8th Nov 2013

Kuwait’s community bookshop gets new life

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NO: 15980- Friday, November 8, 2013

Labor Labor costs costs soar soar as as migrants migrants flee flee Saudi Saudi PAGE 10

RIYADH: Saudi women leave a shopping mall yesterday. — AFP

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Kuwait’s my business

Remembrance: These are the ties that bind

I paid for an experience but got an inferior product

By Frank Baker, British Ambassador

By John P Hayes

O

n 5th November the Embassy hosted a series of groups of schoolchildren, who took a tour of our historic Embassy building, planted a ‘poppy garden’ and met with the Embassy’s Defense team.

Amidst the huge range of meetings, functions and engagements the Embassy takes part in any one week, this event was something a bit different. For the UK, along with many other countries around the world, particularly members of the Commonwealth, the poppy is a very special symbol. And British public figures, from all walks of life, will be wearing a red poppy on their lapel at this time of year.

As the schoolchildren who visited our Embassy learnt, the poppy was adopted as a symbol of remembrance, to commemorate those soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, initially in the First World War of 1914-18. The poppy was chosen because in the immediate aftermath of the war it was the only flower which grew on the scarred soil of the battlefields where so many had died across Northern France and Belgium Flanders Fields.

Today however, the wearing of the poppy, and the traditional remembrance ceremony to commemorate Armistice Day on November 11, are not just in memory of those who died in the First World War, but in memory of those who fell defeating the Nazi menace in World War Two, and indeed all those who have fallen in battle since. In Kuwait this is particularly poignant as we take time to remember the 47 British servicemen and women who gave their lives during the liberation of Kuwait.

This November 11, some within the British community will also be joining with their Kuwaiti friends and colleagues in taking part in a ‘March for Honor’. Set up by former Royal Marine Commando, Ram Patten, who now lives in Kuwait, the March for Honor has in the past raised awareness about Remembrance and raised money for charities that support servicemen and women and their families.

This year though, the concept is slightly different.

Ram and his team, supported by youth development NGO, LoYAC, will be speed-marching fifty kilometers, through the night, to raise money for charity - arriving at the Embassy on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. But whilst remembrance - including the remembrance of those from all nationalities who gave their lives during the liberation of Kuwait - is one aspect, the focus is wider.

The March is in honor of - and as thanks for Kuwait’s hospitality towards the British community, and it is underpinned by the friendship, loyalty and respect that our two nations have towards each other.

To me, this seems fitting. And this takes me back to the eager young adults - of all nationalities - who we hosted at the Embassy earlier this week. They were keen to learn about the UK-Kuwait relationship, in all its aspects, and - at this time of year - they were particularly keen to learn about the links forged on the battlefield.

What this shows - and what the hard work that has gone into March For Honor shows - is that diplomacy, and the words I write in articles like this, can only scratch the surface of relationships between countries.

The friendship, loyalty and honor that we see time and again throughout the UK and Kuwait’s long and close history is built on the work of individuals, from all walks of life. These are the ties that really bind us together.

Lest we forget.

local@kuwaittimes.net

I

opened a bag of New York Style Bagel Crisps, purchased locally, and had to restrain myself from opening the kitchen window and shouting, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore,” just as people did in the movie Network several decades ago.

You remember? Maybe not, and that’s why I didn’t want to chance my Kuwaiti neighbors thinking that I was swearing at them. I would have been swearing at the supermarket where I bought what turned out to be a bag of Kuwait Style Bagel Crumbs. Just as I was preparing to schmear some American-made peanut butter across a thin, round slice of bagel baked with sea salt you can taste it, can’t you? - all I found in my bag were micro-chipped bagels. Making matters worse, I paid nearly twice as much for this product than I would have paid at home. Yea, I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! What am I going to do? Stop buying American food brands in Kuwait.

Marketing 101 And if you also will get mad as hell and stop taking it, someone, sooner or later, will notice our demands and give us what we want because that’s what good marketers do. If I were a Kuwaiti entrepreneur, I’d take advantage of this situation and jump ahead of the supermarkets that cater to the lucrative expat market.

Local supermarkets seem to think that we’re shopping for products, albeit American products, but it’s time they get a lesson in marketing. The most valuable consumers - those who pay more and buy in quantities, and return week after week - are never shopping for products. We’re shopping for experiences! We’re not yearning for bagel crisps or peanut butter - we’re yearning for a “taste of home”. And we’ll pay more for the experience! Topping off this lesson: Selling experiences is more lucrative than selling products. But no more, because I’m mad as hell, and I’m not buying anymore.

You can’t savor the experience if you can’t enjoy the product.

Experience a taste of home Of course, my doctor will say this is a good thing because he thinks I should avoid fattening experiences,

and any taste of home is loaded with calories. My peanut butter schmear tends to be too thick, and instead of one or two bagel crisps, I don’t stop before eating the whole bag - it depends on how much I’m missing home. On days when I’m really homesick, I shop for Blue Bell Ice Cream, but no more. My students will be disappointed because I’ve converted many of them to Blue Bell, but now they’ll have to visit Texas to get this frozen treat. On the upside, they’ll pay less, and the product will be frozen only once. In Kuwait, we’re pretty sure Blue Bell isn’t sold until it’s melted and re-frozen. At that point, it no longer tastes like “home” anyway.

No more stale saltines!

It just doesn’t make sense to alienate valuable customers, but that’s what happens when we feel cheated.

We can emotionally justify paying too much for products - we need the products to create the experiences but when we’re robbed of the experiences we’re insulted. I dip my Snyder’s pretzel rod into my Philadelphia Cream Cheese and quickly realize the pretzel tastes like wood and the cream cheese has lost its zing. You can only dip that pretzel so many times until you get mad as hell and refuse to do it anymore, and I’m beyond the breaking point. I’ve eaten my last stale Nabisco saltine cracker, and I’ll never again wonder what I can do with Frito-Lay corn chips that were reduced to breadcrumbs.

And while I’m at it, I’ll spend less money at the American-branded food and beverage franchises, too, because from now on I’m only paying for experiences.

Who’s with me? If you’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore, do not shout out any windows, please. Just stop buying products. Instead, let the retailers know that you’ll only pay for experiences. Sooner or later the marketers will cater to us not only because that’s what marketers do, but also because our money is important to them.

NOTE: Dr John P Hayes heads the Business Administration department at GUST where he teaches marketing, communications, and franchising. You can contact Dr. Hayes at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

KUWAIT: A flying-duck flies over the Seif Palace near a fishing harbor in Sharq. — Photo by Sherif Ismail

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Conspiracy Theories

Local Spotlight

What’s really happing in Cell 20?!

Puffed up collagen and implant abuse

By Muna Al-Fuzai

By Badrya Darwish muna@kuwaittimes.net

W

hen I first received this short video, I could not believe my eyes that this is really happening in Kuwait. A video that shows the truth behind those who were unluckily arrested and thrown into cell number 20 for violating traffic laws.

This is not lucky number - it is a scary number for a room in an oil-rich country like Kuwait. Don’t be fooled by assuming it will be luxurious or at least well-appointed with the essential needs of any human just because it is in Kuwait. This room is very small and can barely accommodate ten people.

It is packed like sardines with men of all ages, some whom can’t even sleep with their legs stretched out. This room is located in the traffic depart-

ment in the capital and carries the name Cell No. 20.

These men have broken traffic laws.

Yes, they made a mistake. I agree the law has to take its course. No one would argue this, but is it okay to prevent these people from their needs as humans just because they violated a law and will get their punishment from the court later? To hold those men in a tiny room with no access or respect of their normal and basic needs is a true violation of their humanity .

Al Shahed TV, a local private TV channel in Kuwait, had run this short video that carried the title Cell 20 and I think it took them great courage to show it. Few channels in the Arab media show the truth behind human

rights abuses in the Gulf countries as if we are secure and no mistakes happen. I know human rights abuse is an issue that no government would applaud for covering it. But this is not to please a government official or upset any. I have hope that this issue will not pass with blind eyes turned. I want this cell to be closed at once. I want to see all those men be either deported back home or sent to jail.

Keep the few whose cases are pending. Packing those men in a room will not solve the problem. They are not sardines - they are human beings and their humanity must and should be respected.

I think this video is evidence and the Ministry of Interior must act now.

Kaffeeklatsch

Frankenfood on the prairie

By Shakir Reshamwala

shakir@kuwaittimes.net

L

ove it or loath it, genetically modified crops have revolutionised agriculture around the world, particularly in the US and developing countries like India. And while Europe has banned GM products, they are widely available all over the world, including Kuwait. Even if one chooses to avoid genetically modified grains, fruits and vegetables, one may be inadvertently consuming GM ingredients in processed foods in the form of sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and emulsifiers like soy lecithin.

As I left the Twin Cities in Minnesota on a recent trip to the US and headed southwest towards the small town of Tracy the ‘big city’ in the storied “Little House on the Prairie” TV series - the landscape gradually changed from thick pine trees to rolling grasslands. Corn and soybean crops swayed in the wind as far as the eye could see. I had entered the farming heartland of America, an area that covers large swathes of the Midwest.

In an industrialised country like the US, agriculture is still an important sector. But the average American farmer nowadays is in his 60s with a college degree, overseeing thousands of acres of farmland. Mechanised farming and technological advances have taken out the hard labour from farming, while advances in seed technology have pushed up yields to record levels.

This is where things get disturbing. Nearly all cash crops planted these days in the US are genetically modified, tinkered at the molecular level to withstand pests and flourish in adverse conditions. This may sound like a boon for farmers and a means to feed the growing population of the world, but there’s a dark side to this rosy picture. The market for GM seeds is controlled by a handful of powerful companies who zealously guard their products. Farmers cannot replant seeds from the crops they harvest, and have to buy fresh seeds from these companies every season. Surprise checks are conducted on farms by representatives of these corporate giants, and plants are tested on the spot to determine if they are growing from

new or reused seeds.

Many companies also make pesticides that complement their seeds. For instance Monsanto - the biggest player in this field - makes a pesticide called Roundup that kills everything except the seeds the company produces, forcing the farmers to buy both products. The crops that grow from these GM seeds are virtually indestructible and do not decay. After the snow melts and the new sowing season begins, farmers have to get rid of crop remnants that normally would have decomposed and disappeared into the soil. Many farmers have resigned themselves to this new agro order, and whatever outrage that lingers is soothed by bountiful yields and cash flows.

While more of a product usually results in lower prices, grain prices have been rising. This is because that ear of corn is not going to your table or the local farmers’ market. Voracious demand for fuel and meat means it’s going to be converted to ethanol and livestock feed, and what remains will be used to make high-fructose corn syrup and other food additives. On the other hand, a quarter of US’ soybean output goes to China, while the rest is mostly turned into oil, feed and other base ingredients.

GM crops have been linked to cancer and Europe has banned such “Frankenfood”, but America and many parts of the world have wholeheartedly embraced it. Incidentally, an organic farm in the US produces half the yield compared to a commercial farm, but gets double the price for its crops. Such a farm is also much smaller, and the gains are tempered by increased labour costs as weeds and vermin have to be eradicated without the use of pesticides. But considering that 40 percent of food around the world - Kuwait is no exception goes to waste, wouldn’t we be better off eating healthier paying a moderately higher price rather than buying cheap food that eventually gets wasted and may even be harmful?

For the ageing and affluent American farmer beholden to Monsanto and its ilk, this is a decision that is out of his hands.

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

B

less Arab TV presenters and TV broadcasters.

They cannot choose the appropriate attire for a broadcaster who presents the news.

The news, mind you, is not a rosy picture a presenter paints for the viewers. The news goes like this: Bombing in Iraq, 25 dead; Syrian opposition kills 125; the official army murders 26; Tripoli has turned into a war zone with snipers around; the president of Egypt has been imprisoned; demonstrators injured; smoke, bombs, fire and destruction on Tahrir square; a bus falls in a river somewhere in Timbuktu; an earthquake shakes a piece of land somewhere in India or Iran; hurricane hits the Philippines; St Jude lashes the coast of the United Kingdom. I do not mean to depress you guys but this is the news. You never hear good news.

Then, you look at the TV broadcaster. She wears full-fledged make-up and shows off deep cleavage.

God bless the Lebanese broadcasters whose shirts do not even have long sleeves. The meteorology broadcaster is half naked east and west from the waistline. Excuse me, is there no coordination between the news and what the news presenters are wearing? If a presenter is reporting from a theatre, musical or a fashion awards ceremony then such clothes are acceptable.

But broadcasting the bloody news with all these dresses does not fit. This is not modernization. On top of that, the broadcaster delivers the news of a murder with a big smile between the segments.

There is no compassion or empathy for the casualties. Regardless if our broadcasters are presenting at 6am or 8pm, they have a complete makeup mask on their faces. When do they even have the time to arrange their facial mask so early in the morning?

By the way, I noticed that most of our broadcasters have turned into Marilyn Monroe clones.

They are all blonde. They all must have visited the same plastic surgeon. Their lips are puffed up with collagen and their cheeks are so pulled up that you can hang clothes on them. Their bosoms are about to explode from all that implant abuse. Where are the managers, directors and producers at these TV stations? Are they over impressed with the clown looks of their broadcasters? It is one of the two: Either the producers or the broadcasters are underestimating the audience or they are over confident with themselves. Either way it is disrespectful to the viewers. @BadryaD

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Kuwait’s community bookshop gets new life Q8 Books encourages children to read with events and storytime.

Spooky Books storytime

By Jamie Etheridge

F

inding quality English books in Kuwait is a challenge as any book lover here knows. Local lawyer Fajer Ahmed, 26, recently took up the challenge when she acquired the small but well-loved bookshop, Q8 Books. She moved Q8 Books from downtown Kuwait City into a renovated space in Bayt Lothan, the non-profit arts and culture center located next to Marina Mall in Salmiya.

Home to more than 15,000 titles of all genres including literature, general fiction, history, romance, thrillers and mysteries, westerns, classics, cook books, true crime, self help and motivation, family and lifestyle, business and philosophy and arts and crafts, Q8 Books has something to suit every reader’s taste. By adding sofas, tables, chairs and beanbags, Q8

Q8 Books will offer monthly events for children and parents with the goal of encouraging reading.

Spooky costumes

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

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Reading is fun Books created a cozy, relaxed atmosphere along with free WiFi that invites customers to come and hang out.

“We want to encourage reading, writing and communication in Kuwait, “Fajer explained. “As one example, we provide local writers with a place to display and sell their books free of charge, we also do all the administrative work for them.”

A community bookshop Q8 Books also holds a free weekly story time for children, offers 50% store credit for trade ins, encourages book clubs and other responsible community groups free space to hold meetings and has an outreach project to support a library in Gambia.

“We thank Bayt Lothan for giving Q8 Books a home,” Fajer said. “Without them none of this would have been possible.”

Q8 Books’ erudite former owner, Jacob, started the bookshop almost a decade ago with only a handful of books. During his travels, he would browse used bookstores and markets to find quality titles that would be appreciated by the book-loving community in Kuwait. Jacob continues to help out at Q8 Books along with a group of dedicated volunteers and support from the Kuwait Writing Club.

Grab a story and go.

Fajer also organizes regular events in order to build Q8 Books as a community space. On the first of November, Q8 Books hosted a Spooky Book night for kids, which included a story telling by local street artist Monstariam dressed in a bunny costume, a crafts and arts table, coloring and glitter, a costume contest and a chance for parents to browse and chat.

Kid and family friendly “We really enjoyed Spooky Books night,” said Umm Sara, a mother of three children who attended the event all wearing ‘scary’ costumes. “The kids loved the story telling and we got several books. Much better than going to a mall and they got to draw and color and dress up.” The Kuwait Writing Club also took part, judging over 80 submissions

for the writing competition. The winning submission will be published in Kuwait Times.

“We also had a cover design competition for children to draw covers for the age appropriate horror story, Goosebumps, and every kid that took park received a free book of their choice,” Fajer explained.

Q8 Books will offer monthly events for children and parents with the goal of encouraging reading. “When kids come in playing games on electronic devices, we try to find books with the same characters and get them interested in reading,” Fajer noted.

“Welovekuwait.com Children’s Bookshop has also donated coloring and reading books to give for free for every child that walks in.”

Q8 Books encourages Kuwait’s community of readers to share their love of reading. They accept donations and offer store credit for traded in books. They also invite anyone to email ask@q8bookstore.com if they are interested in volunteering, donating or just want to talk to someone about suggestions for what to read.

Q8 Books is located in Bayt Lothan, next to Marina Mall. Store Hours: Weekdays 9am1pm and 5pm-9pm. Weekends 11am-9pm.

Follow them on Instagram @q8bookstore.

A Traffic Light in Bneid Al-Ghar

By Nabeel Mohan GREEN. It would only last for ten seconds, then yellow for a moment before the long, six minute red would leave gridlocked motorists cursing. There were now only five cars in front of him. The first, a Honda, took an infuriatingly long time to get started but once it did, a domino effect ensued. He had to make it across. Time for a fresh strategy. He put some distance between himself and the car in front (provoking a clamor of angry horns from behind).

Then at the last minute, he put his foot to the pedal and floored it.

YELLOW. The car screamed forward. For a moment it seemed like he might make it. Then, seconds away from success, everything changed.

Morning turned into darkness. All the buildings and vehicles vanished. Shadowy trees clustered along either side of the road, reaching out gnarled and sinewy branches. There was no moon but bizarrely, the traffic light was still there, gleaming an unearthly, embryonic orange. The car, no - everything -

seemed to be moving slowly, as if underwater. Even his thoughts, stumbled out awkward and heavy.

At first he saw only their eyes. Between the trees, large silver eyes like pools of metal began to appear.

Just a few at first but soon there were many more, silently watching the cars slow progression.

Sometimes they would blink eerily. Fear was impossible to feel in this slow world but he knew he needed to escape those eyes. The traffic light was bloodtinged amber and he’d nearly passed it - but it was taking forever and his own eyes were now growing accustomed to the dark. That was unfortunate.

It wasnt the creatures’ oily-black skin orbaton-like fingers that terrified him. It wasn’t even their curious, shimmering eyes that betrayed an age older than the universe. It was the fact that behind them were fields upon fields of low-burning coals. And that laid across them for as far as he could see, were others like him - Sunday morning drivers, some charred, some well done, others with the juices just beginning to run. A veritable feast of souls. His scream was silent but they’d heard it. In the crimsoning light, he saw them fall onto all-fours and bare razor-sharp

teeth. He heard the galloping and saw the salivating and knew that his fate was sealed. He prayed a slow prayer.

Seconds before they pounced there was a tremendous crash. Darkness dissipated. The creatures disappeared and the sun glared so brightly that he found himself squinting. The buildings, the cars were all back. In fact, he’d apparently crashed into the car in front of him, out past the dreaded traffic light which had now turned red. A large, angry man in a dishdasha was walking towards him intending to express forcefully, how he felt about being rear-ended. He looked at the approaching world of pain he was about to experience and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The following short story won first place at Q8 Books Writing Competition. The first place winner also received KD30 store credit from Q8 Books and a Monstariam T-shirt. The Kuwait Writing Club judged submissions and the winner was announced at the Spooky Books night early this month at Q8 Books in BaytLothan.

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

It is month of

‘Movember’

By Nawara Fattahova

N

ovember is the month dedicated to men’s health. It is the time to raise awareness for men’s health, especially prostate cancer. As part of this campaign, millions of men around the world are growing their moustaches during November to raise awareness on the dangers of prostate cancer. The initiative known as Movember, has reached Kuwait too.

Whereas some men choose to grow

Dr Khalid Al-Saleh

mustaches for the occasion, others grow beards. The moustache is the symbol of this charitable initiative to raise funds for research on prostate cancer in the same way as the pink ribbon symbolizes solidarity with breast cancer awareness. Movember, which is

Early detection of cancer can save a patient’s life or the affected organ. “Prostate cancer can be cured in 99 percent of cases if it is detected in the initial stage. Even in the third stage, the cure rate is still about 30 percent. But we also care about morbidity and quality of life, so we always try to preserve the function of the affected organ. considered the biggest international non-governmental supplier of research on prostate cancer, aims to increase awareness among men of their health and possible dangers they may be facing, and to increase the possibility of early detection.

According to the latest report of Kuwait Registry, prostate cancer ranks first among cancers affecting men in Kuwait. This highlights the importance of paying attention to this kind of cancer and raise awareness among men.

Cancer Aware Nation (CAN) is holding a three-month awareness campaign which started on Oct 1, 2013 for prostate cancer.

“The campaign will last till the end of this year as the number of patients with prostate cancer is alarming. This campaign aims to make men aware about prostate cancer through posters and flyers in shopping malls, streets and hospitals. It provides information about all what men should know about cancer. Men should be aware of stones in urine or intermittent urination and prostate enlargement,” Dr Khalid AlSaleh, oncologist and member of CAN told Kuwait Times.

Early detection of cancer can save a patient’s life or the affected organ.

“Prostate cancer can be cured in 99 percent of cases if it is detected in the initial stage. Even in the third stage, the cure rate is still about 30 percent. But we also care about morbidity and quality of life, so we always try to preserve the function of the affected organ. Not detecting breast cancer early can lead to removal of the breasts (mastectomy), and the tongue may be surgically removed (total glossectomy) if the cancer there is in the late stages,” he warned.

The campaign provides correct information about this disease. “It advises men, especially elderly ones, to walk as walking helps in losing weight which results in preserving their health condition in general. The walking path of Sabah Al-Salem has brochures and flyers encouraging men to be active and walk and provides information about prostate cancer,” stressed Saleh.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is encouraging spreading awareness of prostate cancer. “WHO sees that a national screening program is not very effective for this disease, so it’s not recommended. On the other

hand, they recommend awareness, and individual prostatic specific antigen (PSA), especially if one feels some symptoms such as intermittent urination or others. Usually men suffer from prostate cancer in older age. We advice men to make PSA after the age of 50 which is followed in Europe, but North America and especially Canada advise this test for men after the age of 40.

The genetic factor plays an important role in getting this disease as well,” he added.

CAN is a member of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) for more than 20 years, which sets certain months for different cancers. “CAN organizes every year awareness campaigns for a kind of cancer. And this is our first year to hold a campaign about prostate cancer after it ranked first among cancers in men. During the holy month of Ramadan, we had a daily program on TV on colon cancer, which is related to food and eating habits,” concluded Saleh.

Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Amir sponsors 9th National Day for people with special needs KUWAIT: Under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, the Ninth National Day for Solidarity with People with Special Needs kicked off Wednesday evening at the Kuwaiti Disabled Sports Club in Hawally. The Representative of the Amir, Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Al-Sabah inaugurated the major event with attendance off large number of Kuwaiti public figures and foreign diplomats.

He stated that the week-long event is held under the theme “One Flag” and comprises a series of cultural, sports and social activities. Sheikh Salman lauded the significant contribution of the Arab and foreign diplomatic missions in the event activities as well as its opening session. He acknowledged the Kuwaiti Disabled Sports Club and other co-sponsors of the event for their role in harnessing the talents and skills of this important segment of the Kuwaiti society.

On his part, Chairman of Kuwaiti Disabled Sports Club Shafi Al-Hajri stated that the organization of the festival for the ninth year in a row with an unlimited support from HH the Amir shows “the high priority given by the state to people with special needs and its recognition of their role in different domains.” He cheered the participation of representatives of the diplomatic missions of friendly countries in the event activities and thanked HH the Amir for his patronage of the event.— KUNA

Arab-African Summit promotes integration VIENNA: Head of the Arab League mission and its Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, Ambassador Ramzy Ezzedine Ramzy underscored yesterday the importance of the 3rd Arab-African Summit to be hosted by Kuwait this month. “The summit will launch a new phase of Arab-African joint cooperation”, Ramzy told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in an exclusive interview.

He added that the importance of this summit lies in the nature of the issues on its agenda and its timing as it forms a new beginning for periodical summits between Arab and African countries after the summits of Egypt in 1977 and Sirte, Libya, in 2010, which developed an action plan for the period between 2011 to 2016. Ramzy, a prominent Egyptian diplomat who had previously served as ambassador for his country in a number of countries, expressed hope that the upcoming summit would come up with more precise frameworks and mechanisms to ensure the achievement of mutual benefit and promote Arab-Afro integration in various fields.

He said that the upcoming summit would confirm keenness of Kuwait, GCC and Arab countries on means of strengthening cooperation with their African counterparts.

He added that the 50 African countries that announced their participation in the Kuwait summit are always looking to raise the volume of Arab investments in the African continent.

Ramzy recalled the successful Arab Economic Summit in 2009 that was hosted by Kuwait, in addition to Kuwait’s keenness to ensure success of the upcoming 3rd ArabAfrican Summit, expressing hope Kuwait would follow-up implementation of the recommendations of the upcoming Summit with the Arab League’s Secretariat. With respect to the Plan of Action adopted at the Sirte meeting in 2010 which identified an action plan for the period between 2011 until 2016 and the fate of this plan after the ongoing transformations in the Arab world, Ramzy said that this issue will be on the table for discussion, noting that international frameworks remain subject to development on a continuous basis.

Ramzy pointed out that the Arab countries cannot ignore the importance that is now enjoyed by the African continent in light of the international movements and interest of countries such as China, the European Union and the United States to enhance cooperation with the African continent which is rich in raw resources and promising markets. He believed that the focus on security cooperation alone remains insufficient but should expand to include economic, energy, water and environment protection, scientific and cultural domains. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Farwaniya firemen freed a citizen who was trapped in a car following an accident on Sixth Ring Road yesterday afternoon. The rescue took seven minutes and the man was taken to Farwaniya Hospital. — By Hanan Al-Saadoun

Diplomat raises alarm over Bushehr station Any radioactive leak could harm Kuwait KUWAIT: A western diplomat has doubted Iran’s ability to manage and maintain Bushehr nuclear station which is located near Kuwait in case of natural disaster like earthquake - especially after what happened in Japan which caused radioactive leaks and prompted the evacuation of all people near Tokyo.

The source said that it is impossible for the Iranian government to give guarantees about the safety of Bushehr based on what happened in Japan which is among the most technologically advanced countries in the world. The source said that following the earthquake that hit Bushehr area on October 21st, Iranian sources denied that the nuclear station suffered any damage, but the source pointed to reports about the

tremors that took place near Bushihr in April and May caused damage in the station despite the Iranian claims that said the opposite.

The source added that a crack was discovered in a water pipe in Bushehr reactor causing a halt in its operation, then on Sept 24, the station was closed again for technical reasons one day after inaugurating unit number one. He said the Iranian government keeps on attempting to hide a series of problems in the station and although no hazardous leak of radioactive material has taken place so far, those problems raise doubts about the quality of construction in the station and the Iranian’s ability to manage and maintain them.

KUWAIT: Jahra prevention and Kabd Fire Center began an inspection campaign on feed warehouse companies in Kabd and Sulaibiya areas to make sure all prevention and protection systems and all licenses are in order. Several violations were found including the lack of fire permits, warehouse firefighting equipment and bad storage. — By Hanan Al-Saadoun

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Local FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Kuwait denies Security Council seat reports Saudi to pick UN Human Rights Council post KUWAIT: Kuwait has rejected reports it would be occupying Saudi Arabia’s seat at the UN Security Council, according to its Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khaled AlJarallah. “Kuwait forms a part of the efforts currently being carried out to convince Saudi Arabia to reverse its decision (turning down a non-permanent Security Council seat),” he added.

“Kuwait is aware that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is able to have an impact on the Security Council endeavors in solving a number of issues, through its occupying of its seat at the Security Council,” he explained. CNN Arabic had reported that it was informed by sources in the Kuwaiti government that “the Saudi Arabia’s seat at the Security Council - will be occupied by Kuwait.” In another development, the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to elect Saudi Arabia next Tuesday to the 47-member Human Rights Council after

Jordan announced the withdrawal of its candidacy, according UN sources. The AsiaPacific states had five candidates - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, China, Maldives and Vietnam - running for four vacant seats.

After Jordan’s withdrawal, the other four will run unopposed and will easily win the elections.

Saudi Arabia will join Kuwait, whose term in the Geneva-based Human Rights Council ends on December 2014 and the United Arab Emirates whose term ends by the end of 2015. The terms of Qatar, Libya and Mauritania in the Council will end later this year. The General Assembly elected Saudi Arabia to the Security Council on October 17. The following day, Riyadh rejected the seat citing a number of reasons, including the Council’s double standards and failure to end Syrian conflicts.

Russia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, representing the Eastern

European States, also run unopposed for the two vacant seats. The same applies to France and the UK, representing Western European States, which run for the two vacant seats. The African States have five candidates - Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and South Sudan - running for four vacant seats. The Latin American and Caribbean States have three countries Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay - running for two vacant seats. Human Rights Council members shall serve for a period of three years, beginning January 1, 2014, and shall not be eligible for immediate re-election after two consecutive terms. The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations to rectify or avoid them. — Agencies

Martyred illegal residents’ sons allowed to join army KUWAIT: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah has issued a decree allowing the sons of all illegal residents who worked in the Kuwaiti armed forces and died in the line of duty to join the Kuwaiti army.

The edict was made at the behest of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the supreme commander of the armed forces, the Ministry of Defense said in a release yesterday. The Kuwaiti army has already begun to receive recruitment applications from the martyred illegal residents’ sons wishing to join the army, it added. The move is a sign of appreciation and gratitude to all those who had sacrificed themselves for the sake of Kuwait. —KUNA

Kuwaiti PM visits India NEW DELHI: His Highness the Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and a delegation accompanying him arrived at Palam Air Base yesterday on a twoday official visit. The visit comes in response to an official invitation extended by the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Sheikh Jaber said in a statement upon his arrival that he was delighted to visit India and that his visit comes as an embodiment of the distinguished historical relations between the two countries. He added that his visit also comes as furtherance of results of the official visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah to India in 2006, which was a continued confirmation of deep historical relations between the two countries.

He pointed out that the relations between India and Kuwait have always been strong thanks to the joint ventures established by both countries’ communities since the fifties which had contributed to achieving development in various sectors, especially the private sector. He noted the increasing volume of trade exchange between the two countries and expressed the desire to expand the horizons of cooperation to all areas.

Hs said that Kuwait is looking to benefit from India’s significant progress witnessed in the fields of technology, industry and economics, adding that Kuwait wants India’s cooperation in order to transform Kuwait into a regional and international financial and commercial hub.

He expressed appreciation of the Kuwaiti people for the position adopted by India during the Iraqi invasion in 1990 especially during India ‘s membership in the Security Council. Sheikh Jaber was greeted upon arrival by a number of senior Indian and Kuwaiti officials. — KUNA

Kuwait private sector plays pivotal role

NEW DELHI: His Highness the Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and his delegation arrived at Palam Air Base yesterday. — KUNA

ABU DHABI: The economic integration among the Gulf Cooperation Council states is a strategic goal for the GCC governments and institutions, as economic files top the agendas of the GCC’s periodical summits. Gulf governments bear a heavy burden in overcoming obstacles facing the economic unity among the GCC states and achieving the sought progress in this area; however, they (governments) remain in permanent need for support of other sectors, especially the private sector.

The GCC private sector enjoys a pioneering economic experience which qualifies it to play a vital role in the field of Gulf economic unity to the fullest in light of the growth achieved by every country in the Gulf. With regard to the Kuwaiti private sector, it offers encouraging models in taking the responsibility entrusted to the GCC private sector through supporting the Gulf economic integration project among the Gulf states, which is reflected in the activity of the Petroleum Coke Industries Company of Kuwait extending in the GCC. On this issue, Company Chairman Riadh Al-Saleh stressed in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) the vital role of the GCC private sector in supporting the economic integration projects in the Gulf states and achieve the aspirations of the peoples through enhancing economic interaction and establishing Gulf partnerships at the level of production and consumption.

Al-Saleh added that the private sector in all economic unity projects in the world is heavily relied upon in supporting these types of projects as the private sector has an easy access with its counterparts in other countries, especially if provided with the required government facilities. — KUNA

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Kerry warns of violence if peace talks fall short

World’s strongest typhoon swirls towards Philippines

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1,500 M23 guerrillas surrender to Uganda

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RIYADH: Saudi women leave a shopping mall yesterday. — AFP

Saudis bemoan costs after migrant exodus Cost of labor doubles in 2 days JEDDAH: Saudis have begun complaining of surging labour costs following the exodus of a million foreign workers, although economists insist there will be long-term planning benefits from fully regulating the market. Professionals in the kingdom, both Saudi and expatriate, say the freelance tradesmen who used to queue for odd jobs in public squares have virtually disappeared since police patrols began the strict enforcement of tough labour laws this week, rounding up thousands of illegals for deportation.

They have been forced to turn instead to authorised service companies, which charge double the rate or more to hire out electricians or plumbers. “I had great difficulty finding a carpenter even at a higher price,” complained primary school teacher Majed Hasan. “I have been told that freelance carpenters have disappeared. I went to a services company and was told that they can provide me with a carpenter for 150 riyals ($40) — double what I used to pay.”

From Monday, the authorities began round-

ing up thousands of illegal foreign workers following the expiry of a final amnesty for them to regularise their work status in the kingdom.

Those considered illegal range from overstaying visitors and pilgrims who seek jobs, to shop assistants and day labourers working for someone other than their official sponsor, a requirement in Saudi Arabia as in most other Gulf states.

Nearly a million migrants-Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Yemenis among them-took advantage of the amnesty to leave the country. Another roughly four million regularised their situation by finding employers to sponsor them but in so doing virtually emptied the market of cheap freelance labour. “I usually find a plumber quickly. This time, I’ve roamed three areas and I couldn’t find a single one,” complained Mahmud Badr, an Egyptian doctor who lives in the kingdom’s commercial capital Jeddah.

He said he was shocked by “how service workers vanished, after they were so easy to find” queueing in public squares for the chance

to earn a few dollars. Companies employing low-paid foreigners have to pay for a permit to recruit their staff, in addition to recurring fees for annual residency permits, making their charges far higher than those of freelance illegals.

“It has been so difficult to find a worker since the crackdown began,” complained Saudi Abu Maher, as he haggled with an electrician about the price to fix his satellite television receiver. “If you find one, it is tough to agree a deal because he asks for a high price... The cost of labour has doubled over the past two days.”

But Saudi economists insist that the shortterm hit to the pockets of professionals will be outweighed by the longer-term benefits in terms of more efficient planning of the Arab world’s largest economy. “This will have a negative impact in the short term, but it will positively affect the economy in the medium and long term,” said Fawaz Al-Alami, a onetime head of the Saudi team that negotiated the kingdom’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2005. “Most of the departing workforce repre-

sent an oversupply in the market,” he said. “Had the market needed these workers, their status would have been regularised.”

Economist Ihsan Bu Hulaiga said the existence of the large pool of illegal workers had long been an obstacle to efficient planning.

“The flushing out of illegals will ... help in controlling the grey economy,” Bu Hulaiga told Saudi daily Arab News. “Once illegal expats are sent back home, we can enumerate the total strength of the legal workforce in the kingdom, what they do and which cities they are based in.

This will be relevant to analyse and formulate business policies for the future.”

Expatriates account for a full nine million of the oil-rich kingdom’s 27-million-population.

The lure of work, even in low-paid jobs as domestics or construction workers, has made it a magnet for migrants from Asia as well as poorer countries in the Arab world. But despite its huge oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has an unemployment rate of more than 12.5 percent among its citizen population, a figure the government has long sought to cut. — AFP

International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

World’s strongest typhoon swirls towards Philippines Thousands of people moved, hospitals on alert

AMMAN: US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) shares a laugh with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh as they attend a press conference yesterday. — AFP

Kerry warns of violence if peace talks fall short AMMAN: US Secretary of State John Kerry warned yesterday of a return to violence if faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ultimately fail. He also rejected suggestions that he scale back his ambition to forge a final settlement with an interim agreement and said he still believed it could be done by an April 2014 target date. Kerry has been shuffling this week between Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in a frantic bid to get the peace negotiations back on track amid rising public anger among Palestinians over Israeli settlement activity and among Israelis over the release of Palestinian prisoners.

“What is the alternative to peace?” Kerry asked at a joint news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

“Prolonged continued conflict. The absence of peace really means you have a sort of low-grade conflict, war.” “As long as the aspirations of people are held down one way or another ... as long as there is this conflict and if the conflict frustrates once again so that people cannot find a solution, the possibilities of violence” increase, he said.

Kerry appealed for Israelis and Palestinians to take the peace process seriously and for their leaders to overcome differences that have hamstrung the talks since they began three months ago with the goal of reaching a deal by the end of April, 2014. He acknowledged the hurdles, but said he was convinced that both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were committed to the negotiations “I am pleased to say that despite difficulties, and we all understand what they are, these discussions have been productive,” he said.

“Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas reaffirmed their commitment to these negotiations despite the fact that at moments there are obviously tensions over one happening or another or one place or another, whether it is in Israel or the territories,” Kerry said. Earlier yesterday, Kerry told Jordan’s King Abdullah II that his meetings had “created some clarity on some of the points.”

He did not elaborate, but said at the news conference with Judeh that there was “significant progress in our discussions about a couple of areas of concern in the panorama of concerns that exist.” A statement from Jordan’s Royal Palace said Abdullah, a close US Arab ally, said final status talks involve “higher Jordanian interest,” mainly a common border with a future Palestinian state, the fate of Jordan-based Palestinian refugees displaced in the 1967 Mideast war and Jerusalem, where the kingdom maintains custody over Christian and Muslim holy sites.

The king also called on the international community to help end unspecified “Israeli unilateral actions in the occupied Palestinian territories because they are illegal, illegitimate and constitute a real obstacle to peace efforts,” the statement said. He was referring to Israeli government plans to build more settlements in the West Bank.

Kerry saw Abbas again yesterday in Amman and then will return to Jerusalem today for a third meeting with Netanyahu in two days before continuing with his swing through the Middle East and North Africa in the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco.

Kerry brokered the re-start of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which began three months ago. But little progress has been made. The secretary has been hit with complaints from both sides during his trip while working to maintain an optimistic tone. On Wednesday he noted that in any negotiation “there will be moments of up and moments of down.” Tensions have been running high after Palestinians said a secret negotiating session on Tuesday broke down in a dispute over Israeli settlement construction. —AP

MANILA: The world’s most powerful typhoon of the year gained strength yesterday as it swirled towards the Philippines, forcing mass evacuations, flight cancellations and school suspensions across the disasterweary nation. President Benigno Aquino called on his countrymen to make all possible preparations for Typhoon Haiyan, which was generating wind gusts exceeding 330 kilometres (200 miles) an hour and set to hit today morning.

“To our local officials, your constituents are facing a serious peril. Let us do all we can while (Haiyan) has not yet hit land,” Aquino said in a nationally televised address. “We can minimise the effects of this typhoon if we help each other. Let us remain calm, especially in buying our primary needs, and in moving to safer places.” Aquino warned areas within the expected 600-kilometre typhoon front would be exposed to severe flooding as well as devastating winds, while coastal areas may see waves six metres (20 feet) high.

Haiyan was expected make landfall on Samar island, about 600 kilometres southeast of Manila, then cut across the central and southern Philippines before exiting into the South China Sea late on Saturday. State weather forecaster Glaize Escullar said Haiyan was expected to hit areas still recovering from a devastating storm in 2011 and from a 7.1-magnitude quake last month.

They include the central island of Bohol, the epicentre of the earthquake that killed 222 people, where at least 5,000 survivors

This NOAA image shows the storm as captured by NPP satellite. — AFP are still living in tents while waiting for new homes. “The provincial governor has ordered local disaster officials to ensure that preemptive evacuations are done, both for those living in tents as well as those in floodprone areas,” Bohol provincial administrator Alfonso Damalerio told AFP. Other vulnerable areas are the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan on the southern island of Mindanao, where flash floods induced by Tropical Storm Washi killed more than 1,000 people in December 2011.

Authorities said evacuations were taking place in many other towns and villages in Haiyan’s path, while schools were closed, fer-

ry services suspended and fishermen ordered to secure their vessels.

Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and other carriers announced the suspension of hundreds of flights, mostly domestic but also some international. Haiyan had maximum sustained winds yesterday afternoon of 278 kilometres an hour, and gusts of 333 kilometres an hour, according to the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre. This made it the world’s strongest typhoon this year, according to David Michael Padua, a meteorologist with the Weather Philippines Foundation, a storm monitoring organisation that runs the www.weather.com.ph website. —AFP

What killed Arafat?

LONDON: Swiss scientists say they’ve found evidence that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with polonium. The deadly radioactive element first hit the headlines when it was used to kill KGB agent-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

Arafat died under mysterious circumstances at a French military hospital in 2004. Scientists at Switzerland’s Institute of Radiation Physics, who examined soil and bone samples from Arafat’s grave, said their results “moderately support” the theory Arafat was poisoned with polonium.

Other scientists say the results are suggestive but do not provide definitive proof that Arafat was poisoned. Here are some facts about polonium.

WHAT IS POLONIUM? Polonium-210 is one of the world’s rarest elements, discovered in 1898 by scientists Marie and Pierre Curie and named in honor of her country of origin, Poland. It occurs naturally in very low concentrations in the Earth’s crust and also is produced artificially in nuclear reactors. In small amounts, it has legitimate industrial uses, mainly in devices to eliminate static electricity. Polonium is not naturally found in the human body.

HOW DANGEROUS IS IT? Very. If ingested, it is lethal in extremely small doses. A minuscule amount of the silver powder is sufficient to kill. British radiation experts say once polonium-210 enters the bloodstream, its deadly effects are nearly impossible to stop.

HOW CAN IT POISON PEOPLE? People can be poisoned with polonium if they eat or drink food contaminated with it, breathe contaminated air or it enters the body through an open wound. Litvinenko apparently drank tea laced with polonium during a meeting at a London hotel.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF POLONIUM POISONING? A poisoning victim experiences multiple organ failure as alpha radiation particles bombard the liver, kidneys and bone marrow from within. Symptoms including nausea, hair loss and throat swelling.

WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Polonium can be a byproduct of the chemical processing of uranium, but usually it’s made artificially in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator. John Croft, a retired British radiation expert who worked on the Litvinenko case, said a dose large enough to kill would likely have to come from a government with either civilian or military nuclear capabilities. That category includes Russia producer of the polonium believed to have killed Litvinenko. But it also includes the US and dozens of other nations.

CAN THE RADIATION BE DETECTED? Polonium’s large alpha particles of radiation do not penetrate the skin and don’t set off radiation detectors, so it is relatively easy to smuggle across international borders.

WHO HAS DIED FROM IT? In addition to Litvinenko’s presumed death from polonium poisoning, some speculate that the Curies’ daughter Irene, who died of leukemia, may have developed the disease after accidentally being exposed to polonium in the laboratory. Israeli author Michal Karpin has claimed the cancer deaths of several Israeli scientists were the result of a polonium leak at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1957. Israeli officials have never acknowledged a connection.

CAN SCIENTISTS PROVE THAT ARAFAT WAS POISONED? Swiss scientists say Arafat had symptoms commonly linked to radiation poisoning, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and liver and kidney failure - but not two other classic symptoms, hair loss and a weaker immune system. In fact, there have been so few cases of known polonium poisoning that scientists don’t know very much about its exact symptoms. The scientists also noted their tests faced several limitations. They had to perform their analyses on very small specimens - such as a single hair shaft or traces of blood and urine.

Those tests were also conducted eight years after Arafat’s death, so there may have been problems with chemical degradation. Derek Hill, a radiation expert at University College London, said if there was enough polonium left in the samples, it might be possible to trace where the element came from. That could provide more clues about whether Arafat was poisoned. — AP

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International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Obama, Rouhani squeezed by hawks and hardliners WASHINGTON: Their nations are estranged by decades of distrust-but Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani share a common political problem. Hawks and hardliners in Washington and Tehran are putting the squeeze on the US and Iranian presidents as they grasp for a landmark nuclear deal. As new international talks on Iran’s nuclear program open in Geneva, deep mutual suspicion leaves American and Iranian negotiators little time or political space to act.

In Washington, national security conservatives who view Iran’s diplomatic charm offensive through the same skeptical lens as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, want the White House to swear off inducements for Iranian concessions and threaten to toughen sanctions. In Tehran, clerical and political conservatives, temporarily silenced by Rouhani’s election, disdain talks with the “Great Satan” America.

“It is entirely possible that there are political considerations on either side that will complicate this,” said Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution. “Both sides have to insulate against that to the extent that it is possible.” For Obama, a deal to disable Tehran’s nuclear program without using military force would offer a shining foreign policy legacy.

But Democratic and Republican hawks steeped in decades of antipathy towards revolutionary Iran doubt a genuine deal is possible. A new Senate push for even tougher sanctions than those currently hobbling Iran’s economy prompted intense lobbying from a White House fearful that hardliners in Tehran could torpedo Rouhani’s diplomatic outreach.

But powerful Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez and Republican colleague Mark Kirk argue Iran only came to the table because of sanctionsand urge more tough medicine. Convincing the Senate to hold off on new measures to further choke Iran’s oil sector is one thing-selling a divided, dysfunctional Congress on interim and final deals brokered by the US team in Geneva is another.

Although Obama has the power to waive certain sanctions on the Islamic Republic, he would need help from lawmakers to offer the full relief that might motivate Iran to do a deal. But his sway on Capitol Hill is waning amid criticism over his handling of the Syria crisis and a second term malaise.

No ‘perfect’ deal The likely shape of any final deal will prove politically contentious. Menendez is on record with a bipartisan group of senators as saying Iran must be barred, among other restrictions, from enriching uranium-in line with Israel’s red lines on a nuclear deal.

But former Obama administration non-proliferation official Robert Einhorn says a “perfect” deal may already be out of reach. “The problem is that Iran is exceedingly unlikely to cave in to demands that it regards as tantamount to surrender,” he said, in a speech in Tel Aviv last month widely interpreted as hinting at administration thinking. “Most observers who follow Iran and its internal dynamics believe that no matter how devastating the sanctions, no matter how persistent we are at the negotiating table, and no matter how credible the military option we are able to threaten, Iran will not agree to the maximalist terms that the Israeli government and some Americans advocate.” If Einhorn is right, Obama will have to convince skeptical lawmakers that a less than ideal agreement-which leaves Iran short of “breakout” capacity to building a nuclear bomb but does not deprive it of the “right” to enrich uranium, is worth supporting.

Diplomatic dance Rouhani’s limited room for political maneuver was reflected in his diplomatic dance at the United Nations in September-when he dodged a meeting with Obama but spoke to him by phone. Many Iran watchers here interpret Iran’s desire for quick results in the talks as a sign Rouhani is on borrowed time, after winning election in June on a pledge to ease US sanctions. They also noted Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comment Sunday that talking would do Iran no harm.—AFP

1,500 M23 guerrillas surrender to Uganda Rebel chief Makenga in Ugandan hands KAMPALA: Democratic Republic of Congo’s M23 guerrillas, including rebel chief Sultani Makenga, have surrendered en masse in Uganda, officers said yesterday, signalling the end of an 18month insurgency. The rebel surrender follows a crushing defeat at the hands of the UN-backed Congolese armed forces.

“He is with our forces, yes, Makenga has crossed into Uganda,” a senior Ugandan military officer told AFP, although he declined to clarify if he had formally surrendered or was under arrest. Paddy Ankunda, a colonel in the Ugandan army, told AFP that 1,500 men from the M23 — a number thought to account for more or less the entire forcehad crossed into Uganda and given themselves up.

“About 1,500 fighters surrendered today,” said Ankunda, who is spokesman for Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, the mediator in stalled peace talks between M23 and Kinshasa.

However, Ankunda said he was “not aware” if Makenga was among those to have surrendered. Uganda has been accused by United Nations experts of backing the M23, claims Kampala has strongly denied.

The rebels’ surrender puts paid to fears that they might try to fight on despite having been outweighed by superior firepower, notably helicopter gunships. Makenga, 39, a former colonel in the DR Congo army, is accused of masterminding killings, abductions, using rape as a weapon of war and recruiting child soldiers, and is on both UN and US sanctions lists.

Congolese troops backed by a special UN intervention brigade with an offensive mandate launched a major assault late last month against the M23 force of army mutineers in turbulent North Kivu.

The region is rich in natural resources, especially gold, coltan and tin, which have been fought over by a range of armed groups for the past 15 years.

GOMA: This picture shows the head of the M23 rebel military forces, BrigadierGeneral Sultani Makenga in the yard of a military residence in Goma, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. —AFP The Movement of March 23 (M23) was founded by ethnic Tutsi former rebels who were incorporated into the Congolese army under a 2009 peace deal but mutinied in April 2012, claiming that the pact had never been fully implemented. After briefly seizing the regional capital and mining hub of Goma last November, the M23 entered into fresh peace talks which fell apart last month, leading the Congolese army to go on the attack in a bid to end the rebellion.

The United Nations and rights groups have accused the M23 of atrocities including rape and murder in a conflict that caused tens of thousands of refugees to flee. Makenga was born to parents from the Masisi area north of Goma but grew up in the neighbouring Rutshuru district.

Like many of the ethnic Tutsi officers who fought alongside him, he cut his teeth in the ranks of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, now in power in neighbouring Rwanda, when it launched its rebellion in the early 1990s. At the beginning of the second DR Congo war in August 1998, he took part in a daring airlift of Rwandan troops and their allies from Goma to Kitona in the west, which aborted after Angola intervened.

He then served as a battalion commander in the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy before joining Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People.

Ever since he has been seen as loyal to Nkunda, who has spent the past several years under house arrest in Rwanda after he fell out with his former mentors. — AFP

‘One-legged’ Shebab still far from defeat MOGADISHU: With reinforcements expected, Somali and African forces fighting Shebab extremists speak confidently of victory, but analysts warn of tough battles ahead and say that military campaigns alone will not bring peace. The Al-Qaeda linked Shebab have fled a string of towns in the past two years ahead of the advancing African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM) — fighting alongside Somalia’s rag-tag army, various aligned militia forces and Ethiopian troops-and commanders brag that the Islamists are on the back foot. “Al-Shebab is standing on one leg, and we are doing our best to hack off that leg and liberate the small areas they still control,” Somalia’s Minister of Defence Abdihakim Haji Mohamud Fiqi told AFP. “Their military strength is weakened, they are now launching just desperate attacks.” United Nations Deputy

Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said last month that AMISOM advances had “ground to a halt” because it lacked a sufficient number of troops.

Diplomats say the UN Security Council is expected to soon authorise 4,000 more troops for the African Union force in Somalia, boosting the fivenation fighting force by a quarter to some 22,000 strong. But even as the extremists have lost ground, Shebab commanders have increasingly developed the force’s capability to carry out guerrilla attacks, regular events inside Somalia including storming a UN compound in June.

But they have also showed their ability to stage attacks in neighbouring Kenya, with the September massacre of shoppers and staff in Nairobi’s upmarket Westgate mall in which at least 67 people were killed. Repeatedly retreating ahead of advancing AU forces, choosing

later to stage hit-and-run attacks, the Shebab face a shrinking space to operate in openly, with key towns left in southern Somalia including the port of Barawe in Lower Shabelle, and the bastion of Badhere, in Gedo region.

Commanders are hunted by US drones, with a missile strike last month killing a top suicide bomb-maker.

But according to a recent UN monitoring report, Shebab have built up a powerful “Amniyat” secret service, under strict command of the insurgent’s chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, a secretive and ruthless leader who Washington have offered a $7 million bounty for.

“Even if international efforts to dismantle the group’s fighting forces succeed, the chances that the cells under the leadership of Godane will continue operating is high,” said Andrews AttaAsamoah, of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS).—AFP

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International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Hardline cleric chosen as new Pak Taleban leader MIRANSHAH: The Pakistani Taleban yesterday chose a hardline cleric suspected of links to the attack on Malala Yousafzai as their new chief, following the death of the previous leader in a US drone strike. Maulana Fazlullah, elected by the Taleban ruling council, led the militants’ brutal two-year rule in Pakistan’s northwest valley of Swat in 2007-2009 before a military operation retook the area. He takes over leadership of the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) after Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike last Friday.

The announcement was made by TTP caretaker leader Asmatullah Shaheen at a press conference attended by AFP at an undisclosed location in northwest Pakistan. “I congratulate all the Muslim

brothers that Maulana Fazlullah has been elected as the new chief of Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan,” Shaheen said. “The supreme shura has also elected Sheikh Khalid Haqqani as the deputy chief of Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan.”

There was heavy gunfire in celebration in Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Pakistani intelligence believes Fazlullah has links to the attempt to kill schoolgirl education activist Malala in Swat in October 2012, an attack which was claimed by the TTP. The killing of Mehsud on Friday came as government representatives prepared to meet the TTP with a view to opening peace talks.

It triggered an angry response from Islamabad, with Interior Minister

Nigeria’s teachers feel stress of lengthy strike LAGOS: Teaching union leaders in Nigeria are coming under mounting pressure to call off a lengthy higher education strike that has put university courses on hold for months, leaving hundreds of thousands of students in limbo.

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) walked out in July over claims that the government had failed to implement a 2009 agreement to improve their welfare and upgrade facilities on state-run campuses.

The strike-the latest by lecturers in recent years-initially enjoyed public support. But sympathy turned to anger and protests from students as talks ended in stalemate. Like many things in Nigeria, university education is polarised between the country’s minority of the super-rich and influential, who are able to afford to educate their children privately, and everyone else.

There are currently about 1.2 million students in public and private universities in Nigeria, according to the National Universities Commission. Privately-run institutions are less affected by the walk-out. Most people have to rely on the over-burdened and under-funded public sector, where even the most senior university don earns about $2,000 (1,400 euros) a month and teachers rank among the lowest paid civil servants. “How I wished my father had enough money to send me to a private university,” said Enitan Alonge, whose four-year engineering course at the University of Lagos was due to finish in September. “I would have long graduated and be saved from the incessant strikes that have become the lot of public universities in this country,” the 21-year-old told AFP. Alonge said she had some sympathy for lecturers but the strike was having a “devastating” effect on students and had robbed students of a whole semester of study.

“We appeal to ASUU to suspend the strike so that we can go back to school. We have stayed at home for too long,” said Alonge. There are signs that students could get their wish, as Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan personally took charge of negotiations this week to break the deadlock.

ASUU president Nasir Isa Fagge said he would consult with his members on the outcome of the talks with Jonathan before taking any decision.

“We are expecting that our members will respond appropriately to the message of Mr President,” he told reporters, without elaborating on details of the talks. Local media said the government had agreed to a five-year funding plan for the universities. Independent newspaper This Day said 100 billion naira ($630 million, 467 million euros) would be released this year, while 220 billion naira would be released from 2014 to upgrade campus infrastructure.

Labour Minister Emeka Wogu said he was “optimistic” the strike would be called off, asserting that the ASUU were “very happy” with the meeting. “We believe the presidential intervention has resolved the logjam,” he said. “The ball is now in the court of the union leaders to meet with their members to convey the outcome of the meeting to their members.” A source close to the talks said the teachers might call off industrial action by the end of this week.—AFP

Chaudhry Nisar accusing Washington of sabotaging peace efforts. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was more measured, but said his government was committed to seeking peace through dialogue and stressing that an end to bloodshed could not be achieved “by unleashing senseless force”.

Sharif came to power in May partly on a pledge to hold talks to try to end the TTP’s bloody insurgency that has fuelled instability in the nuclear-armed nation. In September he won the backing of major political parties to begin overtures to the Taleban.

Imtiaz Gul, an author and expert on militancy in Pakistan, warned the choice of such an uncompromising candidate would spell problems for the embryonic

peace process-and a bloodier campaign from the TTP. “It means they are not serious about any talks with the government,” Gul told AFP. “TTP will be more brutal now.”

During Fazlullah’s rule in Swat, the Taleban enforced a rigorous version of Islamic law, publicly beheading and flogging wrongdoers and burning schools. Fazlullah fled when the army swept in to retake Swat and is believed to have been in eastern Afghanistan, though Pakistan says he has directed attacks on its soil from across the border. The TTP, an umbrella organisation grouping numerous militant factions, has killed thousands of soldiers, police and civilians since 2007 in its campaign against the Pakistani state. — AFP

Maldives to hold fresh polls Clash between parliament, courts threatens stability MALE: The Maldives is set to hold a presidential election tomorrow after two recent polls were abruptly aborted, blocking the country’s first democratically elected leader from returning to power. The Indian Ocean island state, famous for luxury holiday resorts and picturesque atolls, has been in political turmoil since February 2012, when Mohamed Nasheed was ousted as president in circumstances his supporters called a coup. Nasheed became the Maldives’ first democratically elected president in 2008 when he defeated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had ruled for 30 years and was accused by opponents and international rights groups of being a dictator. Nasheed’s main challenger tomorrow will be Abdulla Yameen, a half-brother of Gayoom.

The other main contender is resort tycoon Gasim Ibrahim, a finance minister under Gayoom.

The international community has issued stark warnings in recent weeks that the Maldives’ reputation as a haven for wealthy tourists had been tarnished by the political crisis.

“Through weeks of political bickering and questionable delaying tactics, the Maldives’ democracy is now in peril,” said US Ambassador Michele Sison.

The United States, Britain, the European Union and India, have urged the Maldives to hold a credible and inclusive election. Nasheed won a Sept. 7 election declared largely credible by international monitors, although he faced a run-off ballot having failed to garner more than half the votes.

The Supreme Court annulled the election amid allegations of vote rigging, and the police cancelled an Oct. 19 poll after Nasheed’s rivals failed to sign a voter registry. Following a meeting with incumbent President Mohamed Waheed on Wednesday, Nasheed’s rivals dropped a threat to veto the election and agreed to sign the registry, removing a major obstacle to the vote.

Waheed says he will not remain in power after his term expires on Nov.

MALE: In this file photograph, supporters of former Maldivian president and presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) stage a protest in Male. —AFP

11, raising the prospect of a leadership vacuum if the latest bid to hold the vote falters. The Election Commission said it would hold any run-off on Sunday, if no one gets more than half the vote tomorrow, and announce the winner the same evening. Some 240,000 people are eligible to vote.

Fight for supremacy The tension has set state institutions against each other. The Supreme Court is generally seen as sympathetic to the those loyal to old leader Gayoom, while parliament is dominated by Nasheed’s supporters. The Supreme Court opened hearings against legislators from Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) ahead of its planned vote on whether to impeach the attorney general, prosecutor general and defence minister. Two MDP legislators were convicted and dragged from parliament by security forces last week, while the MDP voted to impeach Attorney General Azima Shukoor, a lawyer for

former leader Gayoom prior to her appointment. Nasheed’s rivals say top election commission officials favour his party, and they still have major doubts about the credibility of the election. Nasheed, who once held a cabinet meeting under water with members wearing scuba gear to highlight the danger of rising sea levels, is equally suspicious of his election rivals. “There is no way they will participate in peaceful political activities,” Nasheed told a rally this week.

Nasheed’s removal in 2012 sparked protests by his supporters and a subsequent police crackdown. A Commonwealth-backed commission of inquiry later concluded that his removal did not constitute a coup.

The crisis has hit tourism, a vital source of earnings, and the Maldives has faced fuel shortages because it is unable to pay suppliers on time amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. As well as restoring investor confidence, the new president will also face rising Islamist ideology. —Reuters

15

International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

HK protestors use TV row to channel anger HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s decision not to grant a licence to a new TV operator has been met with an uproar that taps into deep mistrust of the government and concern for the city’s stagnating popular culture, say analysts. Thousands of demonstrators massed at government headquarters Wednesday night for the latest protest against a decision to award only two new free-to-air television licences.

What would likely be an uncontroversial issue elsewhere has become a lightning rod for public suspicion towards the territory’s Beijing-appointed leadership and frustration over the waning cultural significance of the former movie powerhouse. Hong Kong Television Network, a pay-TV service set up by self-made tycoon Ricky Wong, failed in its bid to secure a licence, the first to be offered in 40 years in a move to shake up local free-to-air programming. The company announced more than 300 job cuts following the October announcement.

The city of 7 million is currently served with two local free-to-air broadcasters and two subscription services — a situation that critics say is stifling creative output. Hong Kong’s move to grant permits to already established players i-Cable, a subsidiary of conglomerate Wharf Holdings, and Now TV, controlled by Li Ka-shing’s billionaire son Richard, was criticised as favouring big business and going against the city’s cherished free market principles.

“The underlying factor is the deep public mistrust towards the government, especially the non-transparent decision making process,” Sonny Lo, social scientist at Hong Kong Institute of Education, told AFP. Public frustration has manifested itself in increasingly fervent demonstrations since Hong Kong’s unpopular Chief Executive C.Y. Leung took on the role in 2012.

Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous status enshrines civil liberties not seen on mainland China, including the right to protest, until 2047 under the “One country, two systems” handover agreement. But many believe those liberties are steadily being eroded. Leung faced mass protests last year that forced his administration to scrap plans to introduce “national education” classes in schools that for many smacked too much of mainland Communist ideology. “The government has lacked the ability to anticipate public reactions towards its policies,” Lo said.

Analysts said the licence row also tapped into concerns over a decline in Hong Kong’s influence in the regional cultural landscape, with it unable to compete against South Korea’s dominant K-Pop, film and television output as well as content from Taiwan and Thailand. One protester said the move quashed hopes of a revitalisation of the television scene. “The government is preventing the development of creative industries. Other Asian countries are doing well. We should feel ashamed that we have become so weak,” Ho Tung-wing, 28, told AFP. Protesters have been demanding an explanation from the authorities for rejecting the bid by Wong, who has proven his ability to bring competition to other industries dominated by the city’s wealthy families, such as telecoms.

But officials have rejected calls to release full reports of the decision-making process, citing confidentiality. Police said that up to 9,500 people joined Wednesday’s rally, while organisers said 50,000 took part. At a similar rally in October, organisers said 120,000 attended compared to a police figure of 36,000. “A cultural issue like this has triggered large-scale collective action,” Chinese University professor Joseph Chan, an expert on the city’s mass media, told AFP. “Television permeates every social strata. Television watching is part of daily life for the overwhelming majority of people,” he said. “There is such uproar because people are frustrated and angry that the government dampened their hopes,” he said.

Former HKTV screenwriter Danny Chan, one of hundreds who lost their jobs after the firm failed to secure a licence, vented his anger. “The fact that the government is not giving a licence to a newcomer only shows that it is not fulfilling its promise on revitalising creative industries,” Chan said. “It is impossible to increase competitiveness when the sector is dominated by a few.”— AFP

N Korea arrests S Korean ‘spy’ Seoul intelligence slams ‘ridiculous’ claims PYONGYANG: North Korea’s security agency said yesterday it arrested a South Korean spy in Pyongyang who intended to rally anti-government forces, a claim that intelligence officials in Seoul quickly called ridiculous and groundless. Pyongyang regularly accuses Seoul and Washington of working to sabotage its secretive, authoritarian system - statements that outside analysts see as a way to strengthen domestic support for leader Kim Jong Un - but specific claims that an individual spy has been captured, especially before an investigation is concluded, are unusual.

The few details in the statement by an unidentified spokesman for the North’s state security ministry couldn’t be independently verified. North Korea said the South Korean man confessed to illegally entering the country, but there

was no statement from him and there were no details about his age, name, condition or legal representation. The North’s claim comes amid worsening ties. The Koreas had turned to tentative diplomacy after a spring that saw a neardaily barrage of threats, including North Korean warnings of nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington. But tension has renewed since North Korea canceled planned reunions in September of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The North Korean security ministry said that the South Korean initially said he was a Chinese citizen living in North Korea and then said he was a citizen of another country. The initial investigation found that the South Korean spent six years in a country bordering North Korea using religion to disguise anti-

North Korea espionage activities, the North’s statement alleged. It said the investigation was intensifying, without elaborating.

Many South Korean missionaries work with North Korean defectors and border-crossers in China. Kenneth Bae, an American missionary and tour operator, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being arrested for alleged hostile acts in North Korea a year ago.

North Korea officially recognizes freedom of religion, but it tolerates only sanctioned churches, and activists and defectors call it one of the world’s worst places for religion. An official with South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office rules, said the North was making “a ridiculous argument. It’s groundless.” —AP

S Korea put to the test for high-pressure exam SEOUL: South Korea fell silent for annual college entrance exams yesterday, rescheduling flights and restricting traffic as 650,000 students sat a test that will define their adult lives in an ultra-competitive society. Preparation for the crucial exam starts from primary school, and so does the relentless pressure which has been blamed for everything from early burnout and teenage depression to suicide.

Success in the exam-meaning a secured place in one of South Korea’s elite universities-is seen as the key to everything from future careers to marriage prospects. With so much riding on the outcome, the day of the test-simultaneously in 1,257 centres nationwidesees the entire country go into “hush” mode. The transportation ministry bans all airport landings and departures for a 40-minute period to coincide with the main language listening test.

The military also reschedules airforce drills and live-firing exercises and traffic is barred within a 200-meter radius of the test centres. Public offices and major businesses, as well as the stock markets, opened an hour later than usual yesterday to help keep the roads relatively clear and ensure the students arrived on time.

Anyone who did get stuck could dial the emergency number 112, and request help from police cars and motorbikes on standby to rush them to the centres. At Seoul’s Pungmoon Girls’ High School, junior students put up good-luck banners and lined up to shout encouragement as their seniors entered the exam room.

For the equally-stressed parents, for whom their child’s result will partly be seen as a mark of their parental aptitude and devotion, there was little left to do.

Mothers, one flicking through her

SEOUL: Junior high school students cheer their seniors taking the College Scholastic Ability Test, a standardised exam for college entrance, outside a high school yesterday. — AFP Buddhist prayer beads, prayed outside the Pungmoon school gate, while others went directly to temples in search for some divine intervention.

The approach of the exam day tends to renew a perennial debate in South Korea about the country’s obsession with education and the pros and cons of the college entrance system. The bottom line for many is that the examination itself is fair. Everyone takes the same paper, which relies on the multiple choice system to prevent subjective marking.

Security is absolute, with the hundreds of exam-setters sequestered for more than a month in a secret location, which they are only allowed to leave once the test has been taken. They are kept in total isolation, denied phone contact with their families and with

everything down to their food waste subject to rigorous examination.

But if the exam treats everyone equally, critics say preparation favours the rich, and can be ruinous for poorer and middle-income families. According to the Education Ministry, South Korean parents spent 19 trillion won ($17.5 billion) on extra tuition for their children last year-equivalent to about 1.5 percent of the national GDP. Students average five hours sleep a night as the test nears-a level of physical fatigue that, coupled with the mental anxiety, leads to a discernible spike in suicides around the exam period.

Educational reformers also voice concern over the validity of the exam and the sort of students it produces, pointing to the lack of importance given to creativity or critical thinking.—AFP

International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Letter given to emperor causes uproar in Japan TOKYO: A novice Japanese lawmaker who wanted to draw attention to the Fukushima nuclear crisis has caused an uproar by doing something taboo: handing a letter to the emperor.

The ruckus began at an annual autumn Imperial Palace garden party last week. As Emperor Akihito and his wife, Michiko, greeted a line of guests, outspoken actor-turned-lawmaker Taro Yamamoto gave the emperor the letter - a gesture considered both impolite and inappropriate.

Video of the encounter, repeatedly aired on television, shows the 79-year-old emperor calmly taking the letter, written on a folded “washi” paper with ink and brush, and briefly talking with Yamamoto. An apparently wary Empress Michiko gently pulled her husband’s elbow from behind. The chief steward, who was standing next to Akihito, grabbed the letter the instant the emperor turned to him.

Yamamoto’s action drew criticism from both ends of the ideological spectrum and left many Japanese baffled by what they consider to be a major breach of protocol: reaching out to the emperor in an unscripted act. The controversy shows how the role of Japan’s emperor remains a sensitive issue, nearly 70 years after Akihito’s father, Emperor Hirohito, renounced his divinity following Japan’s defeat in World War II and became a symbol of the state.

Many conservatives still consider the emperor and his family divine (“the people above the clouds”) and believe a commoner shouldn’t even talk to him. Decades ago, commoners were not even allowed to directly look at the emperor, but today Akihito does meet with ordinary people, including those in disaster-hit areas in northern Japan.

There is no specific law, but people are not supposed to talk freely to the emperor, touch him or hand him something without permission. Taking a cellphone picture of the emperor or his family also is considered impolite. An upper house committee is discussing whether to discipline Yamamoto and a decision is expected this week. The 38-year-old lawmaker, who was elected in July as an independent, has apologized for troubling the emperor but rejected calls to step down. He could be reprimanded by the house president, who also could bar him from palace events.

Yamamoto, an anti-nuclear activist, said he wanted to make an appeal to the emperor about the crisis in Fukushima and its possible health impact on residents and workers cleaning up the power plant, which suffered three meltdowns after it was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Neither Yamamoto nor the palace has released the letter’s contents. If Yamamoto sought the emperor’s assistance, he may have violated a law requiring Cabinet approval for such requests. Yamamoto denied any intention to use the emperor for political purposes - a possible infringement of the postwar Constitution, which relegates the emperor to a non-political, ceremonial role. “My behavior was indiscreet for a place like the garden party,” Yamamoto said at a news conference Tuesday. “I just wanted the emperor to know the reality. I was frustrated by not being able to achieve any of my campaign promises yet.”

Liberals criticize Yamamoto for turning to the emperor for help rather than upholding democratic principles as an elected lawmaker. Some worry that Yamamoto’s ploy reinforced the idea that the emperor is Japan’s most trusted public figure, and fear that could play into conservative efforts to give the emperor more powers. Others criticize Yamamoto as an amateur and populist politician who has set back the antinuclear movement, said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo.

The emperor speaks publicly only at formal ceremonies and rare news conferences. The Imperial Household Agency vice chief said Tuesday that Yamamoto’s action was “inappropriate,” and that the incident could affect operation of future palace public events. He said the agency has the letter, and Akihito hasn’t read it. Yamamoto’s anti-nuclear stance makes him a target for conservatives in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is pushing for a return to nuclear power.

Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura called for Yamamoto’s resignation. A few people, including commentators and Yamamoto’s sympathizers, liken him to Shozo Tanaka, a lawmaker seen as a hero for his 1901 appeal to Emperor Meiji, Akihito’s great-grandfather, over copper mine pollution.—AP

Japan puts missiles on Pacific gateway islands Military drill poses threat to Chinese navy TOKYO: Japan is putting missiles on islands marking the gateway to the Pacific, officials said yesterday, as part of a huge military drill that has unsettled Beijing. The exercise, aimed at bolstering Japan’s defence of remote islands, has already seen a launching system and a loader for Type-88 surface-to-ship missiles installed on Miyako island, complete with two missiles. Four more missiles were due to arrive on the main island of Okinawa later. It was not clear how long they would remain in place. “This is the first time” that missile systems have been taken to Miyako, said a spokesman for the Joint Staff of the Self Defence Forces, adding that the missiles could not be fired in their present state.

“The drill is designed for the defence of islands,” he said. While the Japanese military makes no secret of the fact these missiles are not operable, observers say their deployment serves to remind anyone watching of Japan’s capabilities. The Self Defense Forces began their 18 days of war games on November 1, with 34,000 military personnel, six vessels and 360 aircraft.

The exercise comes amid growing nervousness in Japan and other parts of Asia over China’s surging military might, which has seen it expand its naval reach into the Pacific Ocean as it squabbles with Tokyo over the ownership of islands in the East China Sea. Beijing also has separate disputes with numerous countries over competing claims in the South China Sea. It claims most of the sea as its territory. Chinese naval assets stationed in the north of the country are somewhat hemmed in by the chain of Japanese islands that separate the East China Sea and the Pacific.

The strait between Miyako and the main island of Okinawa

offers one of the few direct access points to the ocean. The Japanese drill would bring the roughly 300-kilometre (190-mile) stretch between the main Okinawa island and Miyako under the missiles’ presumed range, Japanese media reported. Tokyo has said the drill is not aimed at any specific nation, but Japanese leaders have openly expressed disquiet as China escalates its territorial claims. The Self Defence Forces are also preparing to form a special amphibious unit, much like the US Marine Corps, whose remit would be to defend small islands and recapture them in case of enemy attacks. Beijing has routinely sent government vessels to disputed islands in the East China Sea, staging dangerous face-offs between the two nations’ coastguards. In the latest incident, four Chinese coastguard vessels yesterday entered territorial waters off one of the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands-which Beijing calls the Diaoyus. They remained for around 90 minutes, Japan’s coastguard said.Relations between Asia’s two largest economies have frayed badly over the last year, with the islands the ostensible focus of a dispute that is fanned by nationalism on both sides. For China, the row is also fuelled by unresolved historical grievances, while Tokyo is on edge over what it sees as a sometimes hostile neighbour whose military is expanding at a real lick.

The ongoing Japanese drill has irritated Beijing, where local media said there was no doubt it was aimed at China. The Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, reported on its front page yesterday that Japan’s decision to bring the missiles to Miyako was “an unprecedented move that experts say is targeted at blocking the Chinese navy”.—AFP

OKUMA: An official of Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) measures radiation past a pool of spent nuclear fuel at the nuclear reactor four building of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant yesterday. — AFP

Fukushima plant readies for dangerous fuel rod removal FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI: Nuclear engineers in Japan are preparing to move uranium and plutonium fuel rods at Fukushima, their most difficult and dangerous task since the plant’s runaway reactors were brought under control two years ago. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) is expected this month to begin removing fuel rods from a pool inside a reactor building at the tsunami-hit plant, in a technically challenging operation that will test the utility’s expertise after months of setbacks and glitches.

Experts say the operation is a tricky but essential step in the decades-long decommissioning and recovery after the worst atomic accident in a generation. But, they add, it pales in comparison with the much more complex task that awaits engineers in the future.

They will have to remove the misshapen cores of three reactors that went into meltdown, probably relying on technology that has not yet been invented.

More than 1,500 nuclear fuel assemblies-bundles of rods-must

be pulled out of the storage pool where they were being kept when a tsunami smashed into Fukushima in March 2011. The reactor which the pool serves-No. 4 — was not in operation at the time. But hydrogen from Reactor No. 3 escaped into the building and exploded, tearing the roof off and leaving it at the mercy of natural hazards like earthquakes, storms or another tsunami.

TEPCO says it has not yet found any damage to the assemblies at No. 4, which contain a mixture of uranium and plutonium, but will be monitoring for abnormalities. The removal of fuel is part of regular work at any nuclear power plant, but “conditions are different from normal because of the disaster”, said company spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida.

“It is crucial. It is a first big step towards decommissioning the reactors,” she said. “Being fully aware of risks, we are determined to go ahead with operations cautiously and securely.” “This is an operation TEPCO cannot afford to bungle”—AFP

International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

2 killed, 7 injured in Detroit shooting DETROIT: Gunfire broke out Wednesday evening at a Detroit barbershop known for gambling activity, leaving at least two men dead, police say. The shootings happened about 6 pm at Al’s Barber Shop, said police spokeswoman Kelly Miner. She said nine men were shot and two of them were confirmed dead. Details were sketchy because police were still investigating what happened, and it wasn’t yet clear how many people opened fire. Police Chief James Craig told reporters at the scene that “suspects engaged a couple of victims” before “several shots were fired.” He said it’s not known if any of the victims fired back.

Miner said two cars pulled up outside the barbershop and people in the vehicles exchanged gunfire

Detroit mayor-elect resents focus on race DETROIT: Detroit’s mayor-elect said Wednesday that far too much had been made of his skin color during a successful campaign that will make him the predominantly black city’s first white mayor in four decades. Appearing at his first news conference as mayor-elect, Mike Duggan said he would meet over the next two days with Michigan’s governor and Detroit’s current leaders, including the state-appointed emergency manager who currently controls the cash-strapped city’s checkbook.

With Detroit grappling with $18 billion in debt and awaiting a judge’s ruling on whether it can move forward with a bankruptcy filing, Duggan said the race of the mayor is not a factor.

“I resent it. I’ve resented it from the beginning,” Duggan said.

“People in this city got past it almost a year ago, as people got to know me and we started to relate as individuals.”

Unofficial general election results Tuesday night showed Duggan, a former Detroit Medical Center chief executive, defeating Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55 percent to 45 percent. Napoleon is black. Race, more specifically black and white, has defined Detroit for generations. More than 80 percent of the 700,000 people living in Detroit are black. The last time it had a white mayor, only about 44 percent of Detroit’s 1.5 million residents were black and the city was only a few years removed from a race riot that left 43 people dead and dozens of buildings burned.

“Detroit became ‘black Detroit’ and the suburbs became the ‘white suburbs, and people picked sides,” then-mayor and now convicted felon Kwame Kilpatrick told The Associated Press for a story in 2007. Of the 10 cities of at least 100,000 people with the largest percentage of black residents, only New Orleans and Montgomery, Ala., have white mayors. The others have black mayors.

Duggan’s election could help blur the color lines, but when he takes office in January Detroit officially could be bankrupt.

He will be expected to have solutions for lowering one of the highest violent crime rates in the country - in a city that struggles to respond to 911 calls - and fixing Detroit’s many crumbling neighborhoods. Public transportation is in shambles, as are other city services.

Those are things Paulette Warren wants corrected, and she said she couldn’t care less about the race of the city’s mayor.

“When you call 911 you want to know an ambulance is coming,” said Warren, who is black and voted Tuesday for Duggan.

“It’s all about who can do the job. It’s not about color.”

Race is as much a part of Detroit, its politics, citizenry and relationship with suburban neighbors as assembly lines and the cars that rolled across them. In the 1950s, about 1.8 million people lived in Detroit, but the lure of new homes in fresh suburbs started an exodus from the urban core. The 1967 riot hastened white flight. And when a brash, black labor leader named Coleman A. Young was elected mayor in 1973, Detroit’s growing black populace began to flex its political muscle.

Young issued a warning to the city’s crime element to leave Detroit at its Eight Mile Road city limits. Many whites in communities north of that demarcation were appalled and angered. The rift between them and black Detroiters widened.

But soon, the same suburbs that earlier welcomed white families became too attractive for the city’s black middle class to ignore. Thousands of blacks also left Detroit for safer neighborhoods and better schools, leaving parts of the city virtually empty. They also took their money and much of the city’s tax base.—AP

with each other. “Somehow someone shot into the building, and that’s when people rushed out of the building and were running into other area businesses for cover,” she said. Both of the dead men were inside the barbershop, she said. Lorne Carter told the Detroit Free Press that he was smoking a cigarette against the wall of a nearby business when he heard what sounded like 30 to 40 shots.

“It sounded rapid,” Carter said. Police used yellow crime tape to cordon off several blocks around the shooting scene. A frantic Elaine Williams waited behind the tape to learn the fate of her 29-year-old son, who had gone to the barbershop for a haircut, The Detroit News reported. “Help me find my son,” she cried. The

barbershop is in a strip mall along a major road on the city’s east side. Nearby businesses include a Chinese restaurant, auto repair shops and a convenience store.

Craig said Al’s is a known illegal gambling spot. “We’re not sure if this was over a bad debt. We have no idea,” the police chief said. “We know it’s a barbershop and gambling has occurred in this location.”

He told reporters that police were looking for two vehicles that the suspects might have been using: a 2004 white Chevrolet Impala that possibly has a broken window and bullet holes in the back, and a 2004 black Impala. Miner said police would continue to question witnesses late Wednesday and would release no further information for the night. — AP

Bill de Blasio takes early steps to seat of NYC power De Blasio vows to maintain public, economic safety NEW YORK: A day after recording a historic landslide victory, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio sat down with the man he is replacing, Michael Bloomberg, and began planning for the transition to a liberal agenda of what he calls economic inclusiveness after more than two decades of more conservative leadership. De Blasio, the first Democrat to be elected mayor since 1989, portrayed himself as the cleanest break from the 12 years of Michael Bloomberg, the outgoing mayor whose policies helped make New York one of the nation’s safest and most prosperous big cities but also one that has become increasingly stratified between the very rich and the working class.

The mayor-elect’s first move Wednesday was to meet with a man he frequently criticized during the campaign. Bloomberg presented his successor with an electronic book with information on city agencies, and the two men talked for more than an hour, much of it with photographers’ cameras clicking.

“It was a very cordial conversation, a very helpful conversation,” de Blasio told reporters later at a later Manhattan news conference.

“He and his team have been very forthcoming and very positive

NAPLES: Neapolitan pizza maker Luigi Sorbillo (center) poses with the pizza he cooked in honour of Bill de Blasio on November 6, 2013 in Naples, the day after de Blasio†was elected New York city mayor. — AFP

with their help.” De Blasio said he was confident that the change of power would be smooth and that they would meet again before he takes office Jan. 1.

The pleasantries at the photo op aside, much of de Blasio’s campaign was run as a repudiation of Bloomberg, and the incoming mayor made it clear Wednesday he felt the voters had emboldened him with the power to change the course of the city. “The people in this city have spoken, and the mandate is clear that is our obligation to create a city in which our prosperity is shared and there is opportunity for all,” he said.

He has vowed to maintain the public and economic safety gains made under Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, but also give a voice to those who felt forgotten by what they felt were the Manhattan-centric policies of the previous two administrations. His first hires were meant to signal a commitment to that balancing act.

Jennifer Jones Austin, who runs a social services organization and specializes in early childhood education and civil rights, and Carl Weisbrod, who helped shepherd the economic revitalization of Times Square and found the New York City Economic Development Corporation, will run his transition. That pledge to fight income inequality appears to have resonated with residents of a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 6 to 1.

“This is not a sharp turn to the left; it’s a return to normal,” said retired Hunter College political science professor Kenneth Sherrill, who noted that the Republicans’ unlikely mayoral winning streak was in part due to unusual circumstances. “This is the first election in 20 years in which the Republican candidate for mayor was not charismatic, was not a billionaire and there was not a massive crisis that would cause people to defect from their normal party loyalties,” Sherrill said.

Giuliani, a Republican, defeated Democrat David Dinkins in 1993 amid fears about soaring crime rates, and Bloomberg won in 2001 largely thanks to his media fortune and the fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks. De Blasio trounced Republican rival Joe Lhota 73 percent to 24 percent in incomplete, unofficial returns that would provide the largest margin of victory for a non-incumbent in city history.

De Blasio, 52, will need that political capital to tackle his signature campaign promise: to get Albany’s approval to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers in order to fund universal pre-kindergarten. He said Wednesday that his transition team would soon help select a first deputy mayor, who would then in turn help him fill two key administration posts: a new schools chancellor, who he has vowed will be an educator who will listen more to the concerns of parents, and perhaps most pressing, a new police commissioner.

De Blasio comes to office with the backing of most major unions, but they will soon sit at the other end of the negotiating table as the new mayor addresses a major fiscal crisis. All the city’s municipal unions have expired contracts, and many of their leaders are demanding back pay that could total $7.8 billion, a payout many economists believe would cripple the city’s finances. De Blasio has vowed not to negotiate in public but has said retroactive raises could be difficult. De Blasio leaves Wednesday for the Somos El Futuro conference, an annual retreat for city and state Democratic leaders in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is expected to meet with several party powerbrokers who will have a hand in shaping the new administration. —AP

International FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

2 killed, 7 injured in Detroit shooting DETROIT: Gunfire broke out Wednesday evening at a Detroit barbershop known for gambling activity, leaving at least two men dead, police say. The shootings happened about 6 pm at Al’s Barber Shop, said police spokeswoman Kelly Miner. She said nine men were shot and two of them were confirmed dead. Details were sketchy because police were still investigating what happened, and it wasn’t yet clear how many people opened fire. Police Chief James Craig told reporters at the scene that “suspects engaged a couple of victims” before “several shots were fired.” He said it’s not known if any of the victims fired back.

Miner said two cars pulled up outside the barbershop and people in the vehicles exchanged gunfire

Detroit mayor-elect resents focus on race DETROIT: Detroit’s mayor-elect said Wednesday that far too much had been made of his skin color during a successful campaign that will make him the predominantly black city’s first white mayor in four decades. Appearing at his first news conference as mayor-elect, Mike Duggan said he would meet over the next two days with Michigan’s governor and Detroit’s current leaders, including the state-appointed emergency manager who currently controls the cash-strapped city’s checkbook.

With Detroit grappling with $18 billion in debt and awaiting a judge’s ruling on whether it can move forward with a bankruptcy filing, Duggan said the race of the mayor is not a factor.

“I resent it. I’ve resented it from the beginning,” Duggan said.

“People in this city got past it almost a year ago, as people got to know me and we started to relate as individuals.”

Unofficial general election results Tuesday night showed Duggan, a former Detroit Medical Center chief executive, defeating Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55 percent to 45 percent. Napoleon is black. Race, more specifically black and white, has defined Detroit for generations. More than 80 percent of the 700,000 people living in Detroit are black. The last time it had a white mayor, only about 44 percent of Detroit’s 1.5 million residents were black and the city was only a few years removed from a race riot that left 43 people dead and dozens of buildings burned.

“Detroit became ‘black Detroit’ and the suburbs became the ‘white suburbs, and people picked sides,” then-mayor and now convicted felon Kwame Kilpatrick told The Associated Press for a story in 2007. Of the 10 cities of at least 100,000 people with the largest percentage of black residents, only New Orleans and Montgomery, Ala., have white mayors. The others have black mayors.

Duggan’s election could help blur the color lines, but when he takes office in January Detroit officially could be bankrupt.

He will be expected to have solutions for lowering one of the highest violent crime rates in the country - in a city that struggles to respond to 911 calls - and fixing Detroit’s many crumbling neighborhoods. Public transportation is in shambles, as are other city services.

Those are things Paulette Warren wants corrected, and she said she couldn’t care less about the race of the city’s mayor.

“When you call 911 you want to know an ambulance is coming,” said Warren, who is black and voted Tuesday for Duggan.

“It’s all about who can do the job. It’s not about color.”

Race is as much a part of Detroit, its politics, citizenry and relationship with suburban neighbors as assembly lines and the cars that rolled across them. In the 1950s, about 1.8 million people lived in Detroit, but the lure of new homes in fresh suburbs started an exodus from the urban core. The 1967 riot hastened white flight. And when a brash, black labor leader named Coleman A. Young was elected mayor in 1973, Detroit’s growing black populace began to flex its political muscle.

Young issued a warning to the city’s crime element to leave Detroit at its Eight Mile Road city limits. Many whites in communities north of that demarcation were appalled and angered. The rift between them and black Detroiters widened.

But soon, the same suburbs that earlier welcomed white families became too attractive for the city’s black middle class to ignore. Thousands of blacks also left Detroit for safer neighborhoods and better schools, leaving parts of the city virtually empty. They also took their money and much of the city’s tax base.—AP

with each other. “Somehow someone shot into the building, and that’s when people rushed out of the building and were running into other area businesses for cover,” she said. Both of the dead men were inside the barbershop, she said. Lorne Carter told the Detroit Free Press that he was smoking a cigarette against the wall of a nearby business when he heard what sounded like 30 to 40 shots.

“It sounded rapid,” Carter said. Police used yellow crime tape to cordon off several blocks around the shooting scene. A frantic Elaine Williams waited behind the tape to learn the fate of her 29-year-old son, who had gone to the barbershop for a haircut, The Detroit News reported. “Help me find my son,” she cried. The

barbershop is in a strip mall along a major road on the city’s east side. Nearby businesses include a Chinese restaurant, auto repair shops and a convenience store.

Craig said Al’s is a known illegal gambling spot. “We’re not sure if this was over a bad debt. We have no idea,” the police chief said. “We know it’s a barbershop and gambling has occurred in this location.”

He told reporters that police were looking for two vehicles that the suspects might have been using: a 2004 white Chevrolet Impala that possibly has a broken window and bullet holes in the back, and a 2004 black Impala. Miner said police would continue to question witnesses late Wednesday and would release no further information for the night. — AP

Bill de Blasio takes early steps to seat of NYC power De Blasio vows to maintain public, economic safety NEW YORK: A day after recording a historic landslide victory, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio sat down with the man he is replacing, Michael Bloomberg, and began planning for the transition to a liberal agenda of what he calls economic inclusiveness after more than two decades of more conservative leadership. De Blasio, the first Democrat to be elected mayor since 1989, portrayed himself as the cleanest break from the 12 years of Michael Bloomberg, the outgoing mayor whose policies helped make New York one of the nation’s safest and most prosperous big cities but also one that has become increasingly stratified between the very rich and the working class.

The mayor-elect’s first move Wednesday was to meet with a man he frequently criticized during the campaign. Bloomberg presented his successor with an electronic book with information on city agencies, and the two men talked for more than an hour, much of it with photographers’ cameras clicking.

“It was a very cordial conversation, a very helpful conversation,” de Blasio told reporters later at a later Manhattan news conference.

“He and his team have been very forthcoming and very positive

NAPLES: Neapolitan pizza maker Luigi Sorbillo (center) poses with the pizza he cooked in honour of Bill de Blasio on November 6, 2013 in Naples, the day after de Blasio was elected New York city mayor. — AFP

with their help.” De Blasio said he was confident that the change of power would be smooth and that they would meet again before he takes office Jan. 1.

The pleasantries at the photo op aside, much of de Blasio’s campaign was run as a repudiation of Bloomberg, and the incoming mayor made it clear Wednesday he felt the voters had emboldened him with the power to change the course of the city. “The people in this city have spoken, and the mandate is clear that is our obligation to create a city in which our prosperity is shared and there is opportunity for all,” he said.

He has vowed to maintain the public and economic safety gains made under Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, but also give a voice to those who felt forgotten by what they felt were the Manhattan-centric policies of the previous two administrations. His first hires were meant to signal a commitment to that balancing act.

Jennifer Jones Austin, who runs a social services organization and specializes in early childhood education and civil rights, and Carl Weisbrod, who helped shepherd the economic revitalization of Times Square and found the New York City Economic Development Corporation, will run his transition. That pledge to fight income inequality appears to have resonated with residents of a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 6 to 1.

“This is not a sharp turn to the left; it’s a return to normal,” said retired Hunter College political science professor Kenneth Sherrill, who noted that the Republicans’ unlikely mayoral winning streak was in part due to unusual circumstances. “This is the first election in 20 years in which the Republican candidate for mayor was not charismatic, was not a billionaire and there was not a massive crisis that would cause people to defect from their normal party loyalties,” Sherrill said.

Giuliani, a Republican, defeated Democrat David Dinkins in 1993 amid fears about soaring crime rates, and Bloomberg won in 2001 largely thanks to his media fortune and the fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks. De Blasio trounced Republican rival Joe Lhota 73 percent to 24 percent in incomplete, unofficial returns that would provide the largest margin of victory for a non-incumbent in city history.

De Blasio, 52, will need that political capital to tackle his signature campaign promise: to get Albany’s approval to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers in order to fund universal pre-kindergarten. He said Wednesday that his transition team would soon help select a first deputy mayor, who would then in turn help him fill two key administration posts: a new schools chancellor, who he has vowed will be an educator who will listen more to the concerns of parents, and perhaps most pressing, a new police commissioner.

De Blasio comes to office with the backing of most major unions, but they will soon sit at the other end of the negotiating table as the new mayor addresses a major fiscal crisis. All the city’s municipal unions have expired contracts, and many of their leaders are demanding back pay that could total $7.8 billion, a payout many economists believe would cripple the city’s finances. De Blasio has vowed not to negotiate in public but has said retroactive raises could be difficult. De Blasio leaves Wednesday for the Somos El Futuro conference, an annual retreat for city and state Democratic leaders in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is expected to meet with several party powerbrokers who will have a hand in shaping the new administration. —AP

Business FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013 Twitter up for public stock debut on NYSE

China’s leaders set to meet on economic reform PAGE 20

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DUBAI: Emirati visitors examine the Dodge Viper GTS at the Dubai International Motor Show. — AP

Gulf car sales highlight consumer boom Recovery of asset prices in UAE, Kuwait help DUBAI: A surge in passenger car sales across most Gulf Arab countries underlines the momentum behind the region’s consumer spending boom, and sales are likely to continue rising strongly for at least a few years, automobile sector executives said. Car sales are an important indicator of business activity in a region where official macroeconomic data, such as gross domestic product, is often unreliable and released with delays of many months.

Analysts estimate GDP in the richest Gulf Arab economies - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar - is now growing at annual rates of around 3 to 5 percent, fuelled by high oil prices and heavy government spending.

Data from executives at this week’s Dubai International Motor Show suggest important areas of consumer spending are rising at much faster rates, and that Gulf citizens are spending much of the welfare handouts which governments have provided since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 to ensure social peace. “Sales are 17 percent up so far (this year). It will be a good strong end of the year as well,” said Trevor Hill, managing director at Audi Middle East. Audi, the luxury arm of Germany’s Volkswagen, sold 9,155 cars in the Middle East last year; the United Arab Emirates accounted for over 40 percent. In January this year, the company predicted that 2013 sales in the region would rise 12-15 percent.

Luxury Official industry-wide numbers are not available, but because of consumers’ high average incomes and ultra-low, subsidised petrol prices, car sales in the Gulf are skewed towards upmarket brands and large sport utility vehicles (SUVs), in comparison with Europe and many Asian markets.

Britain’s Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a luxury car maker owned by India’s Tata Motors, saw a 38 percent year-on-year jump in Middle Eastern and North African sales for the first nine months of 2013, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia its top two markets.

“The economy has been very strong and a lot of the markets in the Middle East are doing very well generally,” said Robin Colgan, JLR’s managing director for the region. One reason for strong consumer spending growth in some Gulf economies, particularly the UAE and Kuwait, is a recovery of real estate and equity markets from the global financial crisis; this has made customers feel richer.

Residential real estate prices in Dubai, the UAE’s business hub, tumbled more than 50 percent in 2008-2010 as a bubble burst, but are up over 20 percent in the last 12 months - in part because of an inflow of money from investors fleeing political unrest in North Africa. Dubai’s foreign trade in motor vehicles jumped 18 percent to 32 billion dirhams ($8.7 billion) in the first half of 2013, with Japan accounting for a quarter of the total followed by the United States, according to the emirate’s

customs office.

That number includes re-exports as well as imports; the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries do not produce passenger cars of their own, and Dubai imports many cars that are subsequently shipped elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia.

Auto makers are keen to expand sales in the Gulf partly because they face overcapacity and price pressures in Europe, which has been hit by the euro-zone’s debt crisis.

Opel, a German unit of US car maker General Motors Co , exhibited at this week’s Dubai motor show for the first time in 15 years, after entering the UAE market in February. “We are back now after 15 years and clearly identified the Middle East as a growth region,” said Lutz J‰ckel, director of sales, marketing and after-sales at Opel International Operations. “We expect in the region average growth of the car market of 10-15 percent, and we want to participate.”

Saudi assembly plant Rival US car maker Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday it planned to launch 17 new or refreshed Ford and Lincoln vehicles in the Middle East over the next two years to accelerate growth in the region. “In the Middle East over the last four years it is growing by 60 percent. Our forecast is that by 2020, the industry could reach about 5.5 million units, so that is another 40 percent growth on top,”

said Stephen Odell, president of Ford Europe, Middle East and Africa.

New car sales in the UAE are likely to jump to 380,000 units in 2013, up 23 percent from 2012 and above the 2008 peak hit before the global credit crunch, according to the Middle East Automotive Council, an informal body of auto makers in the Gulf. Audi’s Hill said growth could accelerate further if Dubai won the right to host the 2020 World Expo; the result of its bid to stage the world’s fair is expected to be known late this month. “There will be an influx of investment, influx of hotels, a lot of customers coming to the market.”

A tantalising prospect is that rising auto demand in the Gulf Arab countries will eventually support the opening of car making plants in the region. With weak manufacturing sectors outside the oil industry, the countries lack much of the infrastructure needed to produce cars competitively. But that is changing; governments are spending billions of dollars on better ports and communications, and are keen to promote private sector industries that would diversify their economies and create jobs for their citizens. In December, JLR signed an agreement with authorities in Saudi Arabia to complete a feasibility study of vehicle manufacturing there. “Saudi Arabia is interesting for a number of reasons, not least for the proximity to a very important SUV market,” Colgan said, declining to comment on the study’s progress. — Reuters

Business FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Ireland heads for end of bailout in final review DUBLIN: Three years after going cap in hand to international lenders for a bail out, Ireland is set to step out on its own again. The European Union and International Monetary Fund are due to sign off later yesterday on the last part of a 85 billion euro ($114 billion) bailout, leaving Ireland to exit the process by the end of the year, the first crisis-hit euro zone country to do so.

Debts resulting from a rescue of its crashing bank sector in 2008 helped force Ireland into seeking aid from its EU partners and the European Union two years later as the euro-zone’s debt crisis deepened. The official “troika” of lenders - the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF - are conducting their final review of the

bailout and given Ireland has met every major target, are widely expected to release the final funds. They are expected to release statements after about 1200 GMT. The main issue remaining is whether the government will take out an insurance policy of asking for a precautionary credit line when the bailout ends. It has indicated in recent weeks it may go it alone as it has funding into 2015. “The assessment of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF is largely positive, though they remain wary of unresolved problems in the banking sector,” said Dermot O’Leary, economist at Goodbody stockbrokers.

The process may also be complicated by German efforts to form a new

China’s leaders set to meet on economic reform BEIJING: China’s new leadership holds a key meeting this weekend that state media are trumpeting as a likely “watershed” for economic reform, but analysts caution details of its decisions are likely to be vague and implementation gradual. The four-day session of the full 376strong Communist Party Central Committee begins tomorrow at a closely guarded private hotel in Beijing.

Known as the Third Plenum, it traditionally sets the economic tone for a government’s five-year term.

In the past, such meetings have been used to signal farreaching changes in how China does business, and staterun media say that anticipation has been building. The official Xinhua news agency proclaimed that the plenum “is expected to be a watershed as drastic economic policies will be unveiled”. Other reports have singled out land reform as a key issue, while a government think-tank called for dismantling the residency registration system known as hukou, which restricts access to medical insurance and other benefits for migrants.

But analysts are largely unconvinced and say broad brushstrokes rather than firm details are likely to emerge from the meeting. Cai Hongbin, a professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, said key issues such as urbanisation, the social safety net, taxation and financial reforms would be discussed. “But I don’t see a sweeping policy package with many specific major policy changes basically across the spectrum,” Cai told reporters, emphasising more time was needed given the complexity of the issues. Precise measures were more likely to be included in China’s 13th five-year plan, to be announced in 2015, he said.

‘Reforms more complex than in the past’ China most notably signalled major changes at a Third Plenum in 1978, when it embarked on the landmark reform drive that has seen it transformed over the past 35 years from a Communist-style command economy into a key driver of global growth, trade and investment. But the impetus for far-reaching change this time is seen by some as nowhere near so compelling.

“Historically, China has implemented ground-breaking reforms when the economy has faced some serious challenges,” Nomura International economists in Hong Kong wrote in a report.

“However, we believe that pressures are not yet sufficient to demand such rapid implementation, while the reforms are more complex than they have been in the past.” Although the economy is no longer completely party- and state-controlled, the ruling body holds huge sway, with officials in charge of key elements, such as the exchange rate, that in other countries are left mostly to markets. State-owned enterprises also play a key role.

The plenum comes a year after China began a once-adecade leadership change, with Xi Jinping taking over as party general secretary in November and state president in March. —AFP

government given that Berlin is one of the main contributors to aid programmes. The country of 4.6 million has endured five years of austerity with little of the unrest that has rocked Greece and Spain and is now a much-needed success story for the EU, which wants to show that the discipline of tax hikes and spending cuts can work.

Irish debt yields have dropped from a 2011 peak of 15 percent to about 3.5 percent and the budget deficit has fallen from nearly a third of gross domestic product in 2010 to an estimated 7.3 percent this year. That is still the highest deficit-to-GDP in the EU, partly because Ireland’s economy is barely growing and it needs growth rates of 2-3 percent to make hefty national debt sustainable.

Unemployment, though falling, is above 13 percent and one in five home loans, worth 25 billion euros, are not being fully repaid. So all is not fixed.

The improvements have been enough to gain the government some market access, highlighted by a 10-year bond issue in March, but forgoing a precautionary line could leave it vulnerable to future market shocks and unable to access the ECB’s government bond purchases scheme.

Concerns also persist over the health of Ireland’s banks and the lenders are reviewing the quality of their assets - an exercise conducted in advance of full Europe-wide stress tests next year before giving the final all clear to exit the bailout. — Reuters

Twitter up for public stock debut on NYSE Twitter sets IPO price at $26, will raise $2.1bn NEW YORK: Twitter made its Wall Street debut yesterday with a price tag of $26 per share, bidding to raise up to $2.1 billion in the most eagerly awaited stock offering since Facebook. A tweet from the company said it would offer 70 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange, generating $1.82 billion, and give underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 10.5 million shares of common stock. The initial public offering (IPO) assigns a market value of around $14.4 billion to the company whose messaging service has become a hugely popular tool for celebrities, journalists, political leaders and others.

With the over-allotment it should be the second-biggest tech IPO after Facebook’s $16 billion effort last year and ahead of Google’s 2004 offer, which raised $1.92 billion, according to research firm Dealogic. Depending on the outcome of the common stock offer to underwriters, between 12.8 and 14.5 percent of the company’s shares will be publicly traded. The rest is held by its founders and a handful of early investors.

Twitter has fast become engrained in popular culture but must still convince investors of its business model, having lost more than $440 million since 2010.

Memories of Facebook’s botched offering will also abounded yestedray. But with 232 million users and growing, Twitter is expected to be able to reach profitability by delivering ads in the form of promoted tweets, and from its data analytics.

The research firm eMarketer estimates Twitter will bring in $582.8 million in global ad revenue this year, and nearly $1 billion in 2014. Eden Zoller at the Britishbased consultancy Ovum said Twitter needs to show it is executing its business plan to reassure the market. “Investors see social media and mobile as sweet spots and it is therefore no surprise that Twitter’s IPO is creating so much excitement and is oversubscribed,” she said in a research note.

“Twitter needs to step up and deliver on the expectations that are fueling its

NEW YORK: A banner adorns the facade of the New York Stock Exchange in advance of Twiiter’s initial public offering yesterday. — AP valuation, and show that it has what it may Twitter,” he said in a research note.

“As a public, real-time, conversational takes to provide a sustainable business model.” Zoller said it was key “to keep and distributed platform, Twitter is users engaged while driving advertising becoming an essential service for conrevenues,” and that “Twitter will need to sumers, businesses, media companies, innovate in both services and advertis- and advertisers. Twitter is where events, information, ideas, and fads get reported, ing.”

In a speech Wednesday in New York, purported, distributed, and exploited.”

Mary Jo White, the head of the US Twitter gets most of its revenue from Securities and Exchange Commission, advertising in the form of “promoted expressed concern over the perhaps tweets,” but has only been doing this for overzealous interest of investors-lured by about three years, and the model is not huge numbers of users of social media-in fine-tuned, said Nate Elliott at Forrester tech stocks with uncertain profitability. Research.

“Marketers’ most common objective “Our staff’s concern has been the impact on investors of the sheer magnitude of on Twitter is to build brand awareness. some of these metrics,” such as the num- But consumers are most likely to become a fan or follower of a company in social ber of users, she said.

For some investors “the true meaning media after they’ve already bought from of the metric (or more importantly the that company,” Elliott wrote on a blog. link from metric to income and eventual “Twitter must do more to support marprofitability) may not be clear or even keters. Twitter’s marketing business is still identified,” White said. Mark Mahaney at relatively young... but that business must RBC Capital Markets recommended the mature quickly.” Other analysts are skepstock with a target price of $33, saying it tical, saying the company’s model is may become “the next Internet utility.” unproven and that social media trends “Just as Google, Amazon and Facebook are too unpredictable to justify its high have become Internet utilities, so too valuation. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

India moves to level playing field for foreign banks NEW DELHI: India’s central bank has moved to level the playing field for foreign banks, opening up new opportunities for overseas lenders in Asia’s third-largest economy. The regulations, announced late Wednesday, allow foreign banks in India virtually the same freedom as local banks to set up branches, list on stock exchanges and make acquisitions. The rules change will also allow foreign banks to play a bigger role in expanding the Indian financial sector.

But the Reserve Bank of India attached several conditions to the move, insisting that foreign-owned banks convert to being wholly owned subsidiaries, rather than branches, as they are at present. This would allow the central bank greater oversight of foreign banks’ operations by making them subject to the same strict regulation as Indian banks. Another condition of the move is that banks must allocate 40 percent of their lending to

the “priority sector”, referring to small-scale industry, agriculture workers and low-income earners who find it difficult to obtain loans. Foreign lenders must also locate one of every four new branches opened in rural areas where there are currently few banks, partly due to the cost of running such far-flung outlets.

The new rules, which apply to banks present in India before 2010, are part of the central bank’s drive to strengthen the country’s financial system. The 2008 global financial crisis highlighted the increasing “interconnectedness of financial institutions” and the need for greater control over foreign institutions operating in India to ensure financial stability, the Reserve Bank said.

Converting foreign branches into subsidiaries would ensure that assets of the domestic bank are ring-fenced, it said, meaning the parent bank could not plunder its India-based assets. To ensure foreign banks do not

dominate India’s financial landscape, the Reserve Bank also said it would curb the expansion of foreign banks once the assets of overseas-owned institutions hit 20 percent of the national total.

Indian banks currently account for over two-thirds of the banking sector’s assets while foreign banks are still a tiny presence, holding just four percent of deposits, according to recent central bank figures. The new rules come after the appointment two months ago of a new central bank governor, Raghuram Rajan, who strongly favours financial reforms and modernisation of the banking system. Under the changes, wholly owned subsidiaries could strike acquisition deals with any private sector bank in India subject to a foreign investment cap of 74 percent. Foreign multinational banks operating in India include Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered. — AFP

Deflation fears as ECB meets ECB eyes further liquidity injection

TOKYO: In this picture, a Japanese elderly care company Asahi Sun Clean employee (top) wearing a power suit, called “Muscle Suit” powered by compressed air stored in an air tank on his back, lifts a fellow worker during a demonstration at the annual International Robot Exhibition. — AFP

Robots to help elderly or paint nail sat Tokyo expo TOKYO: Pneumatic muscle suits and a walking stick that behaves like a guide dog competed for attention with an industrial robot that can paint fingernails at a huge expo in Tokyo yesterday. In a country where a quarter of the 128-million population is aged over 65, innovations that can make life easier for the elderly or their caregivers are potentially big business and the subject of a lot of research.

A “muscle suit” that gives extra power to a carer to help them lift a bed-bound patient was one of the star attractions at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, which runs until tomorrow.

Worn like a backpack, the device is powered by compressed air and takes some of the strain out of lifting an elderly or disabled person by giving extra muscle-power to the back and hips. The machine, developed by Tokyo University of Science and a nursing care company, is activated by a tube in the wearer’s mouth, adding lift when the operator breathes in. Exhaling switches the power off.

“It feels like you’re using about half the power to lift people,” said caregiver Norikatsu Kimura, who took part in a trial at elderly care firm Asahi Sun Clean. “The assistance gives me relief as we are always worried about hurting our lower waist.” “I’ve seen many workers who were willing to continue this job but had to stop because of hip pain,” he said.

The device’s compressed air power makes it safe to use around water-vital because of the need to lift patients in and out of the bath.

It weighs 10 kilograms (22 pounds) including a two-kg air tank.

Among the 300 companies at the four-day expo was NSK, which was showcasing a walking stick-like device to help visually impaired users with physical support and guidance on directions.

The LIGHBOT, which looks a little like a cane standing on a tiny cart, can guide a visually-impaired user to a pre-programmed destination. It even watches out for dangers along the way, including trip hazards such as holes or walls, and head-height obstacles like branches. “Thanks to the sensors, this machine avoids any obstacle and allows visually-impaired users to move safely,” said Mayuko Mori from NSK. —AFP

FRANKFURT: Analysts expect the European Central Bank to hold its key rates steady at its policy meeting yesterday, but a threat of deflation in Europe could force the bank’s hand soon. The annual rate of inflation for the 17 countries that share the euro slowed unexpectedly to just 0.7 percent in October, the lowest rate in four years, raising fears the single currency area may tip into deflation-a vicious circle of falling prices, wages and output. But ECB watchers are not convinced that the data will trigger action from the central bank just yet.

With euro-zone interest rates currently at an all-time low of 0.50 percent, “the ECB has only one bullet left in its conventional tool box, and as long as the economy proceeds in line with expectations, the central bank may be reluctant to respond to lower inflation with a rate cut,” said UniCredit economist Marco Valli. ING DiBa economist Carsten Brzeski agreed. The rate-cut speculation “is premature,” he said. “The ECB simply does not have a reputation for knee-jerk reaction to single data releases. And a rate cut would do little to kick-start the economy as long as the transmission mechanism is not working properly,” Brzeski argued.

“Even if deflationary trends have opened the door wider for further ECB easing, we don’t expect such action this week.” Any further rate cut would only be seen “in the coming months, if and when deflationary tendencies prevail,” the expert concluded.

Deflation is bad for the economy because it can lead consumers to delay purchases in the expectation that prices will fall. Slower sales have a knock-on effect on orders to factories, which reduce production and then either cut wages or jobs. This leaves households in an even worse position and then often fearful to spend, worsening the cycle even further and creating a vicious circle that feeds upon itself.

Draghi may try to talk euro down The euro’s recent strong rise against the dollar and other major currencies is another headache for the ECB while the green shoots of economic recovery in the 17 countries that share the euro remain very vulnerable. A strengthening euro makes the region’s exports more

expensive and would therefore choke off foreign demand for European goods.

It also feeds deflation.

“The most effective measure that the ECB could take to diminish the risk of deflation would be to talk the euro down,” said Marie Diron at EY Euro-zone Forecast. “We think that the euro is currently overvalued and the ECB expressing similar concerns could potentially push the currency down,” she said.

As well as easing deflationary fears, “this would have the benefit of boosting the region’s competitiveness and growth,” she added. The euro has in fact actually come down from its recent highs of $1.38 as the lower-than-expected inflation fuelled rate cut speculation.

That “buys some time for the ECB” on rates, said Valli at UniCredit. But Brzeski at ING DiBa warned that “in the absence of concrete action (by the ECB), the euro could reverse its latest losses, re-entering the ECB’s danger zone. “Therefore, we expect the ECB to tackle the exchange rate verbally by including it as

a downside risk to both inflation and growth,” Brzeski said.

More liquidity moves on cards Another possible avenue of action would be for the ECB to pump more liquidity into the markets in the form of more long-term refinancing operations (LTROs), which it used at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 to avert a possible credit crunch. Draghi specifically raised such a possibility at the ECB meeting last month. But some ECB council members-notably executive board member Benoit Coeure and German central bank chief Jens Weidmann-harboured reservations about such a move, Kraemer noted.

And analysts agreed a move was unlikely to come as early as this week. “We think that the ECB’s next move will be another LTRO, possibly a very long one of up to five years, conditional to new lending to firms and households. That will probably come in the first quarter of 2014,” said UniCredit’s Valli. — AFP

Turkish lira hits five-week lows ISTANBUL: Turkey’s lira weakened and was expected to remain volatile as investors nervously eyed upcoming US economic data for clues to when the Federal Reserve will roll back its bond buying programme. Global sentiment deteriorated as investors looked to the first reading of US third-quarter GDP data later yesterday, which is expected to show that growth slowed a little in the third quarter.

But today’s US nonfarm payrolls data is the main focus for Turkish markets.

The release is closely watched by markets trying to gauge when the Federal Reserve will be winding down its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying programme, which is linked to falling unemployment.

“As global risk sentiment is extremely sensitive to (the) global backdrop, further volatility in the lira is more likely in the short-term, depending on US data and ECB meeting,” a research note from TEB said, referring to yesterday’s European Central Bank meeting, which is not expected to result in a rate cut.

The lira weakened to 2.0355 to the dollar from 2.0315 late on Wednesday, having touched 2.04, its weakest level

since September 30. The main Istanbul share index rose 0.1 percent to 75,846 points, outperforming the broader emerging markets index , which fell 0.18 percent. Turkey’s biggest bank by assets Isbank, state-run lender Vakifbank and refiner Tupras were expected to post third-quarter results after the market close.

Turkey’s 10-year benchmark bond yield rose to 8.95 percent from 8.91 percent late on Wednesday. Turkish bonds and the lira have been volatile in recent months on speculation about when the Federal Reserve would start scaling back its stimulus, with Turkey’s large current account deficit making it more vulnerable to expected capital outflows.

Next week Turkey’s central bank will hold two days of additional tightening and yesterday it increased the minimum amount of forex it will sell at Monday’s auction to $140 million from a previously announced $120 million. With the bank so far refusing to raise interest rates, investors worry that its chosen strategy of holding dollar sales and ad-hoc one week repo cancellations may not be enough to support the lira. — Reuters

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Business FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Indonesia top priority is to solve current account deficit JAKARTA: Indonesia’s top priority is to halt a widening current account deficit even if does mean deliberately slowing Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the finance minister said on Thursday. The former emerging market star has looked one of the most vulnerable to expected tapering in US monetary stimulus and a sharp rise in its current account deficit in the second quarter helped sap investor enthusiasm, hitting the rupiah harder than any other currency in Asia. It has fallen more than 15 percent so far this year.

“The government should address the issue of this current account deficit. That will be the first priority,” Finance Minister Chatib Basri told an investment conference. The government is planning to introduce a second package of measures by the end of the year to bolster foreign investment and ease consumer demand for imports. The first, announced in August, included planned measures to open more sectors to outside investors.

“How Indonesia navigates through this current situation? The first thing is we have to come up with macroeconomic policies in which we have to accept slower growth.” Basri said he was “quite happy” with government data on Wednesday that showed annual growth in the third quarter at 5.62 percent, the slowest in nearly four years. He believed gross domestic product (GDP) would hover near 5.5-5.6 percent in the fourth quarter, translating into full-year growth of 5.6 percent. The fullyear estimate would be the slowest since 2009.

Analysts warned, however, that the government should not be too complacent with slowing economic growth. “It’s not a bad idea to address the current account problem. In fact, it may be necessary,” said Gundy Cahyadi, an analyst with DBS Bank. “But sustaining GDP growth momentum is also crucial. The last thing the government would want to see is a sharp plunge in consumer confidence that could potentially be even harder to revive.”

Basri expected the current account deficit to narrow to around 3.3-3.5 percent of GDP in the third quarter and ease further by the end of the year. The widest measure of the flow of goods, services and money in and out of Indonesia was driven by price declines for its most lucrative commodity exports - from coal to tin and palm oil. The shortfall reached an unexpectedly large $9.8 billion in the quarter ended June 30, the biggest since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis and equivalent to 4.4 percent of GDP. New investment rules Indonesia’s large trade and current-account deficits this year have made it a target of portfolio investors shifting funds out of emerging markets. Apart from weak economic fundamentals, investors are also concerned about the country’s leadership transition as presidential elections are planned for July next year.

Indonesia is considering a number of reforms to attract foreign investment, including making the judicial system more transparent for insolvency and small claims cases, said Mahendra Siregar, chairman of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board, at the same investment conference.

He hoped the government would by month-end release its amended “negative investment list” of sectors, in which foreign investors are either barred or restricted. The list, which has existed for decades, limits foreign involvement in areas deemed sensitive. After successive years of record direct foreign investment, growth has started to slow. The government has blamed the global economic slowdown but investors say Indonesia also has to do more to make the economy attractive, such as dealing with mounting infrastructure bottlenecks to reducing bureaucratic impediments.

Foreign investments into Indonesian bonds and bills have however picked up since September, with net inflows so far over the two months exceeding $2.3 billion and more than compensating for the $2 billion outflows in June, according to BNP Paribas. —Reuters

Cautious consumers seen curbing US fiscal growth High interest rates to take some steam off housing WASHINGTON: US economic growth likely slowed a bit in the third quarter as consumers kept a lid on spending, supporting the Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain its current pace of bond purchases to stimulate activity. Gross domestic product probably expanded at a 2.0 percent annual rate, according to a Reuters poll of economists, moderating from a 2.5 percent clip in the second quarter. The anticipated deceleration will also reflect a pullback in business spending and some ebbing in home building as a run-up in interest rates over the summer took a toll.

The Commerce Department’s first estimate of third-quarter GDP yesterday at 8:30 am (1330 GMT) will offer confirmation that the economy lost momentum even before October’s 16-day government shutdown, which is expected to weigh on growth over the final three months of the year. “There are no signs that the economy is picking up,” said Thomas Costerg, a U.S. economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York.

“If you add the shutdown to an already subdued underlying trend, it’s difficult to see the economy taking off in the near term.”

The economy grew at a 1.8 percent rate in the first half of 2013, held back by a tightening in fiscal policy at the start of the year. Growth had been expected to gain speed in the fourth quarter as the drag from fiscal policy lifted. The report is expected to paint a picture of anemic domestic demand and could be seen as validating the Fed’s decision to stick to its $85 billion monthly bond-buying program.

With near-term growth prospects not that bright, a reduction in the purchases, which aim to keep interest rates low, is not expected this year. “What you saw in the third quarter will be continued in the fourth quarter,” said Doug Handler, US Chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “We expect the tapering to begin somewhere in the first quarter of 2014.” Sluggish consumer spending will account for much of the slowdown in growth in the third quarter, against the backdrop of a modest rise in household disposable income.

Consumer spending, which accounts

NEW YORK/BOSTON: In this combination of AP file photos, Trader F Hill Creekmore (left) smiles as he works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and Ann Oganesian (right) pauses as she speaks about job opportunities during a job fair in Boston. — AP for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, is forecast to have expanded at its slowest pace in 2-1/2 years. It grew at a 1.8 percent rate in the April-June period. Some of the anticipated slowdown in consumption is blamed on weak demand for utilities because of unseasonably cool weather in the summer. But households have also not been keen to loosen their purse strings as the pace of job gains slowed significantly during the quarter. Business investment also likely eased, with much of the slowdown in spending on equipment.

Spending on nonresidential structures, including mining and drilling, probably saw a second consecutive quarter of robust growth.

High mortgage rates slow housing A spike in mortgage rates is expected to have taken some edge off home building activity. While growth in spending on residential construction is still seen as strong, it will probably be the slowest pace since the second quarter of 2012. But the economy should get some support from an improvement in global

demand. Export growth is expected to have picked up after rebounding in the second quarter, which should help to limit the rise in the trade deficit.

The decline in government spending probably ran its course in the third quarter, with sturdy growth expected in spending by state and local authorities.

Economists said this fading fiscal drag would have set up the economy on a stronger growth path in the fourth quarter, were it not for the government shutdown.

“An inflection to a higher growth path as we move past peak fiscal drag will be delayed beyond the fourth quarter ... thanks to the shutdown,” said Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Restocking by businesses was expected to add modestly to third-quarter growth. Growth excluding inventories was seen below the second-quarter’s 2.1 percent rate. Other details of the GDP report are expected to show some pick-up in inflation during the quarter, but not enough to alter the picture of benign price pressures. —Reuters

Russia slashes growth forecast through 2030 MOSCOW: Russia’s economy ministry yesterday significantly cut the country’s growth forecast through 2030 due to falling investment and exports as well as an expected slowdown in retail trade.

The news will likely intensify growing concerns about Russia’s medium-term growth outlook and deal a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recently-reshuffled economic team.

Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev’s announcement came just two weeks after Russia reported a disappointing 1.2-percent third-quarter growth figure that meant the economy will have a tough time expanding beyond two percent in 2013.

“The average rise in the gross domestic product will range between 2.5 and

3.0 percent until 2025,” Ulyukayev told reporters. He further predicted “a certain drop-off in the last five years starting in 2026” that means the average rise in gross domestic product through 2030 should reach about 2.5 percent. The economy ministry this spring had expected annual growth in the period to average between 4.0 and 4.2 percent.

Ulyukayev warned that Russia will now have a tough time fulfilling the massive spending promises that Putin made when he assumed his third term in the Kremlin in May 2012. “There will be a gradual reduction in retail trade turnover and wage growth,” Ulyukayev added. The downbeat forecast underscores the problem Putin’s appointees have had both identifying and resolving

Russia’s most damaging economic drags. Moscow’s Vedomosti daily summed up the dire mood by lamenting that “Russia is preparing for 10 lean years.” Russia enjoyed a boom during Putin’s first two terms in power between 2000 and 2008 thanks to soaring prices for the country’s energy and commodity exports. Annual growth then averaged at more than seven percent and Putin had hoped to achieve five-percent expansion in 2013 that was meant to mark Russia’s return from the 2008-2009 global economic crisis. But analysts blame Russia for failing to make the necessary investments in the non-energy sector that could have helped it achieve sustainability and become inured to global oil price swingings.—AFP

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2013

Health

Monstariam pictured in a bunny costume.

A participant at the picnic is posing with his artwork.

KT: What inspires you?

Monstraiam: Educating the public is what inspires me.

By Jamie Etheridge

E

very first Friday of the month from now till next summer, street artist Monstariam will host a graffiti picnic at Bayt Lothan. A graffiti picnic is not, as the name might suggest, a buffet of paints to be eaten on blankets at the park. Instead, visitors are invited to grab a couple of cans of spray paint, mask and gloves and choose an empty canvas. More than a dozen blank plywood boards are set up in Bayt Lothan’s parking lot for the purpose.

Street artists young and old, male and female, local and expat came out November 1st for the first graffiti picnic, which resulted in a startlingly eclectic and beautiful mix of graffiti.

Founder of the Rock Paper Scissors Branding Agency and the co-founder of Monstariam (www.Monstariam.com), Mohammed Abu Hakmeh (Monstariam is his street artist pseudonym) has been involved with street art since the tender age of 13. In an exclusive interview with Kuwait Times, 33 year old Abu Hakmeh discusses the genesis for the graffiti picnic idea, his street art philosophy and offers advice for budding would-be Banksys in Kuwait.

Previous works work by byMonstariam.

Monstariam.

KT: How did you come up with the idea of a graffiti picnic? What do you hope to achieve?

Monstraiam: The idea came to me out of nowhere. I have always been good at bringing people together and showing them a good time. But this time I wanted to show people that they have talent, and they can have fun with their friends and family while discovering their talents.

KT: What do you think about Kuwait’s street art scene?

Monstariam: It is growing. The only sad part, there are those who ruin it for everyone by vandalizing instead of beatifying, and that is where I come in to educate the public about street art.

KT: What advice would you give kids interested in learning more about street art and graffiti?

Monstariam: Always carry a sketchbook, study your environment and never be scared to share your ideas with other artists.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

KT: How did you get involved in street art?

Monstariam: I got involved with street art at an early stage, it all depends on the people you hang out with. I was always interested in large objects filled with color, and the idea of making murals and other street art seemed amazing to me.

I grew up in Pennsylvania so you can imagine how many trains and walls there were for street artists to beautify and expand their skills.

KT: What other projects have you done?

Monstariam: I have painted murals and wall art for Cafe Meem in Hamra Tower, En Mexico in Jabriya, Q8bookstore in Bayt Lothan, Choowy Gooey in The Village as well as others.

A graffiti picnic participant.

The image shows a graffiti artwork from the event.

Participants are seen P during the event.

Opinion FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

China’s inevitable changes

By Rodger Baker and John Minnich

T

he Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will convene its Third Plenum meeting Nov. 9. During the threeday session, President Xi Jinping’s administration will outline core reforms to guide its policymaking for the next decade.

The Chinese government would have the world believe that Xi’s will be the most momentous Third Plenary Session since December 1978, when former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping first put China on the path of economic reform and opening.

Whether or not Xi’s policies will be as decisive as Deng’s-or as disappointing as those of former President Hu Jintao-the president has little choice but to implement them. China’s current economic model, and by extension its political and social model, is reaching its limits just as it had prior to Deng’s administration. The importance of the upcoming meeting is that it comes at an inflection point for China, one that its leaders can hardly afford to ignore.

FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGE It is worth recalling just how extraordinary Deng’s 1978 meeting was. Mao Zedong had died only two years earlier, taking with him what little remained of the old pillars of Communist Party legitimacy. China was a mess, ravaged by years of economic mismanagement and uncontrolled population growth and only beginning to recover from the trauma of the Cultural Revolution.

Had the People’s Republic fallen in 1978 or shortly thereafter, few would have been truly surprised. Of course, in those tense early post-Mao years hardly anyone could foresee just how rapid China’s transformation would be. Nonetheless, battling enormous institutional constraints, Deng and his colleagues quickly set up new pillars of social, political and economic stability that guided China through the fall of the Soviet Union and into the 21st century.

Although Xi presides over China during a time of economic prosperity, not disrepair, perhaps not since Deng has a Chinese leader faced such formidable challenges at the outset of his tenure. Former Party general secretaries Jiang Zemin, and to a greater extent Hu, could largely follow the lead of their predecessors. Jiang, emerging as a post-Tiananmen Square leader, was faced with a situation where the Party was rapidly losing its legitimacy and where state-owned enterprises were encumbering China’s economic opening and reform. But internationally, China’s position was relatively secure at the beginning of Jiang’s term in office, and by the time he took on the additional role of president in 1993, the decline of the Japanese economy and the boom in the United States and the rest of Asia left an opening for China’s economy to resurge.

These conditions enabled Jiang’s administration to enact sweeping bureaucratic and state sector reforms in the late 1990s, laying much of the groundwork of China’s post-2000 economic boom. When Hu succeeded Jiang in 2002-2003, China’s economic growth was seemingly unstoppable, perhaps even gaining steam from the Asian economic crisis. The United States, which had seemed ready to counter China’s rise, was instead fully focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, and though the Communist Party of China was not exactly seen as the guiding moral compass of the state, the role of print and social media in raising criticism of Party officials had not yet exploded.

As Xi prepares his 10-year plan, China has reached the end of the economic supercycle set in motion by Deng. Public criticism of officials and thus of the Party is rampant, and China’s military appears much more capable than it actually is, putting China is a potentially dangerous situation. Once again the United States is looking at China as a power perhaps to contain or at least constrain. China’s neighbors seem eager for Washington’s assistance to counterbalance Beijing’s influence, and long-dormant Japan is awakening once again. Xi may not have to rebuild a fractured Party or state as Deng did, but in some ways he faces the same fundamental challenge: redirecting and redefining China.

China can no longer follow the path it has in previous decades.

Deng emerged as China’s paramount leader out of the struggles and chaos of the Gang of Four era and the Cultural Revolution. He redefined what China was and where China was going, not out of a desire to try something different or an infatuation with “Western” economic models but out of a fundamental need to change course. Whether Xi wants it to be or not, China is at another crossroads. He has little choice but to make consequential decisions, lest he leave China scrambling from one quick fix to another at the expense of long-term opportunities.

PERILS OF RAPID REFORM Reform, with “Chinese characteristics,” is not about Westernizing the Chinese model. Rather, it is about reshaping the

relationship between the Party, the economy and the people in a way that will maintain the centrality of the Party. This may require improving the efficiency of the Party and governing structures, changing the organization and rules of business, and deferring to the rights and responsibilities of the citizenry. But while this will likely entail selectively scaling back the Party’s power in certain areas, it does not mean the overall reduction of Party power.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the Party has been constitutionally at the center of Chinese leadership.

Mao’s authority stemmed from his role as chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a position he held from 1945 until his death in 1976. Concerned by Mao’s concentration of power, Deng never adopted the same titles, though he still managed China through the Party, drawing strength and authority through his careful balancing of retired and serving Party officials. In 1993, the Party general secretary took on the parallel role of the president. Jiang served in both roles, as did Hu and Xi.

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen during a meeting with Brazil’s Vice President Michel Temer (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday. — AFP The consolidation of Party and political leadership was made clear in the formula. It is matched by the general secretary and president also holding the dual roles of chairman on the two parallel Central Military Commissions, one under the Party and the other under the state. Under Mao, the Party and the state were united in the figure of Mao himself. In the 20-year transition from Mao to Jiang, the Party remained synonymous with the state, but the consolidation of power in a single individual was replaced as Deng sought to initiate a system of group leadership to avoid the rise of another strongman.

Jiang’s accession to the presidency formalized Party-government leadership, but consensus leadership constrained his power. Jiang may have technically held all the key posts of power, but other power brokers in the Politburo could counterbalance him.

The system ensured that the paramount leader remained constrained.

This group dynamic allowed the Party to avoid the rapid and far-reaching policy swings of Mao, but it created stagnation in the bureaucracy and state sector. Ensuring the right web of connections often became more important than fulfilling the responsibilities of the Party or the state. Deng’s machinations helped eliminate strongman politics and degraded political factions like the Gang of Four, but these were replaced by more complex and widespread bureaucratic and industrial patronage networks. The result was more a web than a set of individual strings.

No longer could any one interest press entirely against another without risking the entire structure. The intertwining threads were just too complex. Rapid policy swings were impossible and factional battles that threatened the fabric of the state were effectively eliminated, but the cost was a decision-making process that was increasingly cumbersome and timid. Radical reform would never make it through the process of consensus building, and any policy deemed harmful was met with resistance.

This worked well during China’s boom. Though China was corrupt, beset with a cumbersome regulatory environment and prone to violations of intellectual property rights, it was fairly predictable overall, unlike so many other developing economies. The consensus model was also more attuned to social stability, constantly making tiny adjustments to appease or contain the demands of public sentiment. In times of slowed economic growth, China’s leaders would stimulate the economy.

In times of apparent overheating, they could cut back on credit. If people were frustrated with local officials, the central government would alternately remove the accused leaders or crack down on the protesters. But when the foundation of China’s economy began to shake after 2008, when China’s very success drove up wages and prices as its biggest consumers faced serious economic problems of their own, China’s consensus leadership proved unequal to the task.

During China’s rise, Beijing needed only minor adjustments to maintain stability and growth. But now that the country is in a far different set of circumstances, Beijing needs a major course correction. The problem is that consensus rarely allows for the often radical but necessary response. And for good reason: The success of radical change is not guaranteed. In fact, history suggests otherwise, as it did notably with the case of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union.

Adaptation To overcome the limitations of consensus leadership, Xi apparently is trying to strengthen the role of president. He wants to redefine the presidency so that it is not merely the concomitant title for the Party leader but also a post with a real leadership role, similar to the presidencies of other major countries.

This is a way to compromise somewhere between consensus and strongman. The presidency should not exceed the Party, but as the head of state, Xi is hoping to use his position to have a greater say in how the Party is restructured. The first target is the bloated bureaucracy. Already there are signs that several of the reforms are about removing layers from China’s bureaucratic structures. This should add efficiency to the system (its stated goal), but it may also confer greater central oversight and control by cutting through the webs of vested interests that have taken hold in many of China’s most powerful institutions.

The reforms slated for the economic sector are similar. They will introduce more market and competitive mechanisms while giving Beijing greater control over the overall structure.

Consolidation, efficiency, transparency, reform and restructuring are all words that possess dual meanings-one regarding more efficient and more flexible systems, the other regarding systems that the center is better able to direct. At a time when China needs radical change, it first needs to change the mechanism through which policies are decided and enacted.

The government hopes that by disengaging from constant, restrictive intervention into certain sectors, it will have greater capacity to intervene selectively, focusing on enforcement and compliance rather than dictating every move of state-owned enterprises. There is no guarantee that these reforms will work or that they can be implemented effectively or smoothly. China has seen three decades of economic growth, and in turn three decades of more tightly woven relationships and knitted interests. Unraveling any thread can rapidly degrade the entire structure, unless stronger central replacements are already in place.

China’s leaders are facing the difficult task of adjusting once again to changing circumstances. Political legitimacy and control remain closely linked. It is Xi’s position as head of the Party that ostensibly gives him legitimacy as head of the state. But to create a more nimble and adaptive government, Xi is seeking to harness the people in a slight reversal, using his role as president to rebuild the legitimacy of the Party, and in doing so take stronger control of the Party mechanisms.

This is a difficult balance. But China is at a turning point, and without nimble leadership, a system as large and complex as China can move very rapidly down an unpredictable and uncontrollable path. The leadership can attempt to take control and hope for success, but the consensus system and entrenched and bloated bureaucracy are reaching the end of their effectiveness as China enters uncharted economic and social waters. — Stratfor

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, poses, prior to meeting with Royal British Legion and London Poppy Day appeal staff and volunteers, at Kensington Palace, in London, yesterday. Accompanied by Prince William, the couple surprised hundreds of commuters, as they joined poppy sellers at a London Tube station. — AP

Food FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Cluck cluck:

All-time easy chicken recipes Chicken breasts with olives and tomatoes Ingredients 4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves 1 cup multicolored cherry or grape tomatoes, halved 3 tablespoons oil and vinegar dressing, divided 20 olives, halved 1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

Chicken and cashews Ingredients 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce, divided 2 tablespoons dry sherry 4 teaspoons cornstarch, divided 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces 1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons oyster sauce 1 tablespoon honey 2 teaspoons sesame oil, divided 3/4 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup chopped celery 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper 1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger 2 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 cup chopped green onions (about 3 green onions) 1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted cashews Preparation 1. Combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce, sherry, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, and chicken in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons soy sauce, remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch, broth, oyster sauce, and honey in a small bowl.

2. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.

Add chicken mixture to pan; sautÈ 3 minutes. Remove from pan. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in pan. Add onion, celery, and bell pepper to pan; sautÈ 2 minutes. Add ginger and garlic; sautÈ 1 minute. Return chicken mixture to pan; sautÈ 1 minute. Stir in broth mixture. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with green onions and cashews.

3. Rice pilaf: Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 cup chopped onion and 2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger to pan; sautÈ 2 minutes. Stir in 1 cup water, 1/2 cup long-grain rice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 12 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

Remove from heat; stir in 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro.

Preparation 1. Prepare grill to medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken evenly with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Place chicken on grill rack coated with cooking spray, and grill for 6 minutes on each side or until chicken is done. Keep warm. Combine tomatoes, 1 1/2 tablespoons dressing, and olives in a medium skillet over medium heat, and cook for 2 minutes or until tomatoes soften slightly and mixture is thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. Brush chicken with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons dressing. Cut each chicken breast half into 3/4-inch slices. Top each chicken breast half with 1/4 cup tomato mixture. Sprinkle each serving with 2 tablespoons cheese and torn basil

Food FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Chicken shawarma

Ingredients Chicken: 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon curry powder 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 16 (3-inch) strips Sauce: 1/2 cup plain 2 percent reduced-fat Greek yogurt (such as Fage) 2 tablespoons tahini 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 garlic clove, minced Remaining ingredients: Cooking spray 4 (6-inch) pitas 1 cup chopped romaine lettuce 8 (1/4-inch-thick) tomato slices Preparation 1. Preheat grill to medium-high heat.

2. To prepare chicken, combine first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl. Add chicken to bowl; toss well to coat. Let stand at room temperature 20 minutes.

3. To prepare sauce, combine yogurt and next 4 ingredients (through 1 garlic clove), stirring with a whisk.

4. Thread 2 chicken strips onto each of 8 (12-inch) skewers. Place kebabs on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 4 minutes on each side or until done.

5. Place pitas on grill rack; grill 1 minute on each side or until lightly toasted. Place 1 pita on each of 4 plates; top each serving with 1/4 cup lettuce and 2 tomato slices. Top each serving with 4 chicken pieces; drizzle each serving with 2 tablespoons sauce.

Ingredients 1 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken 6 carrots, peeled 4 celery stalks 1 large yellow onion, quartered 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Ingredients 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 2 bone-in chicken breast halves, skinned 2 bone-in chicken thighs, skinned 2 chicken drumsticks, skinned

1/4 cup peanut oil Preparation 1. Sift together first 6 ingredients; place mixture in a large ziptop plastic bag. Sprinkle salt evenly over chicken. Add chicken, one piece at a time, to bag; seal. Shake bag to coat chicken. Remove chicken from bag, shaking off excess flour. Place chicken on a cooling rack; place rack in a jelly-roll pan.

Reserve remaining flour mixture. Loosely cover chicken; chill 1 1/2 hours. Let chicken stand at room temperature 30 minutes. Return chicken, one piece at a time, to flour mixture, shaking bag to coat chicken. Discard excess flour mixture.

2. Heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 25 minutes or until done, carefully turning every 5 minutes.

3. Line a clean cooling rack with brown paper bags; arrange chicken in a single layer on bags. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Note: The key to success with this recipe is even heat. If the oil gets too hot, the chicken may brown too quickly before fully cooking.

You can lower the heat, or brown the chicken on the stovetop and then cook in a 350∞ oven until done. If the oil is not hot enough, the chicken will absorb too much of it. Omit spices in the breading, if you prefer.

Thai chicken saute Ingredients 1 (3 1/2-ounce) bag boil-in-bag rice 1 1/2 pounds chicken breast tenders 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon fish sauce 4 teaspoons canola oil, divided 1 cup sliced onion 2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic 1 teaspoon bottled ground fresh ginger (such as Spice World) 1/2 cup light coconut milk 2 tablespoons Sriracha (hot chile sauce, such as Huy Fong) 1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 4 lime wedges

Preparation 1. Cook rice according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Keep warm.

2. Toss chicken with cornstarch and fish sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan; saute 5 minutes. Remove chicken from pan. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in pan.

Add onion, garlic, and ginger to pan; saute 1 minute. Return chicken to pan; cook 1 minute or until done. Stir in coconut milk, Sriracha, sugar, and juice; cook 45 seconds or until thoroughly heated. Sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons cilantro. Serve chicken mixture over rice with lime wedges.

Classic chicken soup

Thai chicken saute

Preparation 1. Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat it dry with paper towels. Place the chicken in a large pot.

Cut 3 of the carrots and 2 of the celery stalks into 1-inch pieces. Quarter the onion. Add the cut vegetables to the pot with the salt, peppercorns, and enough cold water to cover (about 8 cups). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, skimming any foam that rises to the top, until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a bowl and let cool.

Strain the broth, discarding the vegetables.

Return the broth to the pot.

Thinly slice the remaining carrots and celery.

Add them to the broth and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred the meat and add it to the soup. Ladle into individual bowls. www.myrecipes.com

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

T

he islands of Maldives appear in-between the trading route of the Indian Ocean. Thus settlers, and visitors from neighbouring regions and around the world have come in contact with the islands for as long as history has been recorded.

Such is the to-and-fro flow of people and their cultures, that a marked effect has been left in the Maldivian people, the language, beliefs, arts, and attitudes.

The looks of the Maldivian people may differ from one atoll to the other, attributing to the genes passed on by South and Southeast Asians, Africans, and Arabians. The language, Dhivehi, differs in dialect in some regions in the south of Maldives, possibly due to the secluded nature and subsistent ways of island life.

Maldivian beliefs have been very much based around religion and superstition, often used together in matters of significance but given separate positions in society. In matters of faith, Islam dominates, but influence of the supernatural still continues to play a major role in most island communities, possibly giving credit to the folklores and Buddhist traditions of the islands’ first settlers before conversion to Islam in 1153 AD. The mixing of cultures is very much seen in Maldivian arts.

The music played with the local bodu-beru (big-drum) resemble that of African drumming. The dhoni (a unique Maldivian sailboat) is an art form itself built with skilled craftsmanship, with significant similarities to the Arabian dows. The fine artistry of Maldivians, seen in the intricate details on wooden beams in antique mosques, represents what we have gained from Southeast Asian architecture. Then there is the undefined: the distinct geometric designs used in mats woven from local materials, the embroidered neckline of women’s traditional dresses and their ornaments too, expose another story brought in from an unknown culture that has seeped in to Maldivian society.

Maldivians are quite open to adaptation and are generally welcoming to outside inspiration. The culture has always continued to evolve with the times. Locals still eat fish and fishermen still spend days out at sea, but tourism now takes a standing

prominence. Most Maldivians still want to believe in upholding unity and oneness in faith, but recent waves of reform in the country have created a whole new culture of new ideas and attitudes. The effects of the modern world are now embraced, while still striving to uphold the people’s identity, traditions.

Diving Maldives The warm seas of Maldives have high visibility throughout the year, with water clear enough to see the passing fish as far as fifty metres away at times. Add to that the marvellous formation of over 3000 coral reefs and the free flowing tides of the monsoons. The result of these perfect conditions have created one of the world’s richest diving coral reef areas.

Over a thousand species of fish and other underwater creatures inhabit the Maldivian waters. The monsoon tides of the Indian Ocean create a collection of small marine creatures as well as microscopic plant cells. This in turn creates a hub for all kinds of underwater species who gather in these waters lured by the abundance of food. In the Maldives you will get to see everything. From tiny shrimp and groups of colourful swimmers to the magnificent mantas and sharks, a careful eye will give you enough to enrapture you for a lifetime.

The best thing is that you need not be a professional diver to enjoy the Maldives. All resorts and safari boats give you basic to advanced training using well-monitored diving facilities of a high standard. Even the most reluctant diver can enjoy the beauty of Maldivian underwater life on a drift dive with the guidance of experienced dive instructors. A dive in a house reef is equally rewarding, all you need to do is swim a few minutes from shore.

Due to the countless number of reefs found among the 26 atolls in the Maldives, all you need to do is travel 15 to 60 minutes by boat to get to a different dive spot every day.

Dives in the Maldives usually take place along a faru (reef), a thila (a submerged aquarium like reef, on a channel where the atoll meets the ocean, or on a wreck. Night diving is particularly

beautiful as is a macro dive that lets you see tiny, interesting and usually disregarded creatures up close and personal.

The Maldives honeymoon If a honeymoon is meant to be a celebration of love in an intimate, secluded, and most importantly, beautiful setting, then the Maldives is the world’s best backdrop for all these things.

There are endless ways to let the magic of the islands dazzle you on your holiday as a couple. A dinner under the stars with the occasional flicker of candle light to bring you back into the real world, a daring getaway to a nearby uninhabited island all by yourselves for the whole day, or just lazing around in your private bungalow watching the endless turquoise waters while you are treated to an spa treatment in the room.

You could choose to get to know each other through a swim around a house reef with a mask and fin, or dive among the beautiful, vibrant reefs. It is an experience you will relive for days after you get back home. Indulge in some lighthearted competition on a night fishing trip by seeing who catches more. You will not forget the amazing boat trip you make at sunset before anchoring at a suitable fishing spot. It is as if nature plays with the colours of the setting sun just to ensure that you remember this day, this moment, and this love for the rest of your life. Your honeymoon need not be a once in a lifetime experience either.

You will relive the honeymoon over and over again, every time you come back to these magical islands.

Spa and wellness Just lying on a deserted beach of a Maldivian island, taking in nothing but the continuous rhythm of the waves, the sea salt in the air and feeling the soft white sand on your bare feet is enough to sooth your senses. Each island with its green vegetation and secluded setting is a natural spa in its own right, designed to soothe, caress, and heal.

Spas set in the Maldives, thus, are perfected as the ultimate

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

getaway cocoons in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean.

Traditional healing methods, that have been passed on for generations as family secrets by the hakeembe (healing experts), have been incorporated into special spa programs in the Maldivian islands.

The types of treatments vary with each spa but you can get almost any world-class treatment in a Maldivian spa. Every Maldivian resort has a spa; some of them nestled deep within thick vegetation, others sitting in solitude on a wooden jetty built on the lagoon, and some even built underwater.

Maldivian virgin coconut oil produced using age-old extraction techniques which is known among islanders for its hydrating and healthful elements is now used in some resort spas, as is the local favourite gandhakolhi leaf which is blended to treat almost any minor ache, and the traditional Maldivian sand massage used by islanders to cure muscle and joint pains.

Relax and unwind The Maldives is considered by many to be the premier tropical beach destination in the world and the best place to relax and unwind from the hectic and chaotic lifestyle of the modern world. The Maldives is an archipelago nation of 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean renowned for its natural pristine beaches and island environment.

With over 100 different island resorts to choose from each island has it’s owned distinct feel, character. The wide range of accommodation suit many budgets to cater for all. However, whichever island visit in The Maldives all of them are blessed with perfect coral beaches, lush tropical vegetation, warm shallow waters, fantastic hotel facilities and outstanding service that you would only expect to find in the world’s best tropical beach destination. There are only a few places in the world that have this combination of the unique turquoise sea and powder white sand with an all year round climate described as “a never ending summer”.

As soon as you step onto your resort island, you will experience an overwhelming sense of calm and tranquility that is a unique characteristic of visiting these beautiful islands. The stresses and pressures of modern life instantly become a distant memory enabling you to totally relax, rejuvenate and unwind like no other place. The resorts combine the isolation of being nestled on the equator in the Indian Ocean and being specifically designed and built with modern facilities and technology with one core purpose; to guarantee that the guests experience the most relaxing perfect holiday anywhere in the world. A holiday to your own Maldivian island is the perfect paradise escape...

The one island one resort concept of the Maldives means that no uninvited people can get onto your Maldivian island reassuring you that you and your loved ones can totally unwind and relax in safety and in total privacy. Every-one who visits the Maldives say that “it is like being in a perfect dream”. We hope to welcome you soon.

Local islands The best way to experience the life of an ordinary Maldivian is to travel to an inhabited island. Some of these islands are slightly

more modern: with brightly painted house walls and harbour areas. There are also the quite fishing villages with lots of treeshade, swings, and the traditional wooden holhuashi. A holhuashi is rather like an island-version of a gazebo, build with hollow wooden trunks tied together forming the large, bench-like seat, and often with a thatched roof. They are conveniently set up on beaches, often where the boats come in, and is a place where islanders wind off after a day’s work, exchanging news, telling stories, playing cards, and listening to local radio.

Fishing, agriculture, and fish related manufacturing is what most people in the islands do for work while some go away to find jobs in tourism and trading. Some islands are also good places to buy local handcrafts.

It is a typical island custom that everyone finish their work by late afternoon, take their daily showers or bath near their wells, dress the children in fresh clothes and go for a stroll in the island, visiting friends and relatives, delivering small bowls of fresh homemade curry, or taking some time to relax at the beachside, watching the late afternoon sun while the children play around at the beach.

Night fishing Fishing is in the Maldivian blood. It is so entwined in the lives of Maldivians that there are celebrations when a good catch is caught, and complaints when fish is scarce at our dinner tables.

Maldivian fishermen wake up to the dawn call of island roosters, collect bait in nearby reefs and start a full day’s work at the deep

blue seas, using the artful pole and line method of fishing.

To experience the satisfaction of catching and cooking your own fish, a night reef fishing trip (offered by a lot of resorts) is the way to go. Your boat leaves before the sunset to find a good spot near a reef. The boat crew will show you how to use the lines, hooks, and sinkers. You will catch enough to fill your barbecue grill in about an hour’s time.

Virgin islands After a good catch it is time to head to a deserted island to eat and celebrate. With over 1,190 islands and only few hundred being utilised, it is easy to find an uninhabited island anywhere in the Maldives. While the fish you caught gets grilled to perfection over red hot ambers, make sure you take time to enjoy the experience of being alive on this untouched part of nature; the softness of sand that has not seen a human foot print for a long, long time, and the undisturbed sounds made by nature. Without a single light on the ground, the stars above come alive in abundance, while tiny lights of phosphorescence get washed up by the beachside with the wave. For a moment, it is as though you are floating among the stars. A day-time trip to a desert island is an experience of its own. The raw, unspoilt vegetation surrounded by blinding beaches and dazzling sunbeam-lined waters are like a phantasm; everything feels imagined, and you are the only person in this beautiful universe.

Water sports In a place that is more sea than land, there is no end to the fun things you do in the water. Maldivians swim for recreation, they play water polo with their friends at weekend picnics, they surf addictively. The visitor is not excepted: every single resort of the Maldives has a sports centre that provides a range of water sports activities.

These centres are well equipped with masks and snorkels and boards of varying sizes, whether you want to spend the day snorkeling and meeting glances with wide-eyed fish, or feeling the wind in your hair on a windsurfer or catamaran. Some centres offer courses for beginners and advances windsurfers and sailors. You could also chose to parasail, kayak, kite-surf, waterski, and jet-ski.

Surfing Maldives is a hotspot to surf-enthusiasts from all over the world, with the southwest monsoon bringing with it massive swells, especially from June to September. The sizes range from 3 - 8 feet. There are several well-known surf breaks in North and South Male’ Atoll. Resorts near these breaks are perfect for surfing aficionados, as you can get the full Maldivian experience while riding the waves to your heart’s content. The lesserknown, but amazing surf breaks further away from Male’ atoll can be accessed by specialised surf cruises (often referred to as surfaries) offered by cruise operators in the country.

— www.visitmaldives.com

Health FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Bless you! Tips to deal with cold and flu C

oping with flu again this year? While there’s no cure for flu, there are some natural and practical flu remedies you can use to ease flu symptoms. Here are some you can try today. (Keep in mind that the FDA and the American Academy of Pediatrics are concerned about the safety and effectiveness of over the counter cough and cold medicines in children, and manufacturers now have changed their labels to say not to use these products in children under 4.)

Tip #1: Stay home and get plenty of rest.

On the first day of flu symptoms, follow the rules of flu etiquette. Call your work or school and tell them you’re not coming in for a few days because you’re sick-and very contagious! Then, take advantage of these days of flu and let your body have muchneeded rest. Pull out your favorite movies, curl up on the couch, and spend the time watching DVDs while your body battles the virus.

Tip #2: Drink plenty of fluids. Increase fluids such as water, fruit juices, sports drinks, and clear soups (like chicken soup).

Fluids help keep your respiratory system hydrated and liquefy thick mucus that can build up to cause infection in your bronchial tubes.

Tip #3: Treat aches and fever so you feel comfortable. Got fever? Fever is a flu symptom and occurs when your body temperature rises to fight off infection (in this case, the flu virus). Treat fever and aches with over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen(Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin), or naproxen (Aleve or Naprosyn).

Aspirin should never be given to children and adults younger than 19 years old with symptoms of flu or cold because it is associated with a condition known as Reye’s syndrome, a very serious illness that damages the brain and liver.

Tip #4: Use cough suppressants and expectorants to treat the cough. Over-thecounter cough remedies are available to suppress cough. There are also over-thecounter expectorants that liquefy thick mucus so it can be coughed up. There is some disagreement among doctors about how well these cough medicines work.

Tip #5: Use steam inhalations. Fill the bathroom sink with steaming water. Add 1 teaspoon of the over-the-counter ointment Vicks Vapo Rub to the steaming water, and then breathe in the steam for several minutes until you get relief. Another alternative is to add a few drops of oil of eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) or menthol to the water. Eucalyptus may help open up bronchial tubes, ease congestion, and make breathing a little easier. There is not enough evidence, however, to say that any of these really help with the symptoms.

Tip #6: Sit in a steamy bathroom. If you are still congested, sit in a bathroom with

the door closed and allow the shower to run hot until the room fills with moist steam. Inhaling the moisture can help to open your airways. Make sure you sit away from the hot shower so you do not get burned by the water.

Tip #7: Run the humidifier. If the air is dry, a warm mist humidifier or vaporizer can moisten the air and help ease congestion and coughing. Be sure to keep the humidifier clean, however, to prevent the growth of bacteria and molds.

Tip #8: Try soothing lozenges. Sucking on soothing lozenges will help to moisten and coat your scratchy throat and reduce the cough associated with flu.

Tip #9: Try saline (salt water) nasal drops. Saline nose drops are available overthe-counter at any drug or grocery store and are effective, safe, and nonirritating, even for children. Put several drops into one nostril, and then gently blow the mucus and saline out of that nostril. Repeat the process in the opposite nostril until both are unblocked.

When should I call the doctor about an antiviral flu drug?

Flu drugs are taken at the onset of flu.

These flu drugs may help decrease the severity and duration of flu symptoms. The CDC recommends Relenza or Tamiflu.

Relenza and Tamiflu are most effective when given within 48 hours of the onset of illness. These flu medications can decrease the duration of the flu by one day if used

within this early time period. They are usually given for a period of about five days.

They are also sometimes used to help prevent the flu in someone exposed to another person with the flu.

In addition, call your doctor if you have any of the following symptoms: Earache or drainage from your ear Pain in your face or forehead along with thick yellow or green mucus for more than a week. Any temperature 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher in an infant less than 3 months of age. Temperature higher than 102 degrees Fahrenheit in older children or adults Hoarseness, sore throat, or a cough that will not go away.

Persistent or worsening symptoms Seek immediate medical help for any trouble breathing, chest pain, confusion, seizure, fainting, extreme fussiness or difficulty arousing.

What about taking an antibiotic? Would that relieve my symptoms?

Antibiotics only work against infections caused by bacteria. The flu is a viral infection, and antibiotics don’t treat viruses.

— www.webmd.com

Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8 , 2013

Shelton and Lambert win again at CMA Awards

Blake Shelton accepts the award for album of the year for ‘Based on a True Story ...’. — AP/AFP photos

Presenters Jay DeMarcus, Joe Don Rooney and Gary LeVox of Rascall Flatts, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Keith Urban and Brad Paisley present the Pinnicle Award during the 47th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena. he Country Music Association Awards continued to show its love for Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton on Wednesday night while giving a nod to new duo Florida Georgia Line and doling out a few more awards to Taylor Swift. Lambert won her fourth straight female vocalist of the year award while her husband, Shelton, won album of the year and male vocalist - a category he also won for the fourth year in a row. Florida Georgia Line took too early awards to join Swift, Keith Urban and Tim McGraw atop the early winners list.

“I really didn’t think this was going to happen this year,” Lambert said before thanking each of the other nominees. The husband and wife have been favorites of the CMA’s 6,000 voters for the last three years and Wednesday as no different. Shelton’s album of the year win for “Based on a True Story ...” was a bit of a surprise, a year after taking entertainer of the year. “I had mentioned earlier today that if there was an award that would mean the most to me tonight, it would be album of the year,” said Shelton, getting serious after jokingly snatching his trophy from presenter Sheryl Crow.

Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley scored single and vocal duo of the year. Their quick tally was more proof the socalled bro country movement is the sound of the moment in mainstream country. FGL kicked off the show performing a fist-pumping medley with Luke Bryan, and very quickly returned to the stage to take the trophy for single of the year for their “Cruise” remix featuring

T

Nelly. They also played the new song “Round Here.”

“It’s been a constant thing all year - we’ve been trying to wrap our minds around what’s going on,” Hubbard said backstage. “It’s been a dream come true for us and a huge blessing for us and something we could have never imagined.” Kacey Musgraves - who, along with Taylor Swift, led all nominees with six - won the new artist trophy, besting a field that included Florida Georgia Line. With smart song-

Brian Kelley, left, and Tyler Hubbard, of Florida Georgia Line, accept the award for vocal duo of the year.

Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban perform onstage.

Blake Shelton, left, and Miranda Lambert pose backstage with their awards for male vocalist of the year, album of the year and female vocalist of the year.

Entertainer of the Year award winner George Strait poses in the press room.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8 , 2013

Musical Event of the Year and Pinnacle Award winner Taylor Swift poses in the press room.

Little Big Town , from left, Jimi Westbrook , Kimberly Schlapman, Karen Fairchild, and Phillip Sweet perform.

Mac Mcanally accepts the award for musician of the year.

Justin Timberlake, seen on screen, congratulates Taylor Swift for winning the Pinnacle award.

writing, a progressive bent and a strong sense of self like country’s other top women, Musgraves made an auspicious mainstream country debut this year with her album “Same Trailer Different Park.” She attended “This first year for me has just been undescribable,” said Musgraves, who set a record for nominations for a woman in her first year on the show. Swift tied Florida Georgia Line with two trophies after her “Highway Don’t Care” collaboration with Tim McGraw and Keith Urban won musical event and music video of the year before the show began. Lee Brice’s “I’d Drive Your Truck,” about a fallen soldier whose father still drives his truck, won song of the year, and Little Big Town took its second straight vocal group of the year.

Swift later performed a somber, acoustic version of her hit “Red” with Vince Gill, Alison Krauss and Sam Bush and was given the CMA’s Pinnacle Award. The award goes to artists who take country music to a worldwide audience. Garth Brooks is the only previous winner. He won in 2005. The CMA brought a star-studded welcoming group out of stage for Swift that included George Strait, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Keith Urban and Brad Paisley - all of whom gave Swift a chance to open for them on the road a teenager. A video salute followed with appearances by Justin Timberlake, Julia Roberts, Carly Simon, Ethel Kennedy and Mick Jagger - whose appearance made Swift shout.

Swift recounted a call she got out of the blue from her Big Machine Records head Scott Borchetta when she was 16. “He said, ‘Can you be on the road in two days to open for Rascal Flatts,’ and I immediately started screaming and said, ‘This must be a miracle,’” she said. “He said, ‘No, it’s not a miracle. Eric Church got fired for playing too long.”

She added: “You’ve made me feel so special right now, thank you.”

Swift also is nominated for her third entertainer of the year award, the night’s top honor. Bryan and FGL weren’t the only acts teaming up.

Collaboration was the theme of the night as Strait and Alan Jackson joined together to salute the late George Jones with a rendition of “She Stopped Loving Him Today.” Hunter Hayes and Jason Mraz took

Taylor Swift accepts The CMA Pinnacle Award onstage.

a tour of the Bridgestone Arena while performing “Everybody’s Got Somebody But Me.” And Brown and his band joined in on a growing hard-rock trend in country as Foo Fighter Dave Grohl joined the band on drums for new song high-powered “Day for the Dead.” Church earlier turned things up to 11 with his new song “The Outsiders.”

Hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley got the show going on a jovial note as they took the stage with their opening skit, first joking about feuds in music. They got Bryan and Zac Brown to hug it out after their mild feud over song trends in Nashville. They joked about Julianne Hough’s misguided blackface Halloween costume, urging Darius Rucker to start his own feud with the singer. They skewered Obamacare to a Nashville audience that roared with approval. Then, they brought out the guys from the hit show “Duck Dynasty” and parodied Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” with Willie Robertson doing a little twerk for Underwood.

And in one of the night’s most anticipated moments, Kenny Rogers received the CMA’s Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award and was saluted by Jennifer Nettles, Rucker and Rascal Flatts. Rogers sat on stage and mouthed along as Rascal Flatts sang “Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Is In),” the crowd helped Rucker sing “The Gambler” and Nettles and Rogers finished the tribute by singing “Islands in the Stream.” “It’s been a hell of a month,” Rogers said. “The (Country Music) Hall of Fame last week, this week. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next week.” — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8 , 2013

Presenters Jake Owen, left, and Lucy Hale speak on stage.

Kenny Rogers, center left, accepts the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award.

Duck Dynasty members, from left, Jase Robertson, Missy Robertson, Korie Robertson and Willie Robertson speak onstage.

Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman and Philip Sweet, of Little Big Town, pose backstage with the award for vocal group of the year.

Alan Jackson, left, and George Strait, second from right, pay tribute to George Jones at the 47th annual CMA Awards.

Host Carrie Underwood speaks on stage.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8 , 2013

Rebel dancer takes Moscow theatre to new heights

S

ergei Polunin admits money and fame can be an addiction. He says his hero is bad-boy actor Mickey Rourke. He does not much like rehearsing and sometimes prefers not to show up. Yet the Ukrainian, 23, is now arguably the hottest young ballet dancer on the planet, with an impeccable classical technique, astounding jumps and a natural gift for acting. In 2012 he caused a sensation by walking out on the Royal Ballet of Covent Garden in London, which had nurtured his career since his teens and where he had shot to stardom.

There was talk of a bad attitude, depression, a row with a top ballerina, and for several months Polunin appeared to have retreated to the wilderness. When he re-emerged one year ago, he caused another surprise by joining the ballet troupe of Moscow’s Stanislavsky Musical Theatre, a company until now overshadowed by the iconic ballet of the Bolshoi Theatre just down the road.

But with Polunin, the Stanislavsky ballet company has achieved a new prominence in Moscow and tickets for its performances have become as indemand as those for the Bolshoi. He has electrified Moscow audiences as the tragic Prince Rudolf in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet “Mayerling” and most recently this month as the noble warrior Solor in the theatre’s new production of the classical ballet “La Bayadere”.

‘Always tried to be different’ But Polunin, whose torso and arms are adorned by several tattoos that are covered up by make-up in performances, still insists he is totally different from the traditional ballet dancer. “I have always tried to be very different ever since I was a kid. It’s like a personality thing. I’m a Scorpion. I almost like to be away from people, just to observe,” he told AFP in a break of rehearsals for “La Bayadere”. He said his hero is the hell-raising American actor Mickey Rourke and compared his interpretation of Solor in “La Bayadere” with that of Russell Crowe in the film “Gladiator”.

Polunin makes no attempt to hide his lack of enthusiasm for the exhausting routine of rehearsing, preferring to be driven by the intoxicating adrenaline of the live performance. “For dancers, it constantly has to be a firework, every show has to be like you have proven something. It has to be an event,” he said. “I’m lucky in this theatre-if I do not want to come in I don’t come in. I just take it easy in rehearsals normally-I like spontaneity. Very few rehearsals.”

From a Russian-speaking family and brought up in the tough Kherson region of southern Ukraine, Polunin took part in gymnastics as a young boy and then entered ballet school in Kiev.

But in 2003, aged just 13, he left Ukraine to take the once-in-a-lifetime chance of studying at the Royal Ballet School in London. He joined the Royal Ballet itself aged just 17, and at 19 became the youngest principal dancer in its history. Having spent most of his recent life in Britain, Polunin admitted he still speaks Russian with an accent and had to re-learn old cultural habits when he came to Moscow.

“I felt like I was back at school. I had to learn how to speak. For example, how girls behave, do you pay for them in a restaurant or not,” he said, speaking comfortable English with the accent of a native Londoner.

Royal Ballet ‘very predictable’ A year after joining the Stanislavsky Theatre, Polunin said he had no regrets about leaving behind the traditions of the Royal Ballet. “I could see how I was going to end up, it was, like, very predictable.” At the Stanislavsky, Polunin found what many thought he had lacked in London-a mentor in the shape of the theatre’s ballet director, the great Russian dancer Igor Zelensky, who has spearheaded ambitious new projects since taking his post in June 2011.

“Igor Zelensky understands me. He believed in

me and that is very important. Because not many people did,” Polunin said. He admitted that “you get hooked” on the financial rewards that come with being an international ballet star and said the fame can be an addiction in itself. “But once you have been there and come out you realize how stupid this is. It’s important, like Igor told me, to ‘stay and do what you do’”. He revealed he had received offers for film work, including from Hollywood, but said they had been for “secondary roles” that would have been “risky” to take.

Polunin’s success has been a huge coup for the Stanislavsky at a time of great turbulence for the Bolshoi ballet after an assailant threw acid on its director Sergei Filin, nearly blinding him in an attack purportedly organized by an embittered former soloist. Filin had headed the Stanislavsky ballet until his appointment at the Bolshoi in 2011. The Stanislavsky-whose unwieldy full name, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, commemorates Russian theatre greats Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko-has a loyal audience in Moscow, where it is known affectionately as the “Stasik”.—AFP

This handout picture provided by Sergei Polunin archive and taken on March 22, 2013, shows Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin in the role of Prince Rudolf in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet ‘Mayerling’ at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow. — AFP

Impressionist, modern art fetches $290m in New York

S

otheby’s on Wednesday auctioned off more than $290 million in impressionist and modern art in New York with old favorites Picasso, Monet and Giacometti commanding the highest bids.

The flagship November evening sale attracted record interest from Asian and Latin American buyers, underscoring extraordinary growth in an increasingly global market. The top lot was a bronze bust by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti of his brother Diego, considered one of his best sculptures, which went for $50 million, its highest pre-sale estimate.

A 1935 Pablo Picasso portrait of his muse and mistress, MarieTherese Walter, who was pregnant at the time, also sold for $39.9 million, well over its estimated $20-$30 million. Picasso’s “Mousquetaire a la pipe” set a new auction record for a late work by the artist, going for

‘Grande tete de Diego’ by artist Alberto Giacometti is on display during a press preview of Sotheby’s auction of impressionist and modern art, at Sotheby’s in New York. — AFP

just under $31 million soaring above its pre-sale estimate of $12-18 million. Another record was set a piece of work by Italian futurist Giacomo Balla, whose “Automobile in corsa” sold for around $11.5 million, although just below the estimate of $12-18 million. There was also strong sales of work by French favorite Claude Monet, whose “Glacons, effet blanc” led at $14.25 million. Sotheby’s haul of $290 million is its second highest for impressionist and modern art at an evening sale after May 2012 when Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sold for $119.9 million, the most expensive piece of art ever sold in the world.—AFP

‘Mousquetaire a la pipe’ by artist Pablo Picasso is on display.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Samuel Fosso

African art star returns to boyhood home Nigeria P

hotographer Samuel Fosso, whose renowned self-portraits have made him one of Africa’s most popular artists, is exhibiting for the first time in Nigeria, where he grew up in the grip of the brutal Biafran war. Fosso, a Cameroonian national, is known for taking chameleon-like photos of himself dressed as a range of figures from black African and American life-from musicians to pop-culture icons to political leaders.

Nicknamed the “Man of a Thousand Faces”, his pictures have been shown in major museums across Europe, in a career that has taken him far from Nigeria, his mother’s homeland.

“It’s very emotional for me to be here,” the 51-year-old told AFP as he premiered his latest work at the fourth edition of Lagos Photo, an international photography festival. Fosso’s appearance is a major coup for organizers of the annual festival, which began last week and this year brings together some of the greatest names in contemporary photography, including Britain’s Martin Parr and Spain’s Cristina de Middel.”When I suggested bringing Samuel Fosso, everyone told me, ‘You’re too late’, or ‘He’s too well-known’,” said the founder of the exhibition, Azu Nwagbogu.

“Then I contacted him via Facebook and he spoke to me in Igbo. I was shocked! I didn’t know about this part of his life with Nigeria.” Fosso needed nearly a year of preparation to produce “The Emperor of Africa”, his piece for the exhibit-a collection of five self-portraits in which he dresses as former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong and through which he explores the relationship between China and Africa.

He also needed a production director and about 10 other people, including make-up artists, technicians and a costume designer for a day’s shoot in the French capital, Paris.

This is a far cry from Fosso’s first studio, in the Central African Republic, where at the age of just 13 he began photographing himself using the unused ends of the rolls of film brought in by his clients. “But it was already a major production at the time,” said gallery owner Jean-Marc Patras, who has represented him exclusively since 2001. “Even in the 1970s, Samuel left nothing to chance, be it make-up, costumes or lighting.”

Uprooted by Biafran war Fosso has no photos from his own childhood but says he has never forgotten the traumatic images of the Biafran war, which

by his self-portraits, Descamps asked Fosso if he could take the negatives with him back to Paris. A year later, Fosso received an Air Afrique ticket for Mali, where he would win his first award at the Bamako Encounters, a photo show that has become a major biennial exhibition.

Six-figure price tags Today, Fosso’s self-portraits have been

Photographs are displayed during the Lagos Photo Festival in Lagos. — AFP Photos claimed nearly one million lives between 1967 and 1970 after the southeastern region broke away and declared itself a republic.

Aged barely five, Fosso lost his mother and found refuge in the forest with his grandparents, both of them from the Igbo ethnic group at the centre of the conflict. “Thank God I had a robust constitution,” he said.

Fosso was the only child of his age to survive from his entire family.

The images of burnt and disfigured bodies, the bloated stomachs and twisted limbs of malnourished children and hunger have remained with him, he says. Aged 10, Fosso left his village in Nigeria, Ebunwana Edda, to work in his uncle’s shoe-making shop in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Three years later, in 1975, he opened his first photographic studio with the motto: “With Studio National, you will be beautiful, stylish, dainty and hard to forget.” Once the shop shut in the evening, he made himself up and got in front of the camera. Inspired by magazine cuttings, Fosso imitated his idolsblack African and American musicians. He bought himself a pair of two-tone platform leather boots to dress up as CameroonianNigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga, whose Highlife-style song “Sweet Mother” was then a radio hit.

A staff member of the Lagos Photo Festival walks past the festival’s poster.

Cameroonian photographer Samuel Fosso poses next to a self-portrait, which sees him dressed as the former Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong.

Fosso took the photos for himself and as a lasting memory for his as-yet unborn children and his maternal grandmother still in Nigeria, who repeatedly told him when he was a child that he was “the best-looking in the village”.

Until 1993, that is, when French photographer Bernard Descamps, on the hunt for talent to show at a new African photography festival, arrived in Fosso’s studio. Impressed

included in collections at London’s Tate Modern and the Pompidou Centre and Quai Branly museums in Paris. The wealthy Congolese entrepreneur Sindika Dokolo, a major collector of contemporary African art, bought three series of self-portraits from Fosso, including “African Spirits”, a homage to major figures of the pan-Africanism movement and the fight for civil rights in the United States, which carry a price tag of at least 100,000 euros ($135,000).

But Fosso has not altogether left his studio in the Miskine district of Bangui. Despite his success and daily hardships in the Central African Republic, which is riven by instability after rebels overthrew the previous government in March, he said simply: “I’ve got my own way of doing things there.”

And if he ever leaves, he says, it will not be for Europe but for his village in Nigeria, where his wife Nenna, mother of their four sons, was born. — AFP

Black models slam racism in Brazil fashion in topless protest S ome 40 black models, most of them women, have staged a topless protest in Rio de Janeiro against the low presence of AfroBrazilians on fashion catwalks. “What strikes you, your racism or me?” one of the female demonstrators wrote on her chest during the protest late Wednesday timed to coincide with Rio Fashion Week. The demonstration also coincided with the signing of a deal between the Fashion Week organizers and the Rio ombudsman’s office setting a 10 percent quota for black models in fashion shows, the G1 news website reported.

“This agreement crowns a joint initiative that can open a space that does not yet exist,” said Moises Alcuna, a spokesman for Educafro, a civil rights group championing the labor and educational rights of blacks and indigenous people. More than half of Brazil’s 200

million people are of African descent, the world’s second largest black population after that of Nigeria. But Afro-Brazilians complain of widespread racial inequality.

“If we are buying clothes, why can’t we parade in the (fashion) shows,” asked a 15-year-old model taking part in the protest. “Does that mean that only white women can sell and the rest of us can only buy?” “Claiming to showcase Brazilian fashion without the real Brazilians amounts to showing Brazilian fashion (only) with white models,” said Jose Flores, a 25-year-old former model who now works in advertising. After 13 years of debate, President Dilma Rousseff last year signed a controversial law that reserves half of seats in federal universities to public school students, with priority given to AfroBrazilians and indigenous people. —AFP

Members of non profit organization EDUCAFRO prepare to make a performance in demand of more models of African descent outside Fashion Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. — AFP photos

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Kuwait

SHARQIA-1 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DIANA (DIG) KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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SHARQIA-2 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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SHARQIA-3 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) DJINN (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) DJINN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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FANAR-2 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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FANAR-3 DJINN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) DJINN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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FANAR-5 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 GRAVITY GRAVITY GRAVITY GRAVITY NO SUN+TUE+WED MARINA-1 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG)

1:30 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:05 AM

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KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY

KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

6:00 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:05 AM

ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

MARINA-2 DJINN (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DIANA (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DJINN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:45 PM 2:30 PM 4:45 PM 7:00 PM 9:15 PM 11:00 PM 1:15 AM

360º- 3 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG-3D) CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG-3D) CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG-3D) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG)

MARINA-3 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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AL-KOUT.1 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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AL-KOUT.4 GRAVITY (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) BANI ADAM (EMIRATHI FILM) KALBY DALILI (DIG) GRAVITY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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AVENUES-6 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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AVENUES-7 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG) CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG) BANI ADAM (EMIRATHI FILM) BANI ADAM (EMIRATHI FILM) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED 360º- 1 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED 360º- 2 ESCAPE PLAN (DIG)

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155 K Bethapudi Na rasapur West Godavari District, A.P. I, have changed my name and religion as “Syeda Ayisha Siddeeqa and Religion Islam.

(C 4556) 5-11-2013

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

BAIRAQ-2 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) DJINN (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) DJINN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:00 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 PM 1:00 AM

BAIRAQ-3 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

PLAZA KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) KALBY DALILI (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG)

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LAILA ENDER’S GAME (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG)

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AJIAL.1 AARAMBAM (DIG) (TAMIL) AARAMBAM (DIG) (TAMIL) AARAMBAM (DIG) (TAMIL)

3:30 PM 6:30 PM 9:30 PM

LOST

FOR SALE Nissan Pathfinder, 2003 model, full option: Tel 97277135 6-11-2013 2003 model Toyota Prado 4 cylinder for sale, new tyres, good condition, expecting KD 2,950, serious buyers only contact 97277154.

5-11-2013 CHANGE OF NAME I, Muruganandham Asokan S/o Muruganandham, Indian Passport No. E6570385, address: Kothanda Raman Nagar, Ponnavarai main road, Kalyana Puram (PO), Thiruvaiyaru (TK), Thanjavur (Dt) hereby change my name to Sam Ashok Sam. (C 4558) 7-11-2013 I, Anandharaj son of Subbaiyan holder of Indian Passport No: F4197628, permanent resident of new Udaiyar Street, Pattukkottai P.O, Thanjavur Dt, Tamil Nadu, India, present resident of Jabriya block 10, street 18, bld 11, flat 3 Kuwait, converted to Islam do hereby change my name from Anandharaj to Abdul Rehman with immediate effect. (C 4552) I, Bondalapati Venkata Raman a Devi, D/o Bondlapati Chitti Babu, R/o

Prayer timings Fajr: Shorook Duhr: Asr: Maghrib: Isha:

04:45 06:06 11:32 14:36 16:57 18:16

Lost driving license (No. 256040602005), if found please contact Tel: 97732317 or 97732318.

(C 4559) 7-11-2013 Lost original examination, compartment, migration, secondary, senior secondary school certificates for year 2000/2002. Please contact 65841234. (C 4557) 5-11-2013 Original document policy no. 633004321-8 Mr. Imran Qammer the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, Gulf zone is reported to have been lost. Anyone finding the same or claiming any interest in it should communicate with the manager Kuwait State Life office Ph: 22452208. (4553) Original document policy no. 6330034920 Mrs. Haleema Agha the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, Gulf zone is reported to have been lost. Anyone finding the same or claiming any interest in it should communicate with the manager Kuwait State Life office Ph: 22452208. (4553) 3-11-2013

SITUATION VACANT Required English speaking nanny/maid. Please call 99824597. (C 4555) 5-11-2013

39

Books FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

C

On reading Bill Bryson: The only five you need

ontinuing my weekly run-down of the Only Five You Need from an author in my bookcase, I would like to recommend to you the five books of Bill Bryson’s that I consider the best to read. There’s quite a range to choose from and the decisions needed to whittle them down were not easy ones to make.

Bryson is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science.

Only his two most recent publications are not currently residing in my library. With a birthday imminent, I hope to rectify this anomaly soon. For previous authors, please feel free to browse the Iain Banks, the Iain M. Banks, the Terry Pratchett and, most recently, the Robert Rankin blogs.

Bang to the rise of civilization is even more vividly brought to life with stunning full-colour photographs, drawings, portraits and cartoons.” Moving from travel literature to the world of every day science is not something that everyone should attempt but thank God Bill Bryson tried. He succeeded on a universal scale. Looking at everything that fascinates him, he transfers that joy of learning and passionate curiosity into a book that should be put on the syllabus of every English school and college. It is one of Bryson’s writing strengths that he can take to any subject and fill it full of joy in the act of sharing. If ever I got stuck on a desert island with someone, I would hope for it to be him. Or, at least somebody that has read his books.

5: A Walk In The Woods “The longest continuous footpath in the world, the Appalachian Trail stretches along the East Coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, through some of the most arresting and celebrated landscapes in America.

At the age of forty-four, in the company of his friend Stephen Katz (last seen in the bestselling Neither Here nor There), Bill Bryson set off to hike through the vast tangled woods which have been frightening sensible people for three hundred years. Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, diseasebearing tics, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favourite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack.

Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime’s ambition - not to die outdoors.”

As a Brit that is used to driving from one side of his country to the other in less than a day, the size and scale of the United States has always fascinated me. The prospect of joining Bryson on a walk that is longer than the British Isles, learning more about the wilderness, the flora and fauna, and about the author himself as he fends off every little creature ready to kill him was too much to deny. It is a laugh-out loud journey of discovery. Easily makes it into the top five for the bear stories alone.

3: Shakespeare “This short biography of William Shakespeare by world famous writer Bill Bryson brims with the author’s inimitable wit and intelligence. Shakespeare’s life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard - from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.” Is it any surprise that this tome is in the five? No. Not if you’ve read anything else on my blog, it shouldn’t. One of my favourite authors writing about one of my heroes. Bryson does the Bard.

And he does it better than most. With the exception of Ben and David Crystal, I can think of no-one writing on Shakespeare with as much humour and readability. Openly working with the few facts known about Stratford-upon-Avon’s famous son, he manages to weave a tale that combines poetry, biography, mystery and drama. It would make a great comedy if someone fancied staging it.

4: A Short History Of Nearly Everything “In the bestselling, prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the world of science both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now in this glorious new illustrated edition, everything that has happened from the Big

No. 2: Dictionary for Writers & Editors “What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? What’s the new name for Calcutta? How do you spell supersede? Boutros Boutros-Ghali? Is it hippy or hippie? These questions really matter to Bill Bryson, ever since his days as a rookie subeditor on The Times back in the 1970s: as they do to anyone who cares about the English language. Originally published as The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors has now been completely revised and updated for the twenty-first century

by Bill Bryson himself. Here is a very personal selection of spellings and usages, covering such head-scratchers as capitalization, plurals, abbreviations and foreign names and phrases.

Bryson also gives us the difference between British and American usages, and miscellaneous pieces of essential information you never knew you needed, like the names of all the Oxford colleges, or the new name for the Department of Trade and Industry - or the correct spelling of Brobdingnag. An indispensable companion to all those who write, work with the written word, or who just enjoy getting things right, it gives rulings that are both authoritative and commonsense, all in Bryson’s own inimitably good humoured way.” If you’re a writer then you must already have this book somewhere within easy reach. If you love the English language then you’ve probably got Mother Tongue - but this is its sister to me. The older, wiser, studied at University sister. Get it, read it, keep it close to your desk at all times and dip into it regularly. For guidance, for humour, for goodness sake, go and buy it already.

No.1: Notes From A Small Island “After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the States for a while, to let his kids experience life in another country, to give his wife the chance to shop until 10 pm seven nights a week, and, most of all, because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, and it was thus clear to him that his people needed him.

But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of the nation’s public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that produced Marmite, a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy, place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowells, people who said ‘Mustn’t grumble’, and Gardeners’ Question Time.”

I have started to notice a pattern with the Only Five You Need series. More often than not, it is the first book of the author that stands head and shoulders above the rest. Is it nostalgia that tints my view of someone’s work? Not in this case. It simply is the fun-

niest, paciest work he has to offer. Is it patriotism at work because he paints such an accurate, although not always complimentary, picture of my homeland? Again, no. I love Australia and think his Down Under book is just as revealing and touching. It is the asides within Notes that make it so personal. It is a conversation, held over miles and miles of instantly recognisable countryside and town centres. Please: if you don’t buy anything else by Bryson, buy this. You will love it. www.wordpress.com

Stars

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Don't get stuck doing just one thing today. The more varied your activity, the easier it will be for you to integrate the different pieces of the puzzle. This is a day to think big. The more you know, the greater an asset you'll be when it comes time to solve the biggest problems. Learn how to multitask effectively.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You might be in a whirlwind today, and there will be information buzzing around asking you to do this and go there.

You're the one most perfectly suited to deal with the tone of the day. Stay lively and upbeat. Don't get stuck on any one thing. Keep the energy moving. The answer will be right there waiting for you.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

You might be jumping around today. This is one of those situations in which you don't want to stay in one place for too long.

Each place is an individual step that leads to where you want to go. Keep your eyes focused ahead and keep on going.

Stagnating will leave you lost in the middle of nowhere.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Your audience will be attentive to you today. Take the lead and others will follow. Be yourself and project your voice into the auditorium of eager listeners. Information will flow freely, and you shouldn't discount any ideas from the peanut gallery. Be open to questions and comments from others. Their participation is vital to your performance.

Leo (July 23-August 22)

You could feel confident today, and you should have a strong idea of exactly what it is you want. Information is power. Others are working to wield power over you. Don't let them get away with it, especially today. Encourage synergistic behavior among all parties. You can accomplish a great deal by working together instead of against one another.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

Your mind will expand today. You'll feel like there's a ton of information crammed into your head that needs processing.

Regarding big projects, try to finish them as quickly as you can.

The best policy is to pace yourself. If you wait until the last minute to finish, the quality of your work will suffer. Make a plan and maybe even a timeline. Set small deadlines as you go along.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

Try not to read too much into other people's words today. You may have spent hours tearing apart every off-the-cuff remark.

You may build up a wild scenario in your head regarding what that person is thinking. Instead of trying to sneak up on the answer through the back door, try the direct approach. Simply ask your question.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)

Long-term trends are coming to an important climax now. This dramatic period is highlighted by the added amount of information being thrown your way. Try to make small adjustments to your direction that incorporate this new information. Be aware of the prevailing winds and your relationships will be much better off.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Take a break from what you're doing. Look at what people are doing around you. Check your plans in relation to those of others and see if there's a way you can combine forces and kill more birds with fewer stones. Cooperation instead of competition is the lesson that needs to be emphasized today. The better you learn this today, the better off you'll be tomorrow.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

Get involved with the energy of today so you don't get left out of the loop. Your contribution to the group is important. You should foster positive relationships among all parties. Think big. You can do no wrong by expanding your mind out into the minds of others. Make a commitment to quench your thirst for knowledge and freedom through information.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

You can add more tools to your toolbox today. Express your concerns and you'll find helpful remedies present themselves.

Keep the lines of communication open and let the information flow. There's a great expansiveness that comes when you think for yourself - and think big. Don't get bogged down with the emotional side of things. Concern yourself with the facts.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Join others before you make your big travel plans. The smallest idea can be quickly transformed into a huge plan of attack, thanks to the prevailing winds of the day. There's a light, communicative feeling in the air encouraging cooperation. If you find that people aren't chiming into the group effort, you may want to excuse them from the group.

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

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

L e i s u re

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Word Search

Yesterday’s Solution

C R O S S W O R D 3 6 2

ACROSS 1. A zodiacal constellation in northern hemisphere between Cancer and Virgo.

4. An informal photograph.

12. The compass point that is one point south of due east.

15. Automatic data processing by electronic means without the use of tabulating cards or punched tapes.

16. English poet (1618-1857).

17. Resinlike substance secreted by certain lac insects.

18. A sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice.

19. A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (trade name Lodine).

20. A master's degree in business.

21. The face or front of a building.

23. One of the five major classes of immunoglobulins.

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

26. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

27. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

31. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill.

34. A Kwa language spoken in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

35. Of the appetites and passions of the body.

38. In the Arabian Nights a hero who tells of the fantastic adventures he had in his voyages.

41. A city of central China.

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

45. (of securities) Not quoted on a stock exchange.

49. Late time of life.

50. A dissolute man in fashionable society.

52. A railroad depot in a theater of operations where military supplies are unloaded for distribution.

55. That is to say.

56. Store in a silo, as of fodder.

58. Not far distant in time or space or degree or circumstances.

59. The sixth month of the civil year.

61. A unit of absorbed ionizing radiation equal to 100 ergs per gram of irradiated material.

62. A public promotion of some product or service.

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

64. Regional and archaic.

70. (Welsh) Corresponds to Iris Ler. 73. The state of matter distinguished from the solid and liquid states by.

74. An optically inactive alcohol that is a component of the vitamin B complex.

78. The syllable naming the sixth (submediant) note of a major or minor scale in solmization.

79. The 17th letter of the Greek alphabet.

80. A colorless explosive liquid that is volatile and poisonous and foul-smelling.

81. Fermented alcoholic beverage similar to but heavier than beer.

82. An ester of adenosine that is converted to ATP for energy storage.

83. Oral antiarrhythmic medication (trade name Tambocor) used as a last resort in treating arrhythmias.

84. Relating to or characteristic of or occurring on the sea or ships.

Daily SuDoku

DOWN 1. The main organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in higher plants.

2. Tropical starchy tuberous root.

3. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the sale of petroleum.

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

5. A pad of paper for keeping notes.

6. 100 avos equal 1 pataca.

7. A tricycle (usually propelled by pedalling).

8. A favorite saying of a sect or political group.

9. Exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health.

10. South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.

11. Small genus of southeastern Asian tropics.

12. Any of various trees of the genus Ulmus.

13. A small cake leavened with yeast.

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

22. Jordan's port.

25. A promontory in northern Morocco opposite the Rock of Gibraltar.

28. A state in northwestern North America.

29. Mentally or physically infirm with age.

30. An iconic mental representation.

32. United States prizefighter who lost his world heavyweight championship to Cassius Clay in 1964 (1932-1970).

33. 1 species.

36. Paralysis of the vocal cords resulting in an inability to speak.

37. A supply of food especially for a household.

39. An associate degree in nursing.

40. A member of the Siouan people formerly living in the Missouri river valley in NE Nebraska.

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

43. Lacking leadership.

46. A kind of sideboard or buffet.

47. (Babylonian) A goddess of the watery deep and daughter of Ea. 48. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

51. A genus of Mustelidae.

53. A trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group.

54. The lower house of the parliament of the Republic of Ireland.

57. A long noosed rope used to catch animals.

60. A large commercial and industrial city in northeastern Texas.

65. King of Saudi Arabia since 1982 (born in 1922).

66. A program under which employees regularly accumulate shares and may ultimately assume control of the company.

67. An unpleasant or disastrous destiny.

68. Of or relating to near the ear.

69. (informal) Someone whose style is out of fashion.

71. A university in Connecticut.

72. Fertility goddess in ancient Greek mythology.

75. A person's brother or sister.

76. The United Nations agency concerned with international maritime activities.

77. (Irish) The sea personified.

Yesterday’s Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

42

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Sea Island: A meeting of young and old GEORGIA: Davis Love III was in the learning center at Sea Island Golf Club over the weekend when he looked out the door at four players hitting balls, including PGA Tour rookie Kevin Tway. It brought back memories of Love’s early days on tour. And he has every reason to suddenly feel much older than 49.

Love and Bob Tway were contemporaries, both PGA Championship winners.

Love could recall a time some two decades ago when their wives would drop the children off at day care during a PGA Tour event. And now one of those kids is part of the field at the McGladrey Classic.

“It’s just incredible that I’m playing in a tournament with Kevin Tway,” Love said. “Now I see how Jay Haas felt when his kids were coming along ... and then Billy Haas won on the tour. It’s pretty neat to see that progression and to last that one. I was complaining one time, ‘I can’t believe all these kids I knew are growing up and they’re coming out on

tour.’ And they said, ‘At least you’re still playing with them.’ “It’s fun to be out there and see it all happen.”

The PGA Tour returns to America this week after two weeks in Asia, and Sea Island feels like a felicitous meeting of young and old.

Tway, who earned his card by finishing fifth on the Web.com Tour money list, was given a sponsor’s exemption. He’s staying with Love in his house at Sea Island, along with Justin Thomas, who turned pro after playing the Walker Cup in September.

For every Tway and Thomas, there is Fred Funk and Mark Calcavecchia, both regulars on the Champions Tour.

Love is more than just a tournament host at Sea Island, where he has lived since he was a teenager. A year ago, he was tied for the lead going into the final round with Jim Furyk. They were overtaken by Tommy Gainey, who two-putted for par and a 60 to win his first PGA Tour title.

David Toms, who turns 47 in January, can relate with what Love is feeling. He can still remember going duck hunting in Louisiana with 6-year-old Casey Wittenberg.

“I’m playing in Memphis and Harris English is about to win the tournament,” Toms said. “The first time I played that tournament, he wasn’t even born.”

Toms knows who some of these young guys are, at least by name - Luke Guthrie, Hudson Swafford, Morgan Hoffmann, Russell Henley. He doesn’t know much about them, except for someone like John Peterson, who went to LSU and now uses Toms’ old caddie.

“You watch a Walker Cup, and they’re just names,” Toms said. “You don’t really know them until you’re trying to win a tournament against them.”

Thomas was a teammate at Alabama with Love’s son, Dru. “It inspires you to see the young guys, but it also makes you award that, ‘Hey, if I’m going to compete, I’ve got to follow them to the gym

and I’ve got to keep working hard on my game’ because there’s a lot of guys that are ready to take your spot.”

With the new wraparound season, the McGladrey Classic is the second-to-last tournament of 2013 before a short winter’s break until the tour resumes in Hawaii. Three players made the trip from Shanghai (HSBC Champions) to Sea Island - Boo Weekley, Scott Piercy and Brian Gay. Being the week after the two-week Asia swing was sure to hurt the field, though the McGladrey Classic still landed Matt Kuchar and Zach Johnson, who both live in the Golden Isles. Sea Island is quickly becoming a haven for PGA Tour players, not with numbers found at Lake Nona or West Palm Beach, but growing.

Jonathan Byrd was among the first to join Love at Sea Island. The list includes Kuchar and Johnson, Lucas Glover.

Johnson doesn’t need a courtesy car this week. He can ride a bike to the course in under three minutes.—AP

Rangers defeat Penguins

AUSTRALIA: Rickie Fowler of the US plays a shot during the first round of the Australian PGA Championship at the RACV Royal Pines Resort golf club. —AFP

Fowler leads in Australia GOLD COAST: Ricky Fowler had six birdies over his last eight holes en route to an 8-under-par 63 yesterday to take a twostroke lead after the first round of the Australian PGA. The American golfer’s round took some of the attention from Adam Scott’s first tournament back in Australia as U.S. Masters champion. Scott, however, was sitting only two strokes back following a 65 after playing in the afternoon groups affected by gusty winds at Royal Pines which made low scoring more difficult.

The 33-year-old Scott was level with fellow Australians Matthew Ballard and David McKenzie. Nathan Green shot 66 and was alone in fifth spot, a stroke better than Australian compatriot Jason Norris and South Korea’s Kwon Sung-yeol, who shot 67s and were equal sixth. Richard Lee of Canada was in a large group tied for eighth with 68s.

Fowler started at the 10th and opened with five pars before making birdie on two of the next four holes before the turn. “It was a good solid start,” Fowler said. “A little bit slow on my front nine, but I just stayed patient and finally got a few things to go, made a couple of good up and downs.”

Fowler said although the conditions were conducive to good scoring yesterday, the situation could easily change.

And it did.

“If the wind picks up this afternoon, like it started to pick up the last few holes, the course will dry out a bit and they’ll play a little bit tougher, “Fowler said. “So tomorrow afternoon it’s going to be a little bit different course than I saw this morning.”—AP

NEW YORK: Brian Boyle scored his first goal of the season and Ryan Callahan added his first since returning from a broken thumb as the New York Rangers matched a season high in goals with a 5-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.

Pittsburgh had won four straight and defeated New York eight times in nine meetings, but Ryan McDonagh and Derek Stepan scored 1:05 apart late in the first period to put the Rangers ahead.

Boyle and Callahan connected within a 2:28 span of the second to send New York to its fourth win in five games.

Derick Brassard made it 5-1 at 9:57 of the third, and Brad Richards had two assists for New York, which completed a 31 homestand. Henrik Lundqvist made 28 saves. Kris Letang’s power-play goal pulled the Penguins to 3-1 with 5:26 left in the second, but Callahan’s fourth of the season - in his second game back in the lineup - restored the Rangers’ threegoal lead 1:04 later. Marc-Andre Fleury, who sat out Pittsburgh’s 3-0 win at Columbus on Saturday, stopped 20 shots.

DUCKS 5, COYOTES 2 Hampus Lindholm scored his first NHL goal and Corey Perry got the tiebreaking goal right before the second-period buzzer, helping Anaheim stay atop the league standings with a victory over Phoenix.

Ryan Getzlaf, Lindholm and Cam Fowler each had a goal and an assist in Anaheim’s triumphant return from a 5-2-1 road trip. With their sixth win in seven games, the Ducks (133-1) lead the NHL with 27 points. Perry tipped home Lindholm’s shot during a delayed penalty with 1.1 seconds left in the period, and Fowler provided a cushion with the second power-play goal of the night for the Ducks, whose NHL-worst power play had scored just four times all season.

Shane Doan scored and Michael Stone added a powerplay goal for the Coyotes, who had won five straight. Jonas Hiller made 24 saves for the Ducks, perfect in six home games this season. Andrew Cogliano added an empty-net goal with 1:02 to play.

PREDATORS 6, AVALANCHE 4 Colin Wilson had two goals and two assists and Viktor Stalberg added a goal and an assist in Nashville’s victory over Colorado.

Craig Smith and Paul Gaustad also scored for the Predators, who stopped Colorado’s six-game winning streak.

Carter Hutton made 11 third-period saves to preserve the win, and Gabriel Bourque scored into an empty net.

Matt Duchene had a goal and two assists for Colorado (12-2-0), which fell one win short of NHL history. The Avalanche were attempting to set a franchise record and match the 2007-08 Ottawa Senators for the best 14-game start in league history. Paul Stastny, Ryan O’Reilly and P.A. Parenteau also scored for Colorado. Semyon Varlamov had

NEW YORK: Sidney Crosby No. 87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins controls the puck with pressure from Carl Hagelin No. 62 of the New York Rangers during the third period at Madison Square Garden. —AFP 22 saves while allowing a season high in goals.

BLACKHAWKS 4, JETS 1 Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane scored in the first period to lead Chicago over Winnipeg. The Blackhawks also got goals from Brandon Pirri and Patrick Sharp in their fourth win in five games. Corey Crawford made 24 saves and defenseman Duncan Keith had two assists.

Devin Setoguchi scored his third goal for the Jets in the third period of his 400th career game. Al Montoya had 24 stops in his second career game in his native Chicago. It was the Blackhawks’ second convincing victory over the Jets in five days. Chicago won 5-1 in Winnipeg on Saturday. —AP

43

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

2014 Olympic torch blasts into space for 1st spacewalk

Viswanathan Anand

Chess ace Anand a ‘national treasure’ in cricket-mad India CHENNAI: In a nation where cricket is a religion and retiring superstar Sachin Tendulkar its resident deity, reigning world chess champion Viswanathan Anand holds his own as one of India’s finest sportsmen.

Anand, 43, who opens the defence of his fifth world crown against Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen at home in Chennai yesterday, has dominated the chess scene in India and abroad for almost two decades.

Anand’s longevity and perseverance has often been compared with that of Tendulkar, the world’s batting recordholder who ends a brilliant 24-year career later this month.

“There’s certainly a case to be made for Anand being the greatest sportsperson India has ever produced,” The Hindu newspaper said. “He is as much a national treasure as Tendulkar.”

Anand showed remarkable promise at an early age but, unlike many others who give up after their first major challenge, he persevered and won until there was no one else left to beat.

The soft-spoken family man, who lives in Spain with wife Aruna and three-year-old son Akhil, is far removed from his temperamental predecessors like Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.

While Kasparov has become a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Anand is more at home musing about subjects such as his pride in India’s space programme and his love of Barcelona football club. “There is no feeling better than representing your country,” he wrote on his Twitter account last week in the build-up to the match against Carlsen.

“If there is anyone close to perfection in chess, it is him,” said Indian grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly. “He is also one of the nicest human beings to know, a humble man despite his enormous achievements.” Anand’s game is built on belligerent attack that catches opponents off-guard, but his unflustered approach ensures that he has the right defence in place when the going gets tough.

Born in a small town in the southern tip of India, Anand became an international master at 15, was crowned Indian champion at 16, won the world junior title at 17 and became the country’s first grandmaster at 18.

The Indian government, taking note of the young man’s rapid rise, conferred on him the country’s fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, a few months short of his 19th birthday.

It is significant that when India’s highest sporting honourthe Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna-was introduced in 1992, Anand was its first recipient ahead of such cricket luminaries as Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. Anand was just 23 then and the honour came almost eight years before he won the first of his five world titles by beating Russian Alexei Shirov in Tehran in 2000.

However, more losses than wins in the past year have seen him slip to number eight, with Carlsen, 22, assuming the top ranking with 2,870 rating points, 95 more than Anand. —AFP

BAIKONUR: A three-man crew successfully blasted off into space with the Olympic torch yesterday, ready to take it on its first space walk in what they said would be a “spectacular” showcase for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Japan’s Koichi Wakata pumped the air with his fist as the Soyuz rocket, painted with snowflake patterns, took off on a crisp morning, an onboard camera showed. The crew sat beneath a stuffed polar bear wrapped in a blue scarf, a Sochi mascot.

The space flight is part of what will be the longest torch relay before a Winter Olympics, which President Vladimir Putin hopes will boost Russia’s image and show what it can achieve, more than two decades after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Less than six hours after the launch, Russian Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Wakata will deliver the torch to the International Space Station.

“It’s just an outstanding day and a spectacular launch,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, told Reuters. “I get the privilege of understanding what goes on behind the scenes ... It’s not easy and it is not routine. It is still a marvel to me when I see it.”

Their families and other spectators watched the rocket disappear into the blue sky, leaving a trail of blazing light. Mission control announced: “Soyuz TMA-11M is in the orbit” to applause.

For safety reasons, the torch will not be lit in what could be a relief for Russia after the flame went out several times since the relay began last month. “We will have a kind of relay of our own with this torch,” veteran cosmonaut Tyurin, 53, told a news conference at the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Moscow rents from Kazakhstan, on the eve of his launch. Tyurin will hand off the torch to fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who will take it outside the airlock on Saturday. The Olympic torch has gone into space twice before, in 1996 and 2000, but it has never been taken on a space walk.

“Our goal here is to make it look spectacular,” Kotov told reporters before his mission began. “We’d like to showcase our Olympic torch in space ... Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work.”

BAIKONUR: People take photographs as Russia’s Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft carrying an international crew and an unlit Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi aboard blasts off from the Russian leased Kazakh Baikonur cosmodrome. Two Russian astronauts will take the unlit torch on a space walk tomorrow before it returns back to Earth on November 11. —AFP While the red-and-silver torch, designed to evoke the feathers of a Firebird from Russian folklore, is taken outside space station 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, the flame will remain lit on the ground below. As well as replacing the gas flame, Russian engineers have equipped the torch with a tether to keep it from floating out of the cosmonauts grip in weightlessness. “It was reworked ... so that it doesn’t fly away,” said Sergei Krikalev, head of the Cosmonauts’ Training Centre outside Moscow.

As part of its 65,000-km (40,000-mile) relay, the torch has travelled to the North Pole on an atomic-powered ice breaker.

It will still go to the peak of Europe’s highest mountain, Mount Elbrus, and the depths of Siberia’s Lake Baikal before reaching Sochi on the Black Sea for the

start of the Games on Feb. 7.

“The Olympics are a huge international event that takes many, many countries cooperating and working together to pull off such a tremendous event,” Mastracchio, 53, told reporters.

“So in a small way, I think it’s great that we bring this symbol up to the international space station, which is another representation of international cooperation.”

The torch-bearing trio’s arrival at the orbital station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations, will briefly swell its crew to nine people - the most on board the outpost since America’s last shuttle mission in 2011. The torch will be brought back to Earth by Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, American astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on Nov. 11. —Reuters

New front row for England against Pumas LONDON: England will have a new front row against Argentina at Twickenham tomorrow with David Wilson given a rare start alongside hooker Dylan Hartley and prop Joe Marler.

Wilson has been a virtual fixture on England’s bench over the last four years, with 23 of his 29 caps coming as a replacement, but his extra power gave him the nod over Dan Cole for what is expected to be a stiff scrummaging examination from the Pumas.

Hartley comes in for Tom Youngs, who joins Cole on the bench and Marler replaces the injured Maku Vunipola. Alex Corbisiero, who missed last week’s victory over Australia, is back on the bench.

“Joe Marler was excellent off the bench against Australia and merits his opportunity, as does David Wilson, who has been pushing hard for selection,” Lancaster said in a statement.

“Dylan gets a deserved chance at hook-

er with Tom Youngs on the bench after the safe arrival of his first child this morning.

Rob Webber remains on standby.”

The only change in the backs sees Ben Foden, in hot form for Northampton at fullback, start on the left wing after Marland Yarde, who played last week, and Christian Wade, both failed fitness tests yesterday.

“Christian Wade was in contention for a start but his hamstring tightened up in training and unfortunately he hasn’t recovered sufficiently in time to be considered for tomorrow,” Lancaster said.

“Marland Yarde failed a fitness test on a hip injury sustained last weekend this morning so Ben Foden gets his chance with Alex Goode on the bench. Ben has had a full week’s training on the wing, he is a great finisher and in form so it’s a great option for us.”

Geoff Parling comes in for Dave Attwood among the replacements and Alex Goode comes on to the bench to cov-

er the back three. Although England convincingly beat Argentina away twice in June, both sides were considerably below full strength and Saturday’s match will be a much more meaningful contest.

Despite struggling to make an impact in the Rugby Championship, where they lost all six games against the southern hemisphere big three, and in their first match under new coach Daniel Hourcade, the Pumas remain a tough nut to crack up front. However, having dominated the scrum against Australia, England will want and expect to do the same in front of their own fans. Wilson will be desperate to show that he is a viable option to start at tighthead, where Cole missed only one of England’s 41 games before sitting out the Argentina tour to play for the British & Irish Lions. That opened the door for Wilson to get two rare starts in Argentina and he also made his debut against the Pumas off the bench in 2009.—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

AUBURN HILLS: CJ Watson No. 32 of the Indiana Pacers tries to get around the defense of Kyle Singler No. 25 and Brandon Jennings No. 7 of the Detroit Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills. — AFP

Pacers thwart Bulls charge INDIANAPOLIS: Luis Scola, Donald Sloan and Lance Stephenson accounted for all the points in a decisive 12-2 run, thwarting a late charge by the Chicago Bulls and helping the Indiana Pacers, the NBA’s last unbeaten team, to an 97-80 victory Wednesday night.

The Pacers have won their opening five games for the first time since 1971-72. Paul George had 21 points and six rebounds to lead Indiana, while David West had a season-high 17 points and 13 rebounds. Luol Deng and Derrick Rose scored 17 points each to lead Chicago (1-3). Rose scored only three points in the second half.

THUNDER 107, MAVERICKS 93 Kevin Durant had 23 points and 10 assists and Russell Westbrook scored 22 points as Oklahoma City pulled away in the second half to beat Dallas.

Serge Ibaka added 17 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder (3-1), who won their second straight game following Westbrook’s return from two offseason knee surgeries.

Jeremy Lamb added 13 points for Oklahoma City, which has won 11 straight games against the Mavericks, including the playoffs. The last loss for the Thunder against Dallas was on Jan. 2, 2012.

Monta Ellis led the Mavericks (3-2), who were playing their second game in two nights, with 20 points. Jae Crowder and Shawn Marion added 17 each, while Dirk Nowitzki finished with 16.

SPURS 99, SUNS 96 Tony Parker scored 15 of the Spurs’ final 16 points, helping San Antonio withstand a hectic finish to beat Phoenix. Parker scored 20 overall, Danny Green had 19 points, Tim Duncan added 17 points and Boris Diaw 11 points for San Antonio (4-1).

Markieff Morris tied a career high with 23 points and also had 11 rebounds for Phoenix (3-2). Morris’ twin brother, Marcus, added 11

points and Gerald Green and Miles Plumlee each had 15. Plumlee’s reverse layup gave Phoenix a 96-95 lead with 1 minute remaining.

The Suns had an opportunity to extend the lead following a miss by Duncan, but Manu Ginobili drew a charge on Danny Green.

Parker followed with a short jumper to give San Antonio the lead for good. Gerald Green missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have tied the game.

CELTICS 97, JAZZ 87 Brandon Bass scored 20 points and Jeff Green added 18 as the Celtics beat Utah for their first win of the season. The game reunited new Celtics coach Brad Stevens with Gordon Hayward, the Butler star who took the Bulldogs to the NCAA championship game against Duke. Hayward had 28 points and nine rebounds for Utah (0-5), one of the last two winless teams in the NBA this season.

The attendance of 17,130 was about 1,500 fans short of a sellout, ending a streak of 289 games dating to the end of the 2006-07 season.

Derrick Favors scored 10 points with 14 rebounds and Enes Kanter scored 22 with eight boards for the Jazz, who open a season with five straight losses for the first time since 1974, when they were still in New Orleans.

Gerald Wallace had nine points and nine rebounds for Boston (1-4), which led by as many as 25 points in the third quarter before Utah scored 17 of the first 20 in the fourth to cut a 22-point deficit to single digits.

WARRIORS 106, TIMBERWOLVES 93 Klay Thompson scored 19 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter and Harrison Barnes scored 14 points in his season debut to help Golden State defeat Minnesota.

David Lee had 22 points and 15 rebounds and Andre Iguodala scored 20 points for the Warriors (4-1). Kevin Love had 25 points, 16 rebounds and six assists for the Timberwolves,

who have lost two straight after a 3-0 start.

Kevin Martin added 23 points, but the Wolves’ bench was outscored 27-10.

Stephen Curry had just five points on 2-for8 shooting with seven assists in 24 minutes and sat out the fourth quarter with a bone bruise on his left foot.

MAGIC 98, CLIPPERS 90 Nik Vucevic had 30 points - including six free throws in the final 23 seconds - and 21 rebounds to help Orlando hold on to beat Los Angeles. Orlando led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter, before Los Angeles took its first lead with a 25-5 run. Blake Griffin led the Clippers with 23 points and 13 rebounds, and Chris Paul added 18 points and 10 assists.

Former Magic guard J.J. Redick also chipped in 17 points.

The loss ends a three-game win streak for the Clippers, whose three-game road trip continues late yesterday at Miami.

BOBCATS 92, RAPTORS 90 Gerald Henderson broke out of his shooting slump with a season-high 23 points to help Charlotte defeat Toronto.

After signing an $18 million, three-year contract in the offseason, Henderson came in shooting just 31 percent through the first four games. But he got off to a fast start this time and finished 10 of 17 from the field. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist scored 14 points to help Charlotte win again after beating the Knicks in New York on Tuesday night. Second-year guard Jeffery Taylor continued to give the Bobcats (3-2) quality minutes off the bench, scoring 13 points. Josh McRoberts added 13 points and five assists. Rudy Gay led the Raptors with 20 points. Jonas Valanciunas had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

BUCKS 109, CAVALIERS 104 OJ Mayo scored 28 points, including six 3pointers, and Gary Neal had 12 of his 23 points

in the fourth quarter as short-handed Milwaukee held off Cleveland.

The Bucks, already without their top two point guards - Brandon Knight and Luke Ridnour - also played without forward Ersan Ilyasova and center Larry Sanders. Ilyasova was out with a sore right ankle while Sanders was out with a sprained right thumb, injured in a weekend off-court incident that is being investigated, the Bucks said in a statement.

The Bucks opened the fourth quarter with an 11-2 run to take a 94-81 lead, but Kyrie Irving scored 10 consecutive points to fuel a 13-point run that put the Cavaliers up 104103. Caron Butler tipped in a miss by Mayo with 24.8 seconds left to put the Bucks up 105104 and Mayo added four free throws in the closing seconds. Irving led Cleveland with 29 points and Dion Waiters added 21.

WIZARDS 116, 76ERS 102 John Wall scored 24 points and Marcin Gortat had 19 points and 12 rebounds as Washington beat Philadelphia to earn its first win after starting 0-3.

Bradley Beal had 17 points, Trevor Ariza scored 15 as seven Wizards reached double digits. Evan Turner led Philadelphia with 24 points and Spencer Hawes had 13. Rookie Michael Carter-Williams finished with 19 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

PELICANS 99, GRIZZLIES 84 Eric Gordon scored 19 points while Anthony Davis added 18 points and nine rebounds as New Orleans beat the Grizzlies.

Tyreke Evans had 16 points, Jrue Holiday scored 11 and Jason Smith finished with 10 points for the Pelicans, who led by as many as 29 points in the fourth quarter. Mike Conley led the Grizzlies with 26 points before leaving in the fourth quarter with a facial injury. Marc Gasol had 11 points for Memphis, but connected on only 4 of 11 shots and grabbed one rebound. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Vonn returns to downhill training COPPER MOUNTAIN: Lindsey Vonn eased into her first day of downhill training on Wednesday, with the four-time overall World Cup champion holding back on her opening run just to get used to that kind of speed again.

By her fifth and final pass at the US Ski Team’s speed center on Wednesday, Vonn was charging so hard through the twomile course that she bent over in exhaustion soon after finishing, trying to catch her breath. More and more, Vonn is feeling like her old self again as her surgically repaired right knee gets stronger. The knee felt “really good,” Vonn said as she scrambled for the warmth of the lodge following the bitterly cold workout session.

The goal now?” Get faster,” she said. “I need more miles.”

Vonn, who’s preparing to defend her downhill title at the Sochi Olympics in three months, added: “I feel fresh and training hard. Everything is perfect.” The 29-year-old Vonn shredded her anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in a crash at the world championships in Schladming last February, but has progressed much faster than anticipated.

She even thought about competing at the season-opening race in Soelden, Austria, on Oct. 26, only to skip it to give her knee more time to recover.

Asked if there were any regrets about sitting out that competition, Vonn said: “I was definitely disappointed. It’s hard to say no for me. But I felt like I needed more time.”

These days, all of her decisions are based on one thing: Being in the starting gate at full strength for Sochi. Vonn will make her return to the World Cup circuit in Beaver Creek later this month, with boyfriend and pro golfer Tiger Woods possibly even showing up to cheer her on. “We’ll see,” Vonn said, laughing. — AP

COPPER MOUNTAIN: Lindsey Vonn, gets into the starting gate for the first speed training of the season at the US Ski Team training center. — AP

DETROIT: Mao Asada, of Japan, performs during the ladies free skating routine at the Skate America figure skating competition in Detroit in this file photo. — AP

Asada aims to add to success at NHK Trophy TOKYO: Mao Asada has won the NHK Trophy three times, so she knows how important it is in qualifying for the Grand Prix Final.

The two-time world champion is aiming to add to her win at Skate America when she takes to the ice at the NHK Trophy this weekend, the fourth of six events in the International Skating Union’s GP series.

The 2010 Olympic silver medalist could secure a place at the GP Final in Fukuoka next month with a podium finish. And that’s all critical in her overall preparations for the Sochi Olympics next February.

As in previous competitions, the triple axel will be vital to Asada’s success. “The triple axel will be important,” Asada said. “Hopefully, my per-

formance here will get me going for the rest of the season.”

Asada’s main Olympic rival, defending world and Olympic champion Kim Yu-na of South Korea, injured her right foot in August and decided to sit out the GP season.

So Asada’s main competition is expected to come from compatriot Akiko Suzuki, who was second at Skate Canada last month, and Mirai Nagasu and Gracie Gold of the United States. Suzuki is also aiming to wrap up a spot in the GP Final and selection for Japan’s Olympic team.

Nagasu had a fourth-place finish at the Vancouver Olympics but has struggled with injuries and inconsistent results since then. She was third at last year’s NHK Trophy. Gracie Gold., meanwhile, is hoping looking to build

on a third-place finish at Skate Canada.

In the men’s competition, 2010 world champion and Vancouver bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi will be desperate to bounce back from a disappointing fourth place at Skate America. Spain’s Javier Fernandez, the European champion, will be competing in his first Grand Prix event of the season, while Adam Rippon, Max Aaron and Jeremy Abbott will represent the United States.

Two-time world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States will start as overwhelming favorites in the ice dance. World and European champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia, who won Skate America, headline the pairs event. — AP

Hansen backs Smith despite slow start PARIS: New Zealand coach Steve Hansen expects centre Ben Smith to go from strength to strength despite a difficult start to life in the All Black jersey.

Although his preferred position is fullback, Smith originally played as a winger for New Zealand but failed to set the world alight with his early performances.

However, having switched to centre alongside Ma’a Nonu earlier this year, he has reaped the benefits and has already scored 12 tries for the All Blacks since the beginning of 2013.

Ahead of tomorrow night’s test against France at the Stade de France in Paris, Hansen believes Smith is something of a late developer but that he fully deserves his place in the New Zealand starting lineup. “The first thing he had to do was to become comfortable wearing the All Black jersey. He did that on the wing and now he has a lot of self belief,” said Hansen. “We

spent quite a lot of time talking and going through things with the coaches.

“Now it’s just about going out and doing it, learning as he goes. He’s a very capable rugby player. He has played first five, second five, wing and centre at club level. “He played second five for us, he played in midfield for the Highlanders, he just hasn’t played a lot (for the All Blacks).

“He needs game time to get comfortable, he might need three, four or five games but I think we’ll see him get a handle on the situation quickly and we’ll see his attacking flair coming through in the near future.” Smith has been courted by some of the big-spending powerhouses of European club rugby but Hansen is relieved that he was convinced to stay in his homeland, signing a deal until 2017 back in July.

“Like a lot of our good players, there are offers put in front of them all,” said Hansen.

“This time he had an offer but New Zealand Rugby wisely put enough money on the table to keep him. “He wasn’t at that point anywhere near the player he is now but the potential was there.

“He is one of only five players in history to score more than 12 tries in a test season, so it’s a pretty special year. “Sometimes we have All Blacks that come in and can’t handle the expectation of the jersey. “There are others who immediately come in and step up to the plate from day one.

“The third type who comes in is not great but the more opportunities he gets the better and better he becomes. “Ben’s one of those. This season he’s been outstanding.” The painfully shy Smith admits he wasn’t an overnight success but he says he is slowly adapting to his new status.

“Everyone’s a wee bit different but the more time you get in the black jersey, the more comfortable you get,” he said. “It was

pretty tough when I first came in because it was a dream to play for the All Blacks, so I’m just trying to absorb everything.”

One player who was an instant hit was wing Charles Piutau, who scored two tries in Tokyo last weekend. Hansen places him in his second category, those who step straight up to the plate.

“He’s taken off, his game against Australia was right up there,” said Hansen.

“He looked comfortable, he seemed natural, he’s got a lot of confidence.

“He repeated that performance against Japan and we’d expect him to do that again tomorrow.” Piutau has already earned the admiration of stalwarts such as fly-half Dan Carter. “I’ve been very impressed with Charles, he came into the environment, worked really hard and made the most of every opportunity. “Last week he was awesome, he’s growing into the role in the (All Black) environment.” —AFP

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Arsenal need fresh vigor for United trip

ITALY: Napoli’s Argentinian forward Gonzalo Higuain celebrates in this file photo. —AFP

Napoli aim to exploit Juventus’ weakness ROME: Sensing weakness in their rivals, Napoli are aiming to put pressure on Serie A leaders AS Roma by defeating champions Juventus in Turin on Sunday (1945 GMT).

Rafael Benitez’s Napoli occupy second place in the league but are level on 28 points with Juve and three behind Roma who, despite facing lowly Sassuolo, are worried that a lack of strike power will hamper them.

Juventus have not looked as strong as in previous, title-winning seasons, suffering an embarrassing 4-2 defeat at Fiorentina last month and conceding 10 goals in 11 games.

With Gonzalo Higuain, who scored twice in the Champions League win over Olympique Marseille on Wednesday, leading a stellar forward line that has catapulted them to their best start to a league campaign, Napoli aim to take advantage of the uncertainty in Juve’s back line.

Jose Callejon, Marek Hamsik and Higuain have scored 17 of Napoli’s 24 league goals between them and Argentine Higuain believes he has much more to come.

“I’m happy. I still need to improve but I’m feeling good, and that’s what matters,” the 25-year-old said after Wednesday’s win put Napoli in second place in Champions League Group F. With an international break coming up next week, both Benitez and Juventus boss Antonio Conte will be picking their best available sides, with Valon Behrami and Hamsik almost certain to return to Napoli’s starting line-up.

Striker Mirko Vucinic may return to the Juve squad after an injury lay-off but will not start and wing-back Stefan Lichtsteiner is still out.

Fernando Llorente and Mauricio Isla are favorites to start in the champions’ preferred 3-5-2 formation, while Giorgio Chiellini returns to the back line after being suspended for his side’s 2-2 Champions League draw with Real Madrid on Tuesday.

While their rivals have an abundance of attacking options, Roma are wondering where the goals are going to come from against Sassuolo at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. —Reuters

LONDON: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is concerned his flying team may lose some of their intensity as their “big month” continues with a trip to Old Trafford on Sunday.

The Premier League leaders face champions Manchester United hot on the heels of beating Liverpool 2-0 at the Emirates and overcoming Borussia Dortmund 1-0 away in the Champions League, with midfielder Aaron Ramsey especially on fire.

Arsenal’s victory over Liverpool last weekend put them five points clear at the top for their biggest lead since February 2008. The Gunners have lost only once in the league this season, a 3-1 opening day home defeat by Aston Villa. “We passed (the test against Liverpool) in a convincing way,” Wenger told Arsenal Player.

“The focus of the team and the togetherness you could feel from the outside, they refused to lose this game and you could feel that from the start.

“You could not have predicted that after the first game (Villa) so let’s enjoy it, take a lot of encouragement from it and continue to develop as a team,” Wenger added.

“And as well be cautious and be on our toes, because we changed it in an emphatic way so let’s make sure we continue to grow and not think ‘OK let’s have a little breather’.”

The tables have turned since a beleaguered Arsenal were humiliated 8-2 by United, which included a Wayne Rooney hat-trick, in August 2011 in a low point for Wenger.

Arsenal, who have not won silverware since 2005, are now eight points ahead of a United side still adapting to manager David Moyes’ methods following Alex Ferguson’s retirement after winning his 13th Premier League title last season.

“At the moment, with 10 games played, you can say 25 percent of the season (has gone). You see the first tendencies and trends but it’s still not settled,” Wenger said. “By the end of November you will have a clearer idea.” Robin van

GERMANY: Arsenal’s Welsh midfielder Aaron Ramsey celebrates German midfielder Mesut Ozil in this file photo. — AFP Persie was on the scoresheet for Arsenal buoyed by a 2-0 win over Chelsea.

Jose Mourinho lambasted his players that day in 2011 but will lead the line in the red of United on Sunday having come for last weekend’s Newcastle defeat but a on as a substitute and missed a penalty in 3-0 Champions League win over Schalke the midweek 0-0 Champions League draw 04 cheered his mood, with Samuel Eto’o scoring twice as he looks to replace the at Real Sociedad.

Strike partner Rooney feels Arsenal are injured Fernando Torres domestically.

Everton and Manchester City have peaking too early. “We’ve seen before that they’ve been in the top two until February trips to lowly Crystal Palace and or March and then faded away,” the Sunderland tomorrow and Sunday England man said. Moyes’s side are begin- respectively. Swansea City host Stoke City ning to find their feet, even if winger on Sunday.

High-flying Southampton entertain Ashley Young is often hitting the deck.

His latest fall to win the spot-kick in Hull City tomorrow having conceded two Spain has been slammed by pundits, rare goals in Wednesday’s 2-1 Capital although his manager said he was fouled One Cup defeat and Aston Villa host having criticised him for a dive earlier this Cardiff City.

Under pressure Norwich City boss season. Second-placed Chelsea host West Bromwich Albion and Liverpool, in third, Chris Hughton seeks a quick recovery play struggling Fulham at Anfield tomor- against West Ham United in tomorrow’s row. On Sunday, fourth-placed Tottenham late game having shipped seven goals at Hotspur welcome a Newcastle United side Manchester City last weekend. — Reuters

Betis next victims on the block for Messi’s Barca MADRID: Having sealed their place in the Champions League last 16 with two games to spare and Lionel Messi returning to something near his best, Barcelona are eagerly awaiting Sunday’s La Liga clash with Real Betis.

Messi ended a mini goal drought with a double in Wednesday’s 3-1 Group H win at home to AC Milan and the Argentine World Player of the Year will be looking to put a run of four domestic outings for the unbeaten leaders without scoring behind him when struggling Betis visit the Nou Camp.

The 26-year-old, whose season has been disrupted by a couple of minor muscle injuries, delighted his adoring fans when he smashed in a penalty after 30 minutes and sent them into ecstasy when he dashed through the middle and scored with a trademark dinked effort seven minutes from time.

Talk of a Messi crisis dominated the buildup to the game, but his record this term is one most players could only dream of - six goals in three Champions League appearances and eight in 10 La Liga outings. “I’m calm about the recuperation,” Messi said on the UEFA website (www.uefa.com) yesterday. “I’m getting my rhythm back bit by bit and I think it really helps to have 90 minutes, then another 90 minutes, back to back so that I can gradually re-establish the tempo and the form I had

before,” he added. “This time there have been two injuries really close together and that kind of impact you do notice. But I’m definitely getting past it and I’m happy with my form.”

Seville-based Betis, who play at Portuguese side Guimaraes in the Europa League late yesterday, are mired down in 18th place in the table with just over a quarter of the season played and pressure has been mounting on coach Pepe Mel. Barca, by contrast, have dropped only two points - in a 0-0 draw at Osasuna last month - and are a point clear of second-placed Atletico Madrid, who play at Villarreal on Sunday (1800).

Barca’s arch rivals Real Madrid are a further five points back in third and host fellow Champions League participants Real Sociedad tomorrow.

Real and Atletico are also through to the Champions League knockout round, although Real’s 2-2 draw at Group B rivals Juventus on Tuesday again exposed the defensive frailties that have marked many of the performances this season.

Resurgent under Argentine coach Diego Simeone, Atletico swept Austria Vienna aside 4-0 at the Calderon on Wednesday to record their fourth victory in as many games and seal top spot in Group G.

Real coach Carlo Ancelotti has a fearsome attack at his disposal, led by prolific Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo, but his defence has been ragged and San Sebastian-based Sociedad have players with pace and skill capable of taking advantage.

The Basque club’s European campaign is all-but over after they lost their first three games in Group A and drew at home to Manchester United on Tuesday, but they will be keen to put on a good show at the Bernabeu. History is against them, however. Sociedad have played 66 league games at Real’s giant stadium and have only managed three wins, the last coming in the 2003-04 season, with 47 defeats.

Midfielder David Zurutuza said one of the lessons learned from the meeting with the English champions was that Sociedad need to exert more control and prevent the swift breakaways that yield many of Real’s goals. “Against teams like Manchester (United) or (Real) Madrid you have to help out your team mates more, you have to close down more space and the physical demands are greater,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday.

“Both of them like a back and forth style of play and that’s what we have to avoid with a more measured and deliberate approach,” he added. —Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Robben to add pace, trickery as Bayern eye league record GERMANY: Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben is set to stage a Bundesliga comeback against Augsburg tomorrow with the treble winners in need of his pace and trickery as they aim to crack a 30-year-old league record.

The Dutchman had been out for two weeks with a groin injury and while Bayern kept winning in Germany and Europe, they looked far less sharp doing so.A narrow 3-2 win over Hertha Berlin was followed by another nervous 2-1 victory at Hoffenheim last week that saw them equal Hamburg SV’s 36-game unbeaten run but their performance was far from their best.

A struggling 1-0 win over Viktoria Plzen, which booked their spot in the knockout stage of the Champions League with two game to spare and their best ever group performance after four games, sounded alarm bells.

For any other team this would still be a perfect run but Bayern fear they could become complacent. “We need to quickly make sure we do not oversleep in the opening stages of games as we have been doing in the last few weeks,” Bayern captain Philipp Lahm said.

Robben’s return to spice up their game with his darting runs could not have been timed better with the winger back in training on Wednesday and expected to feature in coach Pep Guardiola’s squad, the club said.

For fellow Bavarian club Augsburg, in 13th place, the question is not who will score goals but rather who will be in goal with coach Markus Weinzierl deploying all three keepers so far this season.

Swiss Marwin Hitz surprisingly won the nod in their 2-1 win over Mainz 05 last week and paid back the trust with a good game.

“Sometimes you make difficult decisions as a coach but you have to and sometimes you are rewarded,” Weinzierl said after Witz’s solid performance.

This kind of risk-taking will be necessary if they are to get anything out of a game against unbeaten Bayern and move further away from the relegation zone. Second-placed Borussia Dortmund will look to bounce back from a 1-0 Champions League defeat to Arsenal when they travel to improving VfL Wolfsburg, who have won their last three games to climb up to fifth. Dortmund are on 28 points from 11 games, one behind Bayern.

Bayer Leverkusen, in third spot on 25, entertain Hamburg, in 14th place after a 2-0 defeat to Borussia Moenchengladbach last week. —Reuters

Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben

Rodriguez, Lallana get England’s call LONDON: England manager Roy Hodgson handed call-ups to uncapped Southampton pair Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana as he unveiled his squad for friendly games against Chile and Germany yesterday. Rodriguez and Lallana have played central roles in Southampton’s stunning start to the Premier League season, which sees them in sixth place after 10 matches, and they join club-mate Rickie Lambert in the squad.

Lallana, the 25-year-old Southampton captain, received his first call-up in September 2012, but 24-year-old forward Rodriguez had not been called up before. Hodgson said that Rodriguez, who has scored four goals this season, could prove a useful alternative to Manchester United’s Danny Welbeck. “Danny Welbeck has been injured. We hope and believe he’ll be fit to play, but I see in Rodriguez someone who can possibly fill that Welbeck role,” the England manager says.

“He’s a wide forward rather than a wide midfielder or a winger. He likes to attack people even without the ball and get into the penalty box. “We think he’s played well for Southampton and we think this might be an interesting opportunity for him.” Meanwhile, Liverpool duo Glen Johnson and Jordan Henderson both returned to the squad.

Johnson recently returned to action after an ankle injury, while Henderson last played for his country at Euro 2012. —AFP

Photo of the day

David Coulthard of Scotland performs in a Red Bull Racing Formula One car on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on October 30, 2013. . — www.redbull.com

Nadal digs deep to seal No.1 ranking LONDON: The year dawned with a cloud hanging over Rafael Nadal’s career but will end with him on top of the world after a win over Stanislas Wawrinka at the ATP World Tour Finals on Wednesday that illustrated why he is in the pantheon of tennis greats.

He has certainly played better during a sensational season that began in February after a seven-month injury layoff, but the way he soaked up everything the Swiss could muster to complete a 7-6(5) 7-6(6) victory on Wednesday underlined Nadal’s almost fanatical refusal to be beaten.

Wawrinka walked off the cavernous showcourt wondering how he is yet to take a set off Nadal in 12 meetings, but it would be a harsh judge who criticised the world No.8 for failing to convert the fleeting chance that came and went in the second-set tiebreak.

He was within a whisker of taking a high-calibre opener too, but Nadal, as he has in winning 74 matches in a spectacular season of almost total dominance on all surfaces, proved armour-plated in defence and ruthless when invited to attack. Nadal arrived in London for the glitzy seasonender needing two wins to fend off Novak Djokovic in his bid to end a year as world No.1 for the third time in his career. After dismantling compatriot David Ferrer on Tuesday, he was stretched to the limit by Wawrinka in his second Group A match, digging deep to notch up another milestone. By winning in straight sets he also assured himself of a place in the semifinals here, and few would bet against the 13-times grand slam champion going on to claim the only significant title still missing from his CV. Nadal also finished 2008 and 2010 as world No.1 but this time his achievement seems more impressive considering where he was in February.

After sitting out the second half of 2012 because of the knee injury that has dogged his career, Nadal missed the start of this season with a virus, and even when he re-surfaced on south American claycourts he was still wincing through the

pain on occasions.

The outlook looked gloomy, but nine months on he has arrived in London with 10 titles from 16 tournaments, reaching the final of three more, and while he has gone to great lengths to insist rankings are no longer his goal, the way he celebrated when Wawrinka struck a forehand into the net after two hours, 12 minutes spoke volumes.

“Today was more important to secure the number one (ranking),” Nadal, whose only blemish so far in London was a warning for slow play, told reporters.

“I think after all that happened last year, I felt I deserved to be there at the end of the season. And today I did,” Nadal added after proudly reeling off his 2013 achievements, which included five Masters 1000 Series titles, an eighth French Open crown, and the U.S. Open.

“This is one of the best things that I did in my career, to come back to number one after three seasons. That’s very difficult in our sport, and after a very important

injury. “Now I can really be focused only on the tournament because the year end is over.” Much has been made of Nadal’s shift in emphasis to a more attacking style this year - a tweak designed to lessen the load on his knee and that brought him unprecedented success on the U.S. hardcourts that used to furrow his brow.

Against Wawrinka, however, it was his trademark defensive skills that proved decisive. Wawrinka hit twice as many winners as Nadal and won more points, but when it mattered most, Nadal proved why he is one of the hardest men to put away.

When the Swiss broke Nadal’s serve with an exquisite forehand winner to level the first set at 5-5 and then nosed 6-5 ahead, the momentum had shifted his way. At 5-5 in the tiebreak Wawrinka had his foe pinned against the ropes, but somehow the Spaniard extricated himself with a desperate lob that forced a rash error from his opponent. When Wawrinka stumbled on the next point, Nadal darted in to swat away a forehand.

LONDON: Spain’s Rafael Nadal celebrates beating Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka during their Group A singles match in the round robin stage on the third day of the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament. —AFP

FRIDAY, NONEMBER 8, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

MILWAUKEE: Milwaukee Bucks’ OJ Mayo gets tangled as he tries to drive past Cleveland Cavaliers’ Dion Waiters during the second half of an NBA basketball game. — AP

Pacers thwart Bulls charge Page 44