relationships, particularly sexual or romantic ones, intensify and have a deep, compelling, urgent quality. Your inner feelings and needs for love and closeness emerge very strongly. You may also channel some of these feelings into creative or artistic, work, something that evokes and expresses your deepest self. You could be powerfully attracted, emotionally and sexually, to someone you encounter at this time, and any romantic involvements you currently have are intensified. Expect fireworks! Also, your relationships can become tempestuous, especially if your partner is not as responsive or amorous as you would like. Time to express yourself, but don’t be harsh about it.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

You are in a positive state of mind today, filled with optimism and a hopeful outlook. Your inspirational attitude is likely to draw admiration from others and increase your chances for social contacts, business advancement, or a new romance. Take advantage of all opportunities and channel them into constructive possibilities. It is easy for you to talk about your feelings now, and also to listen sensitively to not only what others are saying but also what they are feeling. This is an excellent time to discuss your feelings and clear the air on any grievances you may be holding on to from the past. Your communication with your partner is especially good at this time.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You feel inclined to speak to others about your innermost feelings, your past, and other personal subjects, which builds closeness and trust in your relationships, especially with women. You are also a sympathetic listener, drawing out others’ feelings and personal experiences. You may hear from someone from the past or reach out to someone you have a long history with or who was once very important in your life. Right now you may say the things you usually only think because you speak your mind without much thought, tact, or consideration of consequences., especially to people you disagree with. Unless you slow down a bit, this time period can be quite a headache and cause problems that last beyond the day. Verbal battles, disputes, and heated debates are very likely at this time.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

You do not feel very sharp, competitive, or aggressive at this time. Feelings of relaxation, receptivity, passivity, or aimlessness are likely and you tend to avoid stressful confrontations or situations that demand too much of you. Goals and desires that normally seem so important - especially ones in which you are pushing your own interests - do not matter quite as much now. Your enthusiasm and inner drive for living are very high now. This is a positive time when you express your feelings openly, you feel alive and interested in the world about you, and your love relationships are exciting and harmonious.

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

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

Stars

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 1 7 8

ACROSS 1. The bill in a restaurant.

4. Consent reluctantly.

11. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

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

16. Absence of the sense of smell (as by damage to olfactory nasal tissue or the olfactory nerve or by obstruction of the nasal passages).

17. Advanced in years.

18. Hungarian choreographer who developed Labanotation (1879-1958).

20. A compartment in a stable where a single animal is confined and fed.

21. Profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger.

22. A person who lacks confidence, is irresolute and wishy-washy.

24. Experiencing a sudden sense of danger.

26. Extremely pleasing.

28. Type genus of the Gavidae.

29. A village in eastern Ireland (northwest of Dublin).

36. An Asian river between China and Russia.

37. An independent state within the British Commonwealth located on the Fiji Islands.

38. An annual award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievements in motion picture production and performance.

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

42. (of molten metal or glass) Formed by pouring or pressing into a mold n 1.

44. (law) A comprehensive term for any proceeding in a court of law whereby an individual seeks a legal remedy.

45. In bed.

48. Imperial dynasty that ruled China (most of the time) from 206 BC to 221 and expanded its boundaries and developed its bureaucracy.

50. (linguistics) Relating to the ablative case.

52. Issue or terminate (in a specified way, state, etc.).

56. A room or establishment where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter.

57. United States choreographer noted for his use of African elements (born in 1931).

59. A woman hired to suckle a child of someone else.

62. The side of an object that is opposite its front.

65. Favoring one person or side over another.

69. Used of persons.

72. An amino acid that is found in the central nervous system.

73. A human female who does housework.

74. Wheelwork consisting of a connected set of rotating gears by which force is transmitted or motion or torque is changed.

77. A former monetary unit in Great Britain.

78. A cap with a flat circular top and a visor.

79. Give an education to.

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

6. Enjoying or affording comforting warmth and shelter especially in a small space.

7. Standard time in the 6th time zone west of Greenwich, reckoned at the 90th meridian.

8. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

9. Distance measured in miles.

10. A narrative song with a recurrent refrain.

11. The Oceanic language spoken by the Maori people in New Zealand.

12. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

13. An elaborate party (often outdoors).

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

19. A capacitance unit equal to one billion farads.

23. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun.

25. The eleventh month of the civil year.

27. The seventh month of the Moslem calendar.

30. Pertaining to or resembling amoebae.

31. Prolific Flemish baroque painter.

32. A tax on employees and employers that is used to fund the Social Security system.

33. Remove from the bar.

34. Any of several plants of the genus Manihot having fleshy roots yielding a nutritious starch.

35. Either of a pair of thick-walled tubes that carry urine from the kidney to the urinary bladder.

39. Singing jazz.

40. A member of an American Indian peoples of NE South America and the Lesser Antilles.

43. The inner and thicker of the two bones of the human leg between the knee and ankle.

46. An intensely radioactive metallic element that occurs in minute amounts in uranium ores.

47. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

49. The form of theological rationalism that believes in God on the basis of reason without reference to revelation.

51. Softly bright or radiant.

53. Medium-sized tree-dwelling monkey of the Amazon basin.

54. (geology) Deposited or arranged in horizontal layers.

55. The organ of sight (`peeper' is an informal term for `eye').

58. Owing or owed feudal allegiance and service.

60. The branch of computer science that deal with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively.

61. An ugly evil-looking old woman.

63. United States tennis player who was the first Black to win United States and English singles championships (1943-1993).

64. A boy or man.

66. A island in the Netherlands Antilles that is the top of an extinct volcano.

67. Very dark black.

68. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

70. Electrical conduction through a gas in an applied electric field.

71. An independent agency of the United States government responsible for collecting and coordinating intelligence and counterintelligence activities abroad in the national interest.

75. A soft yellow malleable ductile (trivalent and univalent) metallic element.

76. A brittle gray crystalline element that is a semiconducting metalloid (resembling silicon) used in transistors.

Yesterdayʼs Solution

DOWN 1. A fine grained mineral having a soft soapy feel and consisting of hydrated magnesium silicate.

2. Any culture medium that uses agar as the gelling agent.

3. Being or befitting or characteristic of an infant.

4. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

5. An organization of independent states to promote international peace and security.

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Nationals blank Braves ATLANTA: Jordan Zimmermann turned in another dominant performance, allowing two hits over eight innings, and Ian Desmond hit a two-run homer in the fourth as the Washington Nationals finally beat the Atlanta Braves, 2-0 Wednesday.

The Braves had won five in a row this season over their NL East rival, and nine straight dating to last season. Zimmermann (5-1) made sure that streak ended with another dominating performance, snapping a threegame losing streak that had knocked the Nationals under .500.

Atlanta starter Paul Maholm (3-3) nearly matched Zimmermann. He allowed only three hits in eight innings, retiring the last 13 batters he faced.

But Desmond provided all the runs that Washington needed, homering to left-center on a 1-1 pitch in the fourth after Bryce Harper led off with a walk.

PIRATES 6, BREWERS 4 In Milwaukee, Starling Marte hit a tying two-run homer in the eighth inning and Brandon Inge had a go-ahead RBI single to rally Pittsburgh to a victory over Milwaukee, snapping the Pirates’ nine-game losing streak against the Brewers.

Pedro Alvarez added a run-scoring single to cap a four-run eighth as Pittsburgh won for the 10th time in its last 15 games and ended Milwaukee’s eight-game home winning streak. Bryan Morris (1-1) got the last two outs of the seventh for his first career victory. Mark Melancon pitched the eighth and Jason Grilli the ninth for his 11th save.

John Axford (0-3) gave up all four runs while getting just two outs in the eighth for the Brewers.

CARDINALS 4, REDS 2 In St. Louis, Lance Lynn won his 10th straight decision, allowing one run and five hits in seven innings to lead the Cardinals over the Reds. Lynn (5-0) struck out five and walked two, improving to 10-0 in 10 starts and one relief appearing since losing to Milwaukee on Sept. 7.

It’s the second straight quick start for Lynn, who was 6-0 with a 1.48 ERA through May 7 last season, then went 12-7 with a 4.46 ERA the rest of the way.

METS 7, MARLINS 6 In Miami, Jordany Valdespin hit a threerun, pinch-homer as the Mets rallied to break a six-game losing streak and avert a series sweep, beating the Marlins.

The Mets’ dormant offense finally came alive after they fell behind 4-1. Valdespin put New York ahead to stay in the sixth inning with his second homer, and NL RBIs leader John Buck added a two-run double in the seventh.

Buck and David Wright each had three of New York’s 13 hits. Wright hit his third homer for the Mets, who totaled only 11 runs during their losing streak.

CUBS 6, PADRES 2 In Chicago, Scott Feldman retired 18 straight on his way to his first career complete game and the Cubs took advantage of former No. 1 pick Andrew Cashner’s wildness in a 6-2 win over the Padres.

Feldman (2-3) earned his second straight win, allowing two runs and three hits while walking one. After Chase Headley singled with two outs in the first, Feldman retired the next 18 batters.

Feldman had 12 strikeouts to set a new career high. He also had an RBI double in the second to give the Cubs a 2-0 lead. Starlin Castro was 2 for 4 with two runs scored for the Cubs.

Cashner, making his first start against the team that made him its No. 1 pick in 2008,

ATLANTA: Jordan Zimmermann No. 27 of the Washington Nationals pitches in the fifth inning to the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field. — AFP lasted four innings and gave up five runs, four earned.

GIANTS 9, DIAMONDBACKS 6 In Phoenix, Brandon Belt hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning and the San Francisco Giants rallied against Arizona’s bullpen for the third straight game, beating the Diamondbacks to complete a three-game sweep. Belt hit a two-run single off Brad Ziegler in the opener and Pablo Sandoval hit a two-run homer off Arizona closer J.J. Putz on Tuesday. Belt finished off the series of comebacks with his homer off David Hernandez (12), giving San Francisco its first road sweep over the Diamondbacks since July 22-25, 2010.

Angel Pagan led off the game with a homer, Hunter Pence added a 460-foot solo shot and George Kontos (2-1) pitched 1 2-3 innings after starter Tim Lincecum struggled.

Sergio Romo extended his scoreless streak

against Arizona to 27 innings in the ninth for his 11th save. Chad Pennington homered and matched a career-high with four RBIs for the Diamondbacks.

ROCKIES 7, DODGERS 3 In Los Angeles, Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez each hit two-run doubles, and center fielder Dexter Fowler robbed Adrian Gonzalez of what would have been his second home run of the game, leading the Rockies to a victory over the Dodgers.

Reliever Josh Outman (1-0) got credit for the victory in the rubber game of the series, allowing one hit over two scoreless innings.

Josh Beckett (0-4) gave up five runs and five hits in four innings before he was lifted for a pinch-hitter. It’s the first time in Beckett’s 13year career that the three-time All-Star and 2003 World Series MVP has gone winless in his first six starts. —AP

MLB results/standings NY Mets 7, Miami 6; Minnesota 6, Detroit 2; Pittsburgh 6, Milwaukee 4; St. Louis 4, Cincinnati 2; LA Angels 5, Oakland 4; Cleveland 6, Philadelphia 0; NY Yankees 5, Houston 4; Boston 10, Toronto 1; Washington 2, Atlanta 0; Chicago White Sox 5, Texas 2; Chicago Cubs 6, San Diego 2; Kansas City 9, Tampa Bay 8; Arizona 9, San Francisco 6; Seattle 8, Baltimore 3; Colorado 7, LA Dodgers 3.

American League National League Eastern Division Eastern Division W L PCT GB Atlanta 17 10 .630 Boston 19 8 .704 Washington 14 14 .500 3.5 NY Yankees 17 10 .630 2 Philadelphia 12 16 .429 5.5 Baltimore 16 12 .571 3.5 NY Mets 11 15 .423 5.5 Tampa Bay 12 15 .444 7 Miami 8 20 .286 9.5 Toronto 10 18 .357 9.5 Central Division Central Division St. Louis 16 11 .593 Kansas City 15 10 .600 Pittsburgh 16 12 .571 0.5 Detroit 15 11 .577 0.5 Milwaukee 14 12 .538 1.5 Minnesota 12 12 .500 2.5 Cincinnati 15 14 .517 2 Cleveland 12 13 .480 3 Chicago Cubs 11 16 .407 5 Chicago W Sox 11 15 .423 4.5 Western Division Western Division Colorado 17 11 .607 Texas 17 10 .630 San Francisco 16 12 .571 1 Oakland 16 13 .552 2 Arizona 15 13 .536 2 Seattle 13 17 .433 5.5 LA Dodgers 13 14 .481 3.5 LA Angels 10 17 .370 7 San Diego 10 17 .370 6.5 Houston 8 20 .286 9.5

Red Sox rout Blue Jays TORONTO: Clay Buchholz pitched seven shutout innings to earn his major league-leading sixth win and Mike Napoli hit two of Boston’s five home runs as the Red Sox routed the Toronto Blue Jays 10-1 on Wednesday. Stephen Drew hit a two-run shot in the second inning and Napoli went back-to-back with Daniel Nava in the fourth as the Red Sox won their majors-best 19th game.

Napoli hit a solo shot in the fourth, followed that with a threerun shot in the seventh and also doubled in the ninth. He now has six homers and leads the majors with 21 extra-base hits. Buchholz (6-0) allowed two hits, walked three and struck out eight, improving to 7-0 in his past eight starts at Toronto. The right-hander lowered his ERA to an AL-best 1.01.

Blue Jays left-hander Mark Buehrle (1-2) surrendered three home runs for the second straight start and has allowed nine home runs in six starts this season for the Blue Jays, who have lost seven of their last nine games. Buehrle gave up five runs and seven hits in 6 2-3 innings.

WHITE SOX 5, RANGERS 2 In Arlington, Conor Gillaspie and Alejandro De Aza homered in the seventh inning and Chicago ended a three-game losing streak with a win over Texas. Chris Sale (3-2) settled down after a rough second inning to make it through seven. The left-hander struck out seven and walked two. Texas managed only two runs in the second despite a homer, three singles and a walk. Sale then faced only one batter over the minimum 15 the next five innings.

Gillaspie’s homer leading off the seventh against rookie Nick Tepesch (2-2) broke a 2-all tie. Tyler Flowers snapped an 0-for-17 slide with a single before De Aza’s fifth homer of the season.

ANGELS 5, ATHLETICS 4 In Oakland, Mark Trumbo went deep for the third consecutive day, and Howie Kendrick and Mike Trout also homered as Los Angeles beat Oakland to end a four-game losing streak.

CJ Wilson (3-0) remained undefeated despite a season-high five walks. He allowed two runs on six hits in 6 1-3 innings. Wilson struck out five and stranded six runners in scoring position. Josh Donaldson, Nate Freiman and Luke Montz each had an RBI double for the A’s, who had a three-game winning streak snapped. Adam Rosales also drove in a run. Tommy Milone (3-3) gave up four runs on seven hits over seven innings. He did not walk a batter and matched his career high with 10 strikeouts. Milone has lost three consecutive starts.

YANKEES 5, ASTROS 4 In New York, Robinson Cano homered and Eduardo Nunez scored the tiebreaking run after a sixth-inning double to send New York past Houston. Ben Francisco hit his first home run for New York and three relievers supplied spotless work after fill-in starter David Phelps wasted a four-run lead.

With the score tied 4-all, Nunez doubled down the left-field line against Paul Clemens (1-1) to begin the sixth. Nunez advanced on a wild pitch and, with one out and runners at the corners, Wesley Wright was brought in to face Ichiro Suzuki, who put the Yankees ahead with a groundout. Boone Logan (2-1) got the win and Mariano Rivera closed for his 11th consecutive save.

WHITE SOX 5, RANGERS 2 In Arlington, Conor Gillaspie and Alejandro De Aza homered in the seventh inning and Chicago ended a three-game losing streak with a win over Texas. Chris Sale (3-2) settled down after a rough second inning to make it through seven. The left-hander struck out seven and walked two. Texas managed only two runs in the second despite a homer, three singles and a walk. Sale then faced only one batter over the minimum 15 the next five innings. Gillaspie’s homer leading off the seventh against rookie Nick Tepesch (2-2) broke a 2-all tie. Tyler Flowers snapped an 0-for-17 slide with a single before De Aza’s fifth homer of the season.

TWINS 6, TIGERS 2 In Detroit, Scott Diamond pitched six solid innings as Minnesota got to Anibal Sanchez early in a win over Detroit that snapped the Tigers’ five-game winning streak. Sanchez (3-2) was coming off a 17-strikeout performance against Atlanta, and he fanned five in the first two innings against the Twins - but Minnesota scored two runs in the first and another in the second.

Diamond (2-2) didn’t allow a hit until Jhonny Peralta’s single in the fifth. The Tigers fought back after trailing 3-0, but reliever Bruce Rondon allowed two more runs in the seventh to make it 5-2.

Chris Parmelee hit a solo homer in the eighth. Diamond allowed two runs and four hits and was pulled after 88 pitches.

INTERLEAGUE INDIANS 6, PHILLIES 0 In Cleveland, Ryan Raburn tied a career high with four hits and Trevor Bauer allowed one hit in five strong innings for his first AL win as Cleveland beat Philadelphia.

Raburn drove in two runs with a single in the third and a double in the fifth. He has 12 hits in his last 14 at-bats, totaling four homers, nine RBIs and five runs scored in the last four games.

The Indians have won a season-high four straight, outscoring their opponents 39-5 in that span. Bauer (1-1), called up from Triple-A Columbus before the game, walked six while striking out five and combined with four relievers for the shutout. Cliff Lee (22) allowed five runs in six innings for the Phillies. —AP

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Wiggins, doping case in spotlight as Giro starts NAPLES: Bradley Wiggins’ attempt to pull off the rare Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double begins tomorrow when the Italian classic starts in Naples with doping still clouding the sport.

The Briton followed up his Tour de France victory last year by taking gold in the time trial at the London Olympics, and Wiggins is the top favorite for the three-week Giro.

Vincenzo Nibali of Italy is regarded as his top challenger, while defending champion Ryder Hesjedal could also contend again.

However, the pre-race attention in the sport remains on a Spanish court’s decision Tuesday to destroy the blood bags seized in the seven-year-old Operation Puerto case.

Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was found guilty of endangering public health and given a one-year suspended jail sentence in the case. But the World Anti-Doping Agency is considering a possible appeal of the ruling by Judge Julia Santamaria, who ordered the destruction of more than 200 bags of blood and other evidence gathered in police raids on Fuentes in 2006. Michele Scarponi, who was awarded the 2011 title after Alberto Contador was stripped of the honor in another doping case, was banned in the Puerto case, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the verdicts. Two-time Giro winner Ivan Basso, who also served a ban from the Puerto case, withdrew Thursday citing a cyst in the seat area.

As for the racing, it could come down to a contest between Wiggins’ time trialing ability and Nibali’s climbing prowess - or vice versa: how each rider performs in their rival’s strongest areas.

Nibali’s biggest victory thus far remains the 2010 Spanish Vuelta title. In last year’s Tour he finished third behind the Sky duo of Wiggins and Chris Froome.

While Wiggins had declared all along that the Giro was his top priority this year, earlier this week he indicated that he might challenge Froome instead of help him in the Tour.

Nobody has pulled off the Giro-Tour double in the same year since Marco Pantani accomplished the feat 15 years ago. “The main thing is to win the Giro.

That’s the first hurdle,” Wiggins said before departing from England. “That’s the one really at this stage and I don’t look beyond that. It’s like the first gold medal in the Olympics.” Nibali, meanwhile, has his entire focus on the Giro, and will have the home fans’ support.

“The Giro has been our declared goal since the start of the season,” Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov said. “We’re all working exclusively to help Nibali win.”

Wiggins won the opening-day time trial at the 2010 Giro in Amsterdam and wore the leader’s pink jersey for one day before finishing 40th overall. However, his climbing ability has improved drastically since then.

“I may lose 20 seconds (to Nibali) on a bad day but I’m confident I can stay with him, no matter what he throws at me,” Wiggins said. “But that’s all I have to do because I’m confident that in the time trials I can take time on him.”

Nibali finished third in the 2010 and 2011 Giro and was moved up to second in 2011 after Contador’s suspension.

Having moved from Liquigas to Astana, Nibali no longer has to split leadership with Basso.

This will be the fifth Giro for both Wiggins and Nibali. They already went

head-to-head in the four-day Giro del Trentino last month, which Nibali won while Wiggins struggled with mechanical problems in the final stage.

Hesjedal, meanwhile, has had a quieter buildup. But his combined skills of climbing and time trialing, with solid support from a strong and experienced Garmin squad, make him a threat. While Froome, Contador and the injured Joaquim Rodriguez are each absent, other contenders include 2011 Tour winner Cadel Evans, Scarponi and Robert Gesink.

The race begins with a 130-kilometer (81-mile) sprinting stage in downtown Naples, which should draw large crowds to watch the likes of Mark Cavendish, Matthew Goss, John Degenkolb and Daniele Bennati fight for the first pink jersey.

It’s the first time in 10 years that the race has opened with a sprinting stage, and Cavendish - who has won a combined 36 stages at the Giro, Tour and Vuelta - is undoubtedly the man to beat.

But Cavendish won’t have Alessandro Petacchi as a lead-out man now that the UCI has blocked the Italian’s attempt to join the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team after announcing his retirement from the Lampre squad. —AP

LONDON: British cyclist Bradley Wiggins poses for pictures in Standish, north-west England ahead of his participation in the Giro díItalia. Wiggins will ride in Team Sky in the Giro díItalia which begins tomorrow. —AFP

Orb Kentucky Derby favorite CHURCHILL DOWNS: Orb was installed as the early favorite for tomorrow’s 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs despite landing one of the widest barriers at Wednesday’s post position draw.

Unfazed by the wide gate, oddsmakers posted the three-year-old, who won last month’s Florida Derby, at the top of the betting charts at 7-2.

“I’d love to be the favorite,” Orb’s trainer Shug McGaughey told reporters after the colt’s morning gallop.

“I wish every one of my horses was favorite. They’re not all going to win, I understand that, but I’m on board with that.” The unbeaten Verrazano, whose four career wins include the Tampa Bay Derby and the Wood Memorial, was listed as the second choice, at odds of 4-1.

He is one of five runners trained by Todd Pletcher. The others are Overanalyze, Revolutionary, Palace Malice, and

Charming Kitten. “They all did the exact same things,” Pletcher said when asked to compare their morning workouts. “They all galloped a mile and three-eighths and they all stood in the starting gate. Everyone did well.”

Goldencents, the winner of last month’s Santa Anita Derby, was posted as the 5-1 third chance after drawing the eighth post. His trainer Doug O’Neill won last year’s Kentucky Derby with I’ll Have Another. Lines of Battle, the Irish-trained colt who secured his place in the race by winning the United Arab Emirates Derby, drew 11 while Black Onyx landed the dreaded number one position.

It has been a quarter of a century since a horse drawn on the rails has won the mile and a quarter (2000 metres) race. A total of 21 horses were entered for the race with Fear The Kitten listed as an alternate entrant should any of the 20 runners scratch before Friday morning. —Reuters

VANCOUVER: Goalie Roberto Luongo No. 1 of the Vancouver Canucks stops Dan Boyle No. 22 of the San Jose Sharks during the second period in Game One of the Western Conference Quarterfinals of the 2013 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. —AFP

Penguins romp past Islanders, Bruins win PITTSBURGH: The Pittsburgh Penguins showed the ongoing absence of Sidney Crosby will be no great impediment to their Stanley Cup ambitions by romping past the New York Islanders 5-0 in Wednesday’s opening game of their NHL playoff series. Pascal Dupuis scored twice and Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 saves for the top-seeded Penguins.

In Wednesday’s other series openers, Boston’s revised offense clicked in a victory over Toronto, and San Jose won at Vancouver.

Pittsburgh’s Beau Bennett, Kris Letang and Tanner Glass also scored for the Penguins, who had no trouble against the upstart Islanders even with Crosby sidelined by a broken jaw. Crosby has been out since he was struck by a puck on March 30 in a game against the Islanders.

“It’s one win,” Dupuis said. “We definitely feel good about it but we’ve just got to put this one behind us and get ready to work for the next one. They’ll definitely look at tape and come out harder, that’s for sure.” The Penguins beat Evgeni Nabokov four times in the game’s first 22 minutes, including goals by Letang and Dupuis 32 seconds apart early in the second period to send Nabokov to the bench after he stopped just 11 shots.

Kevin Poulin came on in relief and surrendered a soft goal to Glass.

“Some guys worked hard and played a good game,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. “Again, with our club we need all 20 guys going, and we didn’t have all 20.”

Game 2 is today in Pittsburgh.

Boston’s Nathan Horton scored the go-ahead goal late in the first period as the Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1. The Bruins scored more than three goals for the first time in 10 games. They won only two of their last nine regular-season games to drop to No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.

That set up a first-round matchup with fifth-seeded Toronto, the first time the teams have met in the postseason since 1974. The Maple Leafs are in the playoffs for the first time since 2004.

Wade Redden also scored in the first period for Boston, and David Krejci and Johnny Boychuk added goals in the second. James van Riemsdyk had given Toronto a 1-0 lead with a power play just 1:54 into the game. Game 2 is scheduled for tomorrow in Boston, where the Bruins have won six straight against the Maple Leafs. San Jose’s Dan Boyle and Patrick Marleau scored in the third period for the Sharks, which rallied to beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-1. Boyle and Logan Couture both had a goal and an assist, and Marleau pushed San Jose’s lead to 3-1. Antti Niemi made 28 saves for the Sharks, who were outshot 30-28.

Kevin Bieksa scored for the Canucks before a disappointed white-towel-waving sellout crowd. The loss spoiled a strong effort from goalie Roberto Luongo, who earned the start after Cory Schneider didn’t recover in time from an undisclosed injury. The Canucks were the first home team to lose in the first six games of this year’s playoffs. —AP

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Ye makes history but struggles in the wind BEIJING: China’s 12-year-old Ye Wocheng became the European Tour’s youngest ever player when he teed off at the Volvo China Open yesterday, but struggled in the stiff wind.

However Dutchman Robert-Jan Derksen made light of the conditions to shoot a six-under-par 66 and take a two-shot lead after the opening round.

Ye struck his opening drive firmly down the middle of the fairway but finished only with a 79, while his 16-year-old fellow qualifier Dou Ze-cheng shot an impressive 70.

But Ye said he was proud to have broken the age record set last year by countryman Guan Tianlang, who made history last month by becoming the youngest player to take part in the US Masters.

Guan was docked a shot for taking too long during the second round at Augusta and Ye also came under time pressure yesterday. “I was a little nervous when I teed off but I tried to forget the nerves,” he said, in comments supplied by OneAsia, who co-sanctioned the tournament.

HOUSTON: Rockets center Omer Asik (3) dunks in front of Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins (5) in the third quarter of Game 5 of their first-round NBA basketball playoff series. — AP

Celtics cut Knicks lead NEW YORK: Kevin Garnett had 16 points and 18 rebounds and the Boston Celtics stayed alive in the NBA playoffs, cutting the New York Knicks’ lead to 3-2 with a 92-86 victory Wednesday night. The Celtics will host Game 6 on Friday night, needing two victories to become the first NBA team to overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a series.

Brandon Bass added 17 points, steadying Boston as it shook off an 11-0 deficit and pulled away in the second half to stop the Knicks again from their first playoff series victory since 2000.

JR Smith, back from his one-game suspension for elbowing Jason Terry with the Knicks way ahead late in Game 3, missed his first 10 shots and finished 3 of 14 for 14 points. Terry also scored 17 off the bench. Jeff Green scored 18 points and Paul Pierce had 16 as the two franchise stalwarts extended this season - and perhaps their Celtics careers - at least one more game. Carmelo Anthony scored 22 points but was just 8 of 24 in another dismal shooting night for the Knicks.

PACERS 106, HAWKS 83 In Indianapolis, David West scored 24 points and Paul George had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead Indiana to a 3-2 series lead. The Pacers have all won three home games in the best-ofseven series and are 5-0 at home this season against the Hawks.

They’ll go to Atlanta on Friday with a chance to clinch the best-ofseven series. But the Hawks have won 13 straight at home against the Pacers, including both games in this series.

Atlanta was led by Josh Smith and Al Horford, who each had 14 points. And it was every bit as ugly as the Hawks’ first two double-digit losses in Indy. Indiana took the lead for good midway through the second quarter and opened the third period on a 123 run to make it 62-46. The Pacers put it away when the Hawks lost their composure.

ROCKETS 107, THUNDER 100 In Oklahoma, James Harden scored 31 points and sank seven 3-pointers while fighting through flu-like symptoms, and the Rockets beat the Thunder to pull within 3-2 in their first-round playoff series. Harden made the first seven 3s he tried and Houston led by as many as 16 before fending off a rally that Oklahoma City helped stymie with its own strategy.

The Thunder, apparently doubting they could overcome an eight-point lead on their home court without Russell Westbrook, resorted to intentionally fouling Omer Asik - a 54 percent career foul shooter - with 5:33 to play. Asik went 8 for 12 from the line, extending Houston’s lead to 101-92 with 3:53 remaining before Oklahoma City gave up the tactic. Kevin Durant finished with 36 points for Oklahoma City, which must now travel to Houston for Game 6 on Friday night.—AP

“(Then) the referee timed me-and warned me to play more quickly. I was affected a little-Guan Tianlang was penalised as well. I will pay more attention to this.”

Derksen shrugged off two early bogeys with eight birdies around the links-style course at Tianjin Binhai Lake Golf Club.

Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat, France’s Raphael Jacquelin and Australian Brett Rumford shared second place, while six players were grouped a shot further back.

Defending champion Branden Grace, aiming to become the first person to lift the title for a second time and against a field that boasts six other former winners, ended with 74.

“It was a funny day because I started well with a birdie from about five feet but then three-putted the third and fourth and ended up in three divots on the fairways later in the round,” said Derksen.

“But I made a lot of birdies (coming home), and I’ve ended the day in a really good position. I started making a few putts and my confidence lifted.” —AFP

Park looks to keep hot streak going at Kingsmill WILLIAMSBURG: Inbee Park has never had much success on the River Course at the Kingsmill Championship. She’s also never tackled the layout along the James River as the world’s top-ranked female player.

The 24-year-old South Korean will do that beginning late yesterday, hoping to stay on the roll that has already produced three victories this season and completed her climb to the No. 1 ranking.

It will be her first competitive rounds at the popular stop on tour since 2009, when for the second time in three years, she missed the cut. The other time, in 2008, she tied for 16th. “‘It seems pretty new to me, but somehow I just remember this course like I played yesterday,” Park said this week.

“I mean, I just love to come to this spot. It’s a great spot to come and it’s a very nice resort and very nice golf course.

I’m just going to try to enjoy my week of golf here.”

If having success equals fun, Park had had plenty in the past year. She has won five of the 18 tournaments she’s played in since June, and finished in the top 11 on six other occasions. She’s been No. 1 for four weeks now, and trying to appreciate it without feeling pressure.

“That’s been my dream since I started playing golf, to be the best in the world, and I finally reached it,” she said.

“And it was everything was just coming together and everything that I dreamed for.

“You can put a lot of pressure on yourself when you’re No. 1, but I’m just trying to think that’s just a number,” she continued. “... It’s just No. 1 and No. 1 is just No. 1, not trying to say that I need to win every week or anything. It’s just I try to enjoy what I’m doing and that’s just a gift.

Park skipped the tour’s return to Kingsmill after a twoyear absence last season, and missed one of the most dramatic events of the year.

Countrywoman and former No. 1 player Jiyai Shin and Paula Creamer finished regulation in a tie and remained tied while replaying the 18th hole eight times before darkness came. Returning on Monday morning, Shin won with a par on the first hole of the day, the 16th.

It was her first victory in 32 events, a drought helped along by a wrist injury that had required surgery three months earlier. Six days later, she won the Women’s British Open for her second major title.

Shin earned her 11th career victory earlier this season, but returns to defend her title after a back problem cropped up a few weeks ago, causing her to skip a tour stop in Hawaii to allow it to rest. She played last week to get back in the swing, and said, “I feel really good and feel ready to go.”— AP

TIANJIN: In this handout photo taken and released by OneAsia shows Park Sang-hyun of Siuth Korea in action during the pro am of the Volvo China Open. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

South Africa recall Duminy as Kallis skips Champions Trophy CAPE TOWN: JP Duminy was named in South Africa’s Champions Trophy squad yesterday but veteran allrounder Jacques Kallis will miss the tournament due to personal reasons.

Duminy suffered a horror Achilles injury on South Africa’s test tour of Australia last November and missed out on the side’s golden summer when they cemented their place as the world’s number one test team.

His return is a significant boost for coach Gary Kirsten as the 29-year-old

provides depth in the middle order batting apart from an additional spin-bowling option. Although he is not yet fully fit, Duminy has been batting in the nets and running with no discomfort. “We are all excited by where he is. He is a key component of the team and although we are not putting too much pressure on him to play, he has progressed fairly well,” Kirsten said at the squad announcement. Kallis has asked to be excused for personal reasons but it otherwise

is a settled group of players who have been part of the squad through the home one day series against New Zealand and Pakistan. The team will be led by AB de Villiers, who is also the only wicket-keeping option in the squad but has had back problems as recently as March.

The squad has eight specialist batsmen, five pacemen and two spinners. There are also three parttime spin options. “We have loaded our batting a bit. We must do well in

all departments and we are mindful of that,” Kirsten added.

South Africa will begin their Champions Trophy campaign against India at Cardiff on June 6. Squad: AB de Villiers (captain), Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Colin Ingram, Rory Kleinveldt, Ryan McLaren, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Robbie Peterson, Aaron Phangiso, Graeme Smith, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe.—Reuters

Marquez cool ahead of Spanish MotoGP SPAIN: Marc Marquez became the youngest ever MotoGP winner a fortnight ago but he is not letting that success go to his head as he and his fellow riders prepare for Sunday’s Spanish MotoGP at Jerez. The 20-year-old Spaniard, last year’s Moto2 world champion, showed few nerves in capturing the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas, but he says he is not expecting other victories to fall into his lap.

“I have to keep my feet on the ground after my success in the United States because here all the riders have a lot more experience than I do,” he admitted. Chief among those who will be chasing him down will be the Yamaha duo of his compatriot and defending champion Jorge Lorenzo and Italian legend Valentino Rossi.

Lorenzo, who along with Rossi dominated testing in Jerez pre-season, said that the lay-out of the Jerez track would suit him better than the Austin circuit. He was, however, outridden in this race last year by Honda’s now retired Australian star Casey Stoner, who beat him by less than a second. “The fast bends will make it easier for us here,” said Lorenzo, whose third place in the United States was his 100th podium finish 10 years after posting his first with victory in the Brazil Grand Prix. Yamaha aren’t panicking because of Marquez’s stunning victory as they had held the upper hand in the opening race when Lorenzo won the Qatar MotoGP with Rossi second.

“The podium is our target,” said team chief Wilco Zeelenberg. “There is no rush to win as there are so many races still remaining.” Marquez’s team-mate Dani Pedrosa will also be keen to make his mark after a disappointing start to a season he is hoping will see him finally land the world title that has eluded him since he moved up to this category in 2006. Pedrosa, 27, has not won at Jerez since 2008 but will be looking to re-establish his pre-season status as number one Honda rider. British rider Cal Crutchlow too can entertain hopes of victory on his Yamaha M1 as he recorded the fastest time of all the riders in pre-season training. Ducati have had an even longer wait for victory here than Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden will lead their challenge to secure their first win since Loris Capirossi triumphed in 2006.

The Spanish home crowd will also be praying for wins in the Moto2 and Moto3 races. Nicolas Terol will be keen to back up his success in Texas - his first win in 18 months - and take the overall lead in the Moto2 standing off consistent British rider Scott Redding.

The Moto3 race looks like being a toss up between three Spaniards Alex Rins, Luis Salom and Maverick Vinales, who has yet to deliver on his pre-season status as title favorite and, unlike his two compatriots, is yet to win this season.—AFP

Marc Marquez in action in this file photo.

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr

Mayweather calm in face of ‘woman beater’ taunts LAS VEGAS: Eight-time world champion Floyd Mayweather refused to be drawn into a war of words at the final news conference for his WBC welterweight title clash with Robert Guerrero on Wednesday, despite being labeled a “woman beater” by his opponent’s father.

The undefeated Mayweather (430, 26 KOs), who has said he has 30 months of boxing left before he brings the curtain down on his career, was a picture of calm as Ruben Guerrero screamed at him: “We are going to beat the woman beater”.

Mayweather served two months of a 90-day sentence for domestic violence last year. “I don’t have to sit here and badmouth his father,” shrugged Mayweather after the news conference. “Only God can judge me.” The fight in Las Vegas tomorrow will mark a turning point in Mayweather’s often contentious rela-

tionship with his own father, Floyd Sr, who will be in his corner for the first time since a March 2000 win over Gregorio Vargas.

“My dad is sick, and if I never made a bond with my father and something harsh happened, it would hurt me,” said Mayweather of his father, who has been suffering from sarcoidosis. Mending fences with his father, he adds, has yielded professional as well as personal benefits.

“There’s certain things only my dad may see in training camp,” he told reporters. “For this fight, I made sure I got more rest.

“My dad said, ‘You need the rest.

And when you’ve rested, you can come back and box in the gym and you’re going to look a lot better.’ And he was right. I feel like I’m in tip-top shape, tip-top condition. I’m ready to fight.” Guerrero, too, is ready to fight, and believes Mayweather has invited more stress on himself by starting the

countdown clock on his career.

“They say the pressure is on me.

The pressure is on him to stay undefeated, to keep his legacy going,” Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KOs) told reporters on Wednesday. “He has these 30 months left, and he’s got a lot of stuff to fulfill, so I think the pressure is on him and not me.”

Guerrero first called for a fight with Mayweather in 2011, even though at lightweight he was two weight divisions lower. However, he made the step up to welterweight and scored two victories last year, including a thrilling brawl with former title holder Andre Berto in November, to earn the shot at Mayweather’s title. “Definitely, I absolutely believed I would get (the fight),” said Guerrero. “That’s why I kept on it, and kept fighting the fights I needed to get myself in position to make it happen, and here it is.”—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Juve set to clinch title against chaotic Palermo ITALY: Juventus are poised to clinch the Serie A title on Sunday in a match against struggling Palermo which brings together the two extremes of Italian soccer.

With their own stadium, recent stability and restrained transfer policy, forward-looking Juventus are the club who have best adapted to the harsh new financial realities of Serie A. Lowly Palermo, on the other hand, have been mired in chaos, firing and hiring coaches at embarrassing speed on the whim of their eccentric president Maurizio Zamparini.

Juventus, 11 points clear of second-placed Napoli, need only a point on Sunday to retain the title and, even in the unlikely event of a Palermo win, they would still seal it that day if Napoli fail to beat injury-plagued Inter Milan in the late game. If they do not wrap it up this weekend, they will still have three more chances to secure it. Antonio Conte’s side have not quite matched the consistency of last season, when they completed the championship without losing a game, but with 25 wins and only four defeats in 34 outings, they are quite clearly a cut above the rest.

Juventus, who have won their last seven league matches, have managed to keep the core of last season’s side intact while 20-year-old midfielder Paul Pogba has been an impressive addition to the team since he was signed from Manchester United.

As last season, their new, compact and raucous stadium, nearly always full, is a stark contrast to the wind-swept rows of empty seats in some of Serie A’s over-sized and run-down publicly owned arenas. Napoli’s challenge effectively ended at the start of March when they could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Juventus during a rare dry spell for forward Edinson Cavani, the league’s leading scorer with 23 goals.

“We’ve had a great season, with only a few bad games, but Juventus have done better,” Napoli forward Marek Hamsik said in an interview with Sky Sports Italia. “To make that jump in quality, we have to avoid messing up games the way we did against Sampdoria, Torino and Bologna.” Relegation-threatened Palermo have had an extraordinary season, yet, more by luck than judgment, seem to have stumbled on a formula that could yet earn them a reprieve under a coach they originally fired after three games of the season. Giuseppe Sannino was dismissed by Zamparini in September and replaced by Gian Piero Gasperini, who lasted until early February when he was also sacked. That was the start of an extraordinary sequence of hiring and firing.

Alberto Malesani was handed the reins but was fired after three matches, then Gasperini was brought back and sacked after two games before Sannino was given another chance.

Incredibly, Sannino’s return proved a success and Palermo are unbeaten in their last five games, enabling them to creep out of the relegation zone thanks to their head-to-head record against Genoa who are level with them on points. Napoli look almost certain to take second place and Serie A’s only other direct place in the Champions League group stage, needing six more points to make mathematically certain. The real battle is for third place and the Champions League playoff round spot. —Reuters

Ogier leads in Argentina CORDOBA: French driver Sebastien Ogier, in a Volkswagen Polo, held on to his overall lead in the Rally of Argentina after the second dayís first two special stages yesterday.

Ogier, who heads the world championship driver standings and claimed his third win of the season in the Rally of Portugal last time out, picked up where he left off on Wednesday evening, winning the first special of the day. But he saw Finnish Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen haul himself back into contention with the fastest time on the 52km second special of the day from Ascochinga to Agua de Oro. Hirvonenís Citroen stablemate Dani Sordo lost several minutes when he rolled his DS3, with it ending on its roof needing to be righted with the help of spectators.

But he ran into controversy as he re-started just in front of Ogier, who later accused him of slowing him down over several kilometres. The third Citroen driver, Franceís ëretiredí Sebastien Loeb, kept in touch with the leaders as he bids to maintain his extraordinary record in the race, having won every edition of this South American leg of the championship since 2005. With a heavily-reduced programme this year, Loeb sat out the Mexico and Portugal legs of the championship, but with the second best time on the third special stage, is now third in the overall standings, six seconds behind Ogier. Two more specials are scheduled for late yesterday, over the same terrain as the morning stages.—AFP

Photo of the day

Kenny Belaey stalls his front wheel on a log in Pacifica, CA USA. www.redbullcontentpool.com

AFC elects Sheikh Salman president, EXCO member KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Football Confederation handed the reins of power to Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa yesterday, ignoring concerns about alleged human rights breaches and electing the Bahraini as its new president and member of FIFA’s all-powerful executive committee.

Sheikh Salman secured 33 of the 46 presidential votes available from AFC member associations in Malaysia, to beat Yousuf Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates (six votes) and Thailand’s Worawi Makudi (seven votes) in a lop-sided election. The result drew huge cheers from the auditorium with compatriot Sheikh Ali Bin Khalifa then announcing his resignation from the AFC executive committee so that Sheikh Salman could assume the presidency. Member Associations are only allowed one seat in the AFC exco. The Bahraini replaces disgraced Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was banned for life by FIFA in 2011 amid allegations of trying to buy votes during the lobbying process to run the world governing body. The AFC had been in limbo ever since, with China’s Zhang Jilong’s interim leadership beset by numerous matchfixing and graft scandals among member associations. Dressed in a sharp grey suit and black tie, the softly spoken Sheikh Salman took to the microphone and told the AFC Congress, FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA head Michel Platini that the confederation had to reform and become more transparent.

“Today I’m proud and happy, proud and happy to see the Asia football family gathered together,” he said. “Proud and happy to see our family united under one roof in the capital of Asian football.

“We need complete reforms, what we need is an AFC where decision makers are accountable,” he added. His candidacy had drawn outrage from two human rights groups in Bahrain who asked Blatter to withdraw Sheikh Salman from the vote, accusing the Bahraini royal of human rights breaches during the pro democracy uprising that began in 2011.

Sheikh Salman, the head of the Bahrain Football Association, has denied the groups’ accusations that players were arrested, detained, abused, tortured and publicly humiliated under his direction for their role in the protests. Praising the efforts of China’s Zhang, who stepped in to fill the void left by Bin Hammam, Sheikh Salman called on AFC members to take the initiative in reform.

“You need to be part of an open, fair transparent dialogue in the future. Our acting president, Zhang Jilong, has started this dialogue successfully, we can be grateful for a man to take the role at a challenging time. “Clean up the past and turn the page for the future, restore transparency and integrity.” Following the election, former AFC president Bin Hammam published a cryptic Tweet in Arabic, using a phrase that is usually reserved for offering condolences. A disappointed Al Serkal, an ally of Bin Hammam, promised to work with Sheikh Salman for the good of Asian soccer after the humbling loss in an election he had said he was favourite to win.

“I will have to work with him and he will have to work with me,” he told reporters. “I’m not going to be a cause or a reason to create friction between my country or any other country. “My job, my role, is to bring people together, that is the spirit of sports, the spirit of football.” Al Serkal did not say if he would run again in two years,

KUALA LUMPUR: Newly elected President of Asian Football Confederation Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain smiles during AFC conference at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Sheikh Salman won a landslide victory to be elected president of the Asian Football Confederation replacing longtime rival Mohamed bin Hammam. —AP but his chances appear unlikely without the support of the Olympic Council of Asia, whose backing helped elect Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein to the FIFA executive committee two years ago and now Sheikh Salman.

The shorter two-year term on offer to the winner of Thursday’s vote was a result of Bin Hammam’s exit. The Qatari was elected unopposed as AFC president for a third four-year term in 2011, leaving two years on that cycle. Blatter said earlier it was time for Asian soccer to move forward. “It is a historical day because it is a day of election, a day of election in your confederation that has been in a difficult situation during the past two years,” the Swiss said. “And together you have overcome all these difficulties and now you are in this situation where you are going to have a restart.

“But I would identify this restart as an intermediary restart because then the right start will be in two years in 2015 ... you have two more years to put your house in order.”

Following the presidential vote, Sheikh Salman was then elected to FIFA’s decision-making executive committee, securing 28 votes to Qatari Hassan Al Thawadi’s 18. Sheikh Salman had narrowly failed to unseat then-AFC President Bin Hammam from FIFA’s ExCo in 2009; losing a hostile vote of AFC members 23-21, with two votes deemed invalid because they were spoilt. Northern Mariana Islands were not given a vote as an associate member, while Brunei were approved voting rights after winning a motion at the start of the congress despite not taking part in the required two AFC competitions in the last two years. —Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

PREVIEW

Chelsea’s top four hopes face Old Trafford test LONDON: Manchester United are already basking in the glow of the Premier League title but if anything is likely to put the summer holiday planning on hold it is a visit from Chelsea.

Hurt by Capital One (League) Cup and FA Cup exits at the hands of the west London club this season, United have the chance to put a huge dent in Chelsea’s hopes of finishing in the top four.

That is bad news for Chelsea, for whom the fixtures have been piling up in recent weeks courtesy of their exploits in the Europa League - a competition they are determined to avoid playing in next season. With the title race done and dusted, Manchester City odds on to be runners-up and Reading and Queens Park Rangers already relegated, the battle for third and fourth spots has taken centre stage with Chelsea vying with Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton for a place in the Champions League.

Chelsea are third in the final automatic Champions League spot with 65 points, one ahead of Arsenal who have one game less to play and three ahead of Spurs, who have the toughest runin on paper as they visit Stamford Bridge on Wednesday in what could prove a decisive fixture.

Fourth is worth a Champions League playoff spot. By the time Chelsea’s interim manager Rafa Benitez locks horns again with old adversary Alex Ferguson on Sunday, the pressure could have been ratcheted up a notch.

Spurs, who like Chelsea have four games to play, are the first of the contenders in action this weekend with a home match against Southampton on Saturday (1400 GMT).

Fourth-placed Arsenal kick off a few hours later at Queens Park Rangers

while sixth-placed Everton, who have doggedly refused to give up the chase for a top-four berth, must beat Merseyside rivals Liverpool at Anfield for the first time in 14 years on Sunday if they are to stay in the hunt. Chelsea will be playing their 12th game in little more than 30 days at Old Trafford on Sunday and will be looking for a third win of the season over Ferguson’s side, following a 5-4 League Cup win when Roberto Di Matteo was still in charge and a 1-0 FA Cup replay win masterminded by Benitez last month.

Benitez, who will leave Stamford

Rafa Benitez Bridge later this month, has been forced to juggle his squad as a long campaign draws to a conclusion and will be asking his side to dig deep again at United, and then again against Spurs on Wednesday.

Spurs missed a trick with a 2-2 draw at lowly Wigan Athletic last weekend, but will aim to steal a march on their London rivals and move level on points with Chelsea, if only temporarily, with victory over Southampton.

Gareth Bale, who joined Tottenham from Southampton in 2007 and has since become one of the most soughtafter players in Europe, believes the north London club can make up for last season’s heartache when, despite

finishing fourth, they were denied a Champions League chance because Chelsea won the trophy.

“We all need to stick together now and give one final push to get where we want to be,” Bale said. “We have four games to go and we want to finish the job off.” With games at QPR, at home to Wigan and away to Newcastle United left, Arsenal look to have the easiest task as they seek a 16th consecutive appearance in the Champions League. Midfielder Mikel Arteta said he expects the battle for third and fourth to go to the wire. “It will be about who is the most clinical at the right moments,” he told Arsenal’s website (www.arsenal.com) “When it gets to the last games the teams who are the most clinical win the games. We have seen that over the last few weeks. It will be a difficult battle for everyone.”

Everton have two motivations at Liverpool. Victory would mean they would finish above their rivals for successive seasons for the first time since 1937 and would also maintain their quest for a place in the top four. “We’re five points above them at the minute and a win would certainly be great for us,” said midfielder Leon Osman. “But we’re still on the coat-tails of the teams above us and we’re trying to win for that reason as well.”

At the other end of the table, FA Cup finalists Wigan are staring relegation in the face after several Houdinilike escapes. Spurs’ late equaliser last week left Roberto Martinez’s side five points behind Newcastle with a game in hand. Victory at West Bromwich Albion tomorrow combined with defeats for Newcastle, who visit West Ham United, or Aston Villa at Norwich City would raise hopes of another great escape. — Reuters

Weary Barca seek quick end to La Liga title race MADRID: Barcelona have a second chance to wrap up their fourth La Liga title in five years this weekend as they stumble towards the end of the season and a much-needed regrouping at the club after their Champions League humiliation. The leaders host Real Betis on Sunday (1900 GMT) having been swept out of their semi-final 7-0 on aggregate by a far superior Bayern Munich on Wednesday.

With five games left, Barca hold an 11-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, who host Real Valladolid on Saturday (1800). A victory for Barca and a defeat for Real would be enough to secure Tito Vilanova the league trophy in his debut season at the Nou Camp helm.

“We are very deflated but there is still a La Liga title to secure,” Barca midfielder Cesc Fabregas told reporters after the Bayern game. Defender Gerard Pique added: “We need to sort it out as quickly as possible. “We haven’t known how to compete effectively in the King’s Cup or the Champions League but we have been very consistent in the league.”

Central to wrapping up the trophy will be getting top scorer Lionel Messi back to full fitness from his hamstring problem after he surprisingly sat out Wednesday’s 3-0 home defeat.

Vilanova said the World Player of the Year was not injured but felt a “strange sensation” before the Bayern game, and decided it was best to start with him on the bench. Once Arjen Robben had put the Germans ahead in the second half, Vilanova quickly gave up on any chance of a fightback, decided against committing Messi and withdrawing his two leading playmakers Xavi and Andres Iniesta. Barca have appeared lethargic in recent games, lacking in sharpness, and a number of players have spoken of feeling stretched to the limit during the season run-in.

They have managed only three wins from their last nine games in all competitions and may be forced to wait a little longer before they can start to turn their focus on next season. Betis, seventh in the standings and chasing a place in Europe next season, have one of the best away records in La Liga although like Barca they have started to run out of steam and have one win from their last six outings.

Real’s Champions League semi-final exit to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday was not as traumatic as Barca’s, as they at least salvaged some pride by almost completing a comeback at the Bernabeu. —Reuters

MUNICH: Bayern Munich’s Dutch midfielder Arjen Robben (center) arrives at the airport in Munich after his team’s victory over Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg football match. —AFP

Bayern, Dortmund brace for awkward encounter GERMANY: At any other moment in the last three years a Bundesliga encounter between already-crowned champions Bayern Munich and arch-rivals Borussia Dortmund would be a season highlight yet their Saturday clash is nothing more than an awkward moment.

Germany’s top two teams have a much bigger trophy in their sights when they meet in the Champions League final on May 25 after brushing aside Spain’s Barcelona and Real Madrid. Bayern’s 3-0 win at Barcelona for a 7-0 aggregate victory on Wednesday came a day after Dortmund eased past Real despite a 2-0 loss to set up the first all-German final in the competition.

“This thing with Bayern now is a funny constellation,” said Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp. “We will have to see how we can do it.” His second-placed team are assured a Champions League spot next season while Bayern, chasing a treble of trophies which also includes the German Cup, clinched the league title weeks ago with a handful of games to spare.

With Klopp’s team facing their biggest game in 16 years at Wembley stadium on May 25, the 45-year-old could be forgiven for putting the league derby on the backburner.

“We will give it everything we have, I can promise that.

We have enough time to recover but if Bayern beat us (in the league on Saturday) then I do not think there will ever be fewer disappointed people in Dortmund,” Klopp said.

The coach will most likely be without Mario Goetze, who has agreed to join Bayern at the end of the season, after he pulled a muscle and limped off early in the first half against Real.

“With Mario it will be tight for any game from now on,” Klopp said of the talented offensive midfielder’s chances of playing again this season. Midfielder Sven Bender is also nursing an ankle injury while Klopp looks set to rest a string of other key players.

“We will try to cause Bayern some problems but we will have to wait and see if it works.” Bayern are equally nonchalant about the derby, having their eyes firmly set on the treble - a first for a German team - with the league already wrapped up. “No, no, it is not pointless,” Bayern coach Heynckes told reporters when asked if the upcoming league game against their rivals had any weight given the bigger date the two clubs have.

“But we will not start thinking about it before Friday. We will celebrate, enjoy this moment and from Friday onwards we can start thinking about it,” he said after Bayern booked their third Champions League final spot in four years. Third-placed Bayer Leverkusen could make sure of the final automatic Champions League qualification spot with a win at Nuremberg. — Reuters

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Bayern, Dortmund brace for awkward encounter Page 47

www.kuwaittimes.net

Ogier leads in Argentina PAGE 46

CORDOBA: French driver Sebastien Ogier steers his Volkswagen Polo R WRC with compatriot co-driver Julien Ingrassia during the 3rd stage of the WRC Argentina 2013 near Agua de Or. —AFP