8 Jun 2013

IPT IO N SC R SU B

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

RAJAB 29, 1434 AH

No: 15833

7

150 Fils

Turkey PM hits back at protest criticism

US surveillance dragnet exposed

Big Brother: Internet mining adds to phone-tap row WASHINGTON: The emerging scope of a huge US dragnet of Internet and phone data, exposed by leaks and reports, put the White House on the defensive yesterday and sparked a backlash from an angry top spy chief. New revelations that the anti-terror agents from the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) were tapping servers of nine Internet giants - including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Google - set Washington abuzz. The reports deepened controversy over the post-Sept 11 surveillance infrastructure set up by US intelligence agencies, after leaks detailed a wide ranging sweep of phone records, also by the NSA. President Barack Obama yesterday staunchly defended the surveillance programs, insisting that they were conducted with broad safeguards to protect against abuse. “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program is about,” Obama told reporters on a visit to California’s Silicon Valley. He insisted that the surveillance programs struck the right balance between keeping Americans safe from terrorist attack and protecting their privacy. Obama was in California to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later yesterday, but he and aides will likely face sharp questions over the affair.

The Washington Post, citing a career intelligence officer, reported late Thursday that the NSA had direct access to Internet firm servers, to track an individual’s web presence via audio, video, photographs and emails. The anti-terror program is aimed only at non-Americans who are not on US soil, officials said. Some of the biggest firms in Silicon Valley were caught up in the program, known as PRISM, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, PalTalk, AOL, Skype and YouTube, the reports said. The paper said the leak came from a career intelligence officer “with firsthand experience of these systems and horror at their capabilities”. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer was quoted as saying.

Internet giants however denied opening their doors for US spy agencies. “We have never heard of PRISM,” said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. “We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.” Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said the huge social network did not provide any access to government organizations. Google and Microsoft were also adamant that they only disclose what is legally demanded.

In response to the reports, also carried by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the White House said Americans were not being spied on, but did not deny the program existed. “It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons,” a US official said.

As a damage control operation gathered pace, America’s top spy chief James Clapper warned that data gathered under the program was “among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect”. “The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans,” said Clapper, the director of national intelligence. — AFP

Max 43º Min 25º

SAN JOSE, California: US President Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters at the Fairmont Hotel yesterday. The president defended his government’s secret surveillance, saying Congress has repeatedly authorized the collection of America’s phone records and US Internet use. — AP

KIA sweetens Severn bid LONDON: A consortium led by a Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund and two pension companies raised its proposed offer for Severn Trent to £5.3 billion ($8.2 billion) yesterday, sending the British water utility’s share price up by as much as 9 percent. LongRiver Partners comprising the Kuwait Investment Office, Britain’s Universities Superannuation Scheme and Borealis Infrastructure, which is part of Canadian pension fund OMERS, submitted a conditional cash offer of 2,200 pence for each Severn Trent share to the company’s board. Shares in Severn Trent rose as much as 9 percent to 2,200 pence after the announcement before settling back to trade at 2,105 pence by 1402 GMT. The offer is inclusive of the final dividend of 45.51 pence per Severn Trent share proposed by the British group’s

board on 30 May 2013, and beats an earlier approach of 2,125 pence per share which Severn Trent rejected on June 3 as unreflective of its long-term potential. A top 20 Severn Trent institutional shareholder said the price was right and expects other big investors to view the offer favourably. “A bid at 22 pounds seems a very fair out-turn,” the investor said.

LongRiver said its offer was conditional on satisfactory due diligence checks on the Severn Trent business and the recommendation of the utility’s board. It also said it was encouraging the board to engage with the consortium before the ‘put up or shut up’ deadline for making a formal offer of 1600 GMT on June 11. “LongRiver’s proposal of 2,200 pence per share in cash represents certain and compelling value for Severn Trent shareholders,” the con-

sortium said in a statement. “We look forward to engaging with the Severn Trent board to enable us to make our formal offer to Severn Trent shareholders. Without engagement there can be no offer from the consortium.”

The pre-conditional offer represents a premium of 34 percent to the average closing price of a Severn Trent share for the six months to May 13, the last day prior to the announcement by Severn Trent that it had received an approach from the consortium, LongRiver said.

Britain’s water and sewerage firms have long attracted interest from yield-hungry investors drawn by their stable cash flows and a favourable regulatory structure. Seven the country’s 10 water companies are now in the hands of private investors, with Pennon Group, United Utilities and Severn Trent the remaining listed entities. — Reuters

LOCAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

letters to Badriya Equal before law Greetings Badrya, The officials at the Ministry of Interior have to think about what you wrote in the last para about “implementing laws in a decent way that suits our beautiful Islamic Sharia laws and the manners of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).”

I just want to add one small thing: During Salaah, everyone, whether poor or rich, Kuwaiti or expat stand in one line, shoulder to shoulder. When everyone is same in front of Allah, then why Constitution is not equally applicable to all? Send home illegal residents, but at the same time, punish those individuals who were responsible for trading visas.

Yesterday, one of my best friends went on a vacation. I could not go to the airport to drop him, as there are reports that police was catching individuals saying that you are driving illegal taxis.

Nowadays we cannot go out with a friend also. I would like to suggest that the MOI should issue another card, declaring that a person’s salary is KD400 or more (similar to family visa cap), so that these people can go out with their friends without fear.

Long live Kuwait.

Regards, Mohammed The root cause Dear Madam, I read your article ‘Not worth the drama scene’. Thank you so much and so kind of you for your courageous voice and sensible concern towards unfortunate people.

Kindly consider these solutions and raise them vociferously so that Kuwaiti authorities will address the root causes, instead of leaving the expat community horrified by creating ‘as if a war situation.’

1) A reasonable time period, a kind of grace period, should be immediately granted to all those found in violation of residency visas. All the countries’ embassies should be made as a facilitation centers so that the visa breakers can get a chance to correct their visa status. And if they fail, they should leave the country gracefully.

2) Similarly a grace period should be declared for Driving License Holders, who want to cancel/surrender their driving licenses.

(After the grace period, Kuwaiti authorities can revoke the driving licenses with certain attributes. (eg There are so many people who received the driving license in first attempt during a driving test. This is a clear case of Wasta driving licenses. So as an initial step, revoking the visas of those who passed the driving test in their first attempt will force the Wasta seekers to go through that channel twice.)

3) Cancellation of sponsorship system: The root cause of Labour Law violations in Kuwait is because of the ‘Sponsorship System’. Poor people who came to Kuwait by spending their life time’s savings and taking loans at high interest rates or seeking debts from their home countries are falling prey to the sponsorship system in Kuwait and becoming trapped. They are left in a state of helplessness. They are living a pathetic life.

It is high time to cancel the sponsorship system and come up with new Labour/Visa laws as per human rights standards and from a humanitarian angle.

Instead of unleashing the state’s fury against the visa violators, this is a solution to remove the root cause.

4) Corruption in authorities is another and the biggest root cause of many problems in Kuwait. Taking the e-governance route and adopting transparency measures will address so many problems.

5) Deporting expats for traffic violations happens only in Kuwait. Kuwait has entered history by doing this inhuman thing.

Recording a traffic violation efficiently and imposing penalties, making those pay more who repeat such violations, will streamline the situation. But here, deporting the traffic violator and his family (Kuwait authorities say ‘repeated violators’) is the ground reality.

6) Kuwait has to note that horrifying the expat community will eventually bring negative publicity to Kuwait from all perspectives. The expats including professionals might leave and relations with other nations will deteriorate, while we will be labelled with the epithet of being human rights.

The expat community is the backbone and a source of strength for Kuwait.

7) Kuwait has a lot of intellectuals. If they think with little creativity, there are hundreds of solutions available. They can be very sensible and makes Kuwait a safe, civilized and disciplined country of law abiding people.

Thanks and regards, Yoganand

Al-Rashidi to present new strategy to combat graft ‘Fake workforce must be purged’ KUWAIT: Social Affairs and Labor Minister Thekra Al-Rashidi announced a new strategy to deal with the labor sector and the corruption that has come to afflict its various departments, adding that she will present it to the council of ministers for approval. Al-Rashidi said in a statement to the press that the strategy included setting up service centers to be run by the private sector in various governorates according to rules and conditions set by the advisory office. Bids will be floated for the purpose.

The minister said the centers will receive employers and process their transactions within 20 minutes. The centers will send a copy of the transactions to the concerned departments, while employers and businessmen will

not be allowed to contact any ministry employees lest anyone could bring any influence to work on them.

About the presence of three million workers in the country, and the fact that the market is reeling under severe shortage of laborers and having to pay higher salaries, Ajmi AlMutalaqim said, “Most of the available labor force is fake and came here to live, not work .”

He said most such laborers had their own business. He said this labor force controls the fish, livestock, vegetable and discount markets.

He said this situation has led to problems such as higher prices, commercial cheating and sale of poor quality food. All this was happening due to corruption within the social affairs

ministry on account of violating law No 135/2001. He said the National Labor Union will send an official complaint to the International Labor Organization in which it will mention all these violations.

The amount collected as nomination fee from members of the annulled National Assembly was not used by the Interior Ministry, and added that the annulled assembly’s members have a right to reclaim the fee based on the ruling under which it was annulled, sources said. The sources said the number of incumbent members who are eligible to seek a refund is eight, as only those who obtained at least 10 percent of the total valid votes could seek refund.

NBK Academy shares moments with children at NBK Hospital KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait’s (NBK) family and trainees of NBK Academy paid a visit to NBK Hospital at Sabah Medical district to share happy moments with children suffering from permanent and

incurable ailments.

“NBK staff have always devoted a considerable part of their time to comfort the children and present them with felicitations and gifts as part of NBK’s corporate social respon-

sibility program,” said Talal Al Turki, NBK Public Relations Officer.

“Sharing the happy moments with children is our pleasure. We are proud that NBK devotes such attention to supporting Kuwait society and providing compassion and support for those in need, including sick children. NBK’s commitment to shoulder its corporate social responsibility was the basic motive that led NBK to build its children hospital at Sabah Medical district many years ago,” added Al Turki.

The visit to the hospital was emotional and overwhelming for both the trainees and NBK staff. NBK’s visits to hospitals and care centers reflect the Bank’s high sense of duty and responsibility towards all those in need from different sectors of society. It is a well rooted tradition that has been carried out by NBK each year in its efforts to continuously have an active role in the Kuwait society.

LOCAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

KUWAIT: A dust storm blanketed Kuwait giving motorists a tough time navigating through the country’s roads in poor visibility yesterday. — KUNA

No letup in crackdown on expats: Maj Tarrah Embassies briefed on ‘security measures’ KUWAIT: Jahra security director, Major General Ibrahim Al-Tarrah stated that the security inspection campaigns would continue tracking down residency violators, marginal labor force and people those who are wanted for various criminal offences.

Major Al-Tarrah also stated that upon the directives from the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, high-level communications were in process with the concerned embassies to make sure that they fully understand the significance of the security measures. He also noted that no exceptions would be tolerated in con-

travention of the law.

Major Al-Tarrah said that coordination was being made with all related governmental and private bodies to make sure that the arrested residency violators received their due rights prior to their departure.

“Deportation of those wanted for criminal, administrative or financial claims pending in courts will be halted until verdicts are issued in these cases”, he underlined urging all expatriates to respect Kuwait’s laws and realize that they would be legally held accountable if they or their sponsors violate these laws. “This may go as far as deportation in

Major Al-Ali vows to redraw traffic map

By Hanan Al-Sadoun KUWAIT: “I have orders from higher authorities to organize the traffic and the law will be implemented strictly, Assistant Interior Ministry Under Secretary for Traffic Affairs Major General Abdelfattah Al-Ali said.

“I will change the traffic map within six months and wipe out the word wasta from the traffic dictionary ,” he added. “I have strict orders from higher authorities to organize traffic and the law will be implemented very strictly,” Major Ali said.

Campaigns A police lance corporal was arrested redhanded while stealing from grocery stores in the Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh area.

Meanwhile, security men arrested expats stealing international phone signals and confiscated their equipment. All the suspects were of Asian origin and some of them were found residing in Kuwait illegally. Sources said a 13-year-old boy, who had climbed atop

a food delivery car was seriously injured when he fell down.

Salmy and Nuwauseeb land border centers witnessed scenes of people overcrowding the counters as computers remained non-functional for four hours. A security source said a three kilometer long queue of cars was seen and movement in both directions came to a standstill.

Meanwhile Ahmadi security personnel arrested a Kuwaiti for being in possession of an envelope containing heroin. He was also found wanted in seven civil cases. An Egyptian was also arrested on civil and felony charges.

The suspect escaped from the patrol car and had to be chased and caught. Seven cars being driven recklessly were impounded while 196 persons who were wanted in various cases were arrested and sent to the concerned authorities. The arrests and other actions were part of a security campaign led by operations and patrols director Lt Colonel Faleh Al-Huthai.

case they fail to legalize their statuses”, he added.

Further, Al-Tarrah urged both citizens and expatriates to report illegal labor to avoid legal action. He also noted that 2,968 law violators had been arrested so far for violations such as wanted for criminal or civil offenses, absconding, residency law violations, holding no IDs, possessing wanted vehicles, traffic violations and accidents, involving in fights, possession of weapons, engaged in making long distance call, prostitution suspects, drugs and liquor trading, begging and street hawking and traffic flow blocking.

Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Al-Tarrah

Kuwait development plan stuck in doldrums: Report ‘Poor govt performance holds up growth’ KUWAIT: Well-informed governmental sources said that some very critical indicators had been detected on the fourth year of the government’s development plan (2013-2014). The sources explained that the indicators showed a retreat in the performance of government bodies, in transparency and integrity levels, low level of law abidance and sluggishness in the egovernment development process.

“The only indicator with positive progress is the independence of the judiciary system”, stressed the sources. Further, the sources warned that favoritism in officials’ decision-making was the greatest dilemma as Kuwait had climbed down from position 61 worldwide in 2009 to position 99 in 2012. The reports also showed that welfare levels had retreated from position 31 to 38 in the same period; public trust in politicians retreated from position 39 to 53 while waste in governmental expenditure retreated from position 82 to 100.

Environmentally, the report placed Kuwait amongst the weakest countries worldwide. It also showed that lack of creativity and business complications made Kuwait retreat in competitiveness levels. “A huge drop was also noticed in the role played by the private sector”, added the report noting that unemployment levels had risen from 4.7 to 5 per cent with a shift in the type of unemployed people to include more literate people.

More elaborately, the report showed a six-point retreat in governance rates, sixpoint advance in patent rights, one point advance in using public funds, 14-point retreat in the public trust in politicians, 38 points retreat in favoritism in decisionmaking, 18-point retreat in governmental expenditure wastes, 22-point retreat in red-tape, two-point retreat in transparency, 5-point retreat in police services efficiency and 5-point retreat in moralities and conduct in public establishments. — Al-Qabas

LOCAL

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Fire breaks out in Farwaniya apartment

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: A police official gestures at a motorist during a traffic checking at Khaitan. — Photo by Yaseer Al-Zayyat

Bedoon’s car yields guns and bullets after accident International call centers raided KUWAIT: A car accident on the Sixth Ring Road resulted in the discovery of firearms and bullets from the car which turned topsy-turvy under the impact. The driver

was taken to Farwaniya Hospital for treatment.

The driver, a bedoon was kept under strict police surveillance while the car was seized. Weapons found in the car included an automatic gun, a pistol and a total of 79 bullets, 54 of them for the gun and 25 bullets for the pistol.

Raids Farwaniya police raided many international call centers who illegally connect international calls through computer. The campaign resulted in the closure of four international call centers.

Five expats were arrested during the raid who were in violation of residency law for the past nine years. All equipments and computers used in making international calls were confiscated.

The recovered arms and ammunition

KUWAIT: A fire broke out on the third floor of an apartment building in Farwaniya Thursday late evening. In three minutes, fire fighters reached the site and evacuated people from the building. The fire was brought under control in matter of seconds. No casualties were reported. However, one fire man sustained minor injuries from heat and smoke and he was treated at the site. Six ambulances with 12 technicians stood by at the site.

A car accident on King Fahd Road opposite Hadiya resulted in the head injuries of a 30-year-old unknown man and 23-year-old Saudi citizen.

Both were taken to Al-Adan Hospital. The former was admitted to intensive care unit.

Two Saudi boys sustained injuries in a car accident near Salmi. A Saudi man also was wounded in the accident. Five ambulances were summoned and 10 technicians stood by at the site. Injured were taken to Al-Jahra Hospital.

A 12-year-old Syrian boy was hit by a car as he crossed the street at Maidan Hawally opposite Kuwait Hayat Hotel. The boy sustained multiple wounds. He was taken to Mubarak Hospital.

A 42-year-old Egyptian expat was injured when he fell in a commercial play ground at Al-Shaab area. He was taken to Mubarak Hospital with head wounds.

A fight broke at Jleeb Al-Shoyoukh near schools street resulting in injuries to a 38-year-old Nepalese expat who was rushed to Farwaniya Hospital and admitted to intensive care unit.

Another fight broke out on Maidan Hawally Musa Abdul Razzaq Street yesterday leading to the head injury of a 32-year-old Syrian expat. He was taken to Mubarak Hospital.

Liquor seizure Director of Northern Customs Waleed Al-Nasser said that customs authority has finished counting the liquors caught in Shuwaikh Port. Pointing out that the total quantity of liquor found hidden in the shipment amounted to 2,906 bottles. AlNasser said that he received instructions from General Director of Customs Ibrahim Al-Ghanim to store the liquor bottles in a safe place in order to hand them over to drugs fighting administration who can investigate and arrest those involved in bringing the shipment from abroad and send them to public prosecutor.

Killer worked for civil aviation dept

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Police revealed that the man who killed a woman in Mubarak Hospital’s parking lot was called BSM (31) who worked for the Civil Aviation Directorate. They said that telephone calls between the suspect and the victim have been traced. The man was also wanted to serve a jail sentence for issuing dud checks.

The woman was stabbed while she was in her car at the Mubarak Hospital’s parking lot who later succumbed to her injuries as the stab wound was very deep. The murder suspect wanted to talk to the girl

when she was in her car but she refused. The enraged man smashed the window and stabbed her three times fatally.

Though the man was sentenced to imprisonment for issuing dud cheques, he escaped from jail.

Security sources said that detectives traced the calls of the culprit before the crime and traced the number of the fugitive. However, he was not found in his house. His name was circulated to all border exit points to prevent his escape.

Yet, he managed to escape on Thursday evening after less than an hour of committing the crime. The

sources said that by interrogating the killer’s family, it was found out from his brother that the assailant killed the woman in the hospital parking lot and left Kuwait using his civil ID through Nowaseeb border point within minutes of committing the crime.

The security arrested the brother of the woman killer and charged him with covering up brother’s crime and helping him escape the country.

The sources added that the officials are currently working on preparing a file for the case to send it to Saudi authorities and Interpol seeking their help in arresting and repatriating him.

KUWAIT: Fire fighters at the site of a fire that broke out on the third floor of an apartment building in Farwaniya Thursday evening.

LOCAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Upward trajectory for KSE Local investors, FDI inflow drive bourse’s momentum Reform of the stock market in recent years - including the creation of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), which has been active since 2011 - may have played a part in attracting more foreign investors. Historically, trading on the KSE was dominated by local retail investors, which contributed to volatility in the run-up to the global financial crisis in 2008 KUWAIT: The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) had a positive start to 2013, with the index steadily moving up to reach multi-year highs in May. While local investors are driving much of the recent activity, foreign capital is increasingly flowing into the Gulf’s third-largest bourse.

Plans to privatize the exchange could also boost the KSE’s international profile.

As of mid-May, the KSE’s main index was above 8000, having risen more than 40 percent since the beginning of the year, data from Bloomberg show. According to international media reports, domestic interest in small-cap stocks has been largely responsible for the rally.

In an interview with state news agency KUNA, Kuwaiti economist Salah Sultan expressed a similar opinion. “The market is taking an upward trend, but most of the transactions are based on speculation.

The blue chips are moving slowly and these equities are the real indicators of the market recovery, contrary to current concentration on small and medium cap equities,” he said.

Liquidity A report released in mid-May by Al-Shall Economic Consultants agreed, attributing the sharp jump in liquidity in part to speculative activity. According to Al Shall’s analysis, the average daily trading value for the first four months of 2013 rose by 62 percent over the average for 2012. While the report cited other factors, such as low interest rates, an increase in real estate prices and the relatively low price of Kuwaiti

shares since the global financial crisis, it also noted evidence of “harmful trading”. According to the report, the KSE’s 30 most liquid companies accounted for about two-thirds of trading during the four-month period. While some of these were large listings - the group combined made up about half of total market capitalisation - trading was dominated by smaller stocks. Indeed, 21 of these listings represented just 3.3 percent of the market but captured nearly half of the trading value.

Local investors buying and selling small-cap stocks may be behind some of the recent movements in the market, but an uptick in foreign capital inflows is also a factor, according to Mustafa Behbehani, an economist interviewed by KUNA. “The market rises are driven by the influx of liquidity, whether from Kuwaiti or foreign traders,” he said.

Other experts told KUNA that foreign investment is particularly coming from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Reform of the stock market in recent years - including the creation of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), which has been active since 2011 - may have played a part in attracting more foreign investors.

Historically, trading on the KSE was dominated by local retail investors, which contributed to volatility in the run-up to the global financial crisis in 2008.

The influx of foreign traders is a promising development, one that suggests regulatory reform may be having the desired effect and that the KSE is starting to make the challenging transition from a “domestic and retail” to “foreign and institutional” investor pro-

file. Another step that could further the evolution of the stock market would be its privatization.

Privatization In 2012 the CMA signed an agreement with HSBC Bank Middle East to oversee the privatization of the KSE. Under the terms set out by the government, 50 percent of the exchange was to be sold to listed companies, with the balance offered to Kuwaitis via an IPO. However, the process hit a hurdle later in the year when it was discovered that a clause in legislation establishing the CMA prevented the agency from conducting commercial activities. To avoid any conflict, parliament would need to vote on an amendment to the act governing the CMA, a step that has yet to be taken. In a recent interview with OBG, Saleh Al Falah, Chairman of the CMA, said privatisation is a project of the “utmost importance”, pointing out that “it is well known that private stock exchanges are better run than public exchanges.” While noting that the process is “moving slower than planned”, he added that the regulator is working to “make sure things are done properly.”

Privatisation could indeed make the exchange more competitive, but Kuwait faces other challenges that may ultimately discourage foreign investors from taking a look at the KSE. These include a national development plan that has been slow to roll out, as well as political tensions between parliament and the government.

—Oxford Business Group

News

in brief

KAC to get 2 new aircraft KUWAIT: The Kuwait Airways said the KAC will receive two Airbus 330 and 310 on July 15, as part of the ten aircraft for which it signed a deal, an official source said. He said the remaining planes will arrive later as part of the first stage of KAC’s privatization. He said the aircraft were being leased from the official manufacturer of Airbus aircrafts in Paris and the older aircraft will be used for to extract spare parts. —Al-Watan Education The financial sector at the education ministry received lists of the names of those found eligible to merit outstanding work allowance given to teachers and administrators for the scholastic year 2011/2012, reports AlQabas newspaper. Educational sources said the financial sector is reviewing the lists and verifying the names, and expected that the allowances would be deposited in their bank accounts within two months. The sources expected the education ministry to ask various education zones to prepare the list of employees found outstanding for 2012/2013 as soon as the new standards for payments are finalized. Education Ministry Assistant Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs Duaij Al-Duaij said the sector sent the lists of those eligible for outstanding performance allowance to start working on payments. He said this will be done soon. —Al-Qabas

KUWAIT: A stock trader watches the share monitors at the Kuwait Stock Exchange.

LOCAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

A case for solar power in Kuwait KUWAIT: ASAR - Al-Ruwayeh and Partners (ASAR), Kuwait’s leading and most prominent corporate law firm, and one of the region’s top tier firms contributed in the production of an environmental guide that focuses on development of solar power projects in the Middle East. The guide was launched in an effort to update businesses about key legal trends on environmental laws across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, along with their environmental and compliance obligations.

ASAR’s contribution highlighted the primary drivers for local renewable energy, key solar projects in the pipeline towards realizing solar power generation, conditions for setting up businesses by foreign entities, targeted stakeholders as well as governing laws involved in the solar power facilities establishment. Due to the growing body of legislation and increasing worldwide environmental concerns ranging from climate change to sustainability, regulators are now placing new and more stringent demands upon businesses to meet advanced environmental standards. The guide provides practical advice on key environmental issues on a country-by-country basis across 33 jurisdictions.

Sam Habbas, Senior Partner at ASAR said:

“Kuwait is a leading exporter of oil given its significant oil reserves. Over 70 percent of its electricity generation comes from oil fired technology. Year on year, Kuwait’s electricity consumption is increasing. Kuwait’s domestic consumption and reliance on oil and gas for power consumption can significantly decrease with the development of solar

wind plant which is scheduled to be a joint venture between the Kuwait Ministry of Electricity and Water as well as the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research,” added Habbas. Habbas also noted that the business case for solar power in Kuwait remains strong, with electricity demand growing rapidly along with the volume of expensive oil

Kuwait’s domestic consumption and reliance on oil for power can drop with development of solar energy energy in the country, given its huge solar potential. Adopting the benefits of solar power and renewable energy as a whole and accelerating the growth of this niche sector will lead to a sustainable momentum that is dependable for future business operations.”

“Kuwait does not currently have any operational, utility-scale solar facilities. It is expected that a tender will be issued soon for the construction of a 280 MW power station, 60MW of which will be solar power. The country is also planning a 70MW solar and

Sam Habbas, Senior Partner at ASAR

NBK’s historical TV documentary draws thousands on social media KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait’s (NBK) historical TV documentary entitled “Story of Watani” attracted thousands of followers on Social Media.

NBK has launched this documentary in celebration of its 61st anniversary. The documentary narrates NBK’s establishment in 1952 as the first indigenous bank and Shareholders Company in the GCC and presents NBK’s achievements, accomplishments and its long tradition in supporting social and community-oriented activities in the country. The documentary is broad-

casted on NBK’s YouTube Channel “NBKMedia”.

Followers of NBK’s official social media channels shared their comments on this first-of-its-kind initiative and expressed their gratitude for NBK’s contributions in the development of the national economy.

“Story of Watani” is made up of a series of interviews and historical scenes that follows a remarkable story of success; how NBK has been transformed from a small bank that occupies the area of three shops and a handful of employees relying on

traditional and manual banking tools to one of the largest and most profitable banks in the region. NBK is among the banks to establish a strong social media presence, with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google +, you tube pages devoted to customer feedback and engagement. For more information regarding banking transactions, events and competitions check out National Bank of Kuwait official facebook page NBK - Official Page or follow NBK on Twitter @NBKPage, and on Instagram @NBKPage.

and diesel. The need to adopt a solar power approach across the country’s viable component of its increasing energy mix is a growing topic that will help pave the way for a more sustainable performance of the petroleum sector.

Given the experience of ASAR in the areas of solar and renewable energy, ASAR is uniquely positioned to service its clients who engage in such industry sectors.

Additionally, with dedicated offices in Kuwait and Bahrain coupled with its associated offices and relationships, ASAR provides clients across an extensive range of industry sectors with comprehensive legal advice and support for their business activities in Kuwait, across the GCC and beyond.

The firm has been consistently rated as the leading corporate and commercial law firm in Kuwait by reputable legal guides such as the Chambers Global Guide, International Financial Law Review and the Legal 500. In 2012, ASAR was named as the “Best Law Firm in Kuwait 2012” by the International Financial Law Review (IFLR), the market-leading guide for financial law firms worldwide. The firm also won the “Best Equity Deal in the Middle East” award by IFLR during the same year.

Speaker conveys Amir’s greetings to Bouteflika ALGIERS: Visiting Kuwaiti National Assembly Speaker Ali Al-Rashed said on Thursday he had asked Algerian Premier Abdelmalek Sellal to convey greetings from His Highness the Kuwaiti Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in Paris for medical treatment from a stroke since April.

Speaking to KUNA and Kuwait TV following his meeting with the Algerian prime minister, Al-Rashed said such meetings would certainly contribute to bringing closer both countries’ positions and views on regional and international issues. He said Kuwait has two types of diplomacy; the governmental diplomacy, which is represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the popular diplomacy, which is represented by the National Assembly. He added that he had stressed to the Algerian premier Algerian-Kuwaiti parliamentary relations as deep and firm, pointing to permanent cooperation and coordination between both Algerian and Kuwaiti parliaments on diverse issues of mutual interest.

Earlier in the day, the visiting Kuwaiti parliament speaker met several Algerian officials on bilateral political and parliamentary ties. — KUNA

Lukewarm response to municipal elections KUWAIT: Citizens running for the upcoming 11th Municipal Council elections, to be held in July, were totally reluctant yesterday to submit their papers to the Interior Ministry’s General Directorate for Electoral Affairs. The directorate did not see on the fifth day of candidacy registration any citizen wishing to run for these elections.

So far, there are 33 candidates in the Municipal Council race since the registration was opened on June third. The registration will last till June 12th. In 2009, seven candidates from the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth constituencies applied for the election race on the fourth day of registration.

The number was even greater in the 2005 election fourth day of registration when 11 candidates representing all 10 constituencies submitted their papers. — KUNA

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

UN in record $5.2bn aid appeal for Syria

9

Germany, Hungary rush to repel floods

10

N Korea to reopen hotline with South

13

ISTANBUL: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his wife Emne and daughter Sumeye are greeted by supporters upon arrival at Ataturk International Airport yesterday. —AFP

Erdogan hits back at criticism Thousands of supporters greet PM at airport ISTANBUL: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday his Islamic-rooted government was open to “democratic demands” and hit back at EU criticism of his handling of a week of deadly unrest. Amid international condemnation over rights abuses in the unrest, European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule told Erdogan that excessive police force “has no place” in a democracy and urged a “swift and transparent” probe into the abuses in Turkey, a longtime EU hopeful.

In response, Erdogan said he was against violence and accused European allies of double standards. “In any European country, whenever there is a violent protest against a demolition project like this, believe me, those involved face a harsher response,” the premier said at an Istanbul conference attended by the EU official. Turkey’s protests began when police cracked down heavily on a peaceful campaign to save Istanbul’s Gezi Park, spiralling into nationwide anti-government demos. “What we are against is terrorism, violence, vandalism and actions that threaten others for the sake of freedoms,” Erdogan said.

“I’m open-hearted to anyone with democratic demands.” Thousands of cheering supporters of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) welcomed the premier back from an overseas trip in the early hours, their first public show of strength since the anti-government trouble erupted. In a rousing speech at the airport, Erdogan called for “an immediate end to the demonstrations” and hinted that he would act against further defiance. Undeterred, protesters waving banners and blowing whistles continued to pack Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the epicentre of the protests, for an eighth day.

Turkey’s key strategic ally the United States and other Western powers have expressed concern about the police’s use of tear gas and water cannon on the demonstrators, in clashes that have injured thousands and led to three deaths. Yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined calls for the Turkish government to renounce violence, saying she was “counting on the fact that these problems will be discussed with the youth of the country”. But in a reassuring sign for Turkey’s reputation on the international stage, the

European Union’s Fule, speaking at the same conference as Erdogan, said the EU was sticking by the country’s bid to join the bloc. “Let me... call on Turkey not to give up on its values of freedom and fundamental rights. And let me assure you that we, on our side, have no intention to give up on Turkey’s EU accession,” Fule told the premier in a televised gathering.

In Istanbul, pockets of protesters, some singing and blowing whistles, continued to pack Taksim Square. The atmosphere was calm and many voiced determination to press on with their action. “Nobody wants to go home.

Everybody wants freedom,” said 22-year-old student Sertac Selvi as he helped a new arrival pitch a tent in nearby Gezi Park. “People will go on coming.”

Supporters of Erdogan and his AKP party had stayed mainly silent as the protests raged, but they cut loose yesterday, flocking to the airport in a sea of red and white Turkish flags to welcome him home. “We will die for you, Erdogan,” they chanted, threatening the liberal demonstrators with the refrain: “Let us go and crush them all.”

Flanked by his wife and top government ministers, the 59-year-old premier praised the supporters for their restraint so far, but encouraged them to “go home”. The nationwide unrest has left three people dead - two young protesters and a policeman, according to officials and doctors. The national doctors’ union says 4,785 people have been injured in clashes at the nationwide protests, 48 of them severely. Erdogan has been voted into office three times in a row since 2002 at the head of the AKP, amid strong economic growth but the protests represent the biggest challenge yet to his rule. His critics accuse him of forcing conservative Islamic values on Turkey, a mainly Muslim but staunchly secular nation. The Istanbul stock market fell 1.2 percent at the start of trading Friday, after closing nearly five percent down Thursday. Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek lashed out at the foreign press, accusing them in televised comments of giving a “bad image” of Turkey and its economy. He admitted however there was some “tension” on financial markets due to the unrest. —AFP

City bus inferno kills 38 in China BEIJING: At least 38 people died and more than 30 were injured when a bus “burst into flames” in southeast China, state media reported, the country’s latest deadly road accident.

Images on China’s Internet news portals showed a heavily burnt-out shell was all that remained of the bus, which caught fire in the city of Xiamen, in China’s southeast Fujian province at about 6:30 pm (10:30 GMT), Xinhua said, citing local officials.

Online pictures also showed survivors with blood-stained clothes sitting stunned, and thick, black plumes of smoke rising from the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) vehicle as it burned on an elevated road.

One passenger told Xinhua that she had smelled gasoline, before the fire spread quickly through the bus. A local official told the state-run news agency that the bus caught fire 500 m away from the Jinshan bus stop, which appears to be in a residential area of the city. The accident was under investigation, Xinhua added. Last August, at least 36 people died when a double-decker sleeper bus slammed into the rear of a methanol tanker and burst into flames, China’s worst traffic accident in more than a year. The accident, in China’s northern Shaanxi province, was the deadliest since a fire on an overcrowded sleeper bus carrying flammable materials killed 41 passengers in central China in July in 2011, according to the country’s work safety watchdog. —AFP

International

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Iran cartoonists on tightrope before polls TEHRAN: Press cartoonists say they are dodging “moving red lines” in the run-up to a June 14 presidential election in Iran, a country where a satirical image can get a newspaper banned or an editor jailed.

There have always been no-go areas, such as caricaturing the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or the military, but there has still been a certain freedom of tone during the campaign. Two leading cartoonists, working at reformist newspapers, told AFP their job remains fraught with difficulty drawing as the restrictions have not been clearly defined.

Several others from across the political spectrum declined to be interviewed by AFP about their election coverage. Jamal Rahmati, 40, artistic director of reformist newspaper Etemad, told AFP that, “in general, before the elections we get relative freedom, to a surprising degree. We can touch on every

topic except clerics”. “Nowadays, there may be a problem with any topic because the boundaries are not clearly defined,” he added. The bodies supervising the media “require us not to put a dark interpretation on the situation in the country, but what is a dark interpretation?”

Some things are obvious, and the culture ministry, which supervises the media, warned the press in July against publishing certain reports about the impact of Western sanctions that plunged Iran into a deep crisis. The European Union and the United States have both imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran’s oil and banking sectors to punish its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and the resulting loss of hard currency receipts has sent the value of the rial into a nosedive and the inflation rate soaring.

Another sensitive issue is Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar

Al-Assad in his efforts to crush a 26month-old uprising. And, of course, there is the election itself, in which all eight candidates received the approval of a conservative-led regime vetting body to stand. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected to his second term in 2009, it was widely believed that his victory was due to electoral fraud.

That sparked a public outcry and massive street demonstrations that the regime crushed with deadly force. Hadi Heidari, 33, who directs art work at the oft-banned reformist daily Shargh, echoed his colleague. “Officially, we must work within the framework of the rights outlined in the constitution, with the exception of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the armed forces,” said Heidari.

“But there is an unwritten law which I interpret as moving red lines. For instance if an issue is in the spotlight, this law says ‘do not touch.’” As an example, Rahmati

TEHRAN; Iranian cartoonist Hadi Heidari shows one of his controversial drawings ‘Blindfolded’ at his office yesterday. — AFP cites the seemingly innocuous matter of a hike in poultry prices, saying he would have never thought that drawing a chicken would be a red line. For reformist newspapers, Ahmadinejad, who is barred by the

constitution from running for a third consecutive term, has also become a red line. Heidari said that while he was able to caricature Ahmadinejad in 2009, he can’t now. — AFP

Israeli power couple links politics, press Critics slam ‘incestuous relationship’

BAGHDAD: Iraqi men wearing labels in Arabic to identify their different ethnic and religious affiliations, attend Friday prayers against confessional divisions at the Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani mosque yesterday.

Writing on shirts reads (from right) ‘Kurdish, Yazidi, Turkmen, Shiite, Sunni, Christian’. — AFP

Iraq bomb kills 10 Iran pilgrims BAQUBA, Iraq: A car bomb in a restive town north of Iraq’s capital killed 10 Iranian pilgrims yesterday, officials said, the latest in a spike in violence that has sparked fears of allout sectarian war. Another 30 pilgrims were wounded in the attack, which struck their bus as it was passing through the town of Muqdadiyah en route from the Iranian border to the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Najaf, which lies south of Baghdad, is home to a shrine to a revered figure in Shiite Islam.

Shiites visiting holy shrines and religious sites form the backbone of Iraq’s tourism industry, with the vast majority of pilgrims coming from Iran. When completing a tour of Iraq’s key Shiite religious sites, pilgrims typically visit Najaf, nearby Karbala, Baghdad, and Samarra, the latter of which lies north of the capital. But Sunni militants, including those linked to Al-Qaeda, view Shiites as apostates and often target them for attacks. No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s bombing, however.

Attacks in Iraq have risen sharply, with May the country’s deadliest month since 2008, as persistent political disputes have given fuel and room for militants to increase their activities. There has been a heightened level of violence since the beginning of the year, coinciding with rising discontent in the Sunni Arab minority that erupted into protests in late December. The UN envoy to Iraq has warned that the violence is “ready to explode”. — AFP

JERUSALEM: He’s a powerful Cabinet minister and a potential heir to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She’s an influential anchor for Israel’s state-run TV channel who led its recent election night coverage. Together they have emerged as the country’s most highprofile power couple, with every step of their budding romance chronicled by paparazzi and gossip columnists.

Beyond the headlines, though, newlyweds Gideon Saar and Geula Even have also generated a debate over what some critics say is already an incestuous relationship between politicians and the press.

Suspicions run deep in Israel, a small country with a long tradition of reporters befriending those they cover and a revolving door between the two professions. Media ownership is tightly concentrated, with some outlets harboring distinct political agendas. The Saar-Even partnership is the most obvious manifestation of these worlds intersecting. Both are recently divorced and have children from previous marriages, and the disclosure that Even is pregnant has added to the intrigue. Their wedding last month was a top news story in Israel, immediately drawing speculation over how Even could objectively cover a political world in which her husband is such a major player.

“In a perfect world, this kind of relationship is a problem. But this is a small community and we have to learn to live with it,” said Hanoch Marmari, editor-inchief of the Seventh Eye, a media watchdog website. “At least it is out in the open and everyone knows they

have to be careful. I don’t think their job performance will be influenced, and if it is, we will know how to handle that, too.” Israel TV is supposed to be insulated from government control, run by an independent board of directors. Other main TV channels are privately owned but licensed by the government. To be sure, Israel is not alone in coping with the potential conflict of interests that arise from such strange bedfellows.

Maria Shriver decided to take leave from NBC News when her then-husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, ran for governor of California; her NBC colleague Andrea Mitchell stayed on the air throughout her spouse Alan Greenspan’s tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve. James Rubin remained in his position as State Department spokesman in the Clinton White House after marrying CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour. France has seen several

high-profile politician-journalist couples. Prominent TV star Anne Sinclair quit journalism when her then-husband, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, joined the government in the 1990s. She left Strauss-Kahn, who later became head of the International Monetary Fund, after he faced a string of sex-related scandals in recent years. She has since resumed journalism and is now chief editor of the French Huffington Post.

French President Francois Hollande’s partner is a well-known political journalist. Valerie Trierweiler has continued to work for the Paris Match magazine since his election last year, writing occasional literary columns and drawing both criticism and praise for her choice to keep writing. In her first postelection article, she wrote an essay in praise of Eleanor Roosevelt, who worked as a journalist while her husband was US president. — AFP

TEL AVIV: In this photo made on May 16, 2013, Gideon Saar and Geula Even are seen during their wedding. — AP

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Lebanon slams ‘plot’ to embroil country in war BEIRUT: The Lebanese army warned yesterday that a plot was afoot to embroil the country in the 26-month conflict in neighbouring Syria, as deadly clashes between Damascus supporters and opponents inside Lebanon multiply.

“The army command... calls on citizens to be wary of plots aimed at taking Lebanon backwards and dragging it into an absurd war,” a statement said, adding that it would give an “armed response to any armed action”. “The army command has been trying for several months to work firmly, determinedly and patiently to prevent Lebanon being turned into a battlefield for regional conflicts and to prevent any spillover of the events in Syria,” it said. “But in recent days, some groups have seemed determined to stoke security tensions... against the backdrop of the political divisions in Lebanon over military developments in Syria.”

Although Lebanon has officially adopted a position of neutrality in Syria’s war, its people are sharply divided with Shiite Muslims backing President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and Sunnis the rebellion. The army urged “citizens to express their political views on events in Lebanon and Syria by peaceful and democratic means and not to be driven by groups wanting to use violence as a means to achieve their

ends”. It said it would “spare no effort to prevent innocent people from paying the price for political designs aimed at destroying Lebanon”.

The statement was the strongest from the Lebanese army since the uprising against Assad’s rule erupted in March 2011. It came a day after soldiers came under fire in the northern city of Tripoli, as well as its flashpoint districts of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh.

The two neighbourhoods have witnessed frequent clashes linked to the Syrian conflict, and on each occasion the army has sought to impose a ceasefire. On Wednesday night, two armed men, one of them a Syrian, were killed in a shootout with the army at the entrance of the town of Arsal, near the border with Syria, the military said. Arsal, home to Sunnis who support the Syrian uprising, is a conduit for rebel fighters, their weapons and refugees across the border with the war-torn country. On Thursday, one person was killed and several others wounded in clashes in the heart of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-biggest city. It came after the public intervention of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement alongside Assad’s troops in the battle for the border town of Qusayr which culminated in its recapture on Wednesday and deepened political divisions. — AFP

TRIPOLI: Lebanese army soldiers patrol Syria street in Tripoli’s Sunni neighbourhood of Bab Al-Tabbaneh to restore a tense calm yesterday.— AFP

UN in record $5.2bn aid appeal for Syria Russia offers to replace Austrian peacekeepers DAMASCUS: The United Nations launched a record $5.2-billion aid appeal for Syria yesterday as regime forces sought to capitalise on recent victories over the rebels, sending reinforcements to battlefields Homs and Aleppo.

The world body, meanwhile, scrambled to find replacement troops for its peacekeeping mission on the Golan Heights after heavy fighting between regime forces and rebels near its headquarters on Thursday prompted Austria to announce it was pulling out. The sum sought by the UN by far overshadows the $2.2 billion that it appealed for in 2003 to help cope with the crisis sparked by the war in Iraq.

But UN officials said the number of people in need inside Syria and in neighbouring countries was set to spiral as the conflict drags on for a third year.

The world body said that a total of $3.8 billion was needed to help Syrian refugees who have spilled across the country’s borders to escape fighting in their homeland. The figure for operations inside Syria, meanwhile, was $1.4 billion. More than 94,000 people have been killed and some 1.6 million Syrians have fled the country since the civil war began in March 2011 after a crackdown on protests against President Bashar alAssad’s regime.

The number of refugees is expected to reach at least 3.45 million by the end of this year, according to the UN appeal.

Within the country, a total of 6.8 million people are forecast to need aid this year, the majority of them people who have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting. “By the end of the year, half of the population of Syria will be in

KAFR NABIL, Syria: Anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a placard with a caricature on it against Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (top left), Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (top right) and US President Barack Obama (below) during a demonstration in this town in Idlib province yesterday. — AP need of aid,” said Adrian Edwards, the outskirts of Dabaa village” north of spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency. Qusayr, said the Britain-based group, Syria’s pre-war population was 20.8 mil- adding forces of Lebanon’s Hezbollah lion. Syrian government forces were try- were involved.

The Lebanese army warned of a ing to mop up final pockets of rebel resistance north of Qusair, the border “plot” to embroil the country in the 26town which they retook on Wednesday month conflict, as deadly clashes bolstered by Lebanese Hezbollah fight- between supporters and opponents of ers. The Syrian Observatory for Human the Assad regime multiply on its territoRights said Assad’s forces were also ry. The Observatory said government sending reinforcements to Aleppo forces were also massing “in their thouprovince in the north, where large sands” in Aleppo province, aiming priswathes of territory have been in rebel marily to take territory along the border hands for months. “Clashes broke out at with Turkey. “They want to cut rebel dawn between the army and rebels on supply lines from Turkey.” — AFP

Israel wary of Golan security JERUSALEM: After new clashes between Syrian troops and rebels in the Golan, and Austria’s announced withdrawal from a UN monitoring force, Israel is concerned about security along its ceasefire line with Syria. The army remained on high alert in the region on Friday, bringing up reinforcements of tanks and troops, and readying an anti-tank missile unit, media said. That came after Austria said it would withdraw peacekeepers from the UN force, citing deteriorating security, and the Philippines said it was studying a similar move after one of its soldiers was wounded in the fierce fighting on Thursday.

The Quneitra crossing between the Israeli and Syrian sides of the armistice line was briefly seized by rebels and then recaptured by government troops following smallarms and artillery exchanges, a security source said. An AFP correspondent saw tanks of President Bashar alAssad’s regime approaching the ceasefire line later in the day. Israeli army spokesman Captain Arye Shalicar told AFP on Thursday: “We’re watching very closely what’s happening there, and we have to be ready for any development. We hope there won’t be any spillover into Israel.

It is very worrying because, on the one hand, you have jihadists and Islamists who are fighting there (on the rebel side) and, on the other hand, you also have government forces which are allied with (the Lebanese militant group) Hezbollah”. “We certainly don’t want to have Hezbollah on two fronts,” he said, referring to the presence of the group in southern Lebanon, next to the Israeli border.

Quneitra, the only crossing along the ceasefire line, is used almost exclusively by Druze residents of the Israelioccupied Golan Heights who are allowed to cross over to study, work or get married. Several dozen Syrian civilians tried to enter Israel through Quneitra on Thursday but were turned away by the Israeli army. The crossing remained closed yesterday. The Israeli army has repeatedly warned farmers on the Syrian side against straying too near the ceasefire line.

Because of the fighting, the stability and makeup of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, which has monitored a ceasefire between Israel and Syria since 1974, has come into question. Austria, which has been a cornerstone of UNDOF, said on Thursday it would withdraw its 377 soldiers, who make up more than a third of the force, because the threat to them had “reached an unacceptable level”. — AFP

I N T E R N AT I O N A L SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Unrest divides locals in Erdogan birthplace ISTANBUL: At the pavement cafes of the Istanbul district where he grew up, folks speak fondly of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But even here, doubts are creeping in about his handling of a violent crackdown on protests against his rule. The unrest broke out a few hundred metres from the Kasimpasa neighbourhood, where as a young boy Erdogan hawked lemonade and bread rings and attended the local Quranic school before growing up into a successful businessman. The recent police response to the protests has drawn stern nods of approval from some locals and frowns from others.

“He is one of the bravest prime ministers Turkey has known. This country is full of love and respect for him,” says Mithat Uran, an estate agent of 46, sitting at an open-air cafe with a glass of tea in his hand. For Uran, the police were just doing their jobs when they violently dispersed protesters demonstrating a week ago against plans to bulldoze the trees in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, next to the protest hotspot Taksim Square. “What’s a police-

man supposed to do when someone throws stones and bricks against the state?” says Uran. “He hits back, that’s what he’s supposed to do.”

The national doctors’ union says 4,785 people have been injured, 43 of them seriously, as police have tried to quell the protests with tear gas, pepper spray and water cannon. Ali Dagdelen, a 43-yearold construction employee, says he always has and always will vote for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) “because they have done good things for the country.” But in the past week, he adds, “some of the police went too far with their violence and have harmed the country for nothing.”

In a conservative neighbourhood with a big mosque and countless headscarfwearing Muslim women on the pavements, these locals are part of the one half of Turkey that supports the AKP - a party grounded in conservative Islamic values. They have voted Erdogan into office in the three past elections amid strong economic growth, handing him nearly 50 percent of the vote in 2011. His

supporters had stayed mostly silent in the week of crisis until Thursday night, when they rallied at the airport to welcome him back from a trip.

Erdogan said at the start of the unrest that he could “mobilise a million supporters” if he had to. He has dismissed the protesters as “looters” and “extremists” and alleged that shadowy foreign agitators and “terrorists” are behind the trouble. Dursun Bekci, 74, agrees that the real culprits behind the unrest lurk outside Turkey. “Under Erdogan, Turkey is coming out of captivity. It is on its feet and has started to give orders instead of taking them,” Bekci said. “The exploiters don’t like that,” he added, referring to the West.

“So they are fuelling the revolt.”

Another local of Kasimpasa, Hayrullah Yosma, 67, has no sympathy for the protesters. “They are louts, manipulated by certain interests - especially Israel - to make the government fall,” said Yosma, a cafe owner in an Ottoman-style turban.

“We won’t let the government fall at any cost. We are by his side, behind him and in front of him,” he said of Erdogan.

Germany, Hungary rush to repel floods Central Europe counts cost of deadly flooding MUEHLBERG, Germany: Germany’s race to shore up dams on swollen rivers shifted to the north Friday while Hungary braced for a record flood surge as other central European regions began counting the cost of the deadly flooding. Volunteers, rescuers and soldiers in northern German states feverishly piled up sandbags along the Elbe river which has already deluged vast stretches with seas of brown water from the Czech Republic to eastern Germany.

Hungarians reinforced dykes along the Danube through the night ahead of an expected record flood in the capital, Budapest, in Europe’s worst river flooding in over a decade that has forced mass evacuations and killed at least 12.

While the Danube had already reached record levels in western Hungary early yesterday, Budapest was expected to bear the brunt after the weekend amid predictions the river would rise to more than double the level usual for the time of year. “It is now clear that we are facing the worst floods of all time,” said Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a statement after spending the night in a military barracks in the deluged western city of Gyor. After days of flooding in southern and eastern Germany, more than 11,000 soldiers have been deployed to help.

German Chamber of Trade and Industry head Eric Schweitzer said in yesterday’s Rheinische Post newspaper that in some regions the damage was expected to be greater than in the 2002 floods whose economic cost had amounted to Ä11 billion ($15 billion). In the medieval city of Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt state, the Elbe surpassed record levels from historic flooding in 2002 Friday with worse still to come, according to officials.

Dozens of army and Red Cross jeeps and trucks were parked at the entry to Muehlberg, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in Brandenburg state, 150 km south of the capital Berlin. “We are afraid.

But we must wait here for that to pass because

STADT WEHLEN, Germany: People in a rubber boat make their way through the floods of the river Elbe submerging houses yesterday. —AFP we have animals,” Silke Christen, 47, who owns a horse-breeding business, told AFP. Volunteers scrambled to fill sandbags as the Elbe reached 9.9 m yesterday, just 10 cm below the maximum the dykes are able to resist. “As you can see, it’s urgent,” a soldier commented, while a firefighter described the situation as “tense”. Little respite was in sight for residents of another Saxony-Anhalt city, Bitterfeld, visited Thursday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, where more residents fled to safety as a lake threatened to flood parts of the city.

In the historic eastern cities of Dresden and Halle, where 30,000 people were evacuated after recent days saw the highest water level in 400 years on a local tributary, as well as in Bavaria in the south, the water level was slowly falling. After Merkel pledged aid of at least

Ä100 million, another offer of help came from the region’s footballing heroes. Bayern Munich which recently scored its own place in history by becoming the first German club to win the Bundesliga, German Cup and the Champions League in the same campaign, announced a charity match in aid of flood victims.

Czechs hit by the flooding that has claimed at least eight lives with five people still missing returned to their homes with mixed emotions some in despair, others happy to have saved what they could. Jiri Kozak, visibly moved, described how he managed to rescue his private zoo of 50 animal species including parrots, snakes, turtles and kangaroos in the southern village of Putim before the flood wave came. “I was afraid many animals would die. I was telling myself I should apologise to them for having them here,” he told public Czech TV. —AFP

As the disturbances lay bare the polarisation of Turkish society, however, some lay the blame at Erdogan’s door even here. “He always does everything by himself and that doesn’t work in a democracy,” said Sahin, another estate agent.

“You cannot say, ‘I am the sultan,’ just because you have won the elections,” he said. “There are the people to consider.

You have to respect each of them, even the small minorities.”

Younger people in Kasimpasa, who were children when Erdogan first won power in 2002, are throwing their weight behind the protests. Melek, a 22-year-old nurse in a headscarf, pounds along the pavement, impatient to reach Gezi Park.

“I think it is very important to protect this green space because in a big city like Istanbul there is no more room for nature,” she said. “I think the demonstrators are right,” added Melek, who did not give her second name, criticising “the very hard approach of the government”.

“You’re very wrong to think that all women who wear the veil support the AKP.” —AFP

Burundi, a nation divided over land BUJUMBURA, Burundi: For the crowded and grossly impoverished country of Burundi, struggling to rebuild after decades of unrest and war, land is one of the most emotive issues of all.

Now as refugees return home to swell the already overpopulated central African country, the question of who owns property that changed hands during long years of war is raising tensions between the long time rival groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi.

Both have a case to make, but some see the government’s National Commission for Land and Property (CNTB) as favouring one side over the other, said Pacifique Ninahazwe, a prominent civil society figure.

“The CNTB is increasingly deciding in favour of returnees and ethnic Hutu more generally, rather than recognising that both returnees and residents face problems,” Ninahazwe told AFP. “If this continues it will lead to other potentially devastating conflicts.” In one recent case in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura, riots broke out as police tried to evict a Tutsi family from their house in order to give it back to a Hutu family, former residents 40 years ago. “We are here to oppose injustice, to oppose the CNTB, which is undermining reconciliation in Burundi society,” shouted a member of the thousand or so youths who gathered at the protest. In that case, the standoff lasted six hours, left more than a dozen people hurt and resulted in the arrest of 20 youths.

The land commission used to favour splitting disputed land between the most recent owners and returning former proprietors who had lost their property in successive conflicts that drove hundreds of thousands to flee, from both ethnic groups.

However, the office of President Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu, took the commission under its wing at the end of 2010 and the head of state appointed a new CNTB president, Serapion Bambonanire, in April 2011. Today, the commission increasingly decides in favour of returnees, rather than owners.

Bambonanire is unrepentant on this policy. Under his leadership, the commission has even gone back and revised previously settled cases. “How can one justify someone having to share their land with someone who stole it from him?” he asked.

Land arguments have roots in the most bitter of ethnic rivalries. In 1972, after several years of tensions that sometimes degenerated into killings, a Hutu rebellion erupted in Burundi.

The uprising resulted in the massacre of Tutsis, a group that currently makes up 14 percent of the population. Reprisal killings degenerated into large-scale massacres of the educated Hutu elite, leaving at least 100,000 people dead. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled into exile. More refugees followed after renewed killings in 1988, and then a further wave of those fleeing a 1993-2006 civil war. The peace process that followed resulted in the return of more than 500,000 refugees, most of whom have got their land back. —AFP

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Club of rich, powerful meet in secret LONDON: It’s a busy weekend at the luxury Grove Hotel, favored haunt of British football players and their glitzloving spouses. More than 100 of the world’s most powerful people are at the former manor house near London for a secretive annual gathering that has attained legendary status in the eyes of anti-capitalist protesters and conspiracy theorists. The guest list for the Bilderberg meeting includes Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. British Prime Minister David Cameron is due to drop by yesterday.

The Bilderberg Group was set up in 1954 to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War. Named for the site of its first meeting the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland - the forum for prominent politi-

cians, thinkers and business leaders has been held annually at a series of secluded venues in Europe and North America.

What happens at Bilderberg, stays at Bilderberg. There is no media access and the public is kept away by a large security operation. The group says that “there is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”

But in a move toward slightly more openness, the group now has a website, which lists attendees and key topics for discussion, including the economy, US foreign policy, “cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats” and “major trends in medical research”.

Invitees include British Treasury chief George Osborne, Goldman Sachs chairman Peter Sutherland and Thomas Enders, CEO of aerospace company EADS.Publication of these details has done little to ease the concerns of protesters, who sense a shadowy global

elite at work in the secretive meeting. ”When 130 of the leaders from all across the West get together, and many of these are billionaires, they are people who are immensely wealthy and immensely powerful,” said Michael Meacher, a lawmaker from Britain’s Labour Party.

“And when they all get together, it’s not just to have a chat about the latest problem, it is to concert plans for the future of capitalism in the West. That is on a very different scale.” Others go even further, putting Bilderberg at the heart of a global web of conspiracy. The protesters in Watford include US talkradio host and Sept 11 “truther” Alex Jones, and former professional soccer player David Icke, who believes the world is run by a race of reptiles in human form. Demonstrators plan to hold a “Bilderberg fringe” festival outside the hotel until the conference ends Sunday. — AP

Putin divorce takes Russia by surprise Break-up may clear way for new marriage MOSCOW: Russians reeled yesterday from the shock announcement by President Vladimir Putin that his 30-year marriage was over, a break-up that was long an open secret but few imagined would ever be made public. In a highly choreographed joint interview with state television after attending a ballet together, Putin’s wife Lyudmila said they were having a “civilised divorce” and revealed that the pair hardly ever saw each other. Lyudmila said she was grateful to Putin for supporting her, while Putin praised the fact she had “stood guard” for the almost nine years he has served as president. “We are always going to be very close to each other. I am sure, forever,” said the Russian strongman.

It was an extraordinarily frank statement for any Russian politician, whose private lives are generally out of bounds.

But particularly for Putin, who lives in such secrecy that he has never been officially photographed with his two adult daughters. The announcement unleashed speculation about whether Putin is seeing another woman, a subject that has so far been taboo. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday denied any rumours that the president has a relationship with another woman. “It’s not difficult to take a look at Putin’s work schedule. And you will see that his life, perhaps unfortunately, is in no way tied to any family relationships, only to those responsibilities that he has as the head of state,” he told the Echo of Moscow radio station. An imminent second marriage is “rather closer to the category of rumours and gossip,” he added.

Observers however said that the public announcement ultimately serves little practical purpose, and that creating an image of a man completely devoted to his country along the lines of Joseph Stalin - would never work in today’s Russia. “In the modern world it is impossible to recreate a Stalin-esque image... of a man who thinks only about the motherland,” said independent analyst Dmitry Oreshkin. “If there is a new marriage, then it will be clear why the (divorce announcement) was done.” “The news is that Putin’s private life became a subject of public discussion for the first time,” said political analyst Maria Lipman of Carnegie Centre in Moscow. “Something has to follow,” she said. “Putin wanted people to know, and the question is why he needs the divorce. To start a new marriage? It’s possible that we will find out about another woman.”

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila walk before watching the ‘Esmeralda’ ballet at the State Kremlin Palace on Thursday. — AFP The Moskovsky Korrespondent newspaper, owned by tycoon Alexander Lebedev, reported in 2008 that Putin was about to marry Olympic gymnast turned legislator Alina Kabayeva, 31 years his junior. The paper then denied its own story and was closed by its owner. Peskov said Putin’s packed schedule means “his life is not linked in any way to any family relations.”

The reason for the timing of the announcement is unclear. The carefully choreographed revelation may be aimed at improving Putin’s image as a man wedded to his job at a time of challenges from opposition protests and increased Internet scrutiny of his life. In May in a public phone-in, Putin said his work was his “whole life. I don’t know if that is enough for happiness.”

Lyudmila, 55, a former flight attendant, revealed in their interview that she disliked flying and was averse to publicity, factors that had made the marriage impossible.

Kommersant business daily headlined its story “Civilised divorce”, saying that the couple suffered from “incompatibility of life rhythms”. His spokesman said the couple had not yet filed for divorce, asking for respect for their privacy.

Yesterday the story dominated the Internet, with many praising Putin for speaking frankly. “This is all honest, without falseness,” wrote Kremlin loyalist daily Komsomolskaya Pravda on its website. — AFP

WATFORD, England: In this photo taken Thursday, security personnel search people as they arrive at the Grove Hotel ahead of the Bilderberg Group meeting. — AP

Prince Philip to undergo surgery LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip was due to undergo exploratory surgery on his abdomen at a London hospital yesterday, raising fresh questions about the 91-year-old’s health. The Duke of Edinburgh was admitted to the private London Clinic on Thursday evening for what Buckingham Palace said was a planned operation under general anaesthetic. It was business as usual for the 87-year-old queen, however, who went ahead with a visit to the BBC’s new headquarters just a few streets away from where her husband was being treated.

It is the fourth time in two years that Philip has been hospitalised and follows “an abdominal investigation that took place last week”, a palace spokeswoman said. The duke, who has been married to the queen for 65 years, is expected to stay in hospital for up to two weeks. The spokeswoman insisted however that Philip was “in good health”, saying he had walked into the clinic on Harley Street “unaided” after being driven there. Although he missed a gala event on Monday, the duke had a full diary of engagements this week and appeared in good spirits as he attended a garden party just hours before going into hospital.

He been due to join the queen on a visit to the BBC’s refurbished headquarters at New Broadcasting House yesterday morning. She made no public mention of his condition as she formally opened the building during a live radio broadcast, although BBC Director General Tony Hall urged the duke to get well soon. “We are all only sorry that his royal highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, has been unable to come with you today and we wish him, all of us wish him a speedy recovery,” Hall said.

Palace officials gave no details about Philip’s surgery but it could involve either keyhole surgery or more serious open surgery designed to look for abnormalities. Just hours before his admittance to hospital, the duke was pictured smiling in top hat and tails and chatting animatedly to some of the 8,000 guests at a Buckingham Palace garden party. Guest John Peace, the lord-lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, said Philip had been “telling jokes” and accompanying the queen, adding: “It was wonderful to see the Duke of Edinburgh with her.” With the exception of sporting-related injuries, the duke has enjoyed good health, but there are signs that age is finally catching up with him as he approaches his 92nd birthday on Monday.

In August last year, he was admitted to hospital in Scotland to be treated for a bladder infection. Two months earlier, a similar complaint saw him hospitalised for five nights in London, causing him to miss the last event of the queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations. — AFP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Obama embracing Bush-era anti-terror policies WASHINGTON: Five years into his presidency, Barack Obama presides over a national security apparatus that in many ways still resembles the one left behind by President George W Bush. Drones are killing terrorism suspects, the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, holds “enemy combatants” and the government secretly collects telephone records of millions of Americans. This from a president who in 2008 ran as the antiBush candidate who would get the US out of Iraq, put an end to torture and redefine US policies abroad.

But even as he has ended the war in Iraq, changed interrogation standards and sought to build foreign alliances, the former constitutional law professor also has disappointed some allies by embracing, and in

some cases expanding, the counterterrorism policies that caused Bush to run afoul of civil libertarians. Over the past two days, news accounts have revealed that the government has collected millions of Americans’ phone records in the name of national security and has also conducted an Internet surveillance program that tracks people’s movements and contacts that the Obama administration says is aimed exclusively at non-citizens outside the US. Both programs rely on the Bush-era Patriot Act, which Congress has since twice reauthorized with Obama’s support.

The disclosures come two weeks after Obama declared in a major speech that when it comes to the nation’s security “America is at a crossroads” and proposed a more tar-

geted counterterrorism strategy. But even while calling for a national debate over the appropriate balance between security and freedom, that speech, and the reports of phone and Internet surveillance by the National Security Agency, underscored that Obama, like Bush before him, has an overriding preoccupation about a terror attack on US. soil.

“The top priority of the president of the United States is the national security of the United States and protecting the homeland, and we have to make sure we have the tools we need to confront the threat posed by terrorists,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday in defending the collection of phone records.

That program is a “critical tool in protecting the nation from terror

Obama, Xi to meet in key Calif summit Leaders seek to build new ties RANCHO MIRAGE, California: Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping were to seclude themselves in a desert oasis yesterday for an unusually relaxed US-China summit, called to forge some personal chemistry between the two men. Allegations of Chinese cyber hacking and espionage, North Korea’s nuclear defiance and constant trade niggles between the world’s two single largest economies and possible future superpower rivals will dominate the talks. But Obama also has a wider purpose - trying to glean the strategic vision of the man who will likely guide rising China through the rest of his own presidency, and deep into the administration of whoever succeeds him.

Xi makes his first trip to the United States as president months after taking control of the full machinery of the Chinese state, and US-based China watchers see the talks as the most significant Sino-US summit in years.

Obama meanwhile will get a new crack at forging progress in a geopolitical relationship likely to partly define his legacy, and which caused the White House frustration in stilted talks with ex-Chinese president Hu Jintao. The two leaders had not been expected to meet until the G20 summit in Russia in September -but both sides, sensing uncertainty seeping into a complicated and often difficult relationship, saw value in an earlier encounter.

The presidents will ditch the formality and convention of normally minutely planned US-China summits, and meet at the sumptuous Annenberg retreat in a sun-scorched corner of California. “Early in the term of both presidents, we felt that having this type of wide-ranging, informal setting for discussions between the two leaders

INDIAN WELLS, California: Supporters of Chinese President Xi Jinping cheer as they watch the motorcade carrying Xi arrive on Thursday. — AP would allow them to cover the broadest possible agenda,” said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But Obama also wanted to “forge a working relationship that we will be relying on very much in the years to come,” the official said. “The US-China relationship is as important as any bilateral relationship for shaping the trajectory of the global economy and global security in the 21st century.”

Obama and Xi were due to meet up yesterday at 0000 GMT before formal talks and a working dinner. They will then meet again today morning. The White House is predicting no breakthroughs, in part due to the swiftly organized program and in part because the issues confronting the two leaders are so acute. Blunt exchanges are expected on cyber security, following a string of reports that China-based operations have stolen huge troves of

US military and commercial secrets.

China has signaled that it believes it too is a victim of cyber espionage and will challenge Washington on its own activities.

In a bid to ensure the issue does not overshadow this summit, the two sides have already announced they will hold working group level talks on cyber security in July. North Korea will also come up, with US officials encouraged at signs that China is becoming impatient with Pyongyang’s saber rattling.

Xi will also be interested in hearing Obama explain his signature diplomatic and military pivot to Asia, which has irked China, where some observers have worried it is about containing Beijing’s rise. Obama is under pressure to tackle what US business leaders complain are China’s predatory economic policies and the theft of US intellectual property. — AFP

threats,” Earnest added. Obama supporters might be forgiven for thinking he would have had something else in mind.

Before becoming president, Obama unsuccessfully sought changes in the USA Patriot Act that would have placed restrictions on the very provision that his administration now uses to collect phone records.

The changes, proposed in a 2005 bill that Obama as a senator co-sponsored, would have required that “the records sought pertained to a terrorist or a spy or another agent of a foreign power,” Gregory T Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said Thursday. “The surveillance that was revealed yesterday is of records that pertain to everyone else.” — AP

Media buyouts new tactic in Venezuela CARACAS: Back-to-back buyouts of major media properties in Venezuela over the past month appear to have ushered in a new phase in the leftist government’s long struggle to bring to heel an independent press, analysts say.

Instead of the all-out confrontation that characterized relations with the media under the late Hugo Chavez, his successors have opted for a behind-the-scenes approach to managing press coverage, they say. A falling domino that caught many here by surprise was Cadena Capriles, publisher of the country’s largest circulation newspaper, which was sold earlier this week to unidentified buyers.

Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader who is challenging the outcome of April 14 presidential election, is distantly related to the group’s owners but has no stake in the company. The Cadena Capriles sale followed the buyout earlier in May of the last television news channel aligned with the opposition, Globovision, by a group of investors reportedly connected to Chavistas. Analysts say the sales have left President Nicolas Maduro, who already sits astride an expanding state-run media empire, with greater leverage than ever to twist arms to gain favorable coverage from Venezuela’s private media.

Maduro’s enhanced clout is “expressed not so much in terms of sanctions against the media, but in close door meetings among the political powers to assure more pleasing coverage,” said communications expert Andres Canizalez. Indeed, Maduro met last month with the owners of media still in private hands, urging them to adopt a less confrontational tone. A month earlier, after narrowly winning a bitterly contested election to replace the late Hugo Chavez, he had warned them to take stock of their position. “It is the hour of definition,” he said in nationally broadcast remarks. “I call on the communications media to be sensible. To Venevision, Televen, all the media, define who you are with: with the fatherland? ... Or are you going to go back to the side of fascism?”

Although buyouts and withdrawals of broadcast licenses have left the government well short of complete control of the media, it is pushing its editorial lines in private talks, analysts say. “The government does not exclude any means to achieve hegemony,” said communications expert Antonio Pasquali. “Some owners give in. When they start losing clients and advertising it gets very bad for them.” The sale of Cadena Capriles, a 70-year-old media mainstay that editorially leans toward Chavez and his followers, has raised questions about its mysterious new owners and the direction they will take it. But Canizales said the new owners must be counting on the government’s blessings. “It’s not a comfortable position to buy a media outlet in Venezuela,” he added. The new owners of Globovision have been shaking up the news network, which during Chavez’s 14 years in power gave extensive coverage to the opposition and its issues. — AFP

I N T E R N AT I O N A L SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Bra ban ahead of crucial Chinese exam BEIJING: More than nine million students packed exam halls across China for the opening day of the country’s university entrance exam yesterday with attempts to stop cheating even leading to bans on metal bra clasps. Students in the northeastern province of Jilin were banned from wearing clothing with metal parts and education authorities installed metal detectors in exam centres to clamp down on “wireless cheating devices”, the state-run Global Times reported. Authorities have become increasingly concerned about the risk of examinees using devices such as smartphones - some of which have become smaller and easier to hide - as an illicit aid during tests.

Around 9.12 million high school students were registered across China to sit the crucially important two-day exam, known as the gaokao, an education ministry spokeswoman said.

Officials aimed to crack down on “sales of hightech gear for cheating, and gaokao-related fraud”, the Global Times said. But users of China’s Twitter-like weibos were scornful. “Everyone is paying attention to the bras. What about glasses?” said one.

Some measures to ensure students reach the

annual test on time can be extreme. Pictures posted online showed an amphibious fire engine ploughing through water to deliver a boy dressed in school uniform to the exam in a remote part of Inner Mongolia. The southern city of Guangzhou introduced dedicated lanes for vehicles taking students to the gaokao, local media said, while

parents in China’s business hub of Shanghai booked taxis a week in advance for their children.

Alternatively, families rent rooms in nearby hotels to avoid wasting valuable study time commuting to exam halls, the website of the state-run People’s Daily reported. Some parents paid as much as 5,000 yuan ($815) a night for five-star

JILIN, China: An invigilator checks a student before the 2013 college entrance exam starts in northeast China’s Jilin province yesterday. —AFP

Cambodia outlaws denial of Khmer Rouge atrocities PHNOM PENH: Cambodia yesterday banned the denial of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime with a new law, a move the opposition claims is a political attack weeks ahead of national polls. The law bans statements denying crimes by the communist regime that ruled from 1975-79 killing an estimated two million people, and carries a sentence of up to two years in jail. The law, similar to legislation covering Holocaust denial in Germany and France, was proposed by strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen after a recording emerged of an opposition leader apparently excusing the Khmer Rouge from responsibility for running a notorious torture prison during their rule.

The recording, posted on a government website last month, is of Kem Sokha, deputy head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), saying the Tuol Sleng prison was run by Vietnamese soldiers who ousted the Khmer Rouge rather than the regime. Around 15,000 men, women and children were tortured and executed at the prison, also known as S-21, in central Phnom Penh. Kem Sokha has admitted it is his voice on the recording but alleges it was edited to say the contentious comments, a claim backed by the CNRP which alleges the tape was aired “to cause political trouble” ahead of a general election in July.

Lawmakers, mostly from the ruling party, unanimously approved the law - which has only five articles - after around an hour of debate yesterday. The law will prosecute anyone who “does not acknowledge, denies or diminishes... crimes committed under the Democratic Kampuchea”, the draft said, referring to the brutal regime’s official name. Lawmaker Cheam Yeap told parliament that denial of the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge was “a serious insult to the souls” of those who died under its rule. The CNRP said it was “very disappointed” that the ruling party and parliament had rushed through the legislation, adding the law should also ban former Khmer Rouge leaders from senior office.

Hun Sen and several other top officials were Khmer Rouge cadres. Critics also say the law may jeopardise painstaking efforts to heal the country. “You don’t need the law to protect the truth of what happened during the Khmer Rouge,” Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia which researches Khmer Rouge atrocities, told AFP. Hun Sen has repeatedly warned that the country risks civil war and even a return to the ruthless regime if the opposition wins polls. “Chaos will surely happen if they really win.... I would like to send a message out that Pol Pot’s regime will return,” he said last month.

The CNRP has only a slim chance of gaining enough votes to oust Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985. Led by “Brother Number One” Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge from 1975-79 wiped out nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population through starvation, overwork or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia. —AFP

accommodation in Shanghai, after facilities close to schools dubbing themselves “gaokao hotels” sold out of rooms, the report said. Parents across the country visited temples to make offerings for their children’s success, the Global Times said, while photos showed others waiting outside exam rooms with food and drink specially prepared for their children.

There are more than seven million university places available in China for the next academic year, so that most of those who take the test will secure one, but where they will go is hugely dependent on their results. In Beijing, Chinese, mathematics and English are compulsory subjects, with one other paper in either arts or sciences, and the exam is scored out of a maximum 750 points. China’s top educational institutions such as Peking University or Tsinghua, also in the capital, can demand scores of around 600 or more. The test has come under fierce criticism on China for putting enormous pressure on students, and as a symbol of educational inequality, with many low-income students whose parents have migrated to cities barred from taking the exam in their new homes. —AFP

N Korea to reopen hotline with South Pyongyang offers early talks SEOUL: North Korea said yesterday it would restore a hotline with South Korea and proposed holding weekend talks in a border town, as the two rivals sought to tone down months of soaring military tensions. The two Koreas unexpectedly reached a snap agreement Thursday on opening a dialogue, with South Korea responding to a North initiative by offering a ministerial-level meeting in Seoul on June 12. A spokesman for Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) welcomed the South’s quick response, and suggested initial lower-level talks Sunday in the Kaesong joint industrial zone. The North shut down Kaesong, which lies just over its side of the border, in April as the recent crisis on the divided peninsula peaked. Reopening the joint complex will top the agenda for the proposed dialogue.

“Working-level contact... is necessary prior to ministerial-level talks proposed by the South, in light of the prevailing situation in which bilateral relations have stalemated for years and mistrust has reached an extreme,” the CPRK spokesman said. South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it was “studying” the idea. The hotline, suspended by the North in March as military tensions flared, was to be restored from 2:00 pm (0500 GMT) yesterday, the CPRK spokesman said, but there was no immediate confirmation that it was operational. The Red Cross link runs through the border truce village of Panmunjom and has long been a vital source of government-to-government communication in the absence of diplomatic relations. The last working-level talks between the two countries were held in Feb 2011, and there have been no interKorean talks at the ministerial level since 2007.

The agreement on resuming a dialogue, came just ahead of yesterday’s US-China summit, at which the North’s nuclear programme will be high on the agenda. The North’s nuclear test in February resulted in tightened UN sanctions and triggered the cycle of escalating tensions that saw Pyongyang threaten pre-emptive nuclear strikes against the United States and South Korea.

China, the North’s sole major ally and economic

benefactor, has been under pressure from the United States to restrain its neighbour, and both Washington and Beijing welcomed the tentative talks agreement. Yoo Ho-Yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in Seoul, said North Korea’s surprise shift signalled a desire to initiate a wider dialogue in the future that “would eventually include the United States”. But US State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki made it clear that North Korea would have to show some commitment towards abandoning its nuclear weapons program before the US got involved. “There remain a number of steps that the North Koreans need to take, including abiding by their international obligations... in order to have further discussion,” Psaki told reporters.

Pyongyang has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear deterrent is not up for negotiation. The proposed agenda for the North-South talks involves the re-opening of Kaesong, the resumption of tours to the North’s Mount Kumgang resort and renewed cross-border family reunions.

The Kaesong complex, established in 2004 as a

symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, was the most high-profile casualty of the recent tensions.

Operations ground to a halt after the North pulled all its 53,000 workers out in early April. The South withdrew its managers and officials soon afterwards.

Ok Sung-Seok, vice president of the association representing the 123 South Korean firms established in Kaesong, welcomed the move away from confrontation towards dialogue.

“We’ve been living in despair over the past 60 days,” Ok told reporters. “The most important thing is how to secure a guarantee that such a disruption will not occur in the future.” South Korean President Park Geun-Hye had called weeks ago for talks on Kaesong, but the North had rejected the offer. Park, who took office in February just days after the North’s nuclear test, has pushed a “trustbuilding” policy with Pyongyang. In a meeting with top military commanders yesterday, Park said it was South Korea’s “firm security posture” during the recent crisis that had prompted the North’s talks proposal. —AFP

PYONGYANG: This photo taken on Thursday shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending the 7th Congress of the Korean Children’s Union (KCU). —AFP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

2 get death in Pakistan case tainted by class

KARACHI: Shahrukh Jatoi (right) gestures while his accomplice Siraj Talpur looks on from a court lockup before being convicted for murder in this Pakistani port city yesterday. — AFP

Indian soldier killed in Pak border firing SRINAGAR: Pakistani troops shot and killed an Indian army officer yesterday near the countries’ disputed border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian army officials said. “A junior commanding officer was shot dead by the Pakistani troops near Poonch sector,” a senior army official told AFP in New Delhi. “Suddenly there was firing from the other side and our officer was killed,” the officer added, requesting anonymity. The dead man, Bachan Singh, was posted in the Poonch region, 200 km southwest of Indian-administered Kashmir’s capital of Srinagar.

Kashmir is mainly split between the two nuclear-armed neighbours along a heavily militarised UN-monitored Line of Control (LoC), but both countries claim the region in full and have fought two wars over it. Another senior army officer, Rajesh Kalia, stationed in Kashmir, said the latest attack has “not been declared as a ceasefire violation” as a probe is under way. Anti-Indian militant groups who have been operating in Kashmir for more than two decades are also known to be active in the area.

Tensions spiked between New Delhi and Islamabad in January and February as six soldiers were killed in exchanges along the de facto border in Kashmir.

Four of the soldiers killed were from Pakistan while two were from India. One of the Indians was beheaded, allegedly

by Pakistanis. Relations between the two countries have also been strained in recent months by both sides protesting the deaths of prisoners held by the other. The murder of an Indian prisoner in a Pakistani jail was followed by the tit-fortat killing of a Pakistani prisoner in an Indian jail last month. — AFP

KARACHI: Two young men received death sentences yesterday over a fatal shooting that exposed class divisions in Pakistan and led to an unusual social media campaign demanding that the country’s rich and powerful be held accountable. The suspects, Shahrukh Jatoi and Nawab Siraj Talpur, come from two of the wealthiest families in Karachi, a violent metropolis of 18 million people on Pakistan’s southern coast. They were convicted of killing 20-year-old Shahzeb Khan one late night in December after the university student had an argument with one of Talpur’s servants.

Khan’s family would likely have had little chance of getting justice in the past, though his father is a mid-ranking police officer. Pakistan’s police and judges are notoriously corrupt and are often swayed by pressure from the country’s elite.

After Khan’s death, his father called his wife’s brother-in-law, Nabeel Gabool, a member of the National Assembly, who said he had difficulty getting the police to register a case against the accused - an allegation denied by the police.

But powerful Pakistanis and their offspring are now faced with a growing cadre of citizens - often middle class or upper middle class - who are increasingly fighting them with the help of the Internet, an activist Supreme Court and prominent political figures seeking to harness their

anger. Activists in Karachi sprang into action over Khan’s death, holding protests, using Twitter and setting up a Facebook page, “In memory of Shahzeb Khan”, to get word out about the case.

Some of the protests were organized by the party of politician Imran Khan, a former cricket star.

Eventually, the Supreme Court demanded that police arrest the suspected killers in 24 hours, seize their property and freeze their bank accounts. Police detained Jatoi, Talpur, his brother Sajjad Talpur and his servant Mustafa Lashari.

Jatoi was nabbed in Dubai, where he had tried to escape. After the court announced its verdict and sentence yesterday, Pakistani TV channels aired video showing Jatoi making a victory sign and smiling as police pushed him toward a prison van.

Defense lawyer Hummol Zubedi confirmed the court’s decision but said that the defendants would appeal it. He added that the other two suspects were sentenced to life in prison. Although Pakistan has many people on death row, the sentences are rarely carried out. Also, a life term usually translates to around 14 years in prison. In a tearful interview broadcast on Pakistani TV channels, Khan’s mother, Ambreen Aurangzeb, said she was satisfied with the court ruling, but added, “I miss my son day and night, and this court order cannot bring him back.”— AP

Seven Georgia soldiers killed in Afghanistan Georgia defense minister visits troops KABUL: Georgia’s defense minister visited his troops in Afghanistan yesterday, a day after seven Georgian soldiers were killed in a huge truck bomb blast at their base in the deadliest single attack on international forces this year.

The bombing was the latest strike in an intense insurgent campaign to hit both international and Afghan forces as foreign troops prepare to end their mission next year after 12 years of war. Foreign forces are increasingly turning over most security responsibility to the national police and army after training them.

Defense Minister Irakli Alasania cut short an official visit to Brussels on Thursday to travel to Afghanistan. A statement from the former Soviet republic’s defense ministry said Alasania met with his Afghan counterpart, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi and visited troops wounded in the bombing. Afghan official Mohammad Omar Zwark said a suicide attacker drove the truck into the entrance of the camp in Helmand province Thursday in Now-e-Zad district and detonated it. “It was a huge truck full of explosives,” Zwark said. “The blast was very strong.”

The explosion at the outer wall caused a building inside to collapse, killing the Georgians, NATO spokesman Col Thomas Collins said. All seven killed were members of the same Georgian unit, which had been deployed in Afghanistan only since April, the country’s defense ministry said. Last month, three Georgian soldiers were killed in an attack at another Helmand base in Musa Qala district. Known as a Taleban stronghold, Helmand has been the scene of some of this year’s fiercest fighting, with local police frequently coming under attack by insurgents trying to grab back territory.

Thursday’s bombing brought to 12 the number of international military personnel killed in Afghanistan this month, and the attack was the single deadliest incident this year for the coalition. On May 5, seven

Americans and one German soldier were killed in a single day in three separate attacks.

Georgia, which has aspirations of joining NATO, has 1,545 troops serving in Afghanistan. This week, countries in the NATO alliance met to lay out a new plan for ending their combat mission in about 18 months and shifting into a training and assistance role for the Afghan forces more than a decade after the US-led invasion to oust the Taleban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda’s leadership after the Islamic extremist group launched the Sept 11, 2011 terrorist attacks in the US. NATO did not agree, however, how many noncombat troops it will maintain in

Afghanistan after that - a key unresolved question about how to help stabilize the impoverished, insurgency-wracked nation in the years to come. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said this week only that the total size of the noncombat mission force will be “significantly smaller” than the tens of thousands of US-led troops in Afghanistan now, and that decisions about force numbers after 2014 will come later.

There are about 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. The US troop total is scheduled to drop to about 32,000 by early next year.

Most of the pullout is set for the winter. — AP

JALALABAD, Afghanistan: An Afghan firefighter sprays water at the scene of a propane gas explosion accident yesterday. — AFP

Hollande: Abenomics is ‘good news’ for Europe

16

Grinding recession hurts Spanish kids

Business

17

Ambani brothers ink $2.1 bn telecoms deal

19

US employers add 175,000 jobs in May

20

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

CALIFORNIA: This undated product image provided by Toyota shows the company’s new Corolla revealed in Santa Monica, Calif. The company hopes the new car will shed the old version’s low-cost image and attract new, younger buyers to its brand. — AP

Toyota Corolla gets a radical new look Sporty new Corolla targets youths DETROIT: The Toyota Corolla, an aging, stodgy but reliable economy car, is getting a radical new look. The world’s largest automaker was rolling out a new version of the compact Thursday night at a splashy event in Santa Monica, Calif, hoping to shed the old version’s low-cost image and attract new, younger buyers to its brand. The 2014 version, which goes on sale in the fall, is longer and sits lower than the old car, with a sculpted, athletic look that’s much closer to a sports car than the econobox it replaces.

It also gets a new transmission, suspension and interior that Toyota says will make the car quieter and more luxurious, with better handling than the current version. It’s the 11th generation of a car that Toyota has been selling worldwide since 1966. “It’s a huge car for us. It helped really identify the company and the brand and what we’re all about,” said Bill Fay, group vice president of the Toyota Division in the US. “We should appeal to a little younger buyer and broaden out the appeal of the car to more than what it is today.”

The car’s bold design is unusual for Toyota, which in the past changed its cars little with updates. But the new version is badly needed

by Toyota. The Corolla, with a reputation for

sterling dependability, is still America’s topselling compact. But dealers have had to cut its selling price and offer big discounts to compete against sleek new versions of the Honda Civic, Ford Focus and Hyundai Elantra.

“They clearly here are saying ‘we’ve got to give the Corolla more personality and more life,’ given the way the competition is,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University.

“I certainly understand why they are pushing it here.” It’s the first update for the Corolla in five years, but even with updates, the car’s looks really haven’t changed much in the past decade. And during that time, competitors have been throwing money into their compacts, giving them leather interiors, touchscreen systems, new transmissions and powerful yet efficient engines.

All have taken a bite out of a segment that once was ignored by Detroit and dominated

by Honda and Toyota. In the past, all it took was a decent, reliable car to gain buyers, but industry analysts say every competitor is reliable and companies have to set themselves apart with style, fuel economy or performance.

Toyota wouldn’t say how much it will charge for the new Corolla, nor would it

release fuel economy numbers, other than to say an eco version should get over 40 miles per gallon on the highway. The current version starts around $18,000 with an automatic transmission, and Fay said Toyota’s goal is to keep the new version close to that price.

The new version will certainly get better gas mileage than the current car, which fell toward the back of the class with an estimated 34 mpg on the highway due in part to an outdated four-speed automatic transmission.

The Civic, Corolla’s closest competitor, gets an estimated 39 mpg on the highway with its five-speed transmission. With more gears, engines generally don’t have to work as hard at freeway speeds.

Toyota is offering two engines in the latest version, a 1.8-liter, 132 horsepower four-cylinder that carries over from the current model, and the same engine with new valve technology that adds eight horsepower to reach 140.

The newer engine comes only on the Eco version. The base engine is less powerful than the Corolla’s main competitors. The Civic has 140 horsepower, while the Focus has 160 and the Elantra is rated at 148.

Toyota is giving the new version a continuously variable transmission that has seven “shift points” that mimic a conventional auto-

matic. CVTs don’t usually shift gears, instead allowing the engine to operate efficiently at most speeds. The new Corolla also is nearly four inches longer than the current version, and that means more interior room in both the front and rear seats so passengers are more comfortable, Toyota says.

With the more radical styling of the new car, Toyota runs the risk of turning off longtime buyers who are used to a more conservative look, Northwestern’s Calkins says. But Tom Libby, lead North American analyst for the Polk automotive research firm, said traditional Toyota buyers are extremely loyal, and the risk of chasing buyers away is small. “The propensity of a Toyota owner to stay with the Toyota brand is pretty high relative to other makes,” he said.

The Corolla is still America’s favorite compact. Toyota sold 104,517 of them this year through April, beating the No 2 Civic by more than 5,800 cars. But Toyota has paid a price to get those sales. The Corolla’s average selling price of $18,464 is the lowest of the five topselling compacts, and it sells for almost $1,600 less than a Civic, according to the TrueCar.com auto pricing site. And Toyota is second only to Ford’s Focus in discounts per car at $2,072. — AP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Wal-Mart faces scrutiny as investors gather FAYETTEVILLE: Wal-Mart executives are expected to make the case it is improving the way it does business overseas and outline new growth opportunities at the world’s largest retailer’s annual shareholder meeting.

Wal-Mart faces increasing scrutiny from investors over how it has handled allegations of bribery in its Mexican operations that surfaced a year ago. It also faces pressure to increase its oversight of factory conditions abroad following a building collapse in April in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 garment workers. The discounter, based in Bentonville, Ark., is also under scrutiny for how it treats its workers.

Those problems are happening as WalMart Stores Inc is wrestling with slower sales growth. Wal-Mart’s annual meeting, at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Bud Walton Arena, attracts thousands of investors and has historically had the air of a giant pep rally. The company brings in A-list speakers and performers like basketball legend

Michael Jordan and pop singer Justin Timberlake.

Wal-Mart is considered an economic bellwether because it accounts for nearly 10 percent of nonautomotive retail spending in the US. The company’s first-quarter results, reported last month, showed that its lowincome shoppers remain under stress. While the housing market is recovering and the stock market has rallied, low-income people haven’t benefited much. They’re also facing new pressures like higher payroll taxes that have affected spending.

During the first quarter, Wal-Mart said its profit edged up just slightly, but the company reported its first decline in a key revenue measure in its US namesake business in seven quarters. US Wal-Mart stores account for 59 percent of the company’s total sales, which reached $466.1 billion for the year ended Jan. 31, excluding revenue from membership fees from its Sam’s Club division.

Wal-Mart’s US namesake business had

Great Wall of trouble for a Chinese farmer CHINA: At the farthest end of the Great Wall, Yang Yongfu limps along the section he arduously restored, in effect “privatizing” it and putting himself on a collision course with the authorities.

The farmer spent five million yuan ($800,000) and years of backbreaking work renovating several hundred meters of the national symbol deep in northwestern China, turning it into a tourist site. “At the beginning people didn’t understand why I took on this project. They called me crazy,” said the 52-year-old.

The Great Wall is not a single unbroken structure-nor is it visible from space-but stretches for thousands of kilometers, from Shanhaiguan on the east coast to Jiayuguan in the windswept sands on the edge of the Gobi desert. In places it is so dilapidated that estimates of its total length vary from 9,000 to 21,000 kilometers, depending on whether missing sectors are included.

First begun in the third century BC, parts were still being built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), among them Yang’s section.

It was little more than a ruin when he started work in 2000, but now 790 meters of ochre wall run out from a small fort across a stony plain, snaking upwards over a bare hillside via several watchtowers. Built of bricks and rendered with earth, his wall averages around 4.5 meters high and is topped with battlements. “People were skeptical, because they thought renovating the wall was the job of the government,” said Yang. “I was surprised at the success I had. But this could also be considered an act of patriotism.”

He set up an entrance area for tourists, complete with a car park and fishpond, and his wife Tao Huiping collects the 25 yuan admittance fee at the ticket booth-a table in the open air. “Today about 30 people came,” she said, holding up the ticket stubs, beaming proudly and praising her husband’s “phenomenal” work. “People call him Emperor Yang,” she said laughing. Their opportunity came about in 1999, Yang said, when local authorities called on residents to renovate the Wall themselves, and officials gave him authorization to do so. The money came from savings and loans from relatives.

In recent decades the Wall has suffered the depredations of farmers stealing its stones for building, and construction crews cutting through it with roads and railways. Some of the greatest damage came during the turmoil of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. But as China has become wealthier the government can better afford to take on the burden of restoration. At the same time the Communist Party uses nationalism to bolster its claim to a right to rule, and in recent years authorities have become keener custodians of symbols of China, from historic monuments to giant pandas.

TEARS OF DESPAIR A 2006 law gave the government the exclusive right to manage national relics-making Yang’s project illegal. His business continues to operate but he and the local authorities have been through several rounds of negotiations over transferring the rights to the wall. They have so far failed to reach an agreement.

“I never received any support from the government and they accused me of constructing a fake wall. That’s what makes me angry,” Yang said. —AFP

been roaring back after suffering a more than two-year slump after the company fixed mistakes in pricing and merchandising. It restocked thousands of items after eliminating them as part of a campaign to declutter the stores. It also has returned to its everydaylow-price message, after straying from that core philosophy by temporarily slashing prices on select items.

Now, Wal-Mart is trying new ways to rev up growth in its US business. It’s trying to tailor merchandise to clusters of stores that attract similar shoppers. At its Sam’s Club division, which has seen its small-business members increasingly strapped, it’s lowering prices on key items. Overseas, it’s working to increase profitability and sales in such markets as China and Brazil.

Above all, Wal-Mart is trying to answer labor-backed critics by coming out with a three-part plan the company says can help jumpstart the economy. In January, the company said it will hire more than 100,000 mili-

tary veterans in the next five years, spend $50 billion to buy more American-made merchandise in the next 10 years and help its part-time workers move into full-time positions.

As part of its program to buy more goods in the US, Wal-Mart is now selling American-made towels in 600 of its 4,000 namesake stores as part of its partnership with a company called 1888 Mills. It plans to roll out distribution to another 600 by September. Wal-Mart is also working with other new and existing suppliers to produce basics like T-shirts and mattress covers in the US Wal-Mart is also determined to stand up to its critics that claim it doesn’t treat its workers well. It has launched a website called therealwalmart.com that it hopes will do a better job in telling its side of the story about how the company is a place of opportunity for workers. It’s expected to pound the message at the annual meeting that nearly 75 percent of its workers in store management positions started out in hourly positions. —AP

Hollande: Abenomics is ‘good news’ for Europe Big spending aimed at boosting economy TOKYO: French President Francois Hollande said yesterday Japan’s big spending and ultra-loose monetary policies aimed at boosting its flagging economy were “good news” for austerity-weary Europe. On a visit to Tokyo, the Socialist leader also stressed his concern at regional tensions as Japan and China square off over disputed islands-but slipped up verbally by confusing his hosts for the Chinese.

Amid a growing backlash in France over the German-led austerity drive for debt-laden Europe, Hollande called for the same “priority on growth” being stridently promoted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “The Japanese government has taken a number of measures since Mr Abe’s team came to power,” he told reporters. “It is not for me to judge them; they are a matter for Japan.

“But the priority given to growth and the fight against deflation, along with the emphasis on competitiveness for business... is good news for Europe, because in Europe we also have to give priority to growth.” Abe was swept to power in December on a pledge to turn around years of economic weakness and growthsapping deflation. He launched a huge fiscal stimulus program and press-ganged the central bank into flooding the markets with money as it ramped up an already weighty bond-buying program.

The plan was to double the amount of cash in circulation, forcing up prices and pressuring investors to put their money in riskier assets. The yen has plunged, driving the Tokyo stock market to five-year highs as investors eye swelling profit margins for Japan’s exporters. Even if the Nikkei has suffered some steep declines in recent trading, the relative success of Japan’s daring experiment and the rocketing approval ratings it has brought to Abe are a far cry from the growing discontent of France.

Since his election a year ago, Hollande has vowed to tip the main focus of Europe’s economic recovery efforts

towards growth rather than belt-tightening, but faces opposition from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who insists the continent must first get its fiscal house in order. Hollande’s praise for Abe’s reforms came as Japan and France agreed to work on the joint development of military hardware, as tension simmers in East Asia amid historic shifts that have seen China supplant Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy. Tokyo is locked in a corrosive squabble with Beijing over the ownership of a small group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. Earlier this year, Japan voiced unease at the sale by a French firm of helicopterlanding equipment to China, saying it might be used by Beijing to strengthen its presence around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. During an address to Japan’s parliament, Hollande told lawmakers that he

was conscious of the security situation in East Asia. “I cannot ignore the tensions in the region and I am concerned about them,” he said. “I hope they can be resolved by dialogue and that countries can settle their differences in accordance with international law.”

However, Hollande risked undermining his positive press coverage in Japan with a slip of the tongue at an earlier news conference. Speaking in French, he referred to the Algerian hostage crisis in January during which 10 Japanese nationals died, saying he had “expressed the condolences of the French people to the Chinese people”.

The president made no attempt to correct his mistake and while his female interpreter changed the word to “Japanese” in her simultaneous translation, French speakers in the room picked up on the error. —AFP

TOKYO: French President Francois Hollande (second left) and his partner Valerie Trierweiler (left) are greeted by Japanese Emperor Akihito (third left) and Empress Michiko, upon their arrival for a dinner reception at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo yesterday. —AP

business SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

UBS under probe over dodgy accounts PARIS: French investigators have placed Swiss bank UBS under formal investigation on suspicion that it tried to persuade rich French clients to open undeclared accounts in Switzerland, a legal source said. The move emerged less than a week after the French branch of UBS was also placed under investigation-the closest equivalent in France to being charged. The alleged offences date back to the 2000s.

Investigators suspect UBS allowed its Swiss staff to illegally approach French clients, and to have set up a shadow accounting system to hide

movements of capital between France and Switzerland. “The tribunal’s decision widens the probe,” UBS said in a statement in French.

“UBS will continue to cooperate with the French authorities.” “UBS will not allow any move aimed at helping clients to avoid their fiscal duties,” the statement added. A former head of UBS France, Patrick de Fayet, a former head of the bank’s office in the northern French city of Lille and a UBS executive in the eastern city of Strasbourg are already under investigation.

The French probe was launched

after allegations from a former UBS employee turned whistleblower. An anonymous note seen by AFP that was sent to the ACP, the Bank of France’s regulatory arm, alerted the body to the parallel accounts that ran between 2002 and 2007. These listed accounts were opened in Switzerland by businesses but not declared in France. The investigating magistrates handling the UBS affair have sent a list containing 353 names of people suspected of having held a Swiss account and have requested details from the Swiss authorities.

The issue jumped back to the top

Spanish regions take steps to help the needy children Grinding recession hurts kids MADRID: To help children plunged into poverty by Spain’s grinding recession, several regional governments have stepped up aid programs for needy students by boosting budgets for free breakfasts or keeping schools open over the summer so children can eat in the canteen. Spain’s powerful regional governments are responsible for education and healthcare and three of them-Andalucia, Catalonia and the Canary Islands - have in recent week announced new measures to help children experiencing hunger that are centered on the public school system.

“Poverty has increased a great deal among children,” said Gabriel Gonzalez, head of childhood policy at the Spanish branch of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Spain, the euro-zone’s fourth-largest economy, is still struggling to overcome the aftermath of a property bubble that imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and sending debt levels soaring. The country’s unemployment rate shot to a 27.16 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the highest level since Spain returned to democracy after the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975. The situation for families has gotten worse year after year and children have been especially hardhit, according UNICEF figures.

Nearly 2.3 million Spanish children, or 27.2 percent, lived under the poverty line in 2011, said Gonzalez. “It is child poverty that has increased the most and we started from a level that was already high,” he said. “What some regional governments are beginning to address cases where children go hungry at home, not just cases where they had an unbalanced diet,” he added. The regional government of Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia announced Thursday that it will draw up a list of schoolchildren suffering from severe food shortages to target them for aid.

The program is inspired by one already in place in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia and Spain’s second-largest city, which has already identified 2,800 students facing food shortages because of the economic downturn. “They sometimes skip a meal for example, but in no case can

VIGO: Picture shows unsold new Peugeot-Citroen cars at the harbor of Vigo, northwestern Spain. Fewer clothes, fewer cigarettes, fewer cars: paralyzed by the recession and rising unemployment, consumers in Spain put a serious brake on spending. — AFP we speak of malnutrition,” she added.

Barcelona’s social services, after a case by case analysis, concluded that most of the 2,800 schoolchildren were already receiving some form of state benefits and new support was only granted to 703 children and their families on the list.

Barcelona city hall has already doubled the amount allocated to canteen services to five million euros ($6.5 million) in the 2012-13 school year from 2.5 million euros in the previous school year. Demand for state aid has increased since 2008, when Spain’s economic crisis began, the Barcelona city hall spokeswoman said. In Catalonia, 64,000 students receive aid in the canteen this school year, up from 56,900 at the beginning of Spain’s economic crisis in the 2008-09 school year, according to figures from the Catalan regional government, which is run by the conservative Convergence and Union (CiU) party.

The government of the southwestern region of Andalucia, Spain’s most popu-

lous region, on Monday started providing free breakfast of milk and fruit as well as an afternoon snack to around 11,000 needy students. The program is part of a package of measures approved by the regional government of Andalucia, run by the Socialist Party and the far-left United Left, in April “to fight against social exclusion”. The region already provides a free lunch to around 70,000 needy children. “If we did not implement such measures, we would be leaving minors unprotected, and they are the most vulnerable,” said Magdalena Sanchez, the director of social services for the regional government of Andalucia. Andalucia has been especially hard-hit by the economic downturn, with a jobless rate of 36 percent.

The regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling with a jobless rate of 33 percent, announced it would keep 132 schools across the archipelago open this summer so that around 8,000 needy schoolchildren could eat in the canteen. — AFP

of the government’s agenda in the wake of a scandal surrounding the former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac who in April was himself placed under investigation for tax fraud, forcing him to resign.

After months denying the allegations, Cahuzac had admitted to opening an undeclared Swiss bank account in 1992, and, after Switzerland pledged to cooperate with foreign tax authorities in 2009, transferring some 600,000 euros ($770,000) to Singapore. His role as budget minister included tackling tax evasion. — AFP

German outlook brightens as economy gains speed FRANKFURT: The economic outlook for Germany is brightening, its central bank said yesterday, as improved trade and rising industrial output suggested Europe’s biggest economy is slowly leaving recent weakness behind it. “The outlook for the German economy has become brighter again following the slowdown towards the end of 2012,” the Bundesbank wrote in its June monthly report. Despite continued tensions in the euro area, Germany could soon see a modest upturn as investment picks up again and exports-traditionally the main engine of economic growth-gain momentum, the central bank wrote.

“Although there has been no fundamental change in the underlying conditions, there has, above all, been no major deterioration either,” the report said. “Moreover, the world economy should pick up again in the course of this year. In the euro area, too, the economy appears to be bottoming out.”

Just a day before, the European Central Bank tweaked its growth forecasts for the eurozone as a whole, predicting a contraction of 0.6 percent this year, but a return to growth of 1.1 percent next year.

For its part, the Bundesbank predicted that German gross domestic product would expand by 0.3 percent in 2013 and 1.5 percent in 2014 in a slight downward revision from the previous forecasts in December.

German growth, which shuddered to a halt at the end of last year, picked up only slightly to a meagre 0.1 percent in the first three months of this year. The Bundesbank blamed that on “the especially persistent winter weather” and in the second quarter “the improved underlying trend should come to the fore”, it said.

Industrial capacity would be “well utilized, the labor market would be buoyed by economic activity” and given current fiscal policy, “the general government budget would be balanced,” the Bundesbank said. It warned however, that the risks to this forecast “are largely on the downside.” “Much will depend on whether the economic situation stabilizes in the euro-area crisis countries and whether expansionary forces will gain the upper hand there,” it said. The Bundesbank said that letting up on consolidation and reform efforts would have a negative effect on financial markets. — AFP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Europe divided on shale gas BUCHAREST: European countries are divided on the extraction of shale gas.

This new source has sparked an energy boom in the United States, but its method of extraction, fracking, is controversial because of the risks it poses to the environment. Exploratory drilling has been allowed and started in some European countries like Poland, but extraction has not yet begun. The exact quantity of shale gas reserves and their quality have not been established yet.

COUNTRIES THAT GAVE GREEN LIGHT Poland, Britain, Romania, Hungary

and Spain are the strongest advocates of shale gas energy in Europe. They all delivered permits for exploratory drilling. Poland is far ahead with 44 exploratory wells though ExxonMobil pulled out because of disappointing results. Last December, Britain decided that exploratory fracking can resume.

In Romania, US oil giant Chevron obtained permits to explore on Romanian Black Sea Coast and hopes to do so in the Eastern region of Barlad. Lithuania recently passed a law allowing Chevron to proceed with exploration and extraction. While Sweden and Denmark have delivered permits for exploration, shale gas is

not a priority in their energy mix.

COUNTRIES THAT SAID NO France was the first country to ban fracking in 2011 because of the risks for the environment, as did Bulgaria and the Spanish region of Cantabria.

Italy has also said that it has no intention to launch shale gas extraction.

COUNTRIES IN THE MIDDLE Germany has so far refused to allow exploratory drilling, and a move to allow prospecting under tight controls was postponed until after elections later this year. The Netherlands has issued permits but they are suspended

awaiting the results of a government investigation on the potential risks of fracking.

Belgium is conducting scientific studies before issuing any permits.

The Czech Republic is preparing a moratorium freezing for any prospecting for two years.

Austria has no exploratory drilling under way, and permits can be issued only after an environment impact study. Slovakia, Finland and Latvia have shown no interest in shale gas extraction.

In Portugal, exploratory drilling has been abandoned because of a lack of commercial interest. — AFP

Euro shoo-in Latvia posts Europe’s top growth rate RIGA: Euro-zone shoo-in Latvia topped the European Union’s growth chart for the first quarter yesterday as official data showed it posted a 3.6 percent hike in GDP output. The ex-Soviet Baltic state of two million won approval from the EU executive on Wednesday to become the eurozone’s 18th member in 2014, though ordinary Latvians seem fearful of ditching their national currency as the euro area struggles in recession.

On a quarterly comparison, Latvia’s gross domestic product rose by a seasonally-adjusted 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2013 on a quarterly basis, Statistics Latvia said. The largest gains were seen in the trade, manufacturing and transportation sectors, it said. The data means Latvia has retained its spot as the EU’s fastest-growing economy, having posted GDP growth of more than five percent year-on-year in both 2011 and 2012. Latvia expects formal approval of the European Council and European finance ministers on July 9 for euro-zone entry on January 1, 2014.

No country recommended for membership of the single currency has ever been turned away at such a late stage.

But public support for adoption of the debt-laden European single currency remains low with a survey by the Factum pollster conducted for the finance ministry and seen by AFP putting support at just 38 percent in May with 53 percent opposed. Seventy percent of Latvians believe prices will rise as a result of euro adoption, the survey says.

Full details of the survey are due to be released on June 11.

FRANKFURT AM MAIN: Picture shows Euro banknotes projected on a screen during a press conference following the meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council in Frankfurt am Main. — AFP

Mobile market heats up Deutsche Telekom to open more shops FRANKFURT: Deutsche Telekom is to open more of its high street shops to fend off rising competition in Germany’s mobile market. German consumers are catching up with the rest of the continent by switching to smartphones from basic mobiles, prompting Germany’s big four mobile firms to revamp their tariffs and boost advertising spending. For Deutsche Telekom and its rivals, their shops are increasingly important marketing opportunities.

Deutsche Telekom currently operates 1,100 shops in Germany under the pink “T” logo, compared to Vodafone’s 1,600 shops and Telefonica Deutschland ‘s 1,000 shops. KPN’s E-Plus/BASE brand has

about 800 shops and plans more. “Our goal is to add 100 shops in the next 18 months, with or without partners,” Deutsche Telekom’s head of sales in Germany Dirks Woessner said.

Of its existing stores, 300 are operated as franchises. Deutsche Telekom reduced shop numbers over the past three years and Woessner said the change of strategy reflected their renewed relevance.

“The shops are important to us as customers want to test our products and need personal advice,” Woessner said.

Late on Thursday Telefonica Deutschland opened a so-called concept store in Berlin as part of its new approach to introduce new media to its customers.

The futuristic-looking shop offers customers the chance to play games and participate in workshops and themed events as well as browse products and buy. Although Deutsche Telekom has expanded to foreign markets, its home market is still key.

Last year the former monopoly generated almost 40 percent of total annual revenues there. It needs to shore up mobile services as its fixed-line broadband services come under increasing pressure. Cable providers such as Kabel Deutschland and Liberty Global are eating into Deutsche Telekom’s business by offering much faster internet connections at lower prices. — Reuters

ICELAND POSTS 4.6% GROWTH Meanwhile, the Icelandic economy grew 4.6 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the previous quarter, but consumption and investment figures were weak, Statistics Iceland said yesterday.

A 4.7 percentage point contribution from inventories to the growth rate masked less flattering numbers for household consumption, which added 0.7 percentage points, and for investment, which declined by 0.6 percentage points. However, due to the difficulties in correcting for seasonal variations, the statistics agency recommends looking at the results on an annual comparison.

Measured against the same quarter the previous year, growth slowed to 0.8 percent in January through March, compared with a 1.4 percent increase in October through December of last year.

Iceland’s economy expanded by 1.6 percent in 2012 after posting 2.9 percent growth in 2011. Reykjavik’s previous leftist government earned international praise for saving the North Atlantic island from bankruptcy after its three main banks collapsed in 2008, but a voter revolt against austerity swept in a centre-right government in general elections on April 27.

The new government, led by 38-year-old Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, has promised to boost domestic consumption and investment by reducing the burden on mortgage holders and through lowering taxes by simplifying the tax code. — Agencies

BUSINESS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Turkey tourism takes a hit Hotel reservations down, but visitors shrug off unrest ISTANBUL: Hotel reservations may be down after a week of violent mass protests in Turkey, but plucky tourists on the ground have taken the unrest in their stride. “There was tear gas everywhere. It was quite an adventure,” said one visitor from Iceland. Eva Carla Thorisdottir’s arrival in Istanbul in the heat of clashes between anti-government protesters and police a few days ago was “scary” but not off-putting, the 32-year-old Icelandic said, recalling how sympathetic

4,000 have been reported injured across the country. For the tourism industry, the timing could scarcely be worse: June is the start of Turkey’s high season. Tourism is a key foreign currency earner for the country bringing in almost $30 billion last year, official figures show, when more than 31 million foreign holidaymakers flocked to Turkey to enjoy its golden beaches, historic ruins and vibrant cities. But widely broadcast images of police using tear gas and water cannon

ISTANBUL: Demonstrators hold placards reading “Don’t touch my cinema (L), don’t touch my stage (2nd-left), don’t touch my art (right), don’t touch my life style (back-right) as they stand during a protest at Taksim square in Istanbul yesterday. —AFP bystanders helped clear makeshift road barriers to allow her taxi through.

Turkey’s largest city, where East meets West, is famed for its ancient mosques, exotic markets and bustling nightlife, luring nine million international visitors last year. But it’s also where a tough police response to a small campaign against plans to raze a park near the city’s Taksim Square sparked nationwide protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, seen as increasingly authoritarian. The unrest has left three people dead so far, while over

on demonstrators who could be seen throwing stones and tearing up pavements in cities, including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, have rattled nerves.

Hotels on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, a favored destination for families on package holidays, have not yet been affected though “there has been a stagnation in new reservations”, according to Osman Ayik, the head of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TUROFED), suggesting that some travelers are waiting to see how Turkey’s crisis plays out. Ercan Durmus, head of the Ankara

branch of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB), said there had been “some cancellations” but “we believe things will return to normal soon”. In the new town area of Istanbul, where the unrest began, hotels have seen cancelations of 10 to 25 percent, according Kasim Zoto of TUROFED’s Istanbul branch.

One establishment, the Midtown Hotel near Taksim Square, told AFP that 35 percent of its bookings had been cancelled in recent days. But for some intrepid travelers, the lively scene at the square and nearby Gezi Park, where a festival-like atmosphere has reigned since police withdrew at the weekend, has become its own must-see destination. “Everybody seems quite relaxed,” said Joan Kavanagh from Dublin as she took in the chanting, whistle-blowing demonstrators milling around Taksim, where a few entrepreneurial vendors were hawking protective masks and goggles.

“It’s very interesting to take it all in. It doesn’t look nearly as threatening as I thought it would be.” She said it was her son Tristan who insisted they visit the square on their first day on the Istanbul tourist trail. “I came to see this,” the 35-year-old Irishman said, adding that he had been following events on Twitter to keep up to date. Both said they felt at ease among the demonstrators, noting that the protests reminded them of the Occupy movement that took over the streets of Dublin two years ago.

But many other tourists, including Thorisdottir, have changed hotels to move to Istanbul’s old town-home to top attractions such as the Hagia Sofia with its ornate dome and the ancient Blue Mosque, with the added benefit of being safely separated from the restive new town by the Golden Horn body of water. Snapping pictures in the rose garden of the imposing Topkapi Palace, the former home of Ottoman sultans, Thorisdottir said you would never guess there was any trouble across the river. And thanks to her adventurous introduction to the city, she said she now has a good story to tell her friends back home. “But it’s also a beautiful city, I will tell them that too,” she added. —AFP

Partnership Assurance joins the London listings revival LONDON: Private equity-backed life insurer Partnership Assurance Group made a robust London stock market debut yesterday, in the strongest year for British company listings on their home patch since the financial crisis. British firms, including insurer ensure and estate agent Countrywide, have raised a total of $3.4 billion from initial public offerings (IPOs) on the London Stock Exchange’s main market so far this year, the highest year-to-date volume since 2007, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Improving stock markets have encouraged companies to test the water for listings again after many held off following the 2008 financial crisis, with a backlog of private-equityowned businesses helping boost the number of home-grown London IPOs. Total IPO volumes on London’s main market, including overseas companies, hit a post-crisis peak of $13.9 billion in 2011. Partnership said yesterday it had sold its shares at 385 pence each, in the upper half of its 325-400 pence range and valuing the company at 1.54 billion pounds ($2.4 billion).

The stock enjoyed a strong debut, opening 17 percent above the listing price at 450.5 pence. By 1152 GMT it was trading at 455 pence, having earlier hit a high of 480 pence.

Partnership sells annuities which pay out more to customers with medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease who might otherwise find it hard to get cover, as well as insurance to fund long-term residential care. It claims a 26 percent share of the 4.5 billion pound non-standard annuities market in Britain and last month reported an operating profit of 112 million pounds in 2012, a 42 percent increase on the year.

The listing price values Partnership, which expects to be eligible to join the FTSE250 index, at around 11.7 times forecast 2014 earnings. That compares with 11.5 times and 13 times respectively for competitors Legal & General and Prudential. Shore capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan said Partnership’s use of reinsurance companies to take on the risk that someone lives longer than it expects, reduces the amount of capital it needs to hold, boosting its return on equity. —Reuters

Ambani brothers ink $2.1 billion telecoms deal MUMBAI: India’s billionaire Ambani brothers announced yesterday a $2.1-billion deal to share telecom tower infrastructure, cementing a reconciliation between the once-warring siblings. The agreement is the another tangible sign that the two are patching up relations since their bitter fight for control of Reliance erupted after their rags-to-riches father, Dhirubhai, died in 2002 without leaving a will.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom unit of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, signed the agreement with Reliance Communications, the flagship firm of the Anil Ambani group, to share the latter’s telecom tower equipment, a joint statement said. The move will help Reliance Industries to accelerate the roll-out of its longawaited high-speed fourth generation (4G) telecom services, the companies said. The aggregate value of the deal is more than 120 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) for the duration of the agreement, which was not specified, the statement added.

“Under the terms of the agreement, Reliance Jio Infocomm will utilize up to 45,000 ground and rooftopbased towers across RCom’s nation-wide network for accelerated roll-out of its state-of-the-art 4G services,” the firms said. In April, the two firms signed a $220 million deal to share their fibre-optic communications networks. The latest agreement also allows the two companies to jointly build more towers at new locations, they said. “The deal is positive for RCom, to help it reduce its debt over a longer-term,” Ankita Somani, analyst at Mumbai’s Angel Broking, told AFP. RCom has been staggering under a debt of more than $6 billion.

Reliance rose 0.55 percent to 796.65 rupees while RCom was down 1.1 percent at 116.75 rupees, after a sharp recent rally yesterday. The brothers have been increasing their corporate collaboration since they publicly signaled the end of their dispute with a joint appearance in December 2011 to dedicate a memorial to their late father in his home town of Chorwad, in western Gujarat state. Their mother declared at that time: “There is love between the brothers”, after their feud to control the Reliance group, then India’s most valuable listed company, ended with them splitting the empire.

Even after they broke up Reliance, the brothers kept battling, fuelled by differences over a 2005 family-brokered deal to share resources from India’s largest gas field. But after a Supreme Court ruling in Mukesh Ambani’s favour, the brothers dropped their legal cases against each other. When they announced the truce, they also scrapped an agreement not to compete in each others’ sectors-which analysts say has given them far greater operational and financial flexibility. The announcement of the tie-up comes a day after Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries announced plans to invest $26 billion in its businesses over the next three years.

Mukesh Anani, India’s wealthiest man, has expanded from oil and gas into the fast-growing broadband and retail segments in recent years. Ambani was confident over the expansion of broadband services through group subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm, which plans to roll out its high-speed fourth-generation (4G) telecom services later this year. Reliance Jio, which acquired the 4G airwaves almost three years ago, is the lone Indian company with a pan-India permit for 4G services. —AFP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

US hiring points to resilience in economy Jobless rate up as workers re-enter labor force WASHINGTON: US employers stepped up hiring a bit in May in a show of economic resilience that suggests the Federal Reserve could begin to scale back its monetary stimulus later this year. The United States added 175,000 jobs last month after adding only 149,000 in April, the Labor Department said yesterday. The May job growth figure was just above the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.

The unemployment rate ticked a tenth of a percentage point higher to 7.6 percent, but the rise was driven by more workers entering the labor force, a relatively hopeful sign. “The acceleration in jobs growth points to further improvement in domestic growth momentum,” said Millan Mulraine, director of US research and strategy at TD Securities in New York.

Some economists said the data supported the view the Fed might be able to trim its bond purchases as soon as September; others think the Fed might not make a move until next year. Still, it was the third straight month that payrolls outside the farm sector increased by less than 200,000. “It’s not great, but it’s good. It leaves the tapering talk still on the table,” said Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG in New York. US stock markets opened higher on the report, while the dollar firmed. Yields on US government bonds rose modestly on the view the Fed, which next meets on June 18-19, could begin dialing back bond buys this year.

Officials at the US central bank have intimated they could be close to reducing bond purchases despite modest

economic growth, which is not expected to pick up until late in the year when the sting from government spending cuts begins to fade. Budget cuts have led to hiring freezes at many government agencies, and attrition could be slowly reducing payrolls. Government payrolls declined by 3,000 in May. After expanding at a 2.4 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, many analysts expect the economy to throttle back to a growth pace of just around 1.5 percent in the second quar-

ter given Washington’s austerity drive.

LASTING DAMAGE About 4.4 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months, roughly 3 million more than pre-recession levels. The longer workers are out of a job, the greater the risk they become essentially unemployable. That could deal lasting damage to the economy and has lent urgency to the Fed’s efforts to stimulate growth. Still, May’s pace of job growth

ILLINOIS: Job seeker Craig Cline of Lincolnwood (right) meets with Jeremy Skeeters (left) and Lindy Hammel of Aflac Insurance Co during a career fair in Rolling Meadows, Ill. The government issued the May jobs report yesterday. —AP

Gold heading for 3rd weekly gains LONDON: Gold held above $1,400 an ounce yesterday, on track for their third straight weekly gain, as investors awaited US jobs data for clues on when the Federal Reserve would start tapering off its stimulus program. Monthly US nonfarm payrolls, due at 1230 GMT, will be scrutinized by investors for clues on when the Fed will begin possible tapering off its $85 billion monthly bond purchases. “I would not expect any big positioning ahead of the non-farm payrolls as most investors are just in wait-and-see mode,” Deutsche Bank precious metals trader Michael Blumenroth said. “But there is room for disappointment if the numbers are not as high as the market expects (market consensus is around 170,000) and for that I think in the short term gold prices are more likely to test higher levels towards $1,425.” Spot gold was down 0.2 percent at $1,410.75 an ounce by 1136 GMT. US gold futures for August delivery fell 0.4 percent at $1,410.50 an ounce.

US economic data has been in the spotlight since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last month the central bank’s decision to taper off monetary stimulus would be taken “in the next few meetings” depending on whether the US housing and job markets showed continued strengthening. But a top US central bank official said on Thursday investors may have over reacted recently to the possibility of the Fed winding down its monetary easing. “The housing and labour markets are not very strong yet. The Fed has to keep in mind the impact on stock markets as well,” GoldSilver managing director Central Brian Lan said.

The dollar hovered near a 3-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies, while European shares steadied around six-week lows hit in the previous session ahead of the US data. Gold is heading for a weekly gain of around 1.7 percent, after recovering from a loss early in the week on fears of slowing demand in India. The Reserve Bank of India extended restrictions on loans against security of gold coins per customer to all co-operative banks. —Reuters

is right around the average for the prior 12 months. Over that period, the jobless rate fell about half a percentage point and the ranks of the longterm unemployed declined by about 1 million people.

“From a worker point of view, of course, you’d like to see a more robust recovery,” said Rick Meckler, President of LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey. Even the increase in the unemployment rate had a bright side. The share of the population in the labor force - which includes people who are either employed or looking for work - rose to 63.4 percent. That was driven by 420,000 workers entering the work force. That is good news because some of the recent drop in the jobless rate has been due to workers leaving the labor force, either because they retired, went back to school or gave up looking for a job.

The poll of households from which the jobless rate is derived showed even stronger growth than the payroll survey of employers, and total hours worked in the economy ticked higher.

At the same time, US factories are feeling the pinch from Europe’s debt crisis, which has sent a chill over the global economy. Manufacturing employment declined by 8,000 jobs last month. The biggest job gains were in professional and business services, with temporary jobs up 26,000 in a potential sign employers could expand their full-time staffs. The leisure and hospitality industry also showed strength, as did the retail sector. —Reuters

Dollar and shares shaky ahead of US jobs data MSCI share index on course for third week of losses LONDON: The dollar sank to a two-month low against a resurgent yen yesterday and world shares headed for a third week of losses as markets experienced an uneasy run-up to US jobs data later in the session. The non-farm payrolls report due at 1230 GMT is expected to show a 170,000 rise in jobs for May, suggesting the economy is still in a rut and not ready for the Federal Reserve to cut back monetary support.

A strong number would fuel fears of an early tapering of the Fed’s extensive quantitative easing (QE) program bond, with implications for all riskier assets. “The markets are quite nervous about it ... They need reassurance about QE to be stable, so a strong number would cause a disruption,” said Hans Peterson, global head of investment strategy at SEB Private Banking.

World share markets have begun to price in expectations of a tapering in Fed spending, hovering near six-week lows yesterday with US stock futures pointing to further weakness on Wall Street ahead. Also reflecting declining hopes for rate cuts from the European Central Bank, European shares lost 0.2 percent to 1,176.16 points at 1200 GMT, staying near the six-week lows they touched in a selloff on Thursday.

JAPAN FEARS The dollar dropped 1.5 percent against the stronger yen to hit a low of 95.28 yen, a day after posting its biggest fall against the Japanese currency in three years. As well as uncertainty over the Fed’s next moves, the dollar’s fall has been linked to worries over Japan’s commitment to boosting its economy and signs of slower growth in China, which have encouraged demand for the yen. That in turn sparked another selloff yesterday in Japanese stocks, which plunged to a twomonth lows and recorded their worst week in two years.

In the debt market, safe-haven German debt edged higher but trade was expected to be choppy leading into the US data. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi tempered expectations for imminent euro zone rate cuts on Thursday, which boosted demand for Bunds as they headed for their first weekly rise in three weeks. His message on Thursday triggered the biggest daily drops in Italian and Spanish bonds and pushed the euro to its highest level against the dollar since February. All hovered near those levels in mid-morning.

Austria’s ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny told reporters it was possible there would be

no additional ECB measures if the euro-zone’s economy picked up as expected. The euro was last at $1.3242 as it edged back from the previous session’s high of $1.3306, while against the stronger yen it was down at $1.3242, having hit its lowest level since midApril. The Bundesbank trimmed its German growth forecasts yesterday but there were signs that Europe’s largest economy is regaining some momentum after its exports rose in April and imports surged even more.

COMMODITIES STEADY The sharp fall in the dollar lent support to the prices of a wide range of commodities as it makes them cheaper for holders of other currencies. “If the jobs data comes in weaker than expected, it may mean the Fed postpones tapering of its quantitative easing which should weigh on the dollar and support metals,” said economist Alexandra Knight of National Australia Bank in Melbourne. Copper traded on the London Metal Exchange steadied at $7,331.50 a ton, while gold slipped 0.2 percent to $1,409 an ounce, with both metals on course for weekly gains. Brent crude edged above $104 a barrel due to the weaker dollar, putting it on track for a weekly gain of 3.4 percent, its best since late April. —Reuters

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

Marilyn Manson offers support to Paris Jackson PAGE 22

Swimming champion, movie star Esther Williams dies PAGE 29

A model presents a creation made of plastic bags and straws during Trash Fashion Show in Macedonia’s capital Skopje. — AP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

T

he ‘Tainted Love’ hitmaker was saddened by reports that Paris, 15 - the daughter of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson - had attempted suicide earlier this week and invited her to one of his shows when she is feeling better. He told TMZ: “I hope you feel better. You will be on my guest list anytime you want.” It has been speculated Paris harmed herself after being denied permission to attend 44year-old Marilyn’s concert at the Gibson Amphitheater. The alleged suicide attempt came shortly after Paris posted a series of dark messages on Twitter, including: “I wonder why tears are salty?” She later added: “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away now it looks as though they’re here to stay. (sic)” Meanwhile, Paris’ grandmother Katherine Jackson insists her granddaughter is “physically fine” following the incident. She said in a statement: “Paris is physically fine and getting appropriate medical attention.”Being a sensitive 15 year old is difficult no matter who you are. It is especially difficult when you lose the person closest to you.

“Please respect her privacy and the family’s privacy.”

T

he actress - who gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Everly, with ‘Magic Mike’ star Channing Tatum last week - has revealed she plans to be a working mum after landing a role in new US TV show ‘Witches of East End’. She said: “I got the TV show and found out I was pregnant at the same time. It’s overwhelming, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. “I’ll learn manage love, work and a baby all at once. It’s a crash course. I think, ‘How am I going to do all this?’ I have no idea what I’m up against. But I’m as mentally prepared as I can be. It’s an adventure!” The 32-year-old beauty further revealed that her hunky husband was incredibly supportive during her pregnancy and despite their work respective commitments, they always put their relationship first. She explained to Britain’s Glamour magazine: “Most actors are consumed by career and getting ahead. Channing and I are ambitious, but our relationship comes first. We take it all day by day saying, ‘OK, how can we make this work together?’ “Channing’s been great. He just takes the route of no confrontation, just support, saying things like, ‘What do you want to eat? I’m going to leave it up to you?’”

‘T

he Bling Ring’ star compares herself to the fairytale character - who gets transformed from a parlour girl into a princess for one night only - because she only gets leant the outfits she wears to parties and film premieres.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper: “I probably own about eight pairs of shoes, max. “I get lent all of these beautiful clothes, but a bit like Cinderella they all go back at midnight and I just go home and put my jeans on. I haven’t got wardrobes full of gowns.” The 23-year-old star - who turned down the opportunity to play Cinderella in a Disney version of the tale, which is currently in production - added going out in normal clothes helps her to stay incognito. She added: “I don’t carry a designer handbag. I think people recognise me less when I don’t wear make-up. I just try to be as low-key as I can possibly manage when I’m not working. “If you go out in glamorous clothes, people will just naturally pay more attention to you. If that’s what you’re trying to avoid, then that’s what you’ve got to figure out.”

T

he 42-year-old musician - whose real name is Robert James Ritchie - says fame will eventually take its toll on the 19-year-old singer and he will embrace the darker side of celebrity. He told America’s GQ magazine: “It’s just a matter of time before someone puts a huge line of cocaine in front of Bieber and he’s going to be like, ‘Yes! This is wesome!’ “ The rocker also spoke out about Britney Spears, admitting he felt sorry for the ‘Toxic’ hitmaker. He said: “Poor girl. Turned into a space cadet. That dead stare, like someone stole her soul... “ Kid isn’t the only star who is worried about Justin, Channing Tatum recently revealed he thinks the ‘Baby’ hitmaker - who was discovered at the age of 14 - found fame too young and hopes he doesn’t go off the rails like many child stars do. He said: “I do believe that whatever age you become famous, you end up staying that age. “I worry about Bieber, man. That kid’s wildly talented. I hope he doesn’t fall down into the usual ways of young kids because it’ so hard for someone to be responsible when they’re not asked to be. “We’re not asked to do things ourselves. You have someone there with a coffee. ‘You want food? I’ll get you food.’” — Bangshowbiz

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

A

lthough the ‘New Girl’ actress split from Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard in 2011 before divorcing a year later, she insists it hasn’t put her off the idea of finding lasting love. She told Cosmopolitan Australia: “Absolutely! I truly believe in it. I’m not saying it’s not ephemeral...I’m saying true love may be out of the box. My parents have been married for 40 years and my grandparents were hitched for 70 years. I come from a long line of true loves. I’d be likely to go for somebody who is like me. I do like creative people, so whatever that means. Yeah, authentic and creative.” Zooey, 33, - who is now dating screenwriter Jamie Linden - also admitted

she was insecure growing up but has now come to be happy with herself and wants to help others.

She added: “People really teased me. It was bad.

Nothing could be as hard as middle school. There were insecurities that I think I would’ve worked through a lot faster if I’d had certain tools and could have connected with certain people earlier.

“We started up [the website] Hello Giggles for fun.

But now I feel as though I’m on a mission to make it a thing that helps other women. If there had been a place like that for me when I was 13, I would have felt so much less alone.”

T

he couple - who have been married for 22 years and have children Kylie, 15, and Kendall, 17, together - bought a second home in California, where Bruce likes to spend much of his time. Kris’ daughter Khloe Kardashian told ‘The Tonight Show’ host Jay Leno: “Well, they’re not having problems but they still like to live apart, which is definitely different. “In my house, there is a man room for my husband Lamar [Odom]. A room, not a different house. I think they took my idea and ran with it and they got another house. Bruce stays there sometimes. “It’s in the same state, a different city. I’m not for that, but you know, to each their own. I don’t compare relationships. I just think a little too much time apart maybe isn’t the best thing.” While Khloe doesn’t approve of their unusual living arrangement, she says Kris and Bruce are happy with their arrangement. She added: “They’re like, ‘Don’t judge us. We’ve been married [22] years’. I’m like, ‘I know people that have been married longer that still live together.’”

T

he supermodel - who has a six-year-old son Augustin James following a short fling with billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault - and the Hard Rock businessman have reportedly called time on their relationship because they couldn’t agree on where to live. According to the New York Post’s Page Six, Linda wants to remain in New York while Peter would prefer to spend the majority of his time at his Malibu home.

Linda, 48, started dating Peter - who is 19 years her senior - in 2006 while she was pregnant with Augustin. He stood by her during her child-custody battle with Mr Pinault - who is now married to Salma Hayek - which was settled in May 2012. The couple previously split in 2010 with friends blaming their contrasting opinions on where to live and the disapproval of his family on the break-up. A source said at the time: “Peter is very settled in Malibu and loves Los Angeles, while Linda liked to spend time in Canada and with her friends in New York.

“Some members of Peter’s family were not too fond of her, and were dismayed when she appeared around last Thanksgiving with a large diamond ring on her finger.

But the marriage never happened.”

T

he 23-year-old actor shot into the limelight in 2001 for playing the title character in the ‘Harry Potter’ film series and following his acting success, was a renowned multimillionaire by the age of 19, but the British star claims he was never overwhelmed by stardom and credits his parents for keeping him level headed. Speaking in an interview with Time Out magazine, he said: “I had really good parents. And I got lucky and I love it. I’m always amused at the way some actor’s behaviour is truly disgusting. That’s one thing that will never happen on one of my sets, if I ever direct. Life’s too short to work with jerks. And I’ve been lucky enough not to have to.” Daniel - who is currently starring in ‘Kill Your Darlings’ - insists he adores acting to the point where he isn’t bothered about the money and he’s so committed to his trade that he hasn’t taken a holiday for a long time. He explained: “I love my job and I want to earn the right to do it every day.”“I don’t know when the last time was I had a holiday. I am now actively trying to develop other interests.”

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

S

he has led Moscow’s renowned Pushkin Museum for over half a century, helped Russians discover the art of her friend Marc Chagall and battled to bring late impressionist art out of the vaults and into public view.

And at the age of 91, the doyenne of Russia’s museum directors Irina Antonova shows no sign of letting up. Her extraordinary career has seen her work under Kremlin chiefs from Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin and cross paths with some of the greatest names in 20th-century art.

Now Antonova has set herself the challenge of righting what she sees as a wrong wreaked

by Stalin in 1948 when he ordered the dissolution of one of the world’s finest museums of impressionist and early modern Western art.

“No one else is going to do this. I was in this museum, I was present when it was dissolved,” Antonova, who has led the Pushkin Museum since being appointed under Nikita Khrushchev in 1961, told AFP in an interview.

Antonova sent a shockwave through Russia’s usually staid museum world when she bluntly told Putin during his annual nationwide question-and-answer session that the museum should be recreated just as it was before Stalin’s intervention. All very well, but refounding the museum would mean taking away some of the most prized exhibits of the venerable Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg which was given an allocation of the collection when the Museum of New Western Art (GMNZI) was broken up.

And the Hermitage-whose rivalry with the Pushkin Museum dates well back to the Soviet era-has made it clear in no uncertain terms that its paintings are not going anywhere. “We are not going to lie down on Palace Square (in front of the Hermitage) as a sign of protest,” said Antonova. “It’s their own business,” she added icily. But in a swipe at her Saint Petersburg colleagues, she added: “Those who are against (reestablishing the museum) are adhering to a decree of Stalin.”—AFP

Visitors look at creations by French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, 1887 — 1965) during a press preview of “LeCorbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York, June 5, 2013. — AFP photos

N

This file photo shows Moscow’s Pushkin Fine Art State Museum Director Irina Antonova speaking during an interview with the AFP in Moscow. — AFP

early half a century after his death, New York’s Museum of Modern Art will pay homage to celebrated French architect and designer Le Corbusier in a major exhibit that opens next week.

The extensive show will focus on the way Le Corbusier viewed and observed different landscapes throughout his career, featuring his early watercolors and models of his large-scale projects.

In total, around 320 paintings, drawings, models, photographs, plans and sketches will go on display at the prestigious midtown Manhattan institution. Jean-Louis Cohen, a professor of architecture at New York University who is one of two curators, said the show-which cost close to a million dollars to put together-would provide rarely-seen insight into Le Corbusier’s view of landscapes.

“This is work that deserves to be rediscovered for its poetic and artistic qualities,” Cohen told AFP. Arranged chronologically, the exhibit takes into account the global influences on Le Corbusier, who was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris on October 6, 1887. It references time he spent in Paris, Italy, Austria, Germany, Greece, Istanbul, Algeria, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and India.

The works on view include four interiors built specifically for the show, such as Le Corbusier’s cabin in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the south of France and a room from the “Maison Blanche” (“White House”) he built for his parents in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. These reconstructions enable visitors to grasp the evolution-but also the persistence-of the “greatest architect of the 20th century,” Cohen said.

But some of his 400 projects-several models of which will go on viewnever saw the light of day, frustrating Le Corbusier. In total, Le Corbusier built some 75 constructions in a dozen countries before passing away on August 27, 1965. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1930.

Le Corbusier’s relationship with the United States and MoMA in particular was marked for years by misunderstanding and “much acrimony on Le Corbusier’s behalf,” Cohen noted. “He wanted to control everything,” Cohen said as he recalled how a plan to showcase his work in a major exhibition at MoMA in the early 1950s was abandoned after three years of negotiations. This show includes MoMA’s own collection, as well as loans from the Paris-based Le Corbusier Foundation. “Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes” will be on view at MoMA from June 15 to September 23 before moving on to Barcelona and Madrid next year. — AFP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

A video installation “Tag’out” of Algerian artist Ammar Bouras at the temporary exhibition “Le noir et le bleu” yesterday at the Museum of Civilisations from Europe and the Mediterranean, (MUCEM), in Marseille, southern France, during it’s opening. — AFP

A

s pets go, they are low maintenance. No muss, no fuss, nice and quiet, and even a bit furry. So, how about snuggling up with a giant, non-biting tarantula? A farm in Chile exports the palm-sized critters to Asia, Europe and the United States for sale as exotic household companions. They go for $25 each plus shipping, and need to be fed just once a week, preferably live cockroaches or worms. And they live a long timeup to 25 years in the case of females.

“Not everyone can keep a dog or cat. Tarantulas are cheaper and do not need as much attention. What’s more, the world has changed and what with technology and cable television, people are learning about this kind of exotic animal and want one for their home,” said Juan Gonzalez, a vet at the farm.

It is owned by one Juan Pablo Orellana, an agronomist who gathers and raises these Chilean rose hair tarantula (Grammostola rosea). Orellana’s farm exports about 30,000 of them a year. They travel in boxes with holes in them and a certificate that could be seen as a pedigree.

“For me the best part is going out to find new spiders,” Orellana told AFP. He gathers arachnids in hills outside the Chilean capital Santiago, and also raises and breeds species that are hardest to find. In Chile only 11 species of tarantulas have been formally classified scientifically, but he himself possesses 20 different kinds.

His farm boasts a rainbow of tarantulas: some have red abdomens, others have copper-colored skin, and they have varying degrees of hairiness. After filling his house with pet spiders, Orellana founded his company, called Andespiders, employing several family members. At the breeding facility,

most of the farmhands are women. “It is labor intensive and very specialized, and I prefer women because the creatures are fragile, and if they break a leg or are dropped they can die,” Orellana says.

The breeding process is rather involved and requires a delicate touch. It takes two and a half to three years to raise one up to saleable size. Gonzalez, an adviser to Orellana, said the tarantulas must be separated from each other. “It’s in their genes, they cannot live alongside even a mate. They start fighting when they are young, and you have to separate them to avoid cannibalism,” Gonzalez said.

The United States is the farm’s main client, and a volume-oriented wholesale one, while European buyers seek fewer tarantulas but a wider variety of species, Gonzalez added. In recent months the farm has also delivered critters to the University of Antofagasta in northern Chile, which is researching the cancerfighting features of Chilean spider and scorpion venom.

At the farm, there is a hospital-like quality: women in white robes with rubber gloves and face masks separate hundreds of newborn spiders into small plastic containers with breathing holes. The women are working all out to fill an order for 3,000 spiders that will go to Germany. But there is one specimen that is not for sale: a coffee-colored tarantula named Rufina, a particularly big creature that Orellana gave to his now wife when they first started dating. — AFP

A child watches a spider for sale at an exotic animals shop.

A man shows his son a spider for sale at an exotic animals shop in Batuco, some 30 km north of Santiago. — AFP photos

Wojciech Amaro, owner and chef of the restaurant “Atelier Amaro”, prepares a dish in his restaurant in Warsaw. — AFP

A

fter years of communist-era shortages, then a craze for Western fast food, Polish cuisine is undergoing a revival thanks to quality local ingredients and a modern twist on traditional fare. Leading the renaissance is Atelier Amaro, a Warsaw eatery that won Poland’s first Michelin star in March for using “local produce to create innovative cuisine and original combinations”.

Tucked away in a wooded area by the capital’s modern art centre, the 32-seater began serving up modern takes on Polish specialities in September 2011.

With no fixed menu, the dishes change with the season and feature such inspired ingredients as bison grass, burnt oak oil, wild rose petals, and nettle-a stinging plant common to Poland. Sample recipes include “pearmain in nettle syrup, cotton candy with ginger and cinnamon, nettle sorbet” and “chilled mirabelle plum soup with vanilla, hazelnut emulsion, lemon verbena leaves”.

The emphasis according to owner-chef Wojciech Modest Amaro is on natural ingredients, preferably Polish. The 41-year-old electronics expert and political scientist learnt to cook while living in England. He then honed his skills at elBulli, Spain’s now shuttered Michelin three-star restaurant, before opening up his own place.

“We want to put Poland on the culinary map of the world ... serving Polish cuisine updated and improved by my husband,” his wife Agnieszka Amaro said.

Polish cuisine was once rich with Italian, German, Jewish, even Armenian influences, but communism stripped it of its variety, leaving it with a reputation of being simple and bland. “For 50 years, really only around a dozen staple ingredients were available,” Amaro told AFP, referring to the chronic shortages under communism, when even toilet paper and bread were scarce. —AFP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

(From left to right) Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Tim McGraw perform during the 2013 CMA Music Festival. — AFP Photos

Miranda Lambert performs during the 2013 CMA Music Festival on June 6, 2013 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Review

I

M

ichael Jackson’s jailed doctor Conrad Murray has sent a consoling message to the late pop icon’s daughter Paris after she tried to commit suicide, saying he loved her like a “precious father.” “You are not alone,” the medic-convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 over Jackson’s death-says in the nearly four-minute message posted by celebrity news website TMZ, citing the title one of Jackson’s songs.

“This is a letter to you. I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’m sure that whatever it is, it must be difficult,” he said. The 15-year-old, whose father died in 2009, was rushed to hospital early Wednesday after trying to cut one of her wrists, a family source told AFP. TMZ said she had also taken 20 Motrin (ibuprofen) pills.

She remained in hospital near her family’s home in Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles, reportedly under a 72-hour psychiatric hold. “I can tell you’re not doing well, and I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to solve your pain, or help you with your problem. But I wanted you to know that I am here for you,” said Murray, serving four years behind bars.

“I always will be available to listen to you, answer your questions or to share with you a plethora of beautiful and favored untold stories of your father, as well as his venerable thoughts of you that he shared with me.” And Murray, found guilty of giving Jackson an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol to help him sleep, added: When you feel all alone or when your heart feels heavy... just know that you’re not alone.

“Your daddy loved you beyond any explanation,” he told the teenager, adding: “Paris, I too love you as a precious father loves his own child, and I always will.” Paris Jackson has suffered from depression before and is understood to have been treated at least once previously after saying she felt like killing herself. The family source played down media reports that she was angry because she could not go to a concert by goth rocker Marilyn Manson in Los Angeles on Thursday-although admitted that may have been a factor. “It wasn’t because of that. It was just because of her depression. Probably the last straw she was told that she couldn’t go... It’s like a teenager, ‘I want what I want, I want to do what I want,’” she said. — AFP

f you recall your youthful diaries or journals as being on the shallow side, you’ll really cringe when comparing them to the ambitious eloquence to be found in essayist Susan Sontag’s published journals. Sontag, who died in 2004, is considered one of the most influential writers of her time, with works like “Against Interpretation,” “Illness as Metaphor” and the 1992 novel, “The Volcano Lover.” The latest iteration of an insightful onewoman homage to her, titled “Sontag: Reborn,” that opened Thursday night downtown at the New York Theater Workshop, is an invigorating, visually compelling sampling of her early personal journals and notebooks.

Marianne Weems of The Builders Association, which first created the work in 2010, directs with simplicity and sophistication.

Moe Angelos, who helped adapt this production using the second volume of Sontag’s journals, published in 2012, performs quite impressively as two Sontags from different times in her life.

Onstage, Angelos creates a lively, youthful Susan, as she scribbles entries and reads aloud journal selections that were written from Sontag’s teens through her mid-30s. Fellow diarists take heart; there’s some silly stuff, too.

Sontag’s penchant for quirky or maniacally detailed lists is presented, along with negative comments on marriage and motherhood and impatient early vows, such as, “Let me note all

the sickening waste of today, that I shall not be easy with myself and compromise my tomorrows.” Hovering omnisciently to one side, in a large black-and-white projection, is Angelos’ pre-recorded impersonation of a 60-something Sontag puffing on cigarettes while wryly commenting on the entries. In response to young Susan writing, “It is useless for me to record only the satisfying parts of my existence...”, older Sontag quips, “There are too few of them anyway!” A second projection directly above Angelos gives a birds-eye view of her large writing table. On the screen, journals and writing are animated, which is pleasing to watch while Angelos’ two Sontags bring the words vividly to life.

Austin Switser’s video design enriches the production, in complement with the entire design team.

Among the funnier entries is one in which Sontag, having read something negative about herself in a lover’s diary, reflects accurately, “One main (social) function of a journal or diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people.” Fortunately, we don’t have to be furtive, as this inspiring production gives a tantalizing glimpse into one writer’s journey from precocious genius to accomplished professional acclaim. — AP

This undated theater photo shows Moe Angelos in “Sontag: Reborn”, currently performing off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in New York. — AP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

“T

T

here’s a lot of noise surrounding Khloe Kardashian Odom. She’s frequently with members of her family, and they’re not a quiet bunch. The family stars on the popular E! reality show “Keeping up With the Kardashians,” now in its eighth season. (Her sister Kim recently revealed on the show that she and rapper Kanye West are expecting a daughter sometime this summer.) Khloe, Kim, sister Kourtney and their mom, Kris Jenner, are subject to 24/7 tabloid, Internet and paparazzi attention. But Kardashian Odom makes a point of tuning out the media attention because she believes “it’s really toxic.”

“I don’t get Google alerts,” she said. “I don’t need to be alerted to what I’m doing. That’s just my personality.” She added: “Once you start living in (that fame world), you can start believing it, and it’s just so bad for you. That’s not the real world. All of this one day will go away no matter who you are, and I need to be OK with who I am as myself and this doesn’t make or break me.

This is wonderful and I love this ride but I’m also so blessed without it as well.”

In a recent interview, Kardashian Odom also talked about fame and whether TV viewers will see the return of the spinoff reality show “Khloe & Lamar” with her husband, Los Angeles Clippers forward Lamar Odom.

AP: Do you look forward to the day when all the fame and attention are gone?

Kardashian Odom: You always want what you don’t have, and you have to be really careful what you wish for. I genuinely love what we do.

When that day comes, it will give me more time to do other stuff but I’m not begging for that day to come. I’m content either way.

AP: Will there be another season of “Khloe & Lamar”?

Kardashian Odom: Yes. It’s not finished. I’m really protective. I’m like a mama bear. And when my husband and I filmed season one, Lamar won Sixth Man of the Year, was the first (Los Angeles) Laker to do so, he won a gold medal, and he also won a championship ring for the Lakers. But the year he got traded, people wanted to say, ‘Oh, it’s because of the show.’ So, I was really irritated. This is my husband’s career, and I just didn’t like that someone would use this tool in a negative way, so I was like, ‘You know what? For the better of my husband’s

career, I’m not going to let anyone use this against him.’ But, yes, it will hopefully come back sooner (rather) than later. Lamar loves doing the show.

AP: It’s interesting that you and your sisters Kourtney and Kim have such a big family but you’re all married to or in a relationship with only children. From what we see on the show, Kourtney’s boyfriend, Scott Disick, sometimes needs his space. Lamar seems to embrace it more. What’s Kanye West like?

Kardashian Odom: How weird that we all are with only children. (Laughs.) We’ve known Kanye for years, so he’s known what our family is like. He definitely does his own thing. Scott works with us. Lamar is away a lot (with basketball), and Kanye has his own career. But, Kanye’s there for holidays and all the stuff that matters.

AP: Speaking of your husband, you’ll be married four years in September. Some people said it wouldn’t last!

Kardashian Odom: I think everyone said it wouldn’t last. (Laughs.) But I totally understand why. We knew each other for like 30 days and then we got married.

AP: You’re like the example of when someone meets another person and says they “just knew” it was right to be together.

Do you agree?

Kardashian Odom: Lamar and I say, ‘We don’t know what came over us. We can’t even explain it.’ Because we can’t explain it. I never understood when someone said ‘I just knew.’

And with every fiber of my being you couldn’t have told me ‘No.’ ... I just felt it - and same with Lamar. Thank God it worked. It very well could’ve gone the other way.

AP: And you didn’t just say, ‘Let’s drive to Las Vegas and get hitched.’ You had a big wedding!

Kardashian Odom: My mom could really do anything. In nine days she planned a wedding.

Looking back, I’m so grateful. — AP

he Fosters” is a study in unlikely bedfellows. The new ABC Family drama pairs mainstream star Jennifer Lopez and Peter Paige, who played bubbly Emmett in the cult favorite series “Queer as Folk,” as executive producers. It brings to television a rare depiction of a lesbian couple as heads of a household. And “The Fosters,” airing its second episode 9 p.m. EDT Monday, combines a focus on the generally ignored lives of foster children with the challenges of an ethnically diverse home - a big reach for an hourlong series aimed at teenagers and young adults.

“I think in every time we have to kind of push that envelope and really be a reflection of what’s going on in society and ... this show does that and in a smart, edgy, funny, heartfelt way,” said Lopez, who’s producing it with co-creators Paige and Bradley Bredeweg. The 43-year-old actress-singerdancer candidly cites her life as an example of the changing nature of family.

“You can’t keep spoon-feeding the idea of what the perfect family is. It just doesn’t exist,” she said.

“Even myself, I have two kids, their dad (Marc Anthony) doesn’t live at home with us. I’m divorced. They have four stepbrothers and sisters from two other moms. It’s not traditional.” “We all wish we had that fairy tale thing in our heads,” Lopez said. But when it doesn’t come true for children they shouldn’t have to think, ‘Oh, I don’t have the mom and the dad, the perfect three kids and a dog. There’s something wrong with me,’” she added.

“The Fosters” stars Teri Polo (“Meet the Parents”) and Sherri Saum as Stef Foster and Lena Adams, the couple whose family includes Stef’s biological son (David Lambert) from a former marriage, adopted twins (Cierra Ramirez, Jake T Austin) and a newly arrived foster teenager (Maia Mitchell) whose difficult past has left her wary. Oh, and Stef is a police officer who works with her ex-husband.

It makes for a tangled web that’s rich in storytelling possibilities, not just messages, its creators said.”Draw a line between any two of these characters and there’s a relationship that hasn’t been explored before,” Paige said. “What’s it like to be the adopted brother whose best friend is the biological brother? What’s it like to be a foster child who’s come in the house and finds herself drawn to one of the boys? “What’s it like to have your ex-husband, your son’s biological father who you work with, around, and does he have a role with your other kids?”

Quipped Bredeweg: “My God, I created the show and I’m so lost right now.”An expert on the foster system consults with the show to help with accuracy. But Paige said liberties are being taken to serve the stories. Most foster children, for example, get their own bedroom; that’s dispensed with in “The Fosters” to up the drama ante. “We are not pretending to, nor would we be interested in, doing a docu-series about the foster system. We’re after a family story where some people are chosen, where everybody has come in through a different door and finds themselves in the same room,” he said.

ABC Family is used to taking chances with such shows as “Switched at Birth,” which features deaf characters and subtitles. But how does it determine that its young audience is ready for “The Fosters,” including its lesbian couple and the challenges they face?

“It’s really a gut check,” said Kate Juergens, executive vice president in charge of programming and development for the channel. “The millennial generation is so much more colorblind than the generation before them. And gay is so not an issue for them. ... They’re so much more used to people being out.” Cast member Lambert, who’s 19, agrees: “Even if it’s an unconventional family, at the

end of the day it’s really just a family.”

A total of 10 episodes will air, and Paige and Bredeweg hope for many more to come. Lopez’s involvement was key to getting the show greenlighted and, they hope, keeping it alive. “You want to get a relationship drama made, you attach a superstar,” Paige observed - and she and her Nuyorican Productions continue as active partners.

“They weigh in on story and casting. ... She’s not just hands-off over in the corner, being gorgeous and glamorous,” Paige said. “Casting is her passion,” Bredeweg added: Lopez is keen on finding new talent, and it was her call that the twins be Latino. Will she be involved in the show as an actress or through her music? “Music for sure. We’re looking for the right moment. There’s something in the works now we’re not at liberty to discuss. On camera, you never know,” said Paige, who has pushed his own acting career aside in favor of writing and producing TV shows and films with Bredeweg.

Jennifer Lopez Lopez strikes a more cautious note about inserting herself into the drama unless it’s done in what she deems an “organic” way that’s not distracting.

“I feel like sometimes when you have somebody like me who’s in the public eye and you produce something, they always want to put you on and it feels ‘stunt-y’ to me sometimes. ... I believe this show stands on its own,” said Lopez, the former “American Idol” judge whose company’s other TV projects include music show “Q’Viva!: The Chosen.”

But she’s eager to publicize “The Fosters” and, to that end, sat patiently for a daylong succession of interviews well before the show’s premiere. She took part in a live Twitter chat during last week’s premiere (Among her tweets: “What does family mean to you? Tell me in three words .. GO!”) “I will bring as much attention to it as I can so people know it’s out there,” she said. As Lopez sees it, “The Fosters” stands for what she’s learned “are the important things in life, which are family equals love. It’s a place where you go for unconditional love, to be accepted, to feel safe. And at the end of the day, that there’s no real ‘normal.’ That there’s no set thing of what a family is at this moment in time in our lives.” —AP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

H

Actor Jackie Chan, imprints his face during a hand and footprint ceremony in front of the TLC Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California yesterday. — AFP

T

ong Kong film star Jackie Chan became the first Chinese actor Thursday to have his hands and feet cast in wet cement at Hollywood’s famed Chinese Theatre, alongside generations of Tinseltown icons. He was joined by American actor Chris Tucker, his co-star from the “Rush Hour” movies, in the ceremony in the courtyard of the TCL Chinese Theatre, as hundreds of fans screamed from across Hollywood Boulevard.

Chan, who has starred in over 100 films and directed 20, recalled first coming to the then Grauman’s Chinese Theatre-it changed its name this year for sponsor Chinese company TCL-two decades ago, invited by film action hero Sylvester Stallone.

“Twenty years, ago, 1993 ... I was not on the red carpet, (I was) on the side, and I saw there are so many stars doing interviews. I had nothing to do. I was standing there looking around to see the handprints. “I thought to myself, when will I have my own things? During all those years my dream (grew),” he said, before thanking his costars, TCL, and-to cheers from the crowd-”the fans around the world, you make my dream come true.”

he great comedian WC Fields is credited with the line, “Never work with children or animals.” He would have had trouble on Broadway this season. There were kids at every turn “Motown: The Musical,” “Kinky Boots,” “Annie,” “Matilda the Musical,” “A Christmas Story, the Musical” and “Pippin.” And animals? Dogs in “Annie,” “Pippin” and “A Christmas Story, the Musical,” a cat in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” a dead crow in “Macbeth” and even a live vulture in “The Testament of Mary.” But now that it’s Tony Awards time, it’s the moment for the adults to shine. No kids or pets made it through the nomination process, so only grownups will emerge victorious Sunday night.

ACTOR-PLAY Will win: Tom Hanks. Should win: Tracy Letts.

Everybody loves Tom Hanks. He is just so darn lovable. In “Lucky Guy,” he gets to be funny and poignant and noble while dying.

What kind of monster are you if you don’t like Tom Hanks? But, speaking of monsters, Tracy Letts showed a hint of one in the seemingly weak-willed history professor George in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “He was savage and sad, allowing years of pain and frustration to seep out of a semi-broken man.”

Hanks, David Hyde Pierce and Nathan Lane turned in fine performances, but nothing touched Letts, an actor at the top of his game.

BEST MUSICAL Will win: “Kinky Boots.” Should win: “Matilda the Musical.”

Though it’s been a horse race between “Kinky Boots” and the import “Matilda the Musical” - both coincidentally having actors adopting British accents and both featuring men in dresses - the consistently high marks for all aspects of “Matilda” should sweep it to victory, but won’t. “Kinky” is unabashedly sentimental with a classic message of acceptance, while “Matilda” is rebellious and edgy, a place Tony voters don’t naturally feel comfortable.

ACTRESS-PLAY Will win: Cicely Tyson. Should win: Laurie Metcalf.

Cicely Tyson’s return to Broadway for the first time in 30 years to be in Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” has been met by deserved high praise. But Laurie Metcalf was simply astonishing as she went from a snippy, bossy scientist to a broken, confused intruder wolfing down Chinese food on the floor in “The Other Place.” The other three women in this category - Amy Morton, Kristine Nielsen and Holland Taylor - also are admirable, but Metcalf was soul-stirring.

The honor is considered even more exclusive than that of being given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the stretch of sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard lined with star-shaped plaques to entertainment greats. Chinese tourist Haoyahh Wei, looking on, said: “He always makes the greatest movies in the world, and always has creative ideas to put in his new movies .. always has something fun to give to his fans.

“We all love him. He is a very kind person, he always helps others,” he added. LA resident Ivette DeLatorres added: “He’s one of the very few actors that actually does his own stunts. I mean he’s willing to get on set, break his leg, get a cast on and the very next day show up on set and keep on going. “That’s amazing,” she added.

Tucker recalled when he did the first “Rush Hour” film with Chan in 1998. “We traveled around the world... from Asia to Australia to Europe and immediately he helped me get known internationally.—AFP

ACTOR-MUSICAL Will win: Bertie Carvel. Should win: Billy Porter.

Both men are deserving of the honor and, believe us, both actors look sensational in skirts, but Billy Porter in “Kinky Boots” bares his heart a little more and pushes his poor body a little more than his rival in “Matilda the Musical.” Bertie Carvel won the Oliver Award - Britain’s equivalent of the Tony - in the role of Miss Trunchbull and brought his terrifying skill to Broadway without being cartoonish, but Porter can make tears fall down your cheeks.

ACTRESS-MUSICAL Will win: Patina Miller. Should win: Patina Miller.

While Laura Osnes from “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” is perfectly cast as a princess-to-be and sings beautifully, Patina Miller is a muscular creature with a hat and cane, a grimace plastered to her face, who dances tough Bob Fosse steps and does tricks on a trapeze while singing in Diane Paulus’ retelling of “Pippin.” Miller is fierce and that always beats cute. — AP

BEST PLAY Will win: “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.”

Should win: “The Assembled Parties.” Christopher Durang’s comical “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” which takes characters and themes from Anton Chekhov and sets them in presentday Pennsylvania, is sly and funny and lovely. But Richard Greenberg’s “The Assembled Parties,” a meditation on time and family, leaves a lasting impression.

REVIVAL-PLAY Will win: “The Trip to Bountiful.” Should win: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

The Cicely Tyson-led revival of Horton Foote’s play is lovely and well done. You walk out hopeful and sunny - the opposite of what the revival of Edward Albee’s play felt like. Superbly acted and directed, it was a cage-match with intellectuals. But Tony voters like sunny and inspirational.

REVIVAL-MUSICAL Will win: “Pippin.” Should win: “Pippin.”

“Annie” is pretty good, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” was rollicking, “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” is sweet and smart, but “Pippin” is thoroughly thrilling, rebuilt with a circus inside.

Diane Paulus rides the Big Top theme - fire jugglers, teeterboards, knife throwing and contortionists - but she also teases out the wandering nature of the mysterious players and zooms up the physicality of the story. Magic.

This theater image released

by The O+M Company shows Billy Porter during a performance of “Kinky Boots.”

— AP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

This May 1950 file publicity photo originally released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shows Esther Williams on location for the film “Pagan Love Song. — AP

E

sther Williams, the swimming champion turned actress who starred in glittering and aquatic Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, has died. She was 91.

Williams died early Thursday in her sleep, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll. Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure. Such films as “Easy to Wed,” “Neptune’s Daughter” and “Dangerous When Wet” followed the same formula: romance, music, a bit of comedy and a flimsy plot that provided excuses to get Esther into the water.

The extravaganzas dazzled a second generation via television and the compilation films “That’s Entertainment.”

Williams’ co-stars included the pick of the MGM contract list, including Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Howard Keel. When hard times signaled the end of big studios and costly musicals in the mid-’50s, Williams tried non-swimming roles with little success. After her 1962 marriage to Fernando Lamas, her co-star in “Dangerous When Wet,” she retired from public life.

She explained in a 1984 interview: “A really terrific guy comes along and says, ‘I wish you’d stay home and be my wife,’ and that’s the most logical thing in the world for a Latin.

And I loved being a Latin wife - you get treated very well.

There’s a lot of attention in return for that sacrifice.” She came to films after winning 100-meter freestyle and other races at the 1939 national championships and appearing at the San Francisco World’s Fair’s swimming exhibition. As with Judy Garland, Donna Reed and other stars, Williams was introduced in one of Mickey Rooney’s Andy Hardy films, “Andy Hardy’s Double Life” (1942).

She also played a small role in “A Guy Named Joe” before “Bathing Beauty” in 1944 began the string of immensely popular musical spectaculars. Among them: “Thrill of a Romance,” “Fiesta,” “This Time for Keeps,” “On an Island with You,” “Take Me out to the Ballgame,” “Duchess of Idaho,” “Pagan Love Song,” “Texas Carnival,” “Skirts Ahoy,” “Million Dollar Mermaid” (as Annette Kellerman, an earlier swimming champion turned entertainer), “Dangerous When Wet,” “Easy to Love” and “Jupiter’s Darling.”

Williams in a bathing suit became a favorite pinup of GI’s in World War II, and her popularity continued afterward. She was a refreshing presence among MGM’s stellar gallery - warm, breezy, with a frankness and self-deprecating humor that delighted interviewers. She laughed as much as anyone over an assessment by Fanny Brice, the original “Funny Girl”: “Esther Williams? Wet, she’s a star. Dry, she ain’t.”

After leaving MGM, she starred in two Universal dramatic

Former movie star Esther Williams poses for photographers poolside at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in this May 11, 1995 file photo with two women dressed as mermaids. — AFP

films, “The Unguarded Moment” and “Raw Wind in Eden.”

Neither was successful. In 1961 Lamas directed her last film, “The Magic Fountain,” in Spain. It was never released in America. When she published her autobiography in 1999, she titled it “The Million Dollar Mermaid.” Esther Jane Williams grew up destined for a career in athletics. She was born Aug 8, 1921, in Inglewood, a suburb southwest of Los Angeles, one of five children.

American movie star Esther Williams poses with a board as she is ready to compete the “Ironing board derby” between Catalina island and the Californian coast in this August 25,1947 file photo.— AFP

A public pool was not far from the modest home where Williams was raised, and it was there that an older sister taught her to swim. They saved the 10-cent admission price by counting 100 towels. When she was in her teens, the Los Angeles Athletic Club offered to train her four hours a day, aiming for the 1940 Olympic Games at Helsinki. In 1939, she won the Women’s Outdoor Nationals title in the 100-meter freestyle, set a record in the 100-meter breaststroke and was a part of several winning relay teams. But the outbreak of war in Europe that year canceled the 1940 Olympics, and Esther dropped out of competition to earn a living.

She was selling clothes in a Wilshire Boulevard department store when showman Billy Rose tapped her for a bathing beauty job at the World’s Fair in San Francisco. While there, she was spotted by an MGM producer and an agent. She laughed at the suggestion she do films that would popularize swimming, as Henie had done with ice skating.

“Frankly I didn’t get it,” she recalled. “If they had asked me to do some swimming scenes for a star, that would have made sense to me. But to ask me to act was sheer insanity.” She finally agreed to visit MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, and recalled that she took the job after her mother told her: “No one can avoid a challenge in life without breeding regret, and regret is the arsenic of life.”

Lamas was Williams’ third husband. Before her fame she was married briefly to a medical student. In 1945 she wed Ben Gage, a radio announcer, and they had three children, Benjamin, Kimball and Susan. They divorced in 1958. After Lamas’ death in 1982, Williams regained the spotlight. Having popularized synchronized swimming with her movies, she was co-host of the event on television at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She issued a video teaching children how to swim and sponsored her own line of swimsuits.

“I’ve been a lucky lady,” she said in a 1984 interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve had three exciting careers. Before films I had the experience of competitive swimming, with the incredible fun of winning.... I had a movie career with all the glamor that goes with it. That was ego-fulfilling, but it was like the meringue on the pie. My marriage with Fernando - that was the filling, that was the apple in the pie.” — AP

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Google chief says Glass privacy fears will fade

TAIPEI: A staff displays TCB International Corp’s new products, the “Health Bracelet” and its APP “Blood Management Your (BMY)”, during the 2013 Computex. —AFP

Taiwan electronics fair tees up ‘smart watch’ for golfers Rumours of Apple ‘iWatch’ abound at tech fair TAIPEI: It may not be able to carry the clubs like a caddie but a new “smart watch” can help a golfer find his range on the course, and its makers are taking a swing at the global market as part of a new trend in wearable computing.

The smart watch, on display at the Computex trade fair in Taipei, comes amid rumours of an Apple “iWatch” device to be worn on the wrist, and amid ongoing hype around Google’s pioneering Glass.

Developed by Taiwanese company Sonostar Inc, it can access the layouts of 30,000 golf courses around the world and can also be used by people when they jog or cycle to record distance travelled and calories burned.

Apple chief Tim Cook has forecast that there will soon be “tons of companies

playing” in the wearable computing sector, with the frenzy sparked after Google announced the development of its high-tech eyewear.

The five-day tech extravaganza in the Taiwanese capital has provided an opportunity for lesser-known brands to get in on the act, and like the Glass, the wrist-worn caddie can be wirelessly tethered to a mobile phone. Linked to an Android or Apple device over Bluetooth, the smart watch allows users to read emails, browse social media sites, and read ebooks. All of this is done using a 1.73-inch e-ink paper touchscreen, which like the Kindle display is easy to view in the sunshine.

“We are optimistic about the demand of this new smart watch, particularly in markets like Japan, the United States

and Australia where golfing is popular,” said Sonostar spokeswoman Marie Liu. The company, which already sells handheld GPS devices for golfers, said the watch is set to hit the market in the third quarter with a price tag of $179.

“This is a new technology. I want to wear a smart phone on my wrist. I don’t want this notebook,” said Stephen Hurford, who works for a Londonbased cloud computing firm, as he visited what is Asia’s biggest IT fair. But some analysts are less optimistic about wearable technology. “If I had to make a prediction I’d say Google Glass is a Segway for the face,” tech author Edward Tenner told AFP earlier this week, referring to a personal transport device that flopped after great initial hype. —AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: Google chief Larry Page assured investors Thursday that privacy fears about the company’s coming Internet glasses will fade as people incorporate the eyewear into their lives. “People worry about all sorts of things that actually, when we use the product, it is not that big a concern,” Page said while fielding questions at an annual shareholders meeting at the company headquarters in Silicon Valley. “You don’t collapse in terror that someone might be using Glass in the bathroom just the same as you don’t collapse in terror when someone comes in with a smartphone that might take a picture.”

Page’s remarks came in response to a shareholder’s expressed worry that Google camera-enabled, Internetlinked eyewear is “a voyeur’s dream come true.” “Obviously, there are cameras everywhere,” Page said, after taking a quick poll to find that nearly everyone at the gathering had smartphones capable of taking photos.

“I love using Google Glass,” he continued, noting that the company had “gone through some pains” to safeguard people’s privacy. Google last week put out word that it won’t allow facial recognition capabilities in applications being tailored for Glass at its release expected later this year. “We won’t add facial recognition features to our products without having strong privacy protections in place,” Google said in an online message aimed at software developers creating applications for Glass.

“With that in mind, we won’t be approving any facial recognition Glassware at this time,” the message continued, revealing how the company intends to refer to software designed for the devices. In May, a group of US lawmakers asked Google to answer questions on the privacy implications and possible “misuse of information” of its Glass project.

Some small establishments in the United States have vowed to ban Glass due to worries about how being able to discreetly take pictures or video might be seen as invasive by patrons. Facebook, Twitter and major news organizations have already tailored applications for Glass, which has only been made available to developers and a limited selection of “explorers” who paid $1,500 each for the eyewear.

Envisioned uses range from practical tasks such as shopping or delivering local weather reports to sharing real time video streams or playing augmented reality games in which the world is the board. Glass lets wearers take pictures, record video, send messages or perform other tasks with touch controls or by speaking commands. Glass connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi hot spots or, more typically, by being wirelessly tethered to mobile phones. Pictures or video can be shared through the Google+ social network. —AFP

Hollywood meets Silicon Valley CHENGDU: Guo Ping, current CEO of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world’s fifth-largest smartphone maker, reckons the Chinese firm’s phones are unbeatable in terms of hardware, and pours water on market distinctions between high- and low-end models. Huawei, probably better known as a leading telecoms gear maker under fire from U.S. politicians over its potential links to the Chinese state, is looking to drive sales of its consumer devices, but is hobbled by not having effective consumer retail channels. Traditionally, it co-brands its devices with carriers.

In an interview on Friday, Guo told Reuters he sees this changing as Huawei shifts from focusing on the technology in its devices to better understanding consumers’ tastes and perceptions. “In some ways, (designing) a smartphone is in the middle of Silicon Valley and Hollywood,” he said.

“Silicon Valley represents technology - and smartphones need strong technology - and the Hollywood aspect is about experience and perception.”

“It’s like your beloved pet, you can’t leave it. This is how we think about Huawei’s consumer brand. It needs to be between Hollywood and Silicon Valley,” he said on the sidelines of a business conference in Chengdu in southwestern China. The consumer device push comes at a critical time for Huawei’s telecommunication equipment business, which ranks behind Sweden’s Ericsson in terms of market share and faces greater scrutiny from governments worldwide. Just as Huawei tries to convince the West it’s a safe company to do business with, a British parliamentary committee report on Thursday slammed the way in which ministers were not fully informed about a multi-billion pound deal for Huawei to supply equipment to BT Group Plc in 2005. Huawei, founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former People’s Liberation Army officer, has repeatedly denied it has links with the Chinese government or military and has said it receives no financial support from the government. —Reuters

TOKYO: French President Francois Hollande (center) and his partner Valerie Trierweiler (second right) look at a robot during a visit to an exhibition held by French information technology (IT) companies yesterday. —AFP

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Apple battles Amazon in e-book case NEW YORK: Apple attorneys in the US antitrust case on ebooks went on the offensive Thursday, attacking the credibility of government witnesses and seeking to debunk key elements of the government’s case. Apple attorneys grilled a trio of witnesses from Apple rival Amazon and undertook a bruising cross-examination of a Google executive. Apple attorney Howard Heiss peppered Amazon executives during a series of contentious exchanges with skeptical questions on Amazon statements about its business profile and pointed out inconsistencies between Amazon testimony and documentary evidence.

Amazon is very “metrics-focused,” Heiss said to Amazon’s vice president for Kindle Russell Grandinetti during a cross examination. Grandinetti had previously testified that he did not know Amazon’s market share of the e-books market.

“We were a very large seller of e-books,” Grandinetti said, while denying he could estimate Amazon’s market share.

Heiss then presented a news article quoting another Amazon executive estimating the company’s market share at 70-80 percent.

Amazon is a key witness in the government’s case, which maintains that Apple conspired with publishers to orchestrate a transformation of the e-book market in early 2010 that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. In entering the market, Apple signed a series of “agency” model contracts with publishers, in which publishers set the price and guaranteed Apple a 30 percent commission.

Prior to Apple’s entry, the e-book industry was dominated by Amazon and run on a “wholesale” model where retailers set the prices. Amazon charged $9.99 for bestsellers prior to Apple’s entry into the market. Part of the government’s case is that Apple and publishers forced Amazon to switch to the agency model, resulting in higher prices. Apple attorneys sought to show that Amazon faced an increasingly difficult market in late 2009 and early 2010 in which publishers were already planning hardball tactics-even before Apple’s entry. Amazon’s pricing model was unpopular not only with publishers, but also with agents and authors who worried about the erosion of intellectual property. Grandinetti confirmed that by the end of 2009 four of the “Big Six” publishers announced plans to “window” bestselling books, meaning they would delay release of the Amazon e-book for a period of months until after the release of the physical book.

As five of the major publishers signed agency models with Apple, they contacted Amazon to renegotiate terms.

The first negotiation was with MacMillan Chief Executive John Sargent, who presented Amazon with the choice of shifting to an agency model or accepting a wholesale model with windowing for seven months.

“We expressed quite strongly how unpalatable the choice was,” Grandinetti said of his encounter with Sargent.

“The meeting was very tense.” Amazon initially tried to punish MacMillan by removing the “buy” button from MacMillan titles.

But Amazon ultimately capitulated after three days and quickly negotiated the agency model with MacMillan. Soon after that, Amazon negotiated similar contracts with the other four publishers. Apple attorneys sought to show that Amazon’s shift to the agency model was its own decision and not orchestrated by Apple.

But Amazon officials testified that the publishers were forcing the change at Apple’s behest. Laura Porco, who was director of Amazon’s Kindle Books at the time, told the court in a written declaration that the publishers informed Amazon that they were switching to agency “because that’s what Apple made them do.”

Porco told the court Thursday she was “alarmed” when the publishers demanded agency from Amazon. “I felt like we were being pushed into something that was really terrible for consumers,” Porco said. Following Porco’s testimony, Apple attorney Orin Snyder aggressively questioned Thomas Turvey, an executive in Google’s book selling division. Turvey said in a written deposition that publishers told him that they could not accept wholesale terms with Google because of their terms with Apple. During the testimony, Turvey was unable however to name a single publishing executive who said this. —AFP

Snapchat could be LA’s startup star Snapchat sees 50 million images shared daily LOS ANGELES: There’s never a shortage of things to gawk at in Venice Beach: oiled-up bodybuilders, a two-headed turtle, over-thetop street performers. Lately, passers-by on the main stretch of the boardwalk have also been ogling an eggshell-blue house, steps from the sand, unremarkable except for a giant yellow sign out front featuring a cheery cartoon ghost.

The ghost is the logo of Snapchat, which has burst onto the tech scene with its mobile application that enables users to send their friends photos that self-destruct seconds after they’re viewed. With more than 150 million photos shared through the app every day, Snapchat has garnered enormous popularity and publicity: Mark Zuckerberg has used the app. Al Gore name-dropped it at the South by Southwest festival. Stephen Colbert had cofounders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy on “The Colbert Report.”

What has gotten less attention, though, is where the 2-year-old company is located.

Spiegel, 22, and Murphy, 24, made a deliberate choice to take Snapchat to Los Angeles shortly after coming up with the idea for the app while students at Stanford University. The move away from Silicon Valley was bold, given that region’s reputation for growing promising young tech startups and its ties to crucial venture capital funding.

LA, on the other hand, has gained traction as a tech community but has yet to produce a blockbuster startup on the level of Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Despite the debut of hundreds of startups in the region in recent years, tech entrepreneurs and investors have stressed the need for Los Angeles to have a breakout hit. Some are saying Snapchat could finally be it, and are hoping that the company built on ephemerality won’t itself disappear like so many other startups.

Snapchat has an “addictive quality,” said Mitch Lasky, general partner at Benchmark Capital, which led a $13.5 million round of funding for Snapchat announced in February.

Lasky, a member of Snapchat’s board, said the app’s user engagement is “something the likes of which I haven’t seen outside of email or SMS or that kind of stuff. It’s extraordinary.”

Case in point: Users post about 40 million pictures every day on Instagram. Snapchat sees about four times that number move through its app daily - explosive growth, considering only 50 million images were shared daily just six months ago. Snapchat’s premise is simple.

Users take a photo or video and set an expiration time of 1 to 10 seconds. Recipients are notified when they’ve received a “snap” and must maintain physical contact with their smartphone screen as they’re viewing it. A countdown timer shows how much time remains before the image self-destructs. The company’s founders say the app has caught on because it celebrates spontaneous, fleeting moments - a refreshing break from the perfectly poised shots that are carefully selected for Facebook and other social media networks.

Indeed, many users said they turned to the app to send photos of themselves making funny or ugly faces or otherwise looking less than picture-perfect.

Snaps have also introduced the concept of photo chatting, a way to communicate quickly without words. For instance, users will send a snap of a shopping center instead of texting, “I’m at the mall.” “It’s changing the definition of

what a photo is,” said Murphy, the company’s chief technology officer. “People get trapped in this notion of what a photo should be.”

The allure of vanishing photos has caught on quickly among Snapchat’s users, most of them in the coveted 13-to-25-year-old range. A few months ago, “everyone at school starting talking about Snapchat,” said Tyler Bowman, 15, who was hanging out on the Venice boardwalk near Snapchat’s headquarters on a recent Thursday. Now, his friend Jonathon Marquez said, “everyone who has a smartphone uses it.”

The high school sophomores said Snapchat has become one of their top three apps. They each send 100 snaps a day, mostly of what they described as “dumb stuff.” “It’s just fun to mess around. Texting gets old after awhile,” Bowman said. Snapchat hasn’t been without its share of controversy. Its must-have status among teens and its now-you-see-it-now-youdon’t underpinning have made some suspicious that the photo-messaging app is being used for sexting, in which people text racy

Privacy Information Center, with the Federal Trade Commission.

The finding prompted a blog post by Snapchat, which detailed its deletion procedures. It also offered a caveat: “If you’ve ever tried to recover lost data after accidentally deleting a drive or maybe watched an episode of CSI, you might know that with the right forensic tools, it’s sometimes possible to retrieve data after it has been deleted.” Despite those road bumps, Snapchat continues to surge ahead, even as other once-promising LAarea startups, such as Viddy and Beachmint, have struggled.

Spiegel and Murphy, who met through their fraternity at Stanford, said they briefly considered taking the company to San Francisco but decided to move it to LA because they liked the region’s creative spirit, laid-back culture and entertainment ties. They initially worked out of Spiegel’s father’s house before moving in January to Venice, where they’re set up between a bike rental shop and street ven-

VENICE: Bobby Murphy, 24 (left) and Evan Spiegel, 22, co-creators of Snapchat, are seen through a window of the company’s offices on Ocean Front Walk in Venice, California. —MCT images of themselves.

Just 1.2 percent of images transmitted via the app are screen-captured, Murphy said. “By setting the default to impermanence, people understand and respect that.” Still, when Snapchat was mentioned to teens on the boardwalk, several snickered and exchanged knowing glances with their friends. “It happens a lot,” conceded Bardiya Khodabakhshi, 18, of Los Angeles. Snapchat has also recently found itself embroiled in a Facebook-Winklevoss-like battle over its origins.

In February, Frank Reginald Brown IV filed a lawsuit against Snapchat and its co-founders, alleging he came up with the idea and did work on the app but was shut out by his former college buddies after a falling out. The company declined to comment on the lawsuit.

And there have been doubts about snaps being deleted permanently from phones and from the company’s servers after they’re viewed. Last month, a Utah data retrieval firm said it had found a way to restore Snapchat images sent to Android smartphones even after they had supposedly disappeared. That led to a complaint, filed by the Electronic

dors selling floppy hats.

With 14 employees and an ambitious hiring plan, Snapchat is already outgrowing the beachfront space and probably will need to relocate again in a matter of months. When that happens, the company said, it will stay in the LA area instead of moving back to Silicon Valley. “It’s nice being outside of that world having access to it but not being drowned by it,” Murphy said. “For us, being an hour away by plane is enough to keep our heads down and focus on what we’re doing and not get caught up in the hype of the startup world up there.”

Like many young mobile startups, Snapchat has yet to make any money, relying instead on venture capital funding. Spiegel said the company is looking for ways to monetize the business down the line, which will almost certainly come in the form of mobile advertising. Already, brands are testing the app as a potential advertising vehicle. Taco Bell last month announced it was bringing back the Beefy Crunch Burrito by using Snapchat to send its followers a snap of the menu item. The move earned the fast-food chain street cred among the social media-savvy set. —MCT

TV listings

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

14:10 15:05 16:00 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:40 20:35 21:30 21:55 22:25 22:50 23:20 23:45 00:40 01:10 01:35

Jesse James Outlaw Garage Jesse James Outlaw Garage Jesse James Outlaw Garage Wheeler Dealers: Trading Up Wheeler Dealers: Trading Up Gold Divers: Under The Ice Alaska: The Last Frontier Sons Of Guns Storage Hunters Storage Hunters Storage Hunters Storage Hunters Storage Hunters Inside The Gangsters’ Code I Escaped: Real Prison Breaks I Escaped: Real Prison Breaks Outlaw Empires

14:50 Surviving Extreme Weather 15:45 Combat Countdown 16:40 Fire In The Sky: A Daily Planet Special 17:35 Last Flight Of The Space Shuttle 18:25 Treasures Decoded 19:20 American Car Prospector 20:10 Daredevils 21:05 Reign Of The Dinosaurs 22:00 Combat Countdown 22:55 American Car Prospector 23:50 Treasures Decoded 00:45 Zero Hour 01:35 Zero Hour

16:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 00:00 02:00

03:00 03:30 04:00 04:30 Leno 05:30 06:00 06:30 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 09:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 Leno 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00

Smallville C.S.I. Body Of Proof Criminal Minds White Collar Top Gear (UK) Greek Kyle XY Criminal Minds

Wilfred Friends Seinfeld The Tonight Show With Jay Hope & Faith All Of Us Brothers Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Seinfeld Hope & Faith Wilfred Go On Cougar Town Brothers The Tonight Show With Jay All Of Us Seinfeld Hope & Faith Til Death Friends Cougar Town Go On

15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 All Of Us 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Wilfred 18:30 Happy Endings 19:00 The Neighbors 19:30 The Office 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Veep 22:30 Veep 23:00 Legit 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Veep 02:00 Veep 02:30 Legit

05:15 05:35 06:00 06:25 06:35 06:45 07:10 07:35

Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jake & The Neverland Pirates Suite Life On Deck A.N.T Farm Jessie

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

That’s So Raven Gravity Falls Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Jessie Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm Code: 9 Bolt Code: 9 Shake It Up Jessie A.N.T. Farm Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Austin And Ally Gravity Falls Shake It Up Jessie A.N.T Farm Monsters Inc. That’s So Raven Gravity Falls Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm That’s So Raven Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up A.N.T. Farm Austin And Ally Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Stitch Stitch

14:20 Food Factory 14:45 Food Factory 15:10 X-Machines 16:00 Unchained Reaction 16:55 Stephen Hawking’s Grand Design 17:45 Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger 18:10 Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger 18:35 The Gadget Show 19:00 The Tech Show 19:30 Storm Chasers 20:20 X-Machines 21:10 Kitchen Chemistry 21:35 Kitchen Chemistry 22:00 Storm Chasers 22:50 Dark Matters 23:40 Kitchen Chemistry 00:05 Kitchen Chemistry 00:30 How Do They Do It? 01:00 Scrapheap Challenge 01:50 Scrapheap Challenge

14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:30 00:00 00:30 01:00 01:30 02:00

Storage Wars Storage Wars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars American Restoration American Restoration American Restoration American Restoration Storage Wars Storage Wars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars American Pickers Storage Wars Storage Wars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Counting Cars Counting Cars Storage Wars Storage Wars Storage Wars

14:00 C.S.I. 15:00 Kyle XY

WAITING FOR FOREVER ON OSN MOVIES HD

00:45 01:05 01:30 01:50 02:15 02:35

A Kind Of Magic A Kind Of Magic Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Replacements Replacements

14:05 Ice Loves Coco 14:30 Ice Loves Coco 15:00 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 16:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 17:00 Married To Jonas 17:30 Married To Jonas 18:00 E! News 19:00 E!es 20:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:00 Chasing The Saturdays 21:30 Fashion Police 22:30 E! News 23:30 Chelsea Lately 00:00 Dirty Soap 00:55 Style Star 01:25 E! Investigates

03:05 Mitch And Matt’s Big Fish 03:30 Food Poker 04:15 Bargain Hunt 05:00 House Swap 05:45 Cash In The Attic 06:30 Mitch And Matt’s Big Fish 07:00 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 07:55 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 08:50 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 09:45 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 10:40 Cash In The Attic 11:25 Come Dine With Me 12:15 Perfect Day 12:40 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 13:05 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 13:30 Food Poker 14:15 The Roux Legacy 14:50 Food & Drink 15:15 Bargain Hunt 16:00 Antiques Roadshow 17:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Specials 18:20 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 19:00 Celebrity MasterChef 19:55 Celebrity MasterChef 20:20 Come Dine With Me 21:15 Antiques Roadshow 22:10 Bargain Hunt: Famous Finds 23:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 23:45 Ty Pennington’s Homes For The Brave 00:30 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 01:20 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent 02:10 Phil Spencer - Secret Agent

03:00 Food Wars 03:25 Food Wars 03:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 04:15 Unique Eats 04:40 Chopped 05:30 Iron Chef America 06:10 Food Network Challenge 07:00 Healthy Appetite With Krieger 07:25 Healthy Appetite With Krieger 07:50 Healthy Appetite With Krieger 08:15 Healthy Appetite With Krieger 08:40 Cooking For Real 09:05 Cooking For Real 09:30 Cooking For Real 09:55 Cooking For Real 10:20 Tyler’s Ultimate 10:45 Tyler’s Ultimate 11:10 Tyler’s Ultimate

11:35 Tyler’s Ultimate 12:00 Staten Island Cakes 12:50 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 13:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 13:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 14:05 Unique Sweets 14:30 Unique Sweets 14:55 Unique Sweets 15:20 Unique Sweets 15:45 Chopped 16:35 Barefoot Contessa 17:00 Barefoot Contessa 17:25 Barefoot Contessa 17:50 Barefoot Contessa 18:15 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 18:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 19:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 19:30 Chopped 20:20 Chopped 21:10 Amazing Wedding Cakes 22:00 Food Wars 22:25 Food Wars 22:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:15 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 00:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 00:30 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 00:55 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:20 Unwrapped 01:45 Food Wars

04:30 Lady And The Tramp-FAM 06:15 War Horse-PG15 09:00 Waiting For Forever-PG15 11:00 Lady And The Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure-FAM 12:30 StreetDance 2-PG15 14:00 Take Shelter-PG15 16:00 Waiting For Forever-PG15 18:00 Jack And Jill-PG15 20:00 Comes A Bright Day-PG15 22:00 The Lincoln Lawyer-PG15 00:00 Cleanskin-18 02:00 Waiting For Forever-PG15

07:00 Underground: The Julian Assange Story-PG15 09:00 L.A I Hate You-PG15 11:00 Larry Crowne-PG15 13:00 Call Of The Wild-PG15 15:00 Hidden Crimes-PG15 17:00 I’ve Loved You So Long-PG15 19:00 The Vow-PG15 21:00 After Life-18 23:00 The Sitter-18 01:00 I’ve Loved You So Long-PG15

04:00 Kong Return To The Jungle-FAM 06:00 Rise Of The Planet Of The ApesPG15 08:00 George Harrison: Living In The Material World-PG15 12:00 Johnny English Reborn-PG15 13:45 Mission: Impossible III-PG15 16:00 The Conspirator-PG15 18:00 The Big Year-PG 20:00 21 Jump Street-18 22:00 Gone-PG15 00:00 George Harrison: Living In The Material World-PG15

Ellie Ellie Ellie Ellie

04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00 00:15 02:00

Carjacked-PG15 Ice Quake-PG15 Twister-PG15 Meteor Storm-PG15 Arctic Blast-PG15 Twister-PG15 Romancing The Stone-PG15 Arctic Blast-PG15 The Crazies-18 Bunraku-18 The Killing Room-18 The Crazies-18

TV listings

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

08:00 The Tooth Fairy 2-PG 10:00 While You Were Sleeping-PG15 12:00 Ernest Scared Stupid-PG15 14:00 Bushwhacked-PG 16:00 While You Were Sleeping-PG15 18:00 Mr. Destiny-PG 20:00 Tucker And Dale vs Evil-18 22:00 The Angel’s Share-PG15 00:00 Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy-PG15 02:00 Tucker And Dale vs Evil-18

09:15 11:30 13:15 15:00 17:15 19:30 21:15 23:15 01:30

Moneyball-PG15 An Inconvenient Truth-PG School Ties-PG15 Moneyball-PG15 Terms Of Endearment-PG15 Toast-PG15 Catch And Release-PG15 The Flowers Of War-PG15 Wuthering Heights-18

01:00 01:30 06:00 07:00 10:00 10:30 11:30 12:00 15:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 21:30 22:00

ICC Cricket 360 PGA European Tour European Senior Tour Highlights Live AFL Premiership Futbol Mundial Trans World Sport ICC Cricket 360 Live British & Irish Lions Trans World Sport Live International Rugby Union Live International Rugby Union Live PGA Tour Inside The PGA Tour Live International Rugby Union

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 12:30 14:30 15:00 19:00 22:00

WWE Smackdown UFC The Ultimate Fighter Super Rugby Live Champions Tour European Senior Tour European Tour Weekly Live International Rugby Union NRL Premiership Futbol Mundial Live UK Open Datrs British and Irish Lions Tour Live PGA Tour

00:00 01:00 03:00 03:30 06:00 07:00 09:00 09:30 10:00 10:30 12:30 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 18:00 20:30 21:00

European Senior Tour Highlights Super Rugby Total Rugby AFL Premiership Trans World Sport Super Rugby Total Rugby ICC Cricket 360 NRL Full Time Live NRL Premiership Trans World Sport ICC Cricket 360 Inside The PGA Tour PGA European Tour Weekly Live PGA European Tour AFL Premiership Total Rugby Live UK Open Darts

01:30 03:30 04:00 05:00 07:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 15:30 17:30 18:00 22:00

NHL Mobil 1 The Grid WWE Bottom Line NHL UK Open Darts WWE Vintage Collection Mobil 1 The Grid Live AFL Premiership WWE Smackdown Mobil 1 The Grid Live Nations Cup UIM Powerboat Champs

Psychotic celebrants prepare to attack the Sandin family in “The Purge.” — MCT

I

f you’re a movie studio with money to burn, summer is bonfire time. Almost every week there’s a new $200-million-plus production - Warner Bros.’

“Man of Steel” and Paramount’s “World War Z” are the next budget-busters — and it costs almost $100 million more to market such films. All of which makes Universal Pictures’ “The Purge,” a dystopian thriller costing a little more than $3 million - with an ad campaign just above $20 million - look like Jonah among so many whales.

Art-house studios typically sprinkle the season with low-budget titles that debut in a handful of cities, yet rarely does a major studio throw such a modest movie into wide release smack dab in the year’s most competitive months. Next week’s raunchy comedy “This Is the End,” for example, cost $32.5 million - far less than the Superman reboot, for sure, but 10 times the price tag of “The Purge.”

But Universal and “Purge” producer Jason Blum believe there’s a financial and creative model for productions as inexpensive as theirs, and they hope the movie could become one of the season’s more notable surprises. Social media traffic and audience tracking surveys suggest the film, opening late Thursday, could gross as much as $25 million in its debut weekend.

“We probably cost less than the catering budgets on every movie surrounding us. Seriously,” said the film’s writer and director, James DeMonaco, who has screenplay credits on “Assault on Precinct 13” and “The Negotiator.” “I don’t know what to feel - some of the time it’s totally terrifying. But it’s kind of cool that we’re being released in the middle of the summer.”

“The Purge” is an R-rated tale set in the near future; society has managed to eliminate crime 364 days per year by allowing the public one night of prosecutionfree blood lust. Ethan Hawke stars as a suburban father whose security systems are designed to protect his family and neighbors from the government-sanctioned lawlessness, where everything - up to and including murder - is encouraged.

When his young son decides to shelter a homeless man being chased by some locals, his pursuers lay siege to the home, quickly proving the fortifications somewhat less than reliable. The family must hold off the intruders until dawn, when the mayhem moratorium is reinstated. “The Purge” is the first collaboration between Universal and Blum, who also was a producer on “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious” and “Sinister.”

Under a three-year deal announced in 2011, Blum has wide creative leeway to deliver genre movies costing $4 million or less.

Shot in 20 quick days in Los Angeles (with a couple of extra days for reshoots) last year, “The Purge” was made for a fraction of the typical Hollywood budget largely because almost everybody was paid the minimum amount allowed by Hollywood’s unions. In return for working on the cheap, they will get a bigger

payday if the film performs well. On the film’s set, there were no cushy trailers for stars to cool their heels in - empty bedrooms doubled for dressing and makeup rooms - and no entourages or perks. “Your trailer looks like mine, and I don’t get one,” Blum tells the creative talent when they sign up.

“Everybody above the line basically works for free,” said Blum, referring to the actors and top filmmaking talent. “And when you work for free, you get total creative control.” Universal had some input in casting and created the film’s marketing materials, but Blum and DeMonaco weren’t subjected to endless script notes and executives didn’t scrutinize the film’s daily footage, the way most studio productions are supervised. In a way, Blum said, that loose oversight creates a more collegial atmosphere because you’re not afraid of the studio, or of losing control of the production.

When “The Purge” was completed, Blum screened it for test audiences before he showed it to the studio. The previews suggested that Hawke’s character wasn’t quite likable enough, so DeMonaco cut a few lines of dialogue about how some victims of violence deserved their fate. He also decided he needed to add back a scene he’d scrapped for budget reasons showing Hawke more forcefully defending his family.

Universal executives liked the finished film so much they decided to schedule “The Purge” opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s comedy “The Internship,” a 20th Century Fox film that cost about $58 million. Donna Langley, Universal’s co-chairman, said the deal with Blum was launched because the studio wanted to get back in the genre business, and at a low cost. While the studio was behind classic horror titles such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” its more contemporary efforts within the realm were mostly unsuccessful, including flops with “The Wolfman” in 2010 and “The Thing” in 2011.

“We were looking for someone with a strong expertise in the thriller and horror genre,” Langley said. She said the studio is so attentive to maintaining its franchises (“Fast & Furious 6”), comedies (“Ted 2” is in development), animated movies (“Despicable Me 2” arrives July 3) and new big-budget endeavors (at year’s end, “47 Ronin”) that the studio doesn’t have the “bandwidth” to focus on low-budget fright flicks.

Some of Blum’s most recent films have recorded huge returns on investment. Made for about $15,000, the first “Paranormal Activity” in 2009 grossed more than $193 million worldwide; 2011’s “Insidious,” produced for about $1.5 million, grossed $97 million globally; and last year’s “Sinister,” budgeted at $3 million, grossed more than $77 million (sequels to all three films are in the works).

Part of Blum’s pitch to Universal is that because the movies are so cheap, the studio isn’t obligated to release them theatrically - they can go straight to DVD

or VOD if executives wish. That can save millions in marketing expenses if the studio isn’t convinced the film will do well at the box office. Because Universal has guaranteed video and television distribution deals around the world, the studio can basically break even if the movie never makes it to the multiplex.

Langley said that one collaboration between the studio and Blum, Joe Johnston’s thriller “Not Safe for Work” with Max Minghella, will in fact bypass theaters and instead debut on video-on-demand platforms at some unspecified date. “Some of my movies work, and some of them don’t,” Blum said. “I want to be able to say to the studio, ‘We missed, let’s go to VOD.’” To improve his odds, the 44-year-old Blum doesn’t hire first-time directors; DeMonaco, 43, helmed the crime drama “Staten Island,” which also starred Hawke, four years ago. DeMonaco was then teamed with experienced producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller (2010’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street”), a cinematographer (Jacques Jouffret, a camera operator on the “Transformer” movies) and an editor (Peter Gvozdas, an assistant editor on “Pain & Gain”) from Michael Bay’s production company, Platinum Dunes, which shares screen credit with Blum’s Blumhouse Productions.

Despite the promise of creative autonomy, not everyone is initially thrilled working for wages a few steps up from pulling lattes at Starbucks. Yet because Blum operates independent of Universal, talent agents can’t call Langley and ask for more money for their actors or other clients. DeMonaco said that he originally thought he needed about $10 million to film “The Purge” and was hoping he might get as much as $15 million.

Told that his budget with Blum would be about $3 million, the director hesitated.

“I thought I needed a lot more money,” said the director, who had developed a serial killer script with Blum years ago that was never made. “I didn’t know if it was possible” to make the film at that price, he said.

“But it forces you to get very creative and say, ‘What do I really need’ - you can’t waste any time.” Counting all credits, “The Purge” isn’t even 90 minutes long.

Because the movies are intended to appeal to a definable audience and have so-called “sticky” marketing hooks - concepts that can be described in just a few words that are easily remembered - advertising budgets are a fraction of what they would be for other wide-release movies. To support “The Purge,” Blum screened the movie to a dozen college campuses over two weeks in early May, and at a certain point the online buzz started feeding on itself, with Facebook likes and Twitter mentions surging in recent days.

Universal is also promoting the film through traditional means such as billboards, television spots and print ads. “The concept is very arresting,” said Blum.

“People want to talk about it. The film gets under their skin.” —MCT

W H AT ’ S O N SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Bishop Moore College alumni

B

ishop Moore College established in 1964 situated in Kallumala, Mavelikara, Kerala is reactivating the alumni in Kuwait. Since we are reactivating the alumni in Kuwait. Those who studied in Bishop Moore College may please contact at 97542985.

IMAX film program Saturday: ** 9:30am Showtime Available for Groups Flight of Butterflies 3D 10:30am, 1:30pm, 8:30pm Tornado Alley 3D11:30am, 2:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:30pm, 9:30pm To The Arctic 3D 12:30pm, 6:30pm Born to be Wild 3D 3:30pm Journey to Mecca 4:30pm Notes: All films are in Arabic. For English, headsets are available upon request.

“Fires of Kuwait” is in English. Arabic headsets are available upon request.

Film schedule is subject to changes without notice.

Write to us Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

Career guidance seminar for ICSK Amman students

A

career guidance seminar was conducted for the students of the Indian Community School, Amman Branch, on 14 May, 2013. Dr Jaganath R Chodankar, Urologist at the Jaber Al-Ahmed Armed Forces Hospital, was invited to conduct the program for the students of Class IX and X. The seminar was conducted at the initiative of the staff and student welfare committee of the ICSK Board of Trustees. The session began with an introductory speech

by Sherly Dennis, Vice-Principal of ICSK Amman.

Dr Jaganath gave a speech on pros and cons while pursuing a career in the medical and para-medical field. He encouraged the students to pursue their studies in the branch of medical science, if this field interested them, and asked them to pursue it with dedication, passion and hard work. He also informed them about the various opportunities

available in the medical field.

The seminar was truly inspirational and life-changing and helped the students to choose the correct path for their career. Dr Jaganath also answered

all questions put forth to him during the interactive session with the students.

The session concluded with a vote of thanks by Sumitra Nandakumar, Academic Supervisor.

W H AT ’ S O N SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Embassy Information

PART holds painting exhibition

A

creative painting exhibition and an open canvas painting by PART became a grand success.

The exhibition conducted at United Indian School, Abbasiya on Friday, was inaugurated by ace Indian film director Joshy Mathew. About 15 artists of PART showcased their creative art works unveiling the mysterious human mind. Hundreds of viewers interacted with the artists. The exhibition became more colorful and interesting when artists splotch their colorful bristles on the massive canvas. An auspicious visit of Kerala Minister of Home Affairs Thiruvanjoor Radhakrishnan added hues to the art event.

EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Australian Embassy Kuwait does not have a visa or immigration department.

All processing of visas and immigration matters in conducted by The Australian Consulate-General in Dubai. Email: info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com (VFS) immigration.dubai@dfat.gov.au (Visa Office); Tel: +971 4 355 1958 (VFS) - +971 4 508 7200 (Visa Office); Fax: +971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office).

In Kuwait applications can be lodged at the Australian Visa Application Centre 4B 1st Floor, Al-Banwan Building Al-Qibla Area, Ali Al-Salem Street, opposite the Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait. Working hours and days: 09:30 - 17:30; Sunday - Thursday. Or visit their website www.vfs-au-gcc-com for more information. Kuwait citizens can apply for tourist visas on-line at www.immi.gov.au/e visa/e676.htm.

■■■■■■■

‘Venalthanima 2013’ kicks off

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada in Kuwait does not have a visa or immigration department. All processing of visa and immigration matters including enquiries is conducted by the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Individuals who are interested in working, studying, visiting or immigrating to Canada should contact the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, website: www.UAE.gc.ca or www.goingtocanada.gc.ca, E-mail: abdbi-imenquiry@international.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakei St, Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is open from 07:30 to 12:30. Consular services for Canadian citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00, Sunday through Wednesday.

■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF US

‘V

enalthanima 2013’, a three-day purpose driven personality development & leadership training workshop organized by Thanima, the sociocultural group active in Kuwait for a decade, kicked off on 6 June morning at United Indian Central School, Abbassiya with a prayer song by Reshma Mariam John.

Internationally acclaimed film director Joshy Mathew inaugurated the workshop who himself is associated with children’s group for the past many decades and emphasized the need for such workshops to identify our cultural values for the success in life. He further congratulated Thanima for the venture and encouraged children to make use of the same. Babuji Bathery, camp director, elaborated on the camp theme (views + values = victory) highlighting the need for a retreat from today’s fast phased life that miss right views and human values.

Adv.John Thomas, Suresh Krishnan, Saji Janardhanan, Raju Zacharia, Saji Thomas, Somu Mathew, Litty Jacob and Diana Savio

spoke on the occasion. Alex Varghese (general convener) presided over the function.

Community leaders and representatives of Indian organizations attended the function.

The participants, parents, dignitaries and the organizers lined up on the stage and Joshy Mathew, Mohd Afzal, Madhu Ravindran and representatives of camp participants - Royce and Priyanka - lit the traditional lamp. Johney Kunnil presented a memento to Joshy Mathew as a token of appreciation for his achievements and service to the society. Usha Dileep and Mary John coordinated the programs.

This was followed by different training sessions on various topics

by Joshy Mathew, Babuji Bathery, Uday, Santhosh Varghese, Johnarts, Adv John Thomas and Manojkumar.

This is the 9th consecutive year Thanima conducts ‘Venalthanima’.

Though the maximum number in each group is limited to 50 each (junior and senior), this year 110 students are participating in the workshop, which will conclude today.

Parents of Kuwaiti citizen children may drop off their sons’ and daughters’ visa applications - completely free of an interview or a trip inside the Embassy. The children must be under 14 years of age, and additional requirements do apply, but the service means parents will no longer have to schedule individual appointments for their children, nor come inside the Embassy (unless they are applying for themselves). The service is only available for children holding Kuwaiti passports. To take advantage, parents must drop off the following documents: Child Visa Drop-off cover sheet, available on the Embassy website (http://kuwait.usembassy.gov/child_visas.htm) Child’s passport; The Child’s previous passport, if it contains a valid US visa; 5x5cm photo of child with eyes open (if uploaded into DS-160, photos must be a .jpg between 600x600 and 1200x1200 pixels, less than 240kb, and cannot be digitally altered); A completed DS-160 form; Visa Fee Receipt from Burgan Bank; A copy of the valid visa of at least one parent. If one parent will not travel, provide a visa copy for the traveling parent, and a passport copy from the non-traveling parent with a letter stating no objection to the child’s travel. - For children of students (F2): a copy of the child’s I-20.

Children born in the US (with very few exceptions) are US citizens and would not be eligible for a visa. Parents may drop off the application packet at Window 2 at the Embassy from 1:00 to 3:00 PM, Monday to Wednesday, excluding holidays. More information is available on the U.S. Embassy website: kuwait.usembassy.gov/child_visas.html

HEALTH SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Meet your distant cousin: Tiny hyperactive primate Earliest primates ‘very frenetic creatures, anxious’ WASHINGTON: New fossil evidence of the earliest complete skeleton of an ancient primate suggests it was a hyperactive, wide-eyed creature so small you could hold a couple of them in your hand - if only they would stay still long enough. The 55-million-yearold fossil dug up in central China is one of our first primate relatives and it gives scientists a better understanding of the complex evolution that eventually led to us. This tiny monkey-like creature weighed an ounce or less and wasn’t a direct ancestor. Because it’s so far back

on the family tree it offers the best clues yet of what our earliest direct relatives would have been like at that time, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “It’s a close cousin in fact,” said study author Christopher Beard, curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. He said it is “the closest thing we have to an ancestor of humans” so long ago.

Primate is the order of life that includes humans along with apes, monkeys, and lemurs. Humans and other

This image shows a reconstruction of Archicebus achilles in its natural habitat of trees. —AP

primates are set apart from other mammals because of our grasping five fingers and toes, nails, and forward-facing eyes. And this new species called Archicebus achilles fits right in, Beard said. Among primates there are three suborders: anthropoids, which include apes, monkeys and us; and two other suborders that include lemurs and the lesser known tarsiers. This new species is in the same grouping as tarsiers, but close to the offshoot branch in the family tree where humans come from. The fossil includes anthropoid-like features.

“It’s a cute little thing; it’s ridiculously little,” Beard said. “That’s one of the more important scientific aspects of the whole story.” With a trunk only 2.8 inches long, the furry creature was about as small as you can get and still be a mammal, Beard said. Just like elephants and horses, the farther back in time you get for some of today’s bigger mammals, the smaller they get, Beard said.

Because it was so small and warmblooded, it had to eat bugs and move constantly to keep from losing internal heat, Beard said.

That means, Beard said, our earliest primate relatives were “very frenetic creatures, anxious, highly caffeinated animals running around looking for their next meal.” They lived in a treelined area near a Chinese lake, swinging around trees in a hotter climate, Beard said. Outside experts praised the study as significant, confirming what some thought about our primate ancestors.

Rick Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution, said this fossil’s mix of different features illustrate the fascinating and crucial changes that occur around major evolutionary branch points in our family tree.

The study also bolstered another theory that early primates first developed in Asia, even though humans evolved nearly 50 million years later in Africa, Beard said. —AP

Marathon runner’s pain is no pulled muscle; it’s a baby DULUTH: An aspiring half-marathon runner in Minnesota attributed her unbearable back pain to a two-hour training session. A day later, she was cradling a newborn. Trish Staine, 33, says she had no idea she was pregnant before Monday’s surprise birth.

The Duluth mother of three said she hadn’t gained any weight or felt fetal movement in the months before.

And besides, her husband had a vasectomy.

“I said ‘no, no, that’s impossible,’ “ Staine said Wednesday from her Duluth hospital room. “I definitely thought I was done having kids,” she joked. Staine and her husband, John, have a daughter, 7, and a son, 11.

She’s also stepmother to John’s three

boys, ages 17, 19 and 20. Staine said she ran for about two hours Sunday in preparation for the Garry Bjorklund half-marathon on June 22.

“I had a sore back Sunday evening. I had taken a hot shower and was dealing with it,” Staine said. “Monday morning, I woke up and had more back pain, and as the day went on it got worse. I thought I should go to the ER. I thought I ruptured a disc or pulled a muscle.” But she soldiered on, watching her husband play basketball at noon and going to her daughter’s short play. When Staine got home, she thought a bath might help her pain.

As she talked to her husband on the phone, Staine said her pain was becoming unbearable. Her husband

called an ambulance. “I felt like I was dying. I didn’t know what was going on,” she said. During the emergency room examination, Staine and her husband were stunned to learn medical staff had detected a fetal heartbeat. She was whisked to the delivery room and in what she said seemed like 5 minutes later, her daughter was born at 3:25 pm. Monday. She weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces, and was 18.9 inches long. Staine said her husband has a good sense of humor.

“He’s still in shock. Everybody is teasing him,” she said. Born about 5 weeks early, the Staines expect they will be able to take their baby home in about a week, a girl they have named Mira short for Miracle. —AP

CARSON CITY: In this file photo, wild horses run around in a fenced field at the Stewart Conservation Camp in Carson City, Nev. —AP

Fertility drugs and nature better than horse roundups RENO: A scathing independent scientific review of wild horse roundups in the West concludes the US government would be better off investing in widespread fertility control of the mustangs and let nature cull any excess herds instead of spending millions to house them in overflowing holding pens. A 14-member panel assembled by the National Science Academy’s National Research Council, at the request of the Bureau of Land Management, concluded BLM’s removal of nearly 100,000 horses from the Western range over the past decade is probably having the opposite effect of its intention to ease ecological damage and reduce overpopulated herds. By stepping in prematurely when food and water supplies remain adequate, and with most natural predators long gone, the land management agency is producing artificial conditions that ultimately serve to perpetuate population growth, the committee said Wednesday in a 451page report recommending more emphasis on the use of contraceptives and other methods of fertility control.

The research panel sympathized with BLM’s struggle to find middle ground between horse advocates and ranchers who see the animals as unwelcome competitors for forage. It noted there’s “little if any public support” for allowing harm to come to either the horses or the rangeland itself. The report says the current method may work in the short term, but results in continually high population growth, exacerbating the long-term problem.

The American Wild Horse Preservation Fund, a national coalition of more than 50 advocacy groups, said the report makes a strong case for an immediate halt to the roundups. “This is a turning point for the decades-long fight to protect America’s mustangs,” said Neda DeMayo, president of the coalition’s Return to Freedom.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is among the livestock groups that have voiced support in the past for aggressive, increased use of fertility control but remain adamantly opposed to curtailing roundups. Horse advocates themselves are not united behind the idea of stepping up use of contraception on the range. “We are grateful that the National Academy of Science recommends stopping cruel roundups, but we challenge their decision to control alleged overpopulation like a domestic herd with humans deciding who survives and breeds,” said Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs in San Francisco.

The conflict has raged for decades but has intensified in recent years for cash-strapped federal land managers with skyrocketing bills for food and corrals and no room for incoming animals. “The business as usual practices are not going to be effective without additional resources,” said Guy Palmer, a pathologist from Washington State University who chaired the research committee.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said the report should serve as a wakeup call to bring changes he and others in Congress have urged for years. “These unsustainable practices are a waste of taxpayer money and jeopardize the health and safety of wild horses across the West,” he said.

BLM officials said they welcomed the recommendations to help in their effort to make the program more cost-effective.

Spokesman Tom Gorey said the agency “needs and wants to do a better job” managing horses, but said those advocating an end to all roundups are misguided. “It appears that our critics want to use the report as a propaganda tool to stop gathers,” which the BLM is required to do by law, Gorey said. —AP

HEALTH SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Hospitals Sabah Hospital Amiri Hospital Maternity Hospital Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital Chest Hospital Farwaniya Hospital Adan Hospital Ibn Sina Hospital Al-Razi Hospital Physiotherapy Hospital

ACCOMMODATION

24812000 22450005 24843100 25312700 24849400 24892010 23940620 24840300 24846000 24874330/9

Clinics Rabiya Rawdha Adailiya Khaldiya Khaifan Shamiya Shuwaikh Abdullah Salim Al-Nuzha Industrial Shuwaikh Al-Qadisiya Dasmah Bneid Al-Ghar Al-Shaab Al-Kibla Ayoun Al-Kibla Mirqab Sharq Salmiya Jabriya Maidan Hawally Bayan

24732263 22517733 22517144 24848075 24849807 24848913 24814507 22549134 22526804 24814764 22515088 22532265 22531908 22518752 22459381 22451082 22456536 22465401 25746401 25316254 25623444 25388462

Apartment in Salmiya near City Center for Pakistani/Indian bachelor or small family Muslim from 0107-213. Contact: 99959140.

(C 4435) 8-6-2013 CHANGE OF NAME I, Milagrina Vales resident of H.No. 281, Baixo de Igreja, Agassaim Ilhas Goa has changed my name from Milagrina Gracias to Malagrina Vales. Hereafter in all my dealings and documents I will be known as Milagrina Vales. (C 4434) 5-6-2013 I, Murtaza Rehmat Ali Tamatiya, have changed my name from Murtaza to Murtaza Rehmat Ali Tamatiya.

(C 4431) 1-6-2013 FOR SALE Toyota Yaris model 2008, red color, alloy rim fog lamp, R bumper sensor, CD, very excellent original condition, installment possible, cash price KD 1,950/-, negotiable.

Contact: 99105286. (C 4433) 8-6-2013 Fully furnished flat for sale in Burj Behbehani building opposite to Salmiya Garden.

Big hall, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, big kitchen. Swimming

Kuwait SHARQIA-1 AFTER EARTH (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

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

SHARQIA-2 EPIC (DIG-3D) TATTAH (DIG) EPIC (DIG-3D) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:45 PM 12:15 AM

SHARQIA-3 NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED MUHALAB-1 EPIC (DIG) EPIC (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) MUHALAB-2 NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG)

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

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

pool, Gym facility, underground parking and round the clock security available.

Contact: 50701181.

(C 4432) 1-6-2013

112

Prayer timings Fajr:

03:13

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is

Shorook

04:48

Duhr:

11:47

Asr:

15:21

1889988

Maghrib:

18:46

Isha:

20:18

KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (06/06/2013 TO 12/06/2013) THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG)

3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:45 PM

MUHALAB-3 TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG)

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:15 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM

FANAR-1 NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 10:00 PM 12:30 AM

FANAR-2 AFTER EARTH (DIG) THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

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

FANAR-3 YEH JAWANI HAI DEEWANI12:30 PM DISCONNECT (DIG) 3:30 PM DISCONNECT (DIG) 5:30 PM YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA 2 (HINDI) (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) 10:30 PM DISCONNECT (DIG) 12:45 AM

NO SUN+ TUE+WED

NO SUN+ TUE+WED MARINA-1 DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

7:30 PM

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 4:30 PM 6:45 PM 8:45 PM 11:00 PM 1:00 AM

MARINA-2 AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

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

MARINA-3 TATTAH (DIG) EPIC (DIG-3D) THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

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

AVENUES-1 NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG) NOW YOU SEE ME (DIG)

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

AVENUES-2 TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) TATTAH (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

1:30 PM 4:00 PM 6:30 PM 9:00 PM 11:30 PM

AVENUES-3 FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) FAST & FURIOUS 6 (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

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

360ยบ 1 AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG) AFTER EARTH (DIG)

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

360ยบ 2 DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG) DISCONNECT (DIG)

2:15 PM 4:30 PM 6:45 PM 9:00 PM 11:15 PM 1:15 AM

360ยบ 3 THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) 1:45 PM THE HANGOVER PART III (DIG) 4:00 PM

information SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

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

Arrival Flights on Saturday 8/6/2013 Flt Route 43 DHAKA 148 DOHA 441 LAHORE 267 BEIRUT 539 CAIRO 764 SABIHA 620 ADDIS ABABA 211 BAHRAIN 239 ISLAMABAD 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 67 DUBAI 648 AMMAN 555 ALEXANDRIA 612 CAIRO 643 MUSCAT 138 DOHA 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 69 DUBAI 157 LONDON 412 MANILA 206 ISLAMABAD 416 JAKARTA 1541 CAIRO 555 ALEXANDRIA 529 ASSIUT 53 DUBAI 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 6588 SHAHRE KORD 1186 TEHRAN 55 DUBAI 301 ABU DHABI 3407 TEHRAN 213 BAHRAIN 157 NAJAF 1188 MASHAD 401 ALEXANDRIA 382 DELHI 352 COCHIN 302 MUMBAI 284 DHAKA 362 COLOMBO 344 CHENNAI 503 LUXOR 165 DUBAI 241 AMMAN 325 NAJAF 871 DUBAI 610 CAIRO 766 ISTANBUL 480 TAIF 140 DOHA 57 DUBAI 6692 MASHAD 575 SHARM EL SHEIKH 500 JEDDAH 472 JEDDAH 341 DAMASCUS 470 JEDDAH 640 AMMAN 134 DOHA 303 ABU DHABI 857 DUBAI 127 SHARJAH 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 215 BAHRAIN 510 RIYADH 251 ALEXANDRIA 4167 MASHAD 144 DOHA 63 DUBAI 219 BAHRAIN 405 SOHAG 572 MUMBAI 553 ALEXANDRIA 61 DUBAI 647 MUSCAT 129 SHARJAH 607 MASHAD 8053 DUBAI 118 NEW YORK 674 DUBAI 788 JEDDAH

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

KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR JZR JZR JZR JZR JZR JZR MEA MSR KNE AXB KLM ALK UAE ETD QTR GFA JAI QTR FDB AIC KNE UAL DLH JAI MSR THY FDB KAC KAC JZR JZR JZR JZR JZR

176 104 790 774 618 562 538 672 542 502 125 777 269 535 177 257 357 402 618 462 489 415 229 859 307 136 217 576 146 59 975 474 981 636 574 614 772 8057 614 786 135 185 513 239 189

GENEVA LONDON MEDINAH RIYADH DOHA AMMAN SOHAG DUBAI CAIRO BEIRUT BAHRAIN JEDDAH BEIRUT CAIRO DUBAI BEIRUT MASHAD BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA MEDINAH COCHIN AMSTERDAM COLOMBO DUBAI ABU DHABI DOHA BAHRAIN COCHIN DOHA DUBAI CHENNAI JEDDAH BAHRAIN FRANKFURT MUMBAI CAIRO ISTANBUL DUBAI BAHRAIN JEDDAH BAHRAIN DUBAI SHARM EL SHEIKH AMMAN DUBAI

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

Departure Flights on Saturday 8/6/2013 Flt Route 976 GOA/CHENNAI 573 MUMBAI 981 WASHINGTON 637 FRANKFURT 615 CAIRO 413 AMSTERDAM 44 DHAKA 502 LUXOR 773 ISTANBUL 442 LAHORE 765 ISTANBUL 621 ADDIS ABABA 240 SIALKOT 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 556 ALEXANDRIA 613 CAIRO 644 MUSCAT 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 70 DUBAI 649 AMMAN 212 BAHRAIN 771 ISTANBUL 240 AMMAN 164 DUBAI 537 SOHAG 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 256 BEIRUT 324 AL NAJAF 534 CAIRO 789 MADINAH 671 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 787 JEDDAH 856 DUBAI 56 DUBAI 133 DOHA

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

IRC ETD KAC IRM JZR KAC GFA KAC IRA KAC IAW JZR MSC IRM JZR JZR JZR MSR THY KNE UAE FDB KAC QTR IRC MSR KAC KNE KAC SYR SVA KAC JZR KNE RJA KAC JZR JZR QTR ETD JZR ABY UAE GFA SVA UAL JZR JZR NIA IZG FDB QTR FDB GFA KAC JZR KAC RBG MSC JAI FDB ABY KAC OMA KAC IRA MEA MSR KAC KNE DHX KLM FDB ETD ALK UAE KAC QTR KAC GFA FDB KAC JAI QTR JZR JZR KNE KAC JZR

6589 302 101 1187 356 501 214 541 3406 165 158 776 406 1189 176 124 268 611 767 481 872 58 561 141 6693 576 673 473 617 342 505 773 188 461 641 785 238 512 135 304 538 128 858 216 511 982 184 266 252 4168 8054 145 64 220 613 134 283 554 402 571 62 120 331 648 351 604 403 607 543 475 171 415 8058 308 230 860 381 137 301 218 60 205 575 147 554 1540 471 411 528

SHAHRE ABU DHABI LONDON IMAM KHOMEINI MASHHAD BEIRUT BAHRAIN CAIRO MASHHAD ROME AL NAJAF JEDDAH SOHAG MASHHAD DUBAI BAHRAIN BEIRUT CAIRO ISTANBUL TAIF DUBAI DUBAI AMMAN DOHA MASHHAD SHARM EL SHEIKH DUBAI JEDDAH DOHA DAMASCUS JEDDAH RIYADH DUBAI MADINAH AMMAN JEDDAH AMMAN SHARM EL SHEIKH DOHA ABU DHABI CAIRO SHARJAH DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH BAHRAIN DUBAI BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA MASHHAD DUBAI DOHA DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DHAKA ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA MUMBAI DUBAI SHARJAH TRIVANDRUM MUSCAT KOCHI ISFAHAN BEIRUT LUXOR CAIRO JEDDAH BAHRAIN DAMMAM DUBAI ABU DHABI COLOMBO DUBAI DELHI DOHA MUMBAI BAHRAIN DUBAI ISLAMABAD ABU DHABI DOHA ALEXANDRIA CAIRO JEDDAH BANGKOK ASSIUT

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

10:00 10:15 10:25 10:30 11:00 11:10 11:25 11:30 11:35 11:45 12:00 12:25 13:00 13:10 13:20 13:30 13:35 14:00 14:10 14:10 14:15 14:30 14:40 14:55 15:00 15:00 15:05 15:30 15:45 15:55 16:00 16:00 16:00 16:05 16:55 17:00 17:05 17:15 17:20 17:20 17:40 17:50 18:15 18:20 18:20 18:30 18:30 18:40 19:00 19:05 19:05 19:25 19:35 19:50 20:00 20:05 20:15 20:20 20:30 20:35 20:40 20:45 20:50 20:55 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:30 21:30 21:45 21:50 22:05 22:05 22:15 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:45 23:00 23:00 23:05 23:05 23:20 23:25 23:25 23:40 23:55

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 2 1 4

ACROSS 1. Thickening of tissue in the motor tracts of the lateral columns and anterior horns of the spinal cord.

4. A personal attractiveness that enables you to influence others.

12. A master's degree in education.

15. The month following October and preceding December.

16. Characteristic of the dawn.

17. A sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice.

18. How long something has existed.

19. Maneuvers of a horse in response to body signals by the rider.

20. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods and healthrelated products.

21. The northernmost islands are part of Papua New Guinea.

23. Minor or subordinate.

25. Constrict or bind or draw together.

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

28. Any of various systems of units for measuring electricity and magnetism.

29. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).

30. The mother of your father or mother.

34. A state in northwestern North America.

36. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

38. A metallic element of the rare earth group.

40. (Greek mythology) The winged goddess of the dawn in ancient mythology.

41. Empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk.

42. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

46. A public promotion of some product or service.

47. A collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn.

50. Any of various plants of the genus Sabbatia having usually pink cymose flowers.

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

54. Strike suddenly and with force.

55. A city in western Germany near the Dutch and Belgian borders.

56. An airfield without normal airport facilities.

60. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

61. (informal) Of the highest quality.

62. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

63. A unit of length of thread or yarn.

65. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

67. Any small compartment.

69. A large number or amount.

73. Morally bad or wrong.

76. A slender double-reed instrument.

77. The compass point that is one point east of northeast.

78. The capital of Bahrain.

79. A Loloish language.

80. A male monarch or emperor (especially of Russia prior to 1917).

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

82. An official language of the Republic of South Africa.

Daily Sudoku

DOWN 1. Squash bugs.

2. The divine word of God. 3. Showing a high degree of refinement and the assurance that comes from wide social experience.

4. A soft bluish-white ductile malleable toxic bivalent metallic element.

5. The 2nd largest of the Great Lakes.

6. A genus of tropical Asian and Malaysian palm trees.

7. English poet and painter who was a leader of the Pre-Raphaelites (1828-1882).

8. The bureau of the Treasury Department responsible for tax collections.

9. A cylindrical drawstring bag used by sailors to hold their clothing and other gear.

10. Relating to or characteristic of Hungary.

11. Used of a single unit or thing.

12. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

13. Tropical starchy tuberous root.

14. Made of fir or pine.

22. Chief deity of Zoroastrianism.

24. (in Scotland or Ireland) A mountain or tall hill.

27. A unit of absorbed ionizing radiation equal to 100 ergs per gram of irradiated material.

31. The event of dying or departure from life.

32. Based on or arising from the possession of money or wealth.

33. Remote city of Kazakhstan that (ostensibly for security reasons) was made the capital in 1998.

35. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia.

37. The table in Christian churches where communion is given.

39. Serving as or forming a base.

43. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

44. Lower in esteem.

45. The rate of moving (especially walking or running).

48. A member of the Nahuatl people who established an empire in Mexico that was overthrown by Cortes in 1519.

49. Plants having flowers in umbels.

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

53. Brazilian tree with handsomely marked wood.

57. An electronic pulse counter used to count pulses that occur too rapidly to be recorded individually.

58. The town was taken from the Turks by the Russians in 1877 after a siege of 143 days.

59. Make lighter or brighter.

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

66. United States composer noted for his innovative use of polytonality (18741954).

68. Weight to be borne or conveyed.

70. An outer garment that has sleeves and covers the body from shoulder down.

71. The capital and chief port of Qatar.

72. Fastener consisting of a resinous composition that is plastic when warm.

74. A doctor's degree in dental medicine.

75. Of a light yellowish-brown color n 1.

Yesterdayʼs Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

Sports SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

AL capsules

Ortiz lifts Red Sox to 6-3 victory BOSTON: David Ortiz hit a game-ending three-run homer, lifting the Boston Red Sox to a 6-3 victory over the Texas Rangers on Thursday night after trailing by three runs. Jacoby Ellsbury scored the tying run on a fielder’s choice in the seventh inning of his first game after sitting out five straight because of a groin injury.

Jonny Gomes led off the ninth with a double to center off Michael Kirkman (0-2) and Dustin Pedroia was walked intentionally to set up a potential double play with Ortiz coming to the plate. Ortiz then drove the first pitch he saw from Kirkman for hit his 11th career gameending home run into an empty Texas bullpen. Ortiz watched his homer for a few moments before trotting his way toward home where he was met by a swarm of celebrating teammates. Andrew Bailey (2-0) pitched a scoreless ninth for Boston, which took two of three from Texas. Ellsbury had a pair of doubles and two singles. Gomes also had four hits and Pedroia hit a two-run double in the third.

TIGERS 5, RAYS 2 Max Scherzer struck out nine in seven innings to remain unbeaten and Victor Martinez homered and drove in three runs to lift Detroit over the Tampa Bay. Scherzer (8-0) allowed a run and four hits, walking two.

He is the first Detroit pitcher to start the season 8-0 since Jeremy Bonderman in 2007. Joaquin Benoit allowed a run in the eighth, and Jose Valverde pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save in nine chances.

Martinez went deep in the fourth for his fourth home run of the year, giving Detroit a 2-0 lead. Miguel Cabrera drove in a run the following inning with a single - his major league-leading 66th RBI. Roberto Hernandez (3-6) allowed four runs in 5 1-3 innings.

hit in its victory over Chicago. Rosales’ fourth homer of the season came off White Sox reliever Matt Thornton (0-2), a 1-1 pitch that was just fair to left field. Yoenis Cespedes hit two home runs for the second time in three games. Josh Reddick also connected. All four homers were solo shots. A’s reliever Jerry Blevins got the win (5-0) while Grant Balfour earned his 14th save in as many attempts. The A’s have won six of seven and 17 of 20. Oakland is 12-2 during a 17-day stretch without a day off. The White Sox have lost nine of their last 10 games.

ORIOLES 3, ASTROS 1 JJ Hardy got a season-high four hits and Adam Jones added an RBI double, leading Miguel Gonzalez and Baltimore past Houston. Gonzalez (3-2) yielded five hits and a run in six innings, and matched his season-best with seven strikeouts. He slowed the Astros a day after they hit six home runs in an 11-7 win. The Orioles won their third straight series by taking two of three from Houston. Bud Norris (5-5) allowed nine hits while striking out seven in seven innings. — AP

Phillies down Brewers 5-1 MILWAUKEE: Delmon Young homered, Tyler Cloyd allowed four hits over 6 2-3 scoreless innings, and the Philadelphia Phillies moved above .500 for the first time this season with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night. Coming off a three-game sweep of Miami that pulled the Phillies even for the first time since they were 6-6 on April 14, the season-high fifth consecutive win improved their record to 31-30. Cloyd (2-2) limited Milwaukee to singles by Jean Segura, Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez through 6 2-3 innings. When Norichika Aoki singled with two out in the seventh, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel brought in Justin De Fratus who retired Segura on a grounder to second.

Philadelphia scored in four of five innings against Milwaukee starter Wily Peralta (4-7).

CARDINALS 12, DIAMONDBACKS 8 Shelby Miller hit his first career home run and also pitched six sharp innings, leading the Cardinals over Arizona. Matt Adams and Daniel Descalso homered in an eight-run fourth inning off Ian Kennedy. Matt Holliday and Matt Carpenter also connected for the Cardinals. Miller (7-3) allowed two runs and six hits. He struck out nine and walked none. Kennedy (3-4) was tagged for 10 runs and 13 hits in four innings. Arizona scored three times in the ninth, and Edward Mujica got two outs for his 18th save in 18 chances.

DODGERS 5, BRAVES 0 Rookie Yasiel Puig hit his first career grand slam, Zack Greinke pitched four-hit ball over seven innings, and the Dodgers snapped the Braves’ fivegame winning streak. Clinging to a 1-0 lead, the Dodgers loaded the bases in the eighth after Cory Gearrin gave up one-out singles to Skip Schumaker and Luis Cruz, and then walked pinch-hitter Hanley Ramirez. Puig homered on the first pitch into the right field pavilion, extending the Dodgers’ lead to 5-0. Greinke (3-1) put his recent struggles behind him, striking out a season-high seven and walking three to earn his first victory since May 15 against Washington. Tim Hudson (4-5) dueled Greinke through seven innings, allowing one run and four hits. He struck out five and walked none in his first start against the Dodgers since 2011.

ROYALS 7, TWINS 3 Lorenzo Cain hit a two-run homer during a four-run eighth inning and Kansas City rallied to win back-toback games for the first time since May 4-5 thanks to an offense that produced as many runs in the eighth as it had in any of its last 14 games. The Royals’ seven runs were their most since beating the Astros by the same score on May 21. Wade Davis allowed three unearned runs before the Royals bullpen took control. Luke Hochevar, Tim Collins (2-1) and Greg Holland combined for four scoreless innings to wrap up the win. All the runs in the eighth came off Jared Burton (0-3), who allowed Eric Hosmer’s go-ahead single and an RBI double by Billy Butler before serving up Cain’s homer to left field.

YANKEES 6, MARINERS 1 Robinson Cano hit a three-run homer and Mark Teixeira followed with a solo shot as part of New York’s six-run third inning, and Phil Hughes took a shutout into the eighth against Seattle. Cano and Teixeira were the catalysts for New York’s big third inning that proved to be the Yankees’ only offense as they started a 10game West Coast trip with a win. New York matched its season high for runs scored in an inning, tagging Seattle starter Aaron Harang (2-6) for eight hits in the third before being shut down the rest of the night.

Hughes (3-4) won for the first time in nearly a month.

He struck out seven before leaving after facing one batter in the eighth inning.

ATHLETICS 5, WHITE SOX 4, 10 INNINGS Adam Rosales hit a two-out homer in the 10th inning, one of a season-high four home runs Oakland

NL capsules

CHICAGO: Oakland Athletics second baseman Jed Lowrie (8), watches his throw to first base in the first inning of an MLB baseball game in Chicago on Thursday, June 6, 2013. — AP

PADRES 6, ROCKIES 5, 12 INNINGS Pinch-hitter Yasmani Grandal drove in the goahead run with a fielder’s choice in the 12th inning to lift the Padres to a win over Colorado, snapping a six-game skid against the Rockies. With the bases loaded and one out, Grandal sent a chopper to third that Nolan Arenado fielded, quickly stepping on the bag and throwing low to first. Grandal was ruled safe, though replays appeared to show he may have been out by a step. Rockies manager Walt Weiss ran out to argue with first base umpire Ed Hickox before returning to the dugout. Luke Gregerson (4-2) pitched two shutout innings and Brad Boxberger worked the 12th for his first save of the season.

Manuel Corpas (0-1) gave up a one-out single to Chase Headley and a double to Kyle Blanks in the 12th. He intentionally walked Jedd Gyorko to set the stage for Grandal. — AP

SPORTS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

McIlroy hunts for answers ARDMORE: Rory McIlroy has shown grit, worked on his putting and given himself chances to win. Now the world number two hopes to put everything together and win his second US Open in three years. McIlroy, who took his first major title two years ago at the US Open at Congressional, goes into next week’s 113th US Open at Merion trying to find consistency after a season that has tested his determination and perseverance. “It has been a little bit of a frustrating year,” McIlroy said. “It seems like every time that I’ve got a bit of momentum, I take two steps forward and then take one step back. But I’m getting there. It’s very close.”

McIlroy struggled at the start of the season, adjusting to new clubs from Nike, but seemed to find his form with a runner-up effort at the Texas Open only to settle for 25th the following week at the Masters. The 24-year-old from Northern Ireland followed with top-10 efforts at Quail Hollow and the Players Championship, only to settle for a share of 57th last week at the Memorial. “I feel good going into the second major of the year and there’s still a lot of golf to be played this year,” McIlroy said.

“It’s one of these years where I’m waiting for one week where it all clicks together and then I can get on a run. I’ve had a couple of chances to win this year and I haven’t taken them. I’ve had a few indifferent performances as well.

“When this all clicks into place one week, I should be off and running.” Still, his putting was worrisome enough that he consulted with Coach Dave Stockton last week. “Dave Stockton was at Memorial for a couple of days, trying to get me to hole some more putts,” McIlroy said. “The ball striking has not really been an issue this year. I’ve actually hit the ball pretty well from tee to green, and I’ve given myself a lot of opportunities, but didn’t take as many as I should have.

“If I keep hitting the ball the way I know I can and hole putts, I’ll hopefully be in the winner’s circle.” McIlroy, who won last year’s PGA Championship and two events in the US PGA playoffs that followed, recalled how he missed the cut last year at the Players and Memorial and US Open and wondered how much worse things could get before collecting his second major title at Kiawah Island. “I’m definitely not too far away, where last year at this point, I feel like I didn’t know if I would ever play good again,” McIlroy said.

“It’s just the way golf is. There are so many highs and lows and you’ve just got to try to keep the lows as high as possible and just try to keep it on an even keel. I’m feeling pretty good about my game.” McIlroy plays down his rivalry with world number one Tiger Woods, who also struggled at Memorial but who has won four times this year and will try to end a five-year major win drought at Merion. “I don’t think Tiger was ever gone,” McIlroy said. “He had a few struggles or whatever but he won four times this year. I’ve played with him quite a bit over the past 12 months and his game is there. He’s playing very well.

“He’s got 14 majors and I’ve got two. I need to start winning a lot and regularly and win a few more majors if I want to even try and call whatever this is a rivalry.” McIlroy is the oddsmakers’ favorite among the Europeans hoping to make a run at a major title at Merion. Reigning Masters champion Adam Scott of Australia and Memorial winner Matt Kuchar are also favored. World number five Justin Rose of England, his seventh-ranked countryman Luke Donald and eighth-ranked Graeme McDowell, McIlroy’s countryman who ended a 40-year European win drought at the US Open in 2010, are also in the hunt.— AFP

Tiger Woods

Tiger leads world’s best to tricky Merion for US Open ARDMORE: World number one Tiger Woods tries to end a fiveyear major title drought in next week’s 113th US Open at Merion, where a mix of formidable long and short holes will test golf’s best. Woods has won four titles this season, pulling him four wins shy of matching Sam Snead’s all-time record of 82 PGA titles. But he has not taken a major since the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines, where he won a playoff on a broken leg.

A major sex scandal, repeated leg injuries and a swing change to ease the pressure on his 37-year-old body followed and at times Woods has found the form that brought him 14 major titles-second only to the 18 won by Jack Nicklaus. “My game is coming around, and to have won seven times the last couple years is something I’m proud of,” Woods said. “What I’ve done from last year and this year, being healthy, it’s certainly pretty positive.”

Woods has won at Torrey Pines, Doral, Bay Hill and the Players Championship this year and shared fourth at the Masters for the third time in the past four years, but crashed to a share of 65th at last week’s Memorial. “I didn’t putt very well,” Woods said. “I thought the greens didn’t look that fast, but they were putting fast. I could never get the speed of them. It was just one of those weeks. It happens.” But it was a poor time to struggle on the greens, knowing that the US Golf Association figures to have Merion’s putting surfaces as fast as lightning on a 6,996-yard, par70 layout where accuracy will be at a premium.

“I have a nice understanding of where my sight lines are going to be and where I need to land the ball,” Woods said. “You want everything clicking on all cylinders, especially at the US Open, because everything is tested in the US Open.” Some critics say the course is too small to be a formidable major tournament host, but Nicklaus is among those who believe the historic course with the wicker basket-topped flagsticks will provide plenty of heartaches for golfers. “Merion will do just fine,” Nicklaus said. “Merion has got six or seven holes that you can abuse. They have got six or seven holes that will abuse you. It will be a really exciting Open because of the nature of the golf course.” Shifting tee positions will alter the complexion of holes in various rounds but Nicklaus expects

the seventh through 13th to be vulnerable. “You’re going to say, ‘How can I make myself be ready to abuse those holes?’ because you need to play them well,” Nicklaus said.

Most players see the final five holes on Sunday producing a champion that withstands a grueling test. “The last five are going to be some of maybe the hardest that we have ever had in the US Open,” said defending champion Webb Simpson, who won last year at Olympic Club in San Francisco. Phil Mickelson, the US lefthander who has won three Masters and a PGA Championship, has settled for second in five US Opens, most recently in 2009.

He won his 41st career crown at Phoenix in February but hungers for a US Open and likes his chances at Merion, where the final round is on his 43rd birthday. “Finishing second five times and not ever winning it would be a huge disappointment,” Mickelson said. “Merion is going to be a good opportunity for me because it’s not necessary to hit drivers off a lot of holes. I’ll be hitting a lot of 3-woods, hybrids, and long irons in. The strength of my game is short, mid-irons into the green. I think that will give me a good chance.”

World number two Rory McIlroy, who shared 25th at the Masters and 57th at Memorial last week, won his first major at the 2011 US Open at Congressional and says he only needs to fashion a solid 72 holes when it matters most. “I’m playing pretty well. I need it all to click into place and once I do that, I’ll be off and running,” McIlroy said. “All parts of my game are there. I just need to sort of put them all together for one week.”

American Matt Kuchar won the Memorial to bolster his confidence heading into the year’s second major. “Winning tournaments breeds more winning tournaments,” Kuchar said. “Heading into Merion, I’ll have a lot of confidence. I feel like I’ve been really driving the ball well. I’m looking forward to my chances there at Merion.” Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, has not finished better than 30th in nine prior US Opens but looks forward to the ultimate challenge it brings. “I’m excited,” Johnson said. “You know it’s going to be hard and brutal and it’s going to be a test of everything. I just have to be patient and be ready.”— AFP

Japan’s rising golf star aims high at US Open TOKYO: Japan’s rising golf star Hideki Matsuyama, who has won two of the domestic tour’s five events so far this year, believes he has a good chance to finish high at next week’s US Open. “I have this image that the US Open is quite tough,” the 21-year-old Japan Tour leader, who turned professional only in April, told reporters before leaving Tokyo for the major tournament to be held in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

But he recalled that fellow Japanese Koki Idoki, 51, became the first Asian to win a senior major tournament when he triumphed at the Senior PGA Championship on May 26 in his first trip to the United States.”I think I have such a possibility too. I set my target to make the cut, first of all, and then aim for a high spot,” said the fourth-year university student, who has

played in two majors-the US Masters in 2011 and 2012.

“Honestly speaking, I don’t have much confidence,” he said. “I want to learn a lot because it will be the first time for me out there.”

He won the Asian amateur championship in 2011 to gain entry to the Masters as the first non-professional from Japan to play the prestigious tournament, just weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami ravaged his city of Sendai. But he finished tied 27th, winning the Silver Cup as the lowest scoring amateur. In 2012, he successfully defended his Asian amateur title, winning a spot at the Masters, where he finished 54th.

Matsuyama, who plans to follow the example of Japanese star and fellow 21-year-old Ryo Ishikawa to become a US PGA reg-

ular, has also finished runner-up twice so far this year on the domestic tour.

He has qualified for the 2013 US Open by topping the 36hole qualifying session in Japan in late May. But Ishikawa failed to qualify in one of the sectional qualifying sessions in the United States. “My condition is not quite right,” said Matsuyama, who had limited time to rest up after winning the Diamond Cup last Sunday for his third ever Japan Tour victory.

He also won the prestigious Taiheiyo Masters in 2011 as an amateur. “But I think I’ll be alright with the time difference. I don’t have any problem with food,” he said. “I imagine the course is set tough. I think it will be important to keep the ball on the fairways.”— AFP

SPORTS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Royals face IPL suspension amid cricket betting row NEW DELHI: Former Indian Premier League champions Rajasthan Royals faced suspension from the cash-rich tournament yesterday after its co-owner admitted to betting on the Twenty20 matches. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has called an emergency meeting of its working committee in New Delhi on Monday to discuss the fate of the team which is captained by Rahul Dravid.

“We have taken cognizance of the Raj Kundra issue. We are going to discuss it in our meeting on June 10 and if necessary, stringent measures will be taken,” BCCI interim head Jagmohan Dalmiya told reporters late Thursday.

Raj Kundra, co-owner of the Royals alongside his Bollywood actress and former Big Brother contestant wife Shilpa Shetty, has admitted to illegal gambling on the

competition, according to police. He has since been ordered to hand over his passport. According to an agreement between the BCCI and IPL sides, if any franchise group or owner acts in a way which has a “material adverse effect” on the reputation of the BCCI or the league then their agreement will be terminated.

Rajasthan Royals, who won the inaugural IPL edition in 2008 under Australian spin legend Shane Warne, have already been thrown out of the IPL before because of ownership issues. But the 2010 decision was reversed when Indian courts overturned the expulsion. Another IPL side, Chennai Super Kings, is also facing heat after its executive Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI chief N Srinivasan, was arrested for alleged betting on IPL match-

es. Dalmiya said the Chennai team’s case would be decided only after a probe panel set up last month by the BCCI submits its report. Three Royals players and numerous bookmakers are among those arrested over allegations of spot-fixing and betting during the recently-completed edition of the IPL. Test paceman Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and two of his teammates have been accused of deliberately bowling badly in specific IPL matches in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars after striking deals with bookies. A court this week denied them bail after police said they now had evidence, including telephone intercepts, linking international organized crime syndicates to the scandal. The betting and fixing scandal has shaken confidence in the game and enraged fans across India.— AFP

S Africa woes deepen as Morkel ruled out

Dawson to his defend title against KO artist MONTREAL: Chad Dawson returns to his comfort zone today when he puts his World Boxing Council light heavyweight title on the line against knockout artist Adonis Stevenson. Dawson’s last foray in the ring saw him stopped in the 10th round by Andre Ward on September 8, in a fight for Ward’s super middleweight world titles. Dawson was pummeled by Ward, who knocked him down in the third and fourth round before his final barrage ended it in the 10th.

Dawson fell to 31-2 with 17 wins inside the distance. Now, however, Dawson is back up at light heavyweight, where he feels he ought to be. “I’m back at my natural weight,” he told ESPN. “In the Ward fight, it took a lot out of me and I got to see how physically strong I was at 175 (pounds) as opposed to being at 168 (pounds). “It was kind of a blessing in disguise to show me I shouldn’t have taken the fight at that weight, but I did. It was my error and Andre Ward took advantage of it. Now I’m back at light heavyweight and I’m looking forward to continuing to be the best in the world.”

Dawson brings a record of 31-2 with 17 knockouts to the bout. In April of last year he claimed the WBC light-heavyweight crown with a 12-round majority decision over 47-year-old veteran Bernard Hopkins. Canada’s Stevenson, meanwhile, is moving up in weight to take on Dawson. He boasts a record of 20-1 with 17 knockouts. He avenged his only defeat-a 2010 loss to Darnell Boone, with a sixth-round knockout of Boone in March. — AFP

South Africa’s Morne Morkel

Boxing - Huck ready to ‘destroy’ Afolabi BERLIN: Germany’s Marco Huck is hoping to punish Ola Afolabi for all his verbal provocations when he defends his WBO cruiserweight title against the British fighter in Berlin today. “He’s starting to get on my nerves, this time I am going to destroy him,” said Huck ahead of what will be the third confrontation between the two.

The 28-year-old German of Serbian origin won his first fight against Afolabi by a unanimous decision in December 2009 before their second meeting ended in a draw in May last year. Huck has won 35 and lost just two of his 38 fights to date. “He says he is an actor and wears makeup. He is going to need it after the fight. I will even give him money to buy some,” the defending champion said of his

challenger. Afolabi, 33, has given his fair share in the verbal joust between the pair during the week leading up to the fight.

“What is your favorite color, pink? Well I am going to buy you a pink wheelchair after the fight,” said the London-born fighter, whose record reads 19-2-4. “He needs a blood test to check that he is not related to Father Christmas with all the gifts he has been given,” Afolabi added of Huck. Afolabi, nicknamed Kryptonite, has not fought since his second bout against Huck in Erfurt in May last year. The holder of the WBO belt since August 2009, Huck’s only defeat since came when he attempted the step up to heavyweight, only to lose on points to WBA champion Alexander Povetkin of Russia.— AFP

CARDIFF: Beleaguered South Africa suffered a major blow yesterday when fast bowler Morne Morkel was ruled out of the rest of the Champions Trophy with a leg injury. Morkel limped off while bowling his seventh over during Thursday’s 26-run loss to India, and MRI scans confirmed a grade one injury on the left quadricep, with recovery expected to take three weeks.

“There is a tear in the layer covering the muscle, which means the recovery time will be longer than we thought,” team manager Mohammed Moosajee said. Morkel will be replaced by Chris Morris, a 26-year-old seamer who has played two Twenty20 matches for South Africa, but has yet to appear in an one-day international, the International Cricket Council announced.

AB de Villiers’ men must defeat Pakistan in Birmingham on Monday to keep their hopes alive of taking one of the two semi-final spots from group B, which also features the West Indies. The Proteas, already without veterans Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis for the eight-nation tournament, are sweating over premier fast bowler Dale Steyn’s side strain which forced him to sit out on Thursday. Steyn is not a certain starter against Pakistan, who already enjoy a psychological edge following their six-wicket win over the Proteas in the warm-up game.

“Dale is a work in a progress as far as recovery is concerned,” Moosajee said. “We can only get him to start bowling once he is symptom free. The physiotherapist is working hard on him and taking it day by day.” India took advantage of the depleted attack to rattle up 331-7 after being sent in to bat, with left-hander Shikhar Dhawan smashing 114 off 94 balls after an opening stand of 127 with Rohit Sharma (65).

India slipped from 210-1 to 260-5, but an unbeaten 47 from 29 balls by Ravindra Jadeja steered the World Cup holders past the 300-run mark.

The South Africans made a brave chase of the daunting target and replied with 305 following a defiant century stand between skipper AB de Villiers and pinch-hitter Robin Peterson for the third wicket. De Villiers hit 70 off 71 balls, his sixth half-century in the last eight one-dayers and the fourth in succession. Peterson made a career-best 68. Ryan McLaren gave India a fright towards the end with an unbeaten 71 off 61 balls, adding 48 for the last wicket with the hobbling Morkel, but the effort was not enough to snatch a dramatic win.

De Villiers said his team made crucial errors, including the run-outs of Peterson and David Miller, but hoped his team will bounce back despite the depleted attack. “We now have a very important game against Pakistan,” he said. “We are going there to win and we have to keep the aggressive mind-set that we had in Cardiff. “It is basically a do or die.

We’d like to win at least two out of the three games. When you win just one out of three, net run-rate come into play.

We would not like to have that. “Each game we play here we have to try to win it. It’s a short tournament. There is no room for errors. We’ll try to repair that in the next game and go for a big one.”— AFP

SPORTS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Mexico’s young stars eye Confed Cup glory ‘Chicharito’ gets chance to shine MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s young stars led

by Manchester United forward Javier Hernandez hope to land a second Confederations Cup in Brazil, despite an unusually rocky road to qualify for the World Cup. Mexico made it to five of the previous eight tournaments thanks to its dominance of the CONCACAF Gold Cup and it triumphed in 1999 by defeating arch-rivals Brazil 4-3. They begin their campaign in Rio de Janeiro on June 16 against Euro championship runners-up Italy before taking on hosts Brazil on June 19 in the northeastern city of Fortaleza and closing the group stage against Japan on June 22.

Mexico’s new crop of players include midfielder Giovani dos Santos and winger Andres Guardado, both of whom ply their trade in Spain and were part of the squad that won the Olympic gold medal-against Brazil again-in London last year. But a big name missing from the line-up is Carlos Vela, the former Arsenal forward, who is now shining at Spain’s Real Sociedad but has had tense relations with his home federation since 2011. Mexico manager Jose Manuel de la Torre met Vela in Spain but decided to keep him off the list, explaining that the 24-year-old was “not committed to being in the national team at this moment”. Vela’s presence could have helped a team that has struggled to score goals in its World Cup qualifying campaign, despite having Hernandez up front and his tally of 32 goals in 47 games for the national side. Mexico will also be without forward Oribe Peralta, another of the country’s Olympic heroes, owing to injury.

De la Torre, known as “El Chepo,” has made it clear that making it to the World Cup-which Mexico has qualified for 14 times before-was a priority over the Confederations Cup.”What is clear is that we need to score more goals,” de la Torre said recently. “Every game is a new episode in which we will try to win,” he said. “We are moving step by step.” Although he was cautiously optimistic that Mexico would move within qualifying range in June match-ups, he added: “I never guarantee anything because I don’t even know if I’ll be here

BRASILIA: Photo shows an overview of the national stadium of Brasilia, where the first match of the FIFA Confederations Cup between Brazil and Japan will take place on June 15. The Confederations Cup will be played over 16 days in six Brazilian cities, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Recife and Salvador by national teams from Brazil, Spain, Italy, Uruguay, Mexico, Japan, Tahiti and Nigeria . — AFP tomorrow or even alive.” The first three CONCACAF teams directly qualify for the World Cup while the fourth-placed team heads to a play-off against the winner of Oceania. Mexico will have been buoyed by this week’s 1-0 World Cup qualifying win against the “Reggae Boyz” of Jamaica in Kingston-their first win after three draws. Mexico has two more qualifiers this month, facing Panama on Friday and Costa Rica on June 11, before the last four games in September and October, including a crucial matchup against the United States.

‘CHICHARITO’ HERNANDEZ Meanwhile, Mexico’s popular forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez gets a new chance to shine for his country at the Confederations Cup after losing playing time with his club Manchester United. The country’s star striker was instrumental in getting his nation into the FIFA tournament in Brazil, which takes place between June 15-30, after scoring seven goals to win the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. His tri-

umph in the regional tournament coincided with his brilliant debut with Manchester United in the 2010-2011 season, when he netted 20 goals to help the Red Devils win the Premier League and make him a household name in Europe. In his second season, Manchester United only lifted the Community Shield and his goal tally dropped to 12 as his time on the pitch began to take a hit with the emergence of Danny Welbeck. His playing time took even more of a knock last season with the arrival of former Arsenal striker Robin van Persie at Old Trafford, who helped Manchester United reclaim the Premier League title.

The 25-year-old forward voiced frustration at the end of the season, with British media quoting him as saying “all the players in the world want to start every single game,” but he insisted that he was happy at the club. Despite losing his place in the pecking order under Alex Ferguson, who retired after the season, Chicharito (“Little Pea”) scored 18 goals in all competitions for Manchester United. —Agencies

Nigeria make nine changes LAGOS: Nigeria made nine changes to their squad for the Confederations Cup from the one that won the African Nations Cup in February as Coach Stephen Keshi continued his policy of promoting inexperienced youngsters yesterday. The list, released by the Nigerian Football Federation, includes four uncapped players plus five more who made a first international appearance just over a week ago in a friendly against Mexico. Keshi has a settled look about his defense but has made a host of changes in other departments with Victor Moses and Emmanuel Emenike, who played key parts in the surprise Nations Cup Success in South Africa, unavailable.

Captain Joseph Yobo, dropped during the African Nations Cup, is left out as his international career looks to be at an end, while the likes of Peter Odemwingie and Obafemi Martins were again overlooked.

Keshi was pilloried by local media before the Nations Cup for choosing inexperienced, home-based players but since winning the continental championship has silenced the critics. Nigeria are in Group B along with Tahiti, Uruguay and Spain for the Confederations Cup, which runs from June 15 to 30. Before heading to Brazil, they travel to Namibia for a World Cup qualifier in Windhoek on Wednesday. — Reuters

Lebanon to end doomed WCup campaign ‘clean’ BEIRUT: As Theo Buecker prepares an almost entirely new team for the last match of Lebanon’s World Cup qualifying campaign, he struggles with memories of a former squad that had given him reason to believe that they’d all create history. “If our boys had not sold the two matches against Qatar, we’d reach Brazil,” Buecker said. “We’d go to the World Cup next year.”

That’s not going to happen this time. The discovery in February that 24 players - including six involved in World Cup qualifying matches - had been implicated in a match-fixing scandal has shocked Lebanon.

Under German Buecker’s leadership Lebanon, with a population of 4 million, had managed to beat stronger, much better-resourced teams including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in the past year.

And that followed wins over even stronger Asian powers like South Korea and Iran in the previous qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup. The national team was helping to unite a population slowly trying to heal divisions after 15 years of sectarian war that left the place in ruins when it ended in 1990.

Then it all went wrong in the two qualifying matches against Qatar. Lebanon lost the home and away games with their opponents scoring one goal in each match, angering their fans and frustrating Buecker. “If you see how we lost, it’s just ridiculous,” Buecker told The Associated Press in an interview. “One player, how many times he was trying to be successful with the right pass to the opponents’ center forward, to put him in a position where it was easy for him to score.

Unbelievable!”

Buecker said he had no idea at the time that players - all of whom were close with the coach - had been playing to fix the matches, not win them. A few weeks before Buecker’s side lost to Qatar 1-0 in Doha in November, Lebanon’s Football Association launched an investigation into allegations of match-fixing in international and continental games. A three-member committee investigated players, officials and referees and the outcome was startling: some players took money from gambling syndicates and intentionally lost games.

The LFA banned international players Ramez Dayoub and Mahmoud al-Ali and club official Fadi Fneish for life. The investigation was led by the general secretary of the West Asian Football Federation, Fadi Zreiqat. Another 22 players were also sanctioned for their part in match-fixing in games involving Lebanese clubs in Asian League matches. Midfielder Dayoub has played for Selangor in Malaysia, and striker al-Ali has played for Persiba Balikpapan in Indonesia. Fneish is an official with Beirut-based Al Ahed club who also served as a translator for Lebanon’s national team.

When Beucker returned to Beirut from the Qatari capital after one match, his wife told him that the fans, who had rallied behind the national team in a rare show of unity, were angry because they were convinced Dayoub sold the match. “We had a fight and I said it was not true,” he said. “But I did watch the match again, and you can see clearly, Ramiz is really focused, intently looking, looking, looking for the player of the other side and then passing the ball to him,” Buecker said.

He said there were some on the team who had their suspicions at the time, but “nobody in the right mind assumed it was deliberate bad behavior,” Buecker said.

“Ramiz played a couple of passes into our defense, to our opponents, and we thought, is the guy blind?

What is he doing?” the coach recalled. He then reviewed other matches, including Lebanon’s home match against Qatar last June. “We were the dominating team, we were controlling the match, we had good possession of the ball but in a very funny way, in front of the goal we look like we’ve all broken our legs,” Buecker said. “I just could not believe it.” — AFP

SPORTS

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Early goal will prevent Jordan’s ‘timewasting’

Photo of the day

Australia sorry after detaining Jordan coach MELBOURNE: Australia need to score early in their World Cup qualifier against Jordan next week, to both prize the Middle Eastern team away from their defensive game and prevent them from engaging in timewasting tactics, according to midfielder Mark Bresciano. Australia take on Jordan at Melbourne’s Docklands stadium on Tuesday with both teams locked on seven points in Asian qualifying Group B and needing wins in their final two matches to be assured of securing the second automatic berth to next year’s finals.

Japan have already booked their ticket to Brazil by sealing the first automatic spot with a 11 home draw against Australia on Tuesday.

Jordan upset Japan 2-1 at home in March to boost their hopes of a maiden World Cup appearance but drew yellow cards for time-wasting as they closed out the match with players griping at the referee and rolling on the turf to feign serious injuries. Bresciano said he expected little respite from the gamesmanship if Jordan took the upper hand in their match.

“I’m not expecting any better on Tuesday night because I’m thinking if they have the result they want, they’re going to do the same thing, that’s part of their tactics,” the former Serie A playmaker told reporters in Melbourne yesterday.

“We’ve just got to hope that it’s never going to get in that situation. We’re hoping from the whistle that we can hurt them.” Australia suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Jordan last September in their previous fixture and have been riled by Middle Eastern sides in the final phase of qualifying.

Socceroos coach Holger Osieck fumed from the sideline as his team were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Oman in March, and midfielder Tim Cahill complained that the visitors called for the stretcher seven times through the match.Bresciano said he hoped Jordan’s need for

a win would encourage a more enterprising approach, because that would play into the Socceroos’ hands. “I hope they do come out and play open and not try, like we said, park the bus in front of the goal,” he said. “As a team, we play better when it’s an open game, where we have teams that come to us and try and play their football and obviously try to attack.”

AUSTRALIA ‘SORRY’ Foreign Minister Bob Carr apologized yesterday after Jordan’s national football coach Adnan Hamad was detained at Melbourne airport when he flew in for a crunch World Cup qualifier against Australia. The Jordan Football Association expressed outrage after Hamad, an Iraqi, was held in a small room for four hours on his arrival Wednesday along with other members of the delegation.

“Jordan Football Association strongly rejects the Australian authority’s actions in Melbourne airport on Wednesday regarding Adnan Hamad,” a statement said. JFA general secretary Khalil Al Salem demanded an official explanation from Australia, which is due to host the 2015 Asian Cup, and said he would contact FIFA about the matter. He claimed all visas and entry procedures had been followed and there was no reason why Hamad should have been held. The Jordanian embassy in Australia intervened and the coach was eventually allowed into the country.

Carr, conscious that football is hugely popular in Jordan and Hamad is a well-known figure, sought to calm the situation. “Obviously, Hamad being delayed caused an inconvenience and embarrassment,” Carr’s spokesman told AFP, adding that he was not aware of why he was detained. “As a matter of courtesy, the minister rang the Jordanian ambassador and said sorry for the inconvenience.” —Agencies

Napoli president says Chelsea want Cavani ROME: Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis says Chelsea have made enquiries about signing striker Edinson Cavani. “Chelsea are interested in Cavani and they will call me soon,” De Laurentiis told Napoli’s official radio station Radio Marte from Los Angeles yesterday. “I’m very happy that his brother has said that he will stay, but if he did decide to go to Chelsea we would take time out to think and replace him with people worthy of replacing him.”

Uruguayan Cavani was top scorer in Serie A last term, netting 29 goals in 34 appearances as they challenged for the title and finished second behind Juventus.

He is also Napoli’s third highest goalscorer with 104 goals in three seasons, 11 behind Diego Maradona, who scored 115 in seven seasons. Film mogul De Laurentiis also revealed in the interview that he has offered 40 million euros ($52.8 million) for AS Roma pair Erik Lamela and Marquinhos. “I contacted Unicredit (Italian bank which part-owns Roma) directly for Lamela and Marquinhos. I offered them 40 million,” he said. “They wanted to sell me the services of (Pablo) Osvaldo at all costs, but, seeing that for now we have Edinson Cavani we don’t need him.

“This all happened before Benitez signed and I thought I’d done good business for two young players. Then however I began to won-

One of the competitors heading for a dunk at the Red Bull King of the Rock Kuwait. www.redbullcontentpool.com

Arsenal ready to spend big

Edinson Cavani der if they were really worth that amount of money.” Napoli are looking to strengthen their squad for next season, hoping to build on an impressive campaign that saw them qualify for the Champions League. Former Chelsea boss Rafael Benitez has replaced Walter Mazzarri as manager after the latter moved to Inter Milan and will need a bigger squad if they want to compete domestically and in Europe. — Reuters

LONDON: Chief executive Ivan Gazidis has raised the prospect of some high-profile arrivals at Arsenal by declaring that manager Arsene Wenger will not be encumbered by financial constraints in the transfer market. The north London club are reported to be actively seeking new recruits as they bid to end an eightyear trophy drought, and Gazidis says they will be targeting the world’s leading players. “It is going to be the players that Arsene believes in,” Gazidis said, in comments reported by several British media outlets on Friday.

“He is pretty blind to price tags. He looks at what he sees with his eyes and makes judgments based on that, and not on reputations and prices.” Arsenal have been linked with Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, who has asked to leave the Premier League champions. Asked if Arsenal could afford a player who commanded a £20 million ($31.2 million, 23.5 million euros) transfer fee and a £200,000per-week salary, Gazidis replied: “Of course we could do that. We could do more than that. We have a certain amount which we have held in reserve.

“We also have new revenue streams

coming on board and all of these things mean we can do some things which would excite you, (but) what excites Arsene isn’t necessarily what excites you (the press).”

A report by financial analysts Deloitte published earlier this week showed that Arsenal generated £235 million of revenue in the 2011-12 season, trailing only United and Chelsea. Arsenal’s 60,000capacity Emirates Stadium generates around £3.3 million per game, while recently agreed commercial deals are reported to be worth in the region of £70 million.

Wenger has traditionally been reluctant to authorize big-money player acquisitions, but Gazidis believes the club’s financial footing means they should eventually be able to operate on a par with teams like European champions Bayern Munich. “We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich,” he added. “I am not saying we are there by any means. We have a way to go before we can put ourselves on that level, but this whole journey over the past 10 years really has been with that goal in mind.”— AFP

SPORTS

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Spurs turn down the Heat Spurs stun Heat in Game 1 of NBA Finals MIAMI: The San Antonio Spurs returned to the NBA Finals just the way they left - with a victory over LeBron James. Tim Duncan overcame a slow start to finish with 20 points and 14 rebounds, Tony Parker banked in a desperation jumper on a broken play with 5.2 seconds left and the Spurs withstood James’ triple-double to beat the Miami Heat 92-88 on Thursday night in a thrilling Game 1.

Parker ended up with 21 points after referees reviewed his shot to make sure it just beat the shot clock, giving San Antonio a four-point edge in a game that was close the whole way. “Tony’s shot is one of those things that happens sometimes,” Manu Ginobili said. “We got lucky today.” James had 18 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists in his second straight NBA Finals triple-double, but he shot only 7 of 16 against some good defense by Kawhi Leonard, and Miami’s offense stalled in the fourth quarter.

Playing for the championship for the first time since sweeping James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in 2007, the Spurs improved to 5for-5 in Game 1s, hanging around for three quarters and then blowing by the defending champions midway through the fourth.

Ginobili, the third member of San Antonio’s Big Three that has combined for 99 postseason victories together, finished with 13 points, and Danny Green had 12. “It doesn’t matter how we’re categorized - old, veterans, whatever you call us, we’re in the mix,” Duncan said.

Game 2 is tomorrow’s night. James became a champion on this floor last year in Game 5 against Oklahoma City, but he hasn’t forgotten his first taste of the finals.

The Spurs overwhelmed his Cavaliers and James spoke Wednesday like someone who had payback in mind. He was 22 then, a fourth-year player headed for greatness but with holes in his game that San Antonio exploited. Revenge won’t come easily - if it comes at all. Dwyane Wade scored 17 points for the Heat but was shut out in the fourth quarter. Chris Bosh had only two of his 13 in the final period.

James shot an airball on a 3-pointer on his first shot attempt, then was soon back to the step-in-front- of-him-at-your-own-risk force that has made him the game’s best player. But San Antonio handled that and everything else Miami did, even while only shooting 42 percent from the field. Forced to seven grueling games by the rugged Indiana Pacers in the East finals, the Heat clearly enjoyed the more wide-open flow of this game, making 18 of their first 30 shots.

But the Spurs’ defense got better as the game went along, and San Antonio held the Heat to seven points in the first 8 1/2 minutes of the final quarter.

“I thought we were a little fatigued honestly in the fourth quarter,” Wade said.

“Looking around, we looked like a team that came off a seven-game series.” Miami outshot and outrebounded San Antonio in the first half, yet led only 52-49. The Heat stayed ahead until Parker’s free throws gave San Antonio a 77-76 edge with 7:47 remaining.

James set up Bosh for a jumper on the next possession for his 10th assist, but Leonard made a follow shot and Parker turned

FLORIDA: Tony Parker (center) of the San Antonio Spurs takes a tumble before Joel Anthony (center-top) and Shane Battier of the Miami Heat in the first half during Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 6, 2013 at American Airlines Arena in Miami. — AFP James’ turnover into a spinning layup and an 81-78 lead exactly halfway through the fourth. The lead grew to seven, but Miami was back within two and appearing ready to get the ball back when Parker lost control of the ball and his balance as the clock was set to expire. He gathered the ball and his footing, turning and tossing it in as the light above the basket turned red. Green’s 3pointer right after James missed one pushed the Spurs’ lead to seven at 88-81 with 2:12 to go, before a drive by James and three free throws by Ray Allen pulled Miami back within two, setting up Parker’s basket that put it away.

It was an entertaining start to a matchup that seemed years in the making between perennial contenders, the Spurs making their fifth appearance and the Heat their fourth. Commissioner David Stern called it “probably the most anticipated finals in who knows, 30 years,” likely more a bit of hyperbole in his final state of the league address than a comment meant to slight

fans of the Celtics, Lakers, or Michael Jordan’s Bulls. It came with the promise of beautiful basketball between two fluid offenses who were built differently but share common beliefs and a healthy respect. The Spurs value system over stardom, never asking for attention - and too often not getting it.

The Heat have been never been out of the spotlight from the moment James and Bosh showed up to join Wade, James vowing multiple titles as lights flashed and music boomed, showing they were going to be loud and impossible to ignore. Little beyond their Big Three back then and unable to win a title in their first year, the Heat have a assembled a deep supporting cast loaded with 3-point shooters that turned them into a 66-win powerhouse this season, sending the Spurs to the finals in the unfamiliar role of underdog.

They handled it just fine. The Spurs hadn’t played since May 27, when they finished off a sweep of Memphis in the

Western Conference finals, and even Popovich said he didn’t know what to expect. San Antonio turned it over on its first possession, leading to Wade’s fastbreak dunk. Then the Spurs ran off nine straight points, showing the rest helped more than any rust hurt. Only Duncan, who has remained among the NBA’s best at 37, looked out of sync. He missed all five shots in the first quarter before going to the bench late in the period with his second foul. The Heat had a 38-29 lead by the time he returned, and he quickly got on the board with an inside basket en route to a 12-point second quarter. It was a disappointing return to the finals for the Heat, where they celebrated last year after closing out Oklahoma City in five games behind James’ 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists. Fans arrived to white shirts reading “Witness Miami” draped over their seats.

The Miami fans didn’t like what they witnessed, many leaving as referees reviewed Parker’s shot. — AP

SPORTS SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Pay-back time for Serena at French Open PARIS: Serena Williams will be out to end 11 years of frustration today when she takes on defending champion Maria Sharapova in a French Open final featuring the two top seeds for the first time in 18 years. The American’s first, and to date only title win at Roland Garros, came in 2002 when she defeated sister Venus in a final she says she remembers nothing about.

Since then Williams has etched her name in the history books of tennis, taking her haul of Grand Slam singles titles to 15, just three shy of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who are tied for fourth on the all-time list. Five Australian Open titles, five at Wimbledon and four at the US Open, yet the French Open title count has remained stubbornly stuck at one.

On top of that, the Roland Garros claycourts and the French public have seldom been kind to the American, preferring the easy charm of Kim Clijsters, the pure talent of Justine Henin and the glamour of Sharapova to her perceived brash American character and style of play.

Much of that appears to have changed this year with Williams gaining warm applause for speaking French in her post-match, on-court interviews and going on about how much she loves Europe and France in particular. On the face of it, Sharapova, at 26, five years younger than Williams, has every reason to be worried over the outcome of today’s showdown. Since beating the American in the WTA Championships as a 17-year-old teenager at the end of 2004, she has lost to her 12 straight times, taking just three sets in the process. She has never beaten Williams on clay.

Asked if that long run of defeats weighed heavily on her mind as she prepared to compete in the eighth Grand Slam final of her career, Sharapova agreed that it did rankle. “I don’t think that it would be a pretty competitive statement if I said it didn’t,” she said. “I would love to change that around. I’d be lying if I say it doesn’t bother me, obviously.

“Obviously whatever I did in the past hasn’t worked, so I’ll have to try to do something different and hopefully it will work. “I’m proud of the way that I came through this tournament. I have given myself a chance to face the favorite.”

If there is a glimmer of hope to be taken by Sharapova, it perhaps comes from the performance of fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, who had Williams on the rack in the quarter-finals. Leading by a set and at break point for a 3-0 lead in the second, the 2009 French Open winner had victory in her sights only for Williams to dig her way out of a deep hole with some powerful hitting. That has been the only chink to be seen in the Williams’ armoury since the start of the tournament, but it does show that, despite being on a career-best 30-match winning streak, she is still prone to the occasional off day, something she readily admits to.

“That (having an off-day) can happen on any day. That can happen to anyone on any day. That’s why I really just every day try to do the best I can,” she said. “And when I’m not, I just try to fight through it, because my forehand, my backhand, my serve, anything could happen.” Whatever happens today, the final will be compelling viewing, opposing the two biggest names and biggest earners in women’s sport. The hope would be that they can stretch it out to three sets, which would be the first time that had happened in a French Open women’s final since Jennifer Capriati defeated Kim Clijsters 12-10 in the deciding set in 2001.—AFP

Hong Kong ‘priority’ city for new league

PARIS: USA's Serena Williams returns a shot to Italy's Sara Errani after winning French tennis Open semi final match at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris. —AFP

HONG KONG: Hong Kong will likely host one of the teams in an elite new tennis league featuring many of the world’s top players, the man behind the competition has said, according to a report.

The International Premier Tennis League, inspired by the television-friendly format of cricket’s IPL in India, will see teams of six to 10 players compete for six franchises dotted across Asia.

It is the brainchild of India’s 12-time Grand Slam doubles champion Mahesh Bhupathi, and has been branded by world number one Novak Djokovic as potentially “revolutionary”. “Hong Kong is a priority for us. We want to base a franchise in this city which has a tennis culture and which used to be an ATP Tour destination,” Bhupathi told the South China Morning Post.

“We are talking to people in Hong Kong and I’m confident we can have a team based there.”

Tennis authorities are keen to push the popularity of the sport in Asia, but are yet to see the expected knock-on effect after China’s Li Na became the first Asian women’s singles champions with her momentous French Open title win in 2011. Other cities reportedly under consideration for the new league include Tokyo, Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Kolkata and Bangalore. Bhupathi said Hong Kong’s “tennis culture” made it an ideal franchise city for the league, in which fixtures will consist of five oneset matches, with no advantage scoring, over a three hour period.

The franchises will bid for players at an auction set for just prior to the Australian Open in January, with the league to take place over about three weeks in November and December 2014. The maximum budget per franchise will be $10 million. Stars such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova are among those to have voiced support for the new league. But it will also feature stars of the past, such as Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Pat Rafter. —AFP

No looking back for Sharapova PARIS: The past is irrelevant for Maria Sharapova as she prepares to face up to the steamroller that is Serena Williams in today’s French Open final. The 26-year-old Russian has the odds stacked against her despite being the defending champion, the second seed and boasting a 12-match unbeaten run at Roland Garros.

On the other side of the net will be a player who is on a career best 30-match winning streak and currently playing some of the finest tennis the women’s game has seen in years. The 31-year-old American’s 60, 6-1, 46-minute demolition of Sara Errani in the semi-finals was frightening in its intensity and French Open organizers will be hoping that this result is not re-produced in a championship match broadcast around the world.

The record books do not provide comfort reading for Sharapova. In 15 previous encounters with Williams, she has won just

twice, both in 2004, in the Wimbledon final and at season-ending WTA Championships when she was just 17. Since then she has managed to win just three sets, the last of those coming in a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 defeat in the Miami final in March. The last match between the two saw Williams win easily 61, 6-4 in the final at Madrid last month.

Asked is she was able to bury those depressing statistics deep in the back of her mind, Sharapova replied: “Well, you certainly try to. “I mean, if I was thinking about it, that wouldn’t be a great mindset to go into that match like that. “But, despite that record and despite me being unsuccessful against her, I believe that I’m happy to be setting up chances to be going out and facing her someone that’s been playing and dominating tennis for almost a year now.

You know, her success has been incredible.

“But going into a French Open final, that doesn’t matter. It all starts from zero. You’ve

got to play until the last point, and believe in yourself.” The one set she did take off the American in Miami was something that Sharapova has dwelled on and it was just a case of trying to pinpoint what she did right in that and then re-producing it in today’s final. The Russian’s form so far in the tournament has been mainly impressive, starting with four straight sets wins.

But she then lost the first set 0-6 against Jelena Jankovic in the quarter-finals before gathering herself and she then served up a messy 11 double faults in her semi-final win over Victoria Azarenka. A repeat of that in the final against Williams would be fatal, she knows, “Against her, you have to be able to do keep up your level for a long period of time,” she said. “That set and a half (in Miami) wasn’t enough. “You know, a letdown here or there is enough to get her back in the match, and that’s what she did there.” —AFP

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2013

Sports

Pay-back time for Serena at French Open

47

PARIS: Serbia’s Novak Djokovic serves to Spain’s Rafael Nadal during their French tennis Open semi-final match at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris. (Inset) Spain’s Rafael Nadal reacts after defeating Serbia’s Novak Djokovic. — AP

Unstoppable Nadal edges Djokovic Defending champion moves closer to 8 French Open title PARIS: Defending champion Rafael Nadal moved closer to an historic eighth French Open title yesterday when he defeated world number one Novak Djokovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7 (3/7), 9-7 in a titanic semi-final. Nadal, the third seed, took his Paris record to a staggering 58 wins from 59 matches after recovering from 4-2 down in the deciding set to clinch victory after 4 hours and 37 minutes. The 27-year-old Spaniard, bidding to become the first man to win the same major for the eighth time, moved into his 17th Grand Slam final where he’ll face either home hope Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Spanish compatriot David Ferrer.

Yesterday’s win was Nadal’s 20th in 35 career clashes-and 13th from 16 on clay-against Djokovic who still needs a French Open title to become only eighth man to complete a career Grand Slam. In a dramatic and controversial final set, Djokovic broke for 1-0 before Nadal leveled in the eighth game after the Serb had been handed a time violation and then lost a point when he collided with the net as he put away a smash.

Djokovic even summoned the tournament referee onto the

court to argue his case that he had been wronged by umpire Pascal Maria and continued to rage as he prepared to serve at 7-8. Nadal pounced, moving to three match points and clinched victory when Djokovic, who ended with an ugly 75 unforced errors, hit wild and long. “It’s a very special win for me and congratulations to Novak-he’s a great champion and he is going to win here at Garros one day,” said Nadal, who had lost the pair’s only other five-setter, the record-setting 2012 Australian Open final.

“When I was serving for the match it was against the wind so I knew that it would be a tough game. “It was a similar match to the one in Australia in 2012 and he won. This time it is me that won and that is what makes sport so big.”

Tomorrow, Nadal will be appearing in his ninth final since returning from a seven-month injury lay-off. “During these seven months out of the game there were some low moments, but everybody supported me and there was a lot of positive energy,” added the Spaniard, who has already claimed six titles in 2013. “David and Jo both reached the

semis without losing a set so they must be playing fantastic.”

Nadal took the first set in 51 minutes with the opener turning on the sixth game when Djokovic appeared to tweak the back of his thigh as he chased down a drive from the Spaniard.

The top seed was broken in the next game when he hit long.

Nadal confirmed the break with a hold to love before taking the set when the Serb went wide on a forehand return. A clearly unsettled Djokovic was struggling with his timing and footwork and a telegraphed dropshot allowed Nadal to thunder another passing shot for a break and a 3-2 lead in the second set.

But the world number one dug deep and finally carved out his first break points in the next game to level at 3-3, a sweet drop volley setting up the opportunity and backing it up for a 4-3 lead with an ace. Suddenly, it was Nadal’s turn to feel the heat as Djokovic broke again for 5-3 courtesy of a huge forehand after pinning the Spaniard at the back of the court.

Djokovic leveled the semi-final when Nadal could only bury a backhand in the Roland Garros dust. — AFP