12th Nov 2013

CR IP TI ON BS SU

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Sheikh Salem: Nations need sound utilization of resources

Khamenei controls vast financial empire

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Gulf’s Cup woes contrast with thirst for Europe’s clubs

Miley Cyrus lights up a joint and Amsterdam at MTV awards

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Rashed expects Assembly will be dissolved shortly

Abdulsamad wants Dashti out * Silk City, housing top priorities

By B Izzak conspiracy theories

Fetal position

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

H

www.kuwaittimes.net

MUHARRAM 8, 1435 AH

ousing has been a crucial and yet neglected issue in Kuwait for years. All of a sudden we start hearing MPs coming up with solutions and planning to debate the issue shyly in Abdullah Salem. I do not know why shyly, since it looks like the housing problem has many hidden secrets which, we the public, are unaware of.

In all honesty, we are not bothered about the secrets. We are demanding solutions. It is high time housing problems are addressed seriously by the honorable gentlemen. It is high time the government found quick solutions without grilling anybody for a change. I noticed that grilling delays the work of parliament and shelves things from one grilling to the next. Do not forget the issues that accompany grillings - threats of grillings and conspiracies, interests and rumours.

We do not need this. We need a shortcut to the housing problem whether it is the opportunity to own houses or to rent. I have received many letters from readers who would like to stay anonymous. It seems that they are quite knowledgeable and have been facing housing problems on a continuous basis. Let’s take rentals for example.

Kuwaitis still rent because it takes them an average of 15 years to get a house from the government. According to my knowledge, the government rent subsidy is a meager sum of KD 150.

In the meantime, nobody is even bothered to ask expats about the housing problems they face.

I know that they are in Kuwait to work and need accommodation, but there should be rules. All of a sudden rents soared 300 percent. Mind you, the salaries of expats are not increasing. Do not expect somebody we need to come and work here (I apologize for the word ‘need’ because it is a fact), to pay 50 percent of his salary for accommodation.

In addition, there is no government system that controls certain things, like maintenance and rent increases. Our editor says that each tenant signs a contract when they move into a new flat and the rent should not be increased for five years. But do landlords respect these contracts and do you expect an expat to challenge a landlord in a police station?

When I visit some of my expat friends, I see that maintenance is pathetic in some buildings. Forget the size of flats! Where are the municipality and the ministries that regulate the size of a bedroom and a living room? Shouldn’t a bedroom accommodate a bed, wardrobe and a chest of drawers at least? I am sure that most companies that sell furniture to expats have reshaped their sizes to XS (extra small) because all the new buildings have shrunk. A building floor which used to accommodate three flats now has five flats. Let’s not even mention the so called maid’s room. If the flat is luxurious and has it, I assure you, it will be the size of a matchbox. I think that if the maid is a bit taller, she will have to sleep in the fetal position.

There should be rules and regulations for everyone just like in any other country. Rules should be for all - landlords, realtors, building owners, etc, etc. Rules should be for both sides who sign a contract. The government should set rules for the increase of rents too. It is not up to the landlord to increase the rent as much as they want. May I know why if a flat is old, rents should be increased? Is it fair to have your rent increased after every five years?

Please landlords, land on Planet Earth! Adjust with the realities of life, the situation of the country and with the human aspect of it all.

Have a good day!

KUWAIT: MP Ali Al-Rashed reiterated yesterday his expectations that the National Assembly is likely to be dissolved very soon, even before the highly anticipated ruling of the constitutional court. Rashed, the speaker of the previous Assembly which was scrapped by the constitutional court in June, said, “I still expect the Assembly to be scrapped and could even be dissolved (by the Amir) before the constitutional court ruling” on Dec 23. The lawmaker’s comments came after a veiled criti-

cism by head of the constitutional court Youssef Al-Mutawa to similar statements made by him on Sunday in which he said he expected the court to scrap the July parliamentary elections because of flawed procedures.

In statements to Al-Jarida daily, Mutawa insisted that scrapping the National Assembly is the sole authority of the constitutional court which will issue its ruling on Dec 23. The constitutional court has already scrapped two parliamentary elections citing illegal procedures by the government.

Petitions were filed against the July

Assembly on the grounds that the government that dissolved the Assembly and called for fresh election was “illegitimate” because it did not include any elected member from the Assembly. Rashed said he expects the Assembly to be dissolved by the Amir even before the court’s ruling, but he gave no justification for his expectations.

Tension between the Assembly and MPs have risen in the past few days after requests have been submitted by MPs to grill the prime minister in addition to the minister of health and state minister for planning and development. The three

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grillings are listed on the agenda of today’s Assembly session but it is highly expected that the premier and the two ministers will use their constitutional rights by demanding the debate of the grillings be postponed for two weeks. The grillings were filed by MP Riyadh Al-Adasani against Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah, MP Hussein Al-Quwaiaan against Health Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah and MP Khalil Abdullah against State Minister for Development and Planning Rola Dashti.

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Typhoon survivors beg for help Storm kills at least 100 in Somalia’s Puntland

TACLOBAN, Philippines: Survivors look up at a military C-130 plane as it arrives in this typhoon-ravaged city in Leyte province in central Philippines yesterday. — AP (See Page 7)

MERS virus found in patient’s camel RIYADH: The Saudi government said yesterday that a camel has tested positive for MERS, the first case of an animal infected with the coronavirus that has killed 64 people worldwide. A camel owned by a person diagnosed with the disease had “tested positive in preliminary laboratory checks,” the health ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. The ministry said it was working with the ministry of agriculture and laboratories to “isolate the virus and compare its genetic structure with that of the patient’s”. If the virus

carried by the camel and that of the patient “prove to be identical, this would be a first scientific discovery worldwide, and a door to identify the source of the virus,” it added. The camel was diagnosed in the western province of Jeddah, it said.

Experts are struggling to understand the virus known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, for which there is no vaccine. It is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 Continued on Page 15

Instability threatens Gulf food security DUBAI: Instability in Egypt and Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz are serious risks to food security in the Gulf, according to a report by a British think tank. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries depend on imports for 80-90 percent of their food, and most of it has to be brought in through two shipping routes that could close due to regional conflicts or political pressure, Londonbased Chatham House warned. With over 80 percent of the Gulf’s wheat coming through the Suez Canal and 80 percent of its rice supply brought in through the Strait of Hormuz, the most vulnerable countries are the United Arab Emirates,

Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, the study said.

Iran threatened in 2012 to block the Strait of Hormuz if it came under attack, as tensions rose with the West last year over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Political instability in Egypt has raised concerns over the safety of commercial shipping through the Suez Canal over the last two years. Egypt has faced a string of militant attacks in the lawless North Sinai region to the east of the canal after the army overthrew the countr y ’s first elected Islamist President Mohamed Morsi on July 3.

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TACLOBAN, Philippines: Dazed survivors begged for help and scavenged for food, water and medicine yesterday after a super typhoon killed an estimated 10,000 in the central Philippines. President Benigno Aquino declared a state of national calamity and deployed hundreds of soldiers in the coastal city of Tacloban to quell looting. The huge scale of death and destruction from Friday’s storm become clearer as reports emerged of thousands of people missing and images showed apocalyptic scenes in one town that has not been reached by rescue workers.

One of the most powerful storms ever recorded, typhoon Haiyan levelled Basey, a seaside town in Samar province about 10 km across a bay from Tacloban in Leyte province, where at least 10,000 people were killed, according to officials. About 2,000 people were missing in Basey, said the governor of Samar province.

The United Nations said officials in Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the storm on Friday, had reported one mass grave of 300-500 bodies. More than 600,000 people were displaced by the storm across the country and some have no access to food, water, or medicine, the UN says.

Flattened by surging waves and monster winds up to 378 kph, Tacloban, 580 km southeast of Manila, was relying almost entirely for supplies and evacuation on just three military transport planes flying from nearby Cebu city. Dozens of residents clamoured for help at the airport gates. In a nationwide broadcast, Aquino said the government was focusing relief and assistance efforts on Samar and Leyte provinces, which acted as “funnels for the storm surges”. Aquino said the government had set aside 18.7 billion pesos ($432.97 million) for rehabilitation.

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Kerry defends Geneva talks, says Iran balked ABU DHABI: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday defended moves to strike a nuclear deal with Iran, saying it would protect Israel and America’s Gulf allies, while stressing Tehran had balked.

His comments came as France said world powers were close to an agreement with Iran on its disputed nuclear drive, despite failure to reach a deal at crunch talks in Geneva on the weekend. Kerry’s remarks also come as Israel and the US are locked in an bitter war of words over the negotiations to halt Iran’s nuclear drive, suspected to be a front for developing a military capability.

“Our hope is that in the next months we can find an agreement that meets everyone’s standards,” Kerry told reporters in Abu Dhabi. “The P5+1 was unified on Saturday when we presented our proposal to the Iranians... But Iran couldn’t take it, at that particular moment they weren’t able to accept.” Kerry insisted that a deal with Iran would protect Israel and other US allies. “We are confident that what we are doing will protect Israel more effectively,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the emerging agreement as “dangerous”, while his defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, called it a “historical mistake”.

Kerry insisted that Washington has the interests of Israel at heart and that he shares Netanyahu’s “deep concerns”. “But I believe the prime minister needs to recognise that no agreement has been reached about the endgame here, that’s the subject of the negotiations,” said Kerry. He said sanctions were imposed on

ABU DHABI: US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a joint press conference with his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed AlNahyan yesterday.— AP Iran to force it to negotiate. “And if we had to turn to a military option, because we are left no other option, we must show the world we’ve exhausted every possible remedy and opportunity.”

Israel, the region’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, views a nuclear Iran as an existential threat and has refused to rule out the threat of military action to protect itself. Netanyahu has reached out to world leaders and to the American public to get his point across.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LOCAL

Kuwait Pinoys hold charity drive for typhoon victims Sincere sympathies to brethren

By Ben Garcia KUWAIT: After Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda hit the Philippines over the weekend, an effort to help through a donation drive is now underway by various Filipino community organizations.

The groups plan to organize events including concerts to solicit and raise funds from individuals and companies for the benefit of people affected by the typhoon. Newswires have reported the death toll could reach more than 10,000. “The plan is to organize a concert so that we can gather all the Filipinos in Kuwait under

one roof to donate for the victims of typhoon, but most importantly, to be able to comfort them in times of this terrible tragedy,” said Pastor Allan Dytianquin, a senior pastor for the Life Connection Church in Kuwait. “I feel we are all obligated to extend our hand and our loving arms to comfort each other. This large-scale tragedy is so great that we all need each other to lean on and strengthen our faith. Our sincere sympathies for all the victims,” he added. His group is planning to organize a one-day concert and money collected during the event will be sent directly to the typhoon victims.

OKINAWA: In this photo released by the US Marine Corps, Marines load palletized equipment onto a KC-130J Hercules aircraft yesterday at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan, during preparation for a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission to the Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan. —AFP

Dr Chie Umandap, FBC Founder and head of the Alliance of Filipino Organization in Kuwait (Allfil-Ok), said they are all for this charity event.

“The final venue and date will be announced soon. In the meantime, we are urging everyone to be part of this big gathering of Filipinos so that in our own small way, we can extend our sincere sympathies to our brethren,” he said. The charity event will be called ‘Musika at Ambagan’ with a whole day prayers, praises and charity.

“The event is not exclusive to any religious organizations or Filipino organizations - this is for Pinoys in Kuwait, so along with some religious music, we will have singers and bands who are not affiliated with any religion. What we are planning is a day of fiesta-like atmosphere.

There will be bazaars and things to buy and eat too. We want to raise money more than goods, because the cost of logistics is very expensive, so we prefer cash. If they insist to give in kind, we will ask them if it’s okay to sell it here instead,” he noted.

Another group headed by Filipino Catholics in Kuwait also welcomed donation from Filipinos. An appeal posted by Hengie Taton on Facebook reads: “Once again our country has been hit by the strongest typhoon in our history and thousands of our fellowmen are greatly affected. Pinoy Ambulance Nurses in Kuwait (PANIK) in cooperation with the Filipino community are knocking at your heart for help - anything that you can share is highly appreciated. I always believe that we should never get tired of doing little things for others. Sometimes these little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts.” His group will be holding a donation drive titled ‘Yolanda’ on Nov 23 at the Holy Family Cathedral in Kuwait City.

KUWAIT: The African-Arab Economic Forum session in progress yesterday.

Arab, African nations need resources’ sound utilization KUWAIT: The African-Arab Economic Forum kicked off its sessions yesterday as part of the pre-African-Arab Summit functions. The first session, “Arab-African Cooperation in Development”, was led by Chief of Staff to the Chair of the African Union Commission Jean-Baptiste Natama and discussed the role of Arab institutions in supporting development in Africa.

Speakers included Abdulatif Al-Hamad Director-General and Chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) and President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Donald Kaberuka.

As for the second, led by Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group Chairman Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, it discussed cooperation between Arab and African development bodies in the field of infrastructure and the exchange of expertise.

Speaking in this session was Director General of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Suleiman Al-Herbish.

The third session will discuss policies, laws and procedures for investment in Africa, through the support of ties and growth and increasing the flow of direct foreign investments between both regions, headed by Kuwaiti ex-Finance Minister Bader Al-Homaizi.

Speakers will include Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency Sector Leader of Agribusiness, Manufacturing and Services Nabil Fawaz, Arab Foundation for Investment Guarantees Director-General Fahad Al-Ibrahim and Johan Frederick from the School of International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University.

A fourth session called “Joint ArabAfrican Investments” will be led by Commissioner of Economic Affairs at the African Union Commission Anthony Mothae Maruping.

It will include lectures on the prospects of investment cooperation between Arabs and Africans delivered by Chairman of Jordan’s Chamber Of Commerce Nael AlKabariti, creating investment opportunities in Africa in the wake of Arab world relations

by African Union Commisssion Director of Economic Affairs Rene N’Guettia Kouassi and another on the institutional role of safeguarding investments and exports in the Arab and African regions.

Arab and African States are able to shore up their economies and realize peoples’ aspirations provided they soundly utilize national resources, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah said yesterday.

Representing His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah at inauguration of the Afro-Arab Economic Forum, Sheikh Salem touched on

some drawbacks and obstacles facing these nations on the development path, namely climatic change that has impacted negatively on natural resources, including cultivated lands.

The Arab and African countries should employ all necessary financial resources to execute projects in diverse social and economic sectors, he said, noting that they could secure internal and external funds for the development ventures.

Millennium objectives, set by the United Nations in 2000, have not been implemented due to diverse “challenges,” namely global food crisis that broke out in 2007, coupled with drastic hike of commodities’ prices, and the financial crisis that erupted in late of 2008, Sheikh Salem said.

The Arab and African countries, over the past three decades, reformed economic and financial systems and policies for sake of realizing further economic openness and overcoming hurdles that obstruct economic growth and development, he added.

He alluded to other major problems facing efforts for development in these countries, namely mounting unemployment, poverty, hunger, lack of basic services such as education, health care and utilities.

These countries should adopt policies that enable them utilize their natural and human resources in an optimum manner.

Elaborating, the Minister said Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), founded by Kuwait in 1961, has established cooperation with 104 developing countries, including 56 Arab and African States, devoting particular attention to projects in the agricultural, educational, health and utilities’ sectors, in addition to supporting small and medium enterprises.

He expressed hope the two-day forum would conclude with applicable recommendations in the diverse economic and social fields, with aim of realizing the peoples’ aspiration toward prosperity and progress.

The two-day Arab-Africa Economic Forum kick off under patronage of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah. It precedes the 3rd Arab-African Summit, due here on Nov 19-20.

The forum, organized by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) in cooperation with the Arab League and the African Union Commission and with the participation of public and private sector organizations, regional and international institutions, aims to discuss the Arab-African partnership and topics related to economic development in the two regions, in addition to shedding light on the reality of Afro-Arab cooperation. — KUNA

Injured military personnel to get treatment abroad KUWAIT: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Lt Gen Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah said yesterday that His Highness the Amir and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was briefed on health conditions of five army officers injured in an accident at a joint exercise with the Air Force.

His Highness the Amir issued orders to dispatch the injured to treatment abroad, Sheikh Khaled said during his visit to the injured officers at Jahra Hospital.

Sheikh Khaled was briefed on the conditions of the officers injured during the accident.

He added that His Highness the Prime

Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah was also briefed by telephone on health conditions on the injured military personnel, wishing them a speedy recovery.

During his visit, Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah wished all injured a speedy recovery and to continue serving their country.

Four Kuwaiti officers were injured during a training exercise in Janob Al-Abatih area north of the country, one in critical conditions, while another was released from hospital after stable conditions, but three remain for treatment. The accident occurred when an Apache type helicopter was taking off hit by accident a military patrol vehicle nearby. —KUNA

MPs urged to hold govt accountable for violations KUWAIT: The parliament is required to take action against ministers for violations mentioned in the Audit Bureau’s annual report which was released recently for the year 2012/2013, a local daily reported yesterday quoting a senior official in the bureau. Speaking to Al-Rai on the condition of anonymity, the source explained that the bureau’s job is to identify flaws in the government’s performance “through impartial assessment”, then send their reports to the parliament to take necessary action. “The law to establish the State Audit Bureau does not give it the right to refer a state department to the public prosecution in order to avoid losing its independence and impartiali-

ty”, the source said. He urged the parliament to “bear its responsibility” in holding the government accountable for “financial and administrative violations” mentioned in the report.

According to the source, the volume of violations “in which millions of dinars were lost and dues not collected” is worthy enough to allocate a special session in the parliament to discuss them and take the right action.

Meanwhile, the source urged ministers to “exercise their authority to refer violators to the public prosecution” in order to curb the violations which he said “are increasing gradually in some departments as a result of the lack of deterrent measures”.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LOCAL

Huawei reveals Connected Applications for future e-government services in Kuwait KUWAIT: With the strong uptake of information and communications technology (ICT) fuelling Kuwait’s economic development, Huawei-a leading global ICT solutions provider-joined public sector leaders this week to preview a range of new e-government solutions aimed at suppor ting the expansion of secure and reliable online services for residents across the country. The preview took place during the “E- government Forum: Recent Trends, S ecurit y R isks and Implementation Challenges” hosted at the Marriot Courtyard Kuwait from Nov 11 to 13.

Governments across the GCC are today ramping up their e-government services to meet the growing demands of residents for easy-to-use online applications that not only provide users greater accessibility to public services but enhance collaboration

and efficiencies within the government sector. Guaranteeing the security of online information has become particularly important as e-government systems host an increasing number of payment and mobile applications across key industry verticals.

Connecting multiple government departments such as those responsible for education, public security, health, and civil affairs, Huawei will be collaborating with local partners to showcase an expanded portfolio of solutions including a bespoke e Government Cloud Data Center, an eGovernment Multilevel Access Solution, as well as Huawei’s latest eGovernment Extranet for centralized management of communication and collaboration tools. “ Today Kuwait ’s public sector is ac tively seek ing to align people, processes, and policies so that resi-

dents have more accessible and secure ways to interact with the government online,” commented Terry He, General Manager of Huawei Kuwait. “Such egovernment ser vices are however, being influenced by key trends such as the rise in mobile penetration, more people bringing their own devices to the work place, and the need to increase inter-department coordination. Forums like the E-government Forum are essential in sharing best practices and leveraging these IC T trends to create new opportunities for both the public sector and the population at large.”

Speaking directly to this year’s conference attendees, Joe So, Vice President of Sales at Huawei Enterprise Middle East, participated in a series of discussions focusing on “Service-Oriented Government on the Cloud” during Day 2 and an in-depth review of “Huawei’s e-

Government Cloud Data Center Solution” on Day 3 of the forum.

Huawei’s Enterprise Business has worked with governments across the region and around the world to deploy a vast range of ICT solutions for the public sector, from network infrastructure and communications to niche industry solutions and data center technologies.

Amongst the company’s notable projects in Kuwait include an ongoing partnership with the Ministry of Communication which has seen the delivery of advanced telecommunication services for more than 140,000 users via the deployment of cutting-edge Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), next-generation core networks and Integrated Software Management systems (ISM). Recent Huawei projects in the Middle East have also included tieups with the Ministry of Manpower in Oman and the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia, amongst others.

Creative brains’ to develop industries

KUWAIT: The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson pictured during his visit to ‘DiwanAlshaya’ in Shamiya yesterday.

— Photos by Joseph Shagra

DiwanAlshaya hosts Mayor of London KUWAIT: The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, accompanied by a senior delegation from City Hall, visited ‘DiwanAlshaya’ in Shamiya area yesterday. The Mayor of London is on a two-day official visit to Kuwait.

The mayor and his accompanying delegation were warmly welcomed by Mohammed Abdulaziz Alshaya, executive chairman of M. H. Alshaya Co. and Chairman and Managing Director of Mabanee Co. Also present were dignitaries representing Kuwait’s key economic and commercial organizations.

The mayoral visit to Diwan Alshaya reflects the strong relations between the State of Kuwait and London, especially in trade and commerce, while also highlighting opportunities for bi-lateral trade and investment. The mayor expressed his pleasure at having received the warm hospitality for which Kuwait has been traditionally renowned. He also thanked the Alshaya Family for facilitating this opportunity to meet with representatives of prominent Kuwaiti merchant families.

No end in sight for suffering of elderly disabled people KJA hosts symposium

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Kuwait Journalists Association (KJA) in cooperation with the National Assembly for Elderly Rights (NAER) held a symposium on the rights of elderly disabled people as part of the ninth national festival for solidarity with the disabled. The speakers expressed their dissatisfaction with the present situation and explained their vision of the proposed additions or modifications of the present laws.

President of NAER Ali Al-Mawla expressed his sadness on the situation of the elderly disabled. “They suffer from various shortages although there is a law for the disabled No. 8/2010 and a law for the elderly No. 11/2007. When an elderly disabled person seeks help or service at the Public Authority for the Disabled, they send him to the Elderly Care Department of the Ministry of Social

Affairs and Labor, who in their turn classify him as disabled. But they don’t realize that these people have special needs that are not included in the law for the elderly,” he said during the symposium.

“I call upon all those who can provide help and support to help this category of elderly people as they are not getting their rights from the Elderly Care Department or from the Public Authority for the Disabled. The service provided to the elderly is very bad since the past eight years and many services were stopped. We started demanding their rights in 2011 by proposing a new law to take care for this oppressed category which was submitted to the parliament in 2012.

Recently, one of the dailies published a statement of an MP claiming this law is his proposal, which is not true.

We demand the Minister of Social Affairs to cooperate with us,” added Mawla. Ali Al-Thuweini, scholar, writer

and specialist in education and human development noted that the young disabled proposed the draft law for elderly people as they felt for their needs. “ The most important demand is to have an independent authority for healthcare and early intervention before being disabled.

There should be a special authority to take care of retirees as they need a special place to practice their hobbies and gather, and they need somebody to take care of them,” he explained.

Education also plays a key role in this matter. “The Ministry of Education should include this subject in the curriculum to educate the new generation from their childhood to take care of their parents and grandparents. If the government approves the rights and privileges for the elderly people, their value will increase and their family will take better care of them,” Thuweini added.

Attorney Husein Al-Hardan noted that the law should be set and prepared by direct contact with the elderly people to better understand their needs. “The present law for elderly No. 11/2007 consists of eight articles only and this is not enough to manage their needs. The new proposed law will have 55 articles that includes all their needs. Some elderly people are not disabled yet but they need special care. The solution consists of establishing an institution to provide them with their needs such as hearing aids and others. The elderly in Western countries receive excellent care and we demand at least good care. They should be provided a specialist medical team as they are more likely to suffer from health problems,” he pointed out.

KUWAIT: Director General of the Public Authority for Industry (PAI) Barrak Al-Sabeeh yesterday called for employment of creative brains to boost Arab industries, noting innovation and creativity have become main factors for upgrading the sector.

Ability to innovate, design, develop and manufacture have become very crucial for developing the Arab industries, Al-Sabeeh said, addressing inaugural session of a forum, themed “creativity, innovation ensure industrial competition.”

Affirming great need for guidance by skilled strategists in the sector, Al-Sabeeh said new ideas are needed to create jobs, establish successful partnerships and manufacture good-quality commodities.

Factors, such as the capital, equipment and labor are no longer primarily important to assess enterprise feasibility, for “continuing innovation has turned to be the main resource for profiting,” he added.

Currently, substantial efforts are being exerted to enhance competitiveness of the Arab industries to the international level by means of devoting attention to innovation and creating new and applicable ideas, Al-Sabeeh said.

Meanwhile, Mohammed BinYousef, Director General of the Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organization (AIDMO), concurred in his statement with the Kuwaiti official that creativity, technological inventions and scientific knowledge have become quite important for sustainable economic development and global competition.

Citing reports by the World Bank and UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, he affirmed that some countries that had experienced economic conditions identical to those in the Arab countries succeeded in making significant development by depending on know-how and innovation.

Singapore, of five million population, has managed to be among the top economically developed nations, he said. Elaborating, he said other Asian nations, namely China and South Korea, spend five percent of the domestic product on research and development, as compared to 0.1-1 percent in Arab countries, lower than the required level of 1.7 percent-to make some progress.

Nevertheless, some Arab states, namely Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and the UAE set up special funds for scientific research. States such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan increased spending on scientific research and innovation for sake of updating the scientific infrastructure, he added. He expressed gratitude to the State of Kuwait, namely His Highness the Amir, the Government and the people for hosting the seminar, grouping a number of elite experts in innovation and creativity. — KUNA

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 128, 2013

LOCAL

Drunk driver assaults police officer in Salmiya University instructor charged with bribery KUWAIT: Hawally police arrested a drunk driver who assaulted an officer after being stopped at the Bidaa Roundabout. Police were reportedly regulating traffic when the suspect ignored instructions to move his vehicle away from the road. The man stepped out of his car and started assaulting the officer verbally and physically before he was put under control. Police discovered that the man was drunk and found a bottle inside his car which they suspected of containing alcohol. While police were placing the man inside the patrol vehicle, another officer arrived and identified himself as the suspect’s brother. The policeman reportedly tried to talk his colleagues out of confiscating the liquor bottle so that it is not used as evidence against his brother, but his demands fell on deaf ears. The driver was taken to Salmiya police station where he was charged with intoxication, drunk driving and assaulting a police officer on duty.

Meanwhile, a man attacked police officers with a stun gun when they attempted to arrest him on charges of ‘imitating the opposite sex’. The incident took place in Sulaibikhat where a patrol officer pulled the man over when he noticed his appearance. In statements made later to Shuwaikh police station officers, the policeman said that the suspect violently resisted arrest and attacked him repeatedly with a stun gun before escaping. The officer gave police a medical report that shows diagnoses of multiple cuts and bruises he said sustained during the assault.

Investigations are ongoing.

University bribery A college student filed a case against his instructor who he said asked for a bribe to give good grades to him and other students.

The Kuwaiti man identified himself at the Sabah Al-Nasser police station as a student in the College of Commercial Studies at Kuwait University. He said that the instructor asked the class to do a ‘project’ which involved going to sweet shops and making orders val-

ued between KD 60 and KD 70. He said that students were told doing the project guaranteed them full marks even if they skipped the remaining classes and did not show up for the finals. Police filed a case and are looking to summon the instructor for questioning.

Body found Investigations are ongoing in the death of a Kuwaiti man whose body was found early Sunday morning inside a Daiya house. Police and paramedics headed to the scene following an emergency call but found out that the 22-year-old man was already dead.

Preliminary investigations indicated that the man had died three hours before his body was found. Crime scene investigators were called and their investigation did not rule out the possibility of foul play being involved. The body was taken for an autopsy to confirm the cause and time of death.

Fatal crash A teenager died in an accident reported Sunday on King Fahd Highway. Patrol officers called an ambulance to the scene after witnessing an accident involving a vehicle which swerved to the right and hit the barricade. The young Egyptian man was pronounced dead at the scene and other family members in the car were taken to the hospital. A case was filed for investigation.

Suicide attempt A Qairawan resident was hospitalized in a critical condition following a suicide attempt committed for unknown reasons. The 35year-old Kuwaiti woman was admitted in the intensive care unit as soon as she arrived at Farwaniya Hospital. The doctor’s report made available to Qairawan police station officers indicated that the woman consumed 20 medicated tablets in a suicide attempt.

Investigations are ongoing to determine the woman’s motives.

‘Judiciary has final say on dissolution’

INJAZ ties up with KU to help prepare students for workforce KUWAIT: INJAZ-Kuwait yesterday announced it has collaborated with Kuwait University (KU) to incorporate INJAZ’s Company Program into the curriculum. The company program allows the students to develop business ideas, conduct market studies, capitalization, human resources organization, production and sales, division of profits/losses and liquidation.

Through the collaboration, INJAZ-Kuwait is committed to provide five Company Program (CP) courses to 87 students to complete a total of 24 hours over the period of 12 weeks.

Rana Al-Nibari, CEO of INJAZ-Kuwait said: “It is a privilege to tie up with Kuwait University, the first public university in the State of Kuwait. We are also honored to support KU’s CP classes, with support from our corporate volunteers and mentors in innovative and creative methods to provide students with practical help in their studies and develop their practical skills for the workforce. “ “INJAZ-Kuwait has provided education and training for nearly 27,000 students since the organization launched its programs in 2005, and we will spare no effort to continue to introduce the latest and most advanced modern education ideology to Kuwaiti students in the future.”

Dr Samar Baqer, assistant professor, Management and Marketing Department, College of Business Administration Kuwait University said: “In Kuwait University, we constantly try to include innovative educational methods therefore we have decided to include INJAZ’s Company Program as the course project in one of the senior classes and dedicated 30% of the final grade to this project. Students, who are able to establish a new company, sell its products, and gain profits are definitely going to pass a major test of practical experience and the winning team will have the final exam waved” Volunteering to present this course, Abdulaziz B. Al-Loughani, vice chairman & Executive Director of Kuwait National Fund for SMEs Development stated: “I have had great experiences volunteering with INJAZ-Kuwait in the past, and encouraged to continue my mission through presenting this course in Kuwait University’s College of Business Administration. This is the first time to implement this program for universities, here in Kuwait. Previous experience shows that this course does work for the benefit of participants and trust that it will be a positive constructive one for KU students”

KUWAIT: Head of the Constitutional Court Yousuf Al-Mataawah recognized MP Ali Al-Rashid’s right of opinion regarding the fate of the current parliament, but reiterated at the same time that the final say on the issue “will be for the judiciary”.

MP Al-Rashid was quoted yesterday indicating that the Constitutional Court is going to annul the parliament in a ruling on Dec 23, before new elections are held in February.

“Al-Rashid’s remarks reflect his assessment of the matter, but the final say will be for the judiciary”, AlMataawah told Al-Jarida daily on Sunday.

Al-Mataawah believes that AlRashid’s conclusion is based on “the constitutional or legal analysis of challenges that the Constitutional Court is looking into”. He further pointed out that Al-Rashid’s assessment was previously wrong during the previous parliament’s term which was annulled by the Constitutional Court whereas he had expressed faith that the court will reject all challenges.

In other news, the Criminal Court on Sunday adjourned a case in which 16 people face charges for repeating a speech made by former MP Musallam Al-Barrak that contains offenses to HH the Amir. The court set Dec 1 as the date for the next hearing. The court had sentenced AlBarrak to five years in prison over the case, but the Appeals Court overruled the verdict and ruled for retrial.

Bedoon duo in police net

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Jahra detectives arrested two bedoons in a Kabd area camp with a 9 mm firearm along with 16 rounds of ammunition and several stolen civil ID cards. A patrol car that belongs to installation facilities was also found in Amghara. The two suspects were found to be ex-convicts, and wanted for other cases. Meanwhile, security information department at the Interior Ministry said the police woman involved in a tape that included misbehavior was sent for questioning in order to take necessary action against her.

The tape was being circulated over social networks.

IMF chief visits CEF KUWAIT: The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde visited the Center for Economics and Finance (CEF) in Kuwait on Sunday. She was accompanied by Dr Mohammad AlHashel, Governor of the Central Bank. Also in attendance was Osama Al-Ayoub, President and CEO of the Kuwait Investment Office in London.

Dr Abdul Hadi Yousef, director of CEF, welcomed the guests and gave background information about the center.

In her speech, Lagarde thanked the Kuwaiti authorities for their generous support in establishing the center. She also noted that this center has helped the IMF provide training opportunities on a wider scale and double the training capacity for the region.

Dr Al-Hashel said “the partnership between Kuwait and the Center for Economics and Finance is a success for all parties involved and Lagarde’s visit today is a prime example of this success which emphasizes the importance of the center in the region.”

On this occasion, Al-Ayoub said that the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) understands the importance in investing in the development of human

resources. The KIA has numerous training programs such as the new graduates program, MBA scholarship to the top 20 universities in the world, Kuwait Automotive Academy, and the World Bank job opportunities.

Al-Ayoub added that the KIA signed the memorandum of understanding with the IMF on Nov 6, 2010 to establish the CEF. The center initiated the training program in March 2011. Since its establishment, the center organized 78 training courses which were attended by more than 2,000 participants from 22 Arab countries.

Kuwait had the most participants with more than 250 attending.

The CEF in Kuwait is one of three training centers under the IMF. The other two centers are located in Vienna and Singapore.

The IMF plays a primary role in facilitating the training programs at the CEF utilizing their vast knowledge and experience it has. The training programs focuses on all aspects related to the economic and financial management at the macro level and balance of payments policy, as well as government’s budget, legislative frameworks, and administrative organization.

Arab delegates meet on WMD-free Mideast initiative CAIRO: An extraordinary meeting of the Arab League’s permanent delegates kick-started here on Sunday, focusing on an Egyptian initiative to create a WMD-free Middle East region.

Presided over by Libya, the meeting was held upon request from Cairo in order to rally up support for the Egyptian initiative.

Addressing the extraordinary meeting, Egypt’s permanent delegate at the Arab League Ambassador Tareq Adel expounded on the Egyptian initiative which was put forward by Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy at the UN General Assembly on September 29.

He said the initiative features several steps to free the Middle East region of all types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear, chemical and biological ones, by means of inviting all the countries of the region and the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to officially support the Egyptian effort.

According to the Egyptian document, all those countries which have not yet signed relevant international treaties should do so by the end of this year, he pointed out.

It calls on Israel to join the NonProliferation Treaty (NPD) and other biological and chemical conventions, while urging

Syria and Egypt to sign chemical and biological treaties, he added.

On the same occasion, Secretary-General of the Arab League Nabil Al-Araby called on all world countries to join the NPT, describing it as being one of the most significant treaties in the history of humanity.

He stressed the importance of international efforts in this framework, involving Egyptian and UN initiatives for a WMD-free Middle East region. But, he regretted that an international conference scheduled to have been held in Helsinki in 2012 on the NPT has been put on the back burner several times due to Israeli reluctance to attend it. — KUNA

KUWAIT: The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde visiting the Center for Economics and Finance.

KD 5.8m loan for Burkina Faso airport KUWAIT: The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) signed a loan agreement worth KD 5.8 million to fund the Ouagadougou Airport project in Burkina Faso.

The project aims to achieve economic and social development in Burkina Faso and top improve its contact with other nations through the airport located 35km north of the capital city, Ouagadougou.

The airport will respond to the increasing travel demands, incoming, outgoing or transitting, providing its services to around 1,000 travellers through three jumbo aircraft at peak hours.

Signing the agreement on behalf of the Kuwaiti state fund was its Director-General

Abdulwahab Al-Bader with Burkina Faso’s Minister of Economy and Finance Lucien Marie Noel Bembamba.

The agreement was signed in Kuwait on the fringes of the African-Arab Economic Forum, which precedes the higher level African-Arab Summit due in a week.

KFAED has so far handed 15 loans to Burkina Faso worth a total KD 50.1 million for various key projects in the land-locked central African nation.

Burkina Faso later signed another agreement with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa for the funding of the same project, according to a KFAED statement. — KUNA

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LOCAL

Kuwait marks 51st anniversary of Constitution KUWAIT: Kuwaitis marked yesterday the 51st anniversary of the state’s first Constitution which was endorsed during the reign of Kuwait’s 11th ruler late Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah. On Nov 11, 1962, the late Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah promulgated the Constitution for Kuwait to become the first Arab state in the Gulf region to issue a constitution and have a parliament.

“We, Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Amir of the State of Kuwait, desiring to use the means of democratic rule for our dear country; and, having faith in the role of this country in furthering Arab nationalism and the promotion of world peace and human civilization; “And, striving towards a better future in which the country enjoys greater prosperity and higher international standing, and in which also the citizens are provided with more political freedom, equality, and social justice, a future which upholds the traditions inherent in the Arab nation by enhancing the dignity of the individual, safeguarding public interest, and applying consultative rule yet maintaining the unity and stability of the country, and, I having considered Law Number I of 1962 concerning the system of Government during the period of transition; and, upon the resolution of the Constituent Assembly; do hereby approve this Constitution and promulgate it,” the then Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem wrote in the permeable of the constitution.

Kuwaitis elected the Constituent Assembly in January 1962, to draft the first constitution of the state which will regulate authorities and freedoms. The Assembly was chaired by Abdullatif Thunayyan Al-Ghanim, with Dr Ahmad Al-Khateeb as vice chairman. In his inaugural speech to the Constituent Assembly, Sheikh Abdullah AlSalem called for unity so as to best serve the interests of the country and its people, adding that this assembly would bear the burden of setting the main bases for Kuwait’s future.

A five-member committee was formed to oversee this constitution-drafting, including then Interior Minister Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Al-Ghanim, AlKhateeb, then Justice Minister Homoud Al-Zaid Al-Khalid, and member of the Assembly Saud Abdulaziz AlAbdulrazzaq. The panel held a total of 23 sessions, the first of which was on March 17, 1962 and the last was on Oct 27, 1962. The draft constitution was presented by Al-Ghanim to Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem on Nov 8, Sheikh Abdullah AlSalem ratified the constitution on Nov 11. The first parliamentary elections were held in the country after 72 days of the Constitution ratification, on Jan 23, 1963.

The Kuwaiti Constitution is made up of 183 articles divided into five parts: The State and the System of Government; Fundamental Constituents of the Kuwaiti Society; Public Rights and Duties; Powers; and General and Transitional Provisions.

On Feb 10, 1980, late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah formed a 35-member committee to amend the constitution. The committee held its first meetings on Feb 19, 1980 with the attendance of late Sheikh Saad AlAbdullah Al-Sabah. The committee concluded its work on June 22, 1980, after meeting for 18 weeks.

During the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the constitution united all Kuwaitis inside the state and abroad. Kuwaiti leaders gathering in the Saudi city of Jeddah in October 1990 announced their full commitment to the Constitution and loyalty to the legitimate Al-Sabah rulers, which kept Kuwaitis morale high till their country was finally liberated in February 1991. Since the enforcement of the Constitution, Kuwaiti National Assembly held 14 legislative terms and 33 governments were formed. —- KUNA

Al-Ghanim lauds Al-Babtain role BRUSSELS: Kuwait’s National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim applauded the role of the Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain’s Prize for Poetic Creativity in promoting dialogue among civilizations and people of different faiths.

“I am proud to accept the invitation of the Kuwaiti Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain to attend and deliver the opening speech at ‘the Euro-Arab Dialogue in the Twenty One Century: Towards a Common Vision’ which will be held at the EU Parliament HQs Monday,” Al-Ghanim said yesterday.

“I am proud that a compatriot is organizing such an important meeting which aims to reach understanding and spread tolerance among people of different faiths and cultures as well as increase closeness between Arab and European nations.”

He added that such meetings help both sides find common ground for constructive cooperation and overcome negative stereotypes.

Al-Ghanim pointed that Arab and European countries need to make the best use of their experience in different domains.

Earlier, Secretary-General of the Foundation Abdulrahman Al-Babtain said that the objectives of this gathering are to shed light on the dialogue milieu between the Arabs and the West.

He added that the other goal is to find a new joint dialogue between the two sides that has the authenticity of the past, “as we all know that the two sides share a deep-rooted history and at the same time seek common future aspirations and without dialogue, none of these aspirations would be a reality”.

He stressed that the Foundation has been seeking since its inception in 2004 to change the misunderstanding and the confused image about the Arabs and Muslims, especially after the Sept 11 incidents in the United States in 2001.

He noted that the Foundation, and under the guidance of its president Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain, sought to open dialogue with the West, which was launched from Spain and went then to Bosnia, France, the United Arab Emirates and now Belgium “to disseminate the ideology of tolerance from several Western and Arab geographical angles.

Al-Babtain said that the Foundation will direct messages and recommendations to various world leaders to contribute for convergence with the other and renounce violence, affirming that the continuation of the Foundation in its work throughout the nine years demonstrates its success.He said that a number of renowned politicians and cultural figures would take part in the gathering including Kuwaiti National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim and other European officials. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Thousands of used tires burning in Rehaya area.

KUWAIT: Workers of the municipality loading used tires near the camping areas.

Kuwait plans to export used tyres to Pakistan ‘Better than building a factory’

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: According to a local Arabic daily, Kuwait will export 100,000 tons of used tyres that are currently stored in different areas including Rehaya and Mina Abdullah to Pakistan.

This will be done by a local private company after getting approval from the authorities in charge including the Environment Public Authority and Customs Department. The shipment will leave Kuwait by sea from Mina Abdullah. This decision to send the used tyres is an alternative solution to get rid of these tyres instead of building a factory for treating and recycling them. There has been much discussion about storing used tyres in large quantities after repeated fires in Rehaya.

Tyre recycling can be a profitable industry and an investment if done with modern technology. “Any project should be build on certain pillars to be feasible. To build a recycling factory for treating the used tyres, we will need to have huge quantities of these tyres on a regular basis. Building such a factory is very expensive and has capital and operational costs, and has to operate for a certain period to cover expenses and make profits,” economic analyst Hajaj Bu Khadour told Kuwait Times.

“Although the present quantity of used tyres is huge, it was collected over many years and not in a year. So we can’t expect the factory to work only for three or four months a year. In this case, the production cost will be very high. So the quantity should be suitable and adequate to cover this cost. There should be a regular supply of material to achieve economic feasibility,” he added. “For these reasons, the export of these used tyres is better than building a factory. Although we have a great number of vehicles in Kuwait, our consumption of tyres is not enough to operate a factory. Pakistan is a huge country with a population of over 180 million people, so definitely their consumption and use of tyres will be greater than ours, so exporting used tyres is the best solution to solve the problem of this waste,” he explained.

Bu Khadour blamed the Municipality for not taking this role. “As a result of bad administration and corruption, the Municipality left this transaction to a company from the private sector and is also paying for this. They instead could save these expenses for storing food supplies or other projects, and turn the expenses for waste treatment into income for the state budget. As long as this idea exists, the government is able to execute it,” he concluded. Chairman of Green Line Environment

Group Khalid Al-Hajiri described the export of used tyres as the wrong solution. “This waste has great economic value if it is recycled correctly. In general, recycling waste can turn Kuwait into an exporting country for raw material at least if not other products that can be manufactured from the waste. It’s a wrong decision as there are strict international laws for transporting this waste. Also, these importing countries can refuse to import this waste at any time in the future,” he pointed out.

According to him, the intended quantity to be exported 100,000 tons - presents a part only. “The available quantity of used tyres in Kuwait is much bigger than what will be exported, so we need a clear strategy and plan to recycle the waste and produce useful material out of it, as well as preserve the environment,” Hajiri noted, adding bureaucracy in various public authorities is responsible for failing all environment projects. “I blame the Environment Public Authority, Public Authority for Industry, and the Kuwait Municipality for their negligence. In Kuwait we have the most expensive cleaning contracts that reached $1 billion a year if calculated per square meter. Yet the companies executing this do not provide basic services such as separating waste and others. Corruption is behind these problems,” he stated.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LOCAL kuwait digest

The problem is in Kuwaitis

By Khalid A Al-Awadhi

Al-Anbaa

I

kuwait digest

s it fair to hold the individual in our society responsible for what is going on in the country and spare the government from this responsibility, while it controls the country’s interests according to the constitution? Many are those who blame the Kuwaiti human being for the bad situation in Kuwait at all levels, as simple as that. They falsely accuse him of being the reason behind all problems Kuwait is suffering from, and believe in the theory that says the “problem is in us”, we as individuals. The administrative and financial corruption that is rampant, sectarianism, tribalism and affiliations that became one of the attributes that distinguish our society, are in those people’s view, caused by the Kuwaiti citizen.

As for the bad economic situation in the country and the defect in the state’s budget, deteriorating infrastructures and bad services, and other lingering problems for decades, must be, in those people’s opinion the responsibility of the Kuwaiti individual. The Cabinet, which according to article 123 of the constitution “controls the state’s interests, draws public policy of the government and follows its implementation” has nothing to do with what is going on, and may be innocent in the opinion of some even if it was constitutionally responsible for finding good solutions for them.

I really do not know how can a rational personal blame

It was only half an hour

By Hassan Barari

“T

hat did not take too long. It was only half an hour”. This statement was mentioned in an Al-Rai daily report recently, and supposedly is a quote taken from someone who blocked a road with his vehicle while he headed to finalize a transaction at a state department. According to the report, the man made that statement to other drivers who lined up behind his car and waited until he finished what he came to do.

If I were the Information Minister, I would have launched a media campaign to solve a deep ideological issue in our society, which is the problem of rights and duties. It seems that people no longer want to understand that once they lose the ability to comprehend true ideological principles, rights and duties, then injustice and oppression prevail.

There is a deep problem within people who think that being Kuwaiti opens all doors in front of you and gives you the right to treat others like they are worthless! The Information Ministry is required to make those people understand that they have duties as much as they have rights. The simplest duty is to respect the rights of others, not because they want to but because they have to!

Do you know what is worst than all of this? It is when those people understand rights in a wrong and reversed way. They confuse between their rights, the

rights of others and their duties in a way that reflects their ignorance and irresponsibility. If the Information Ministry focused only on explaining to people the positive and negative sides of rights, I believe it would deserve an award for such a great achievement.

The ministry is required to tell people that rights have limits. Negative rights means that a person has the right to do or own something, but no one has the responsibility to present or provide that right to him/her. Sleeping, having lunch, buying new shoes, etc are ‘negative rights’ because people have the right to do them but no one is responsible to make it available for them. A person is responsible to provide for himself without outside interference.

Positive rights pertain with two sides - the person benefiting from this right and a party that is required to provide it for them. For example, driving and smoking are personal rights (regardless of whether they are harmful or not) that a person can choose to exercise. But in return, another party is required, I repeat, is required to make that right accessible.

While a person has the right to drive, that right cannot be exercised when others do not give them way to drive. Meanwhile, a smoker is required to make sure that others are not bothered by his smoking habits. — Al-Rai

individuals for all of that while knowing that the party that holds the tools of reform and corruption, like planning, information, education and means of imposing laws is the government and the state, and not those individuals? I do not understand how they demand from the Kuwaiti citizen to respect the law, while they know very well that the one who is lax in imposing the law, and even violates it in many instances is the government, first and last.

I find it strange when the holders of the “the problem is in us” theory describe the Kuwaiti as sectarian, tribal and affiliated, while knowing very well that the Kuwaiti was not born sectarian or tribal, rather government policies that were followed for many decades produced a divided society in sectarian and tribal “statelets”. This poor individual was forced to resort to them after losing confidence in his mother state. So is it fair for some to hold the individual in our society responsible for what is going on, while he actually is unable to do anything? Also, is it fair to ask those who do not own the reform tools, to reform what others have corrupted?!

Aristotle discovered more than 2,300 years ago that the responsibility of reforming the individual in any society is that of the state, and he wrote this in his book under “politics”, yet some of our guys still insist on ignoring this fact. — Al-Qabas

kuwait digest

Show support to good activity

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij

F

ellow columnist Ali Al-Baghli wrote recently to criticize a doctors’ protest in support of Dr Kefaya Abdul Malek and other incidents in which doctors say colleagues were subjected to oppressive measures. Things might be suspicious, especially after Baghli mentioned names and numbers to support his argument. However, this is not important, and should not be a reason to question the doctors’ movement. What is important is the fact that they moved, and that they believe that the arbitrary decision to transfer Dr Kefaya is a violation of their rights and the rights of all citizens.

We have been watching wrong practices committed in front of us for years - even the crimes committed in the state’s employment sector through wasta (unlawful mediation), favoritism, and political bribery. But no one did anything. And worse, everyone became involved. Despite that, pressing calls (and sometimes annoying ones) continued to fight corruption and the alleged crooks.

But the actual form of corruption has always been happening from below, and right between us. I wrote about this twenty years ago and I say it against today - ministers and government officials did not come from Mars; perhaps it would have been better if they did, but they were born and raised in the swamp of corruption we live in.

The health minister’s violation of a Kuwaiti woman’s right of promotion that is guaranteed by law and required as per her hard work is unfortunately a reflection of a Kuwaiti culture that we have accepted and chosen. I understand why Baghli was surprised by the doctors’ support movement, because this is an unusual sight in Kuwait. I was also surprised, as expressed in my previous column, but welcomed the demonstration as a correct and praiseworthy reaction regardless of the doctors’ intentions. My advice to Baghli and other columnists is to show support to a good activity that defends citizens’ rights. These are definitely unusual phenomena in Kuwait’s corrupt society. — Al-Qabas

In my view

Future of Arab revolutions

By Ramzy Baroud

C

hallenging the falsehoods and simplifications that surrounded the so-called Arab Spring from the very start doesn’t necessarily mean that one is in doubt of the very notion that genuine revolutions have indeed gripped various Arab countries for nearly three years. In fact, the revolutionary influx is still underway, and it will take many years before the achievements of these popular mobilisations are truly felt. One can understand the frustration and deep sense of disappointment resulting from the state of chaos in Libya, the political wrangling in Yemen and Tunisia, the brutal civil war in Syria, and of course, the collective heartbreak felt throughout the Arab world following the bloody events in Egypt.

But to assign the term ‘failure’ to Arab revolutions is also a mistake equal to the many miscalculations that accompanied the nascent revolutions and uprisings from the start. Many lapses of judgment were made early on, starting with the lumping together of all Arab countries into one category - discussed as singular news or academic topics.

It was most convenient for a newspaper to ask such a question as “who’s next?” when Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was so pitilessly murdered by NATO-supported rebels. It is equally convenient for academicians to keep contending with why the Egyptian army initially took the side of the Jan 25 revolution, the Syrian army sided with the ruling party, and while the Yemeni army descended into deep divisions. In the rush to emphasise one’s intellectual authority, if not ownership over the narrative and for political reasons as well, the Arabs were dissected in every possible way, stretched in every possible direction, and reduced in ways so useful, yet so flawed, so that quick answers could be obtained.

While answers were readily available on why the Arabs revolted, time has proven much of the early discourses inane and misleading. The direction of these revolutions has headed in sharply different ways. This is a testament to the uniqueness of circumstances, historical and otherwise, which surround each country - as opposed to the wholesale representation offered by the media. It is an argument I made soon after Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country.

My argument was in response to the euphoria of expectations made by media ‘experts’ and journalists who clearly had little understanding, or dare I say, respect of history or knowledge about the complex realities in which each Arab country is situated. Many went on to write books, while others inspired audiences around the world with fiery speeches about collective Arab Islamic awakenings even before we conjured up basic ideas of what was truly manifesting before our own eyes. These manifestations were at times very violent and involved many players, from Qatar to China, and groups very varied in roots, ideology and sources of funds.

But as the plot thickened, much of the distorted accounts of ‘Twitter revolutions’ and such, grew less relevant and eventually faded away. Take the case of Libya as an example. Those with simple answers, reflecting truly modest understanding of Arab societies, could hardly understand the complex nature of Libya’s tribal society, the socioeconomics governing relations between East and West, urban areas with desert towns, and Libya’s African context and relationships.

When NATO used the Libyan uprising, mostly in the eastern parts of the country, to achieve its own political

objectives, it converted a regional uprising into an all-out war that left the country in a status comparable to that of a failed state. Almost immediately after NATO declared the Libyan revolution victorious, the excitement over the Libyan component of the ‘Arab Spring’ became less visible, and eventually completely dissipated. Since then Libya has hardly followed a path of democracy and reforms.

In fact, the harms that resulted from the Libyan crisis, such as the massive influx of weapons and refugees to other African countries, destabilized the entire country of Mali. As a result, Mali too went through its own upheaval, military coup, civil war and finally a French-led war in the course of two years. Unfortunately, these issues are hardly discussed within the Libyan context since Mali is not Arab, thus such inconvenient stories do no service to the simplified ‘Arab Spring’ discourse.

The consequences of the Libyan fiasco will continue to reverberate for many years to come. But since simple arguments cannot cope with intricate narratives, media ‘experts’ and other intellectual peddlers have moved elsewhere, selling the same tired arguments about other Arab countries by insisting on the same failed, expedient logic. While some parties continue to ascribe the same language they used in the early months of 2011 to these revolutions, the shortcomings of these revolutions eventually gave credence to those who insist that the ‘Arab Spring’ was entirely farce - incepted, controlled and manipulated by US hands, and funds of rich Arab countries.

These critics either have no faith in Arab masses as a possible factor of change in their own countries, or have been so accustomed to judging the world and all of its happenings as a colossal conspiracy where the US and its friends are the only wheelers and dealers. As vigilant as one must remain to the many drivels promoted as news in mass media, one must not fall into the trap of seeing the world through the prism of an American plot in which we are co-conspirators, hapless fools or unwilling participants.

Arab revolutions have not failed, at least not yet. It will take us years, or maybe even an entire generation to assess their failures or successes. They have ‘failed’ according to our hyped expectations and erroneous understanding of history. What popular revolutions do is that they introduce new factors that challenge the way countries are ruled. In post-colonial Middle East, Arab countries were ruled through dictators - and their local associates - and foreign powers. The harmony and clashes between the dictator and the foreigner determined the course of events in most Arab countries - in fact in most post-colonial experiences around the world.

This is where the real significance of the mass mobilizations in Arab countries becomes very important, for the ‘people’ - a factor that is still far from being fully defined - challenged the rules of the game and mixed up the cards. True, they sent the entire region into disarray, but it is the price one would expect when long-disempowered, disorganised, and oppressed people challenge powerful regimes and foreign powers. Arab revolutions have not failed, but they have not succeeded either. They have simply challenged the status quo like never before.

The outcome of the new conflicts will define the politics of the region, its future, and the relationships between governments and the upcoming generations of Arabs.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Cambodia has sovereignty on temple land: UN Court

Iran to give UN more access to nuke sites Page 8

Page 12

Anger grows in devastated Tacloban US sends Marines and sailors to help TACLOBAN: Hung outside a shattered church in the Philippine coastal city of Tacloban, on a road flanked with uncollected corpses and canyons of debris, is a handwritten sign. It read, “We need help!” Relief supplies are pouring into Tacloban three days after Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, turned this oncevibrant port city of 220,000 into a corpse-choked wasteland. Tacloban city administrator Tecson Juan Lim says the death toll in this city alone “could go up to 10,000.”

At least a dozen US and Philippines military cargo planes arrived yesterday, with the Philippine air force saying it had flown in about 60,000 kg (66 tons) of relief supplies since Saturday. But the demand is huge and the supplies aren’t reaching those who need it most. “People are roaming around the city, looking for food and water,” said Christopher Pedrosa, a government aid worker.

Aid trucks from the airport struggle to enter the city because of the stream of people and vehicles leaving it.

On motorbikes, trucks or by foot, people clog the road to the airport, clutching scarves to their faces to blot out the dust and stench of bodies. Hundreds have already left on cargo planes to the capital, Manila, or the second-biggest city of Cebu, with many more sleeping rough overnight at the wrecked airport in the hope of boarding flights in the coming days.

Reuters journalists travelled on a government aid truck which took five hours to pick up 600 bags of rice, tinned goods and milk from the airport and take it to a distribution point at City Hall. Thousands more bags were left at the airport because the truck wasn’t big enough, said officials. Pedrosa, the government aid worker, said security concerns prevented supplies from being handed out after dark. “There might be a stampede,” he said. The aid truck was guarded by soldiers toting assault rifles. “It’s risky,” said Jewel Ray Marcia, a Philippine army lieutenant who led the unit. “People are angry. They are going out of their minds.”

The official slogan of Tacloban is “A City of Progress, Beauty and Love”. But Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, has turned that on its head, as desperation and anger grow. Residents wait with increasing impatience for

a trickle of aid to become a torrent. Earlier yesterday, said Pedrosa, soldiers fired warning shots into the air to stop people stealing fuel from a petrol station.

A heavier presence of soldiers and police on the debrischoked streets has stopped most looting, at least for now.

People were still emptying one warehouse of rice and loading it onto carts and motorcycles. No police or soldiers stopped them.

A handwritten sign pinned to a makeshift police checkpoint near a looted department store warned of an 8 pm to 5 am curfew. Reuters was unable to confirm whether the curfew was observed or enforced.

Also cleared out is a bottling factory for beer and soft drinks. In some areas, Coca-Cola was handed out free while drinking water was impossible to find. Officials were warning residents not to drink water from wells, which were likely polluted. But there is another reason the looting had abated. “ There is nothing left to loot,” said Pedrosa.

Officials attribute the high death toll to the many people who stayed behind to protect their property and were swept away in a storm surge of water and lacerating debris. One of them was Marivel Saraza, 39, who moved her six children further inland before Haiyan struck, but stayed behind to look after her home only a stone’s throw from the sea. She ended up battling through chest-high water to reach higher ground, while the storm surge destroyed her two-story concrete home.

“My house just dissolved in the water,” she said. Saraza now struggles to feed her children. The government gave her 2 kg (4.4 lb) of rice and a single can of sardines - barely enough for one family meal - so her husband was foraging for fruit further inland. But trees have been combed flat by the force of the wind and rice fields inundated with salt water. Haiyan struck with a force strong enough to drown hundreds of people in a storm surge and send cars and shipping containers tumbling through neighbourhoods.

All that’s left of the main airport building is a carcass of twisted metal.

The sea has yet to retreat from some neighbourhoods and the streets are flooded. The bay is littered with half-

TACLOBAN: Survivors move past the damages caused by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban city, Leyte province central Philippines yesterday. — AP submerged cars. Some people are making shelters from what the water has left of their broken homes. Others, unable to find any flat ground amid the ruins, sleep on sodden mattresses on their roofs. Some 5,000 people sheltered in a stadium.

The streets empty at night, the ruins lit here and there by cooking fires, or scoped by the powerful lights of pass-

ing army trucks. Rusty Lacambra, 42, is joining the exodus along with his wife, two sons and niece. Yesterday night he hitched a lift in an army truck bound for the airport to wait with hundreds of others hoping for a free flight on a cargo plane to Manila. “My house is destroyed,” he said. “Even if you have money there is no food to buy. There is nothing here.”— Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Iran to give UN more access to nuke sites Powers seek diplomatic breakthrough VIENNA/DUBAI: Iran will grant UN inspectors “managed access” to a uranium mine and a heavy water plant within three months as part of a cooperation pact reached yesterday aimed at allaying international concern about Tehran’s nuclear programme. It was signed by UN nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano in Tehran after Iran and six world powers failed in weekend talks in Geneva to clinch a broader diplomatic deal to end a decade-old deadlock over Iran’s atomic activity.

The two negotiation tracks are separate but both centre on fears that Iran may be seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

The Iran-IAEA deal may help boost hopes ahead of a new round of big power diplomacy on Nov 20. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran will “strengthen their cooperation and dialogue aimed at ensuring the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme,” a joint statement said.

“It was agreed that Iran and the IAEA will cooperate further with respect to verification activities to be undertaken by the IAEA to resolve all present and past issues.” That seemed in part to be a reference to a stalled

IAEA investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Iran, but it gave no detail on when and how that probe may resume.

“This goodwill gesture is likely to put Iran in a better position when its negotiators meet again with their (six power) counterparts next week in Geneva,” said Iran expert Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group think tank. Middle East specialist Shashank Joshi at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London said much would depend on implementation: “We have had numerous false starts before.”

The Vienna-based IAEA, tasked with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the world, has long requested more information and wider access to fulfill its mandate to supervise Iran’s nuclear programme to ensure there are no military links. Iran had until now ignored such requests.

But the election of a relative moderate, Hassan Rouhani, as Iranian president in June has fuelled hopes that Iran’s standoff with the West over its nuclear programme can be resolved peacefully.

No mention of access An annex to the agreement listed

TEHRAN: Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi (left) shakes hands with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano, during their meeting yesterday. — AFP

six first steps to be taken by Feb 11, including access to the Gchine uranium mine and the heavy water production plant near the town of Arak.

Under the accord on boosting nuclear transparency, Iran would also provide information about planned new research reactors and sites for future nuclear power plants, as well as clarify earlier statements about additional uranium enrichment facilities it has said it will build.

The IAEA last visited the Arak plant - which produces heavy water for a nearby research reactor under construction - over two years ago and now monitors it via satellite images.

The Arak reactor is of deep concern for the West as it may yield plutonium, a potential bomb fuel, once it starts up.

Iran says it will make isotopes for medical and agricultural use.

Gchine is located near the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas and its annual output is estimated at around 21 tonnes of uranium, which when refined can be used to fuel power plants but also to build nuclear weapons if enriched much further. Nuclear expert Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank described yesterday’s agreement in principle as positive.

“The details will have to be negotiated for specific facilities and cases, and success may ultimately depend on the atmospherics of Iran’s relationship with the powers,” he said. Iran says its nuclear programme is a peaceful bid to generate electricity. But its refusal to halt sensitive work has drawn tough sanctions targeting its lifeblood oil exports.

The statement with the IAEA represents “a road map that specifies bilateral steps in relation to resolving outstanding issues,” the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said at a news conference in Tehran with Amano. The agreement, however, made no explicit mention of the IAEA’s investigation into what it calls the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme, including long-sought access to the Parchin military base where the agency suspects nuclear-related explosives tests took place a decade ago. — Reuters

HEBRON: Palestinian youth hold portraits of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a march in the West Bank town of Hebron yesterday to mark the ninth anniversary of Arafat’s death. — AFP

Arafat case fuels Palestinian tension GAZA CITY: New scientific findings suggesting Yasser Arafat might have been poisoned with polonium have brought to the fore decades-old tensions between rival Palestinian factions and with Israel. Gaza rulers Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority quibbled over festivities commemorating Arafat nine years after his death, and the findings by Swiss experts coincided with a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to try and salvage a fragile peace process. “Sometimes, (leaders) who have died have more presence and influence that those in power who are still living,” said an editorial in Londonbased pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on Saturday.

“Arafat ... is capable, from his grave, of kicking up much dust at crucial, sensitive moments,” it said, days after the Swiss report that “moderately” supported the notion he was poisoned.

Yesterday, Hamas forbade commemorations of Arafat, accusing its rival Fatah of trying to organise “only a Fatah ceremony” in the Gaza Strip and excluding the territory’s Islamist rulers. A heavy police presence saw an AFP correspondent briefly detained just for interviewing residents on the occasion.

Hamas called last week for end to peace talks and “concrete measures to find out who was involved in the crime” of Arafat’s death. But Tawfiq Tirawi, the head of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority’s inquiry into the death, hit back, saying: “If Hamas really cared about the death of Abu Ammar (Arafat’s nom de guerre), they would allow festivities to go ahead in Gaza.” As the inter-Palestinian recriminations continued, the Arafat debacle cast a shadow over a fragile Israeli-Palestinian peace process, just three months after it began. Swiss lab results that were first published Wednesday by the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera “moderately support the proposition that the death was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210.”

Israel ‘one and only suspect’ Since Arafat’s death, Palestinian society has given currency to the rumour that he was murdered, with Israel the party most often blamed. But there has never been any proof. With the publication of the Swiss report, Palestinian officials said there was no longer any doubt, and demanded a formal international inquiry into who was responsible.

“We say that Israel is the one and only suspect in the case of Yasser Arafat’s assassination, and we will continue to carry out a thorough investigation to find out and confirm all the details and all elements of the case,” Tirawi said at a news conference on Thursday. Israeli officials brushed the issue aside, categorically denying any involvement in Arafat’s death.

The pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi meanwhile reflected on how, nearly a decade on, the deeply polarising Arafat remains an icon of the Palestinian struggle for an independent state.

“Nine years after the assassination of Arafat, whom Israel considered an obstacle on the path to peace, nothing has changed on the ground, and it’s high time Israel understood that no Palestinian will abandon the nationalistic principles Arafat stood for,” the paper wrote on Thursday.

Ongoing talks have been on shaky ground, with Israel stepping up settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for their future state, angering negotiators. And Kerry delivered a grim warning to Israel on Thursday that failed negotiations with the Palestinians could trigger a new, bloody uprising.

Arafat shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli leaders after signing the landmark Oslo accords in 1993, when hopes ran high for a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

But the negotiations broke down seven years later amid bitter recriminations on both sides, and a bloody Palestinian intifada, or uprising, erupted that would eventually claim the lives of some 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis from 2000-2005.

Israel and the United States blamed Arafat for a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis during the uprising, while Arafat insisted he was powerless to prevent Palestinians from retaliating for deadly Israeli military operations in the occupied territories. Arafat, aged 75, died in Paris on November 11, 2004 after falling sick a month earlier while he was besieged

by Israeli forces at his Ramallah compound. Doctors were

unable to specify the cause of death and no post-mortem was carried out at the time. In November 2012, his remains were exhumed and samples taken, partly to investigate whether he had been poisoned with polonium.

Some 60 samples were taken from Arafat’s remains in November 2012 and divided between Swiss and Russian investigators and a French team carrying out a probe at the request of Arafat’s widow. The Russian investigation was inconclusive on the notion Arafat was poisoned, and the French have yet to reveal their results. — AFP

Kidnappings threaten Mozambique tourism MAPUTO: A spate of kidnappings and a low-intensity conflict with troubling echoes of Mozambique’s civil war are threatening to scare away tourists who normally flock to the country’s palm-fringed beaches. Around this time of year hoteliers, tour operators and shop owners at Mozambique’s Indian Ocean resort towns are usually busy preparing for a deluge of holidaymakers.

White-sand beaches, pristine coral reefs and luxury hideaways draw travellers from neighbouring South Africa, the continent’s economic powerhouse, and from farther afield for the southern hemisphere’s summer holidays. After more than two decades of peace, just over two million tourists now visit Mozambique each year, accounting for six percent of the economy in 2012.

But in recent weeks clashes have intensified between fighters from revived rebel group Renamo and the army in the centre of the country. It is the worst violence since Mozambique’s brutal civil war ended in 1992. Most resorts are clustered south of the conflict zone, but military skirmishes and attacks on cars travelling along a 100kilometre (60-mile) stretch of highway south of the central city of Beira have spooked many.

“Everybody is concerned. Everybody is asking us and we are telling them we sit and wait,” said Boet Boshoff, who runs a lodge just south of the restive area. At least two passenger buses have been set alight, and passengers and truck drivers have been shot at.

The attacks have been attributed to Renamo, a Cold War-era anti-communist force that became an opposition party after the civil war but regrouped armed fighters at a nearby base a year ago. Security convoys with military escorts have done little to ease concern, and locals are starting to feel the pinch.

“Tourists are few, very few. They are scared,” said Issuf Maarise, who owns a truck stop near where several skirmishes have taken place. “They shoot. These guys don’t care. The army from Mozambique, they just run away.”

South African businessman Bhekisisa Dhlamini was one of those who dared to travel to the region. Last week his convoy was attacked and he was seriously wounded.

“His rib is broken and his arm is broken from two bullets. He is very lucky because the car is finished, there are about 20 bullets in the car,” said his wife Sandra Cumbi.

Four others were also wounded in the ambush, according to local reports. The government has gone on the offensive, raiding Renamo bases and doing everything it can to assure tourists and foreign investors that the situation is in hand.

But memories are fresh of the 16-year civil war, which killed about one million people and crippled the economy. After hearing of the recent fighting, many who had paid deposits for December and January are trying to transfer their bookings to next year. “Naturally clients are fearful but, as they have already paid, they don’t want to lose their money,” national tourism director Martinho Muatxiwa told AFP. —AFP

Jordan eager for UN Security Council seat AMMAN: Jordan is eager to assume a UN Security Council seat that Saudi Arabia had turned down in the wake of differences with the United States, the kingdom’s information minister said yesterday. The UN General Assembly, which voted on Oct 17, to give Riyadh the seat traditionally reserved for an Arab nation on the council, must formally approve Jordan as a replacement. Since Jordan is almost certain to be the only candidate, its election is virtually assured.

Minister Mohammed Momani, who is also the government spokesman, said that Jordan is “consulting” with Gulf Arabs, US and other governments to help support its bid ahead of another General Assembly vote whose date is yet to be determined. He said the pro-US kingdom is seeking Saudi approval for its bid. He said ties between the two monarchies are “traditionally strong” and that Riyadh “will not be upset” if Jordan received the seat.

Last week, Jordan dropped its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, leaving Saudi Arabia a clear path in the now uncontested election on Tuesday. Some activists accused the two countries of making a trade. Another Jordanian official said the government has already received US “blessing and support” during Secretary of State John Kerry’s talks with King Abdullah in Amman last Thursday. He insisted on

anonymity because he is not allowed to make statements to the press.

“Receiving the seat is recognition of Jordan and the king’s standing as a moderate force in the region,” Momani told the Associated Press. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry stunned the diplomatic world with the announcement that it was rejecting the seat, less than 24 hours after it was elected. The Saudis issued a scathing attack on the Security Council’s failures to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Syria, and to convene a conference on creating a zone in the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

The rejection appeared largely directed at the country’s longtime ally, the United States. The oil giant and the world’s superpower are at odds over a number of Mideast issues, including how Washington has handled some of the region’s crises, particularly in Egypt and Syria. It also comes as ties between the US and Iran, the Saudis’ regional foe, appear to be improving somewhat. Jordan, which shares a border with Israel, has been a key behind-the-scenes player in efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amman also shares a border with Syria and has become a major destination for refugees fleeing the 2 1/2-year civil war, which - according to Syrian activists - has killed more than 120,000 people. — AP

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Syria oppn accepts peace talks Coalition to discuss Geneva with sceptical rebels

BEIRUT: Syrian refugee women prepare their regional dishes at Caritas Lebanon Immigrants Centre. — AFP

Exiled in Lebanon, Syria refugees celebrate cuisine DEKWANEH: In a bustling neighbourhood outside of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, a group of Syrian refugee women are learning to translate knowledge of their regional dishes into a marketable skill. They hail from different provinces across the war-torn country, united by their exile in Lebanon, and are hoping their famed cuisine can provide both an income and empowerment. For about two months they have been participating in a food skills workship dreamed up by a Lebanese restaurant and financed by the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR with help from the Lebanese branch of the Caritas charity.

In a modest basement belonging to Caritas in the Dekwaneh suburb of Beirut, Ibtissam Masto proudly shows off her “monk kibbeh”balls of bulghur wheat seasoned with pomegranate molasses that is a speciality of Jisr alShughur in northwestern Idlib province. The petite young woman, wearing a black headscarf, fled several months ago from her home town, which is now better known for violence between rebels and regime troops than its culinary specialities.

“I had a great life in Jisr al-Shughur before the war. I used to sing anasheed (religious songs) during marriages and funerals,” says Masto. “I gave lessons at a religious school and I worked in a pharmacy,” she adds, in a voice full of energy.

“Here, not only am I unemployed, but my husband, who is a plumber, is diabetic and can’t work every day,” she says as she prepares the pomegranate molasses, a key ingredient in Syrian cuisine.

“The idea of this workshop excited me. I hope I’ll be able to make some money.” Though their primary motivation is financial, the workshop has also given the refugees-most of whom are housewives-a way to feel useful, to forget their exile and the war, and also to get to know

Syrians from across their country. Participants come from diverse regions including Idlib, northwestern Hasakeh and northern Aleppo provinces. For Marlene Yukhanna, an Assyrian Christian from Hasakeh, the experience has been a chance to learn Syrian specialities that were new to her. The 40-year-old mother-ofthree can now whip up the Idlib dish of mahshi bulghur-eggplants stuffed with bulghur and chickpeas-and kibbeh semmayeh, which uses the spice sumac and hails from Aleppo.

In exchange, she and her friend Nahrain, who both fled Hasakeh three months ago as fighting between Kurds and jihadists there intensified, have been teaching their colleagues their specialties. Among them is Assyrian kofta, pounded meat mixed with rice, parsley and tomato sauce, and kotal Mosul, a dish of cracked wheat with meat that comes from Iraq, which the Assyrian community was forced to flee in the early 20th century.

Because many dishes are common to cuisines throughout the Levant, the participants have been encouraged to produce only unique regional specialities little seen elsewhere. “We did the same project previously with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and it worked very well,” said Jihan Shahla of Tawlet Souk Al-Tayeb, the Lebanese restaurant behind the project.

“We’re helping them have the ability to do something, to have an income, to build a brand image that will allow them to be sought out to cater a wedding, for example,” she added. Every participant carries with them a tale of grief.”Hasakeh became unbearable in the last few months,” said Yukhanna, who has short hair and who sports a white T-shirt. “The (jihadist) Nusra Front harassed me, demanding that I put on the veil and they destroyed my husband’s car.

Then there were kidnappings.”—AFP

ISTANBUL: Syria’s Western-backed opposition agreed yesterday to attend planned peace talks in Geneva but said President Bashar Al-Assad could play no part in a transitional government aimed at ending the 2-1/2year-old civil war. The Syrian National Coalition also demanded the release of women and children from Syrian jails and an easing of military sieges of rebelheld areas as a precondition for going to Geneva.

No date has yet been agreed for the peace talks, which have been repeatedly delayed by discord between Washington and Moscow and by the coalition’s failure to define its stance until now. “The coalition agreed to take part in the conference on the basis of a transfer of power to a transitional ruling authority with full powers, including the presidency, military and security,” it said in a statement after late-night talks. There could be no role for Assad “or his aides whose hands are stained with Syrian blood” in Syria’s future, it said. The United States welcomed the coalition’s decision to attend the talks and endorsed its conditions relating to prisoner releases and humanitarian access.

“We will continue to work closely with our international partners, including Russia, to urge the regime to take these steps and move towards convening the Geneva conference,” a State Department spokesman said, without commenting on the coalition’s rejection of any role for Assad in any interim government. The United States and its Western and Arab allies, which have all called on Assad to step down, say last year’s Geneva agreement ruled out a future role for the president. Russia, Iran and other supporters of Assad challenge that view. Syrian National Coalition leader Ahmad Jarba had expressed willingness to attend the U.S- and Russian-sponsored talks but this was the first time the whole group had backed the idea.

“Blood on their hands” “Our position makes it clear that Geneva must result in the removal of Assad, and that Assad and his cohorts with blood on their hands have no role in any transition,” coalition vice-president Farouq Tayfour told Reuters in Istanbul. “Foreign forces must also leave the country,” he said, without specifying which forces.

Sunni Muslim jihadis have flocked to Syria to fight Assad’s army, while the president has been supported

by Shiite Iran and Hezbollah fighters.

Tayfour said last-minute touches were being made to the coalition declaration, but several delegates said they did not expect significant changes to the position on the Geneva talks. Assad himself, after months of steady gains on the battlefield, has given no suggestion that he is ready to step down and his ministers have repeatedly said that the government would not show up in Geneva simply to surrender power. He has also refused to talk to rebels viewed by Damascus as terrorists and said no one who backs foreign political or military intervention in Syria can sit at the negotiating table. The coalition’s envoy in France, Monzer Makhous, said almost everyone had voted for the statement, which addresses demands made by fighters on the ground. “We know very well that they should be a part of any (peace) project,” he told Reuters.

The statement said the coalition would hold talks

with rebels in Syria, many of whom openly despise the politicians in exile and say they represent the interest of foreign powers. A group of leading rebel brigades said two weeks ago they would charge with treason anyone who attended peace talks which did not result in an end to Assad’s rule. A rebel who uses the name Abu Nidal, from the Mustafa Brigades in Damascus, said yesterday that his group rejected the Geneva meeting, saying it “does not meet our aspirations”. The coalition statement said the Geneva talks should be

based an international accord agreed in the Swiss city on June 30, 2012, which endorsed the idea of a transitional government. The statement did not refer directly to another disagreement among international powers - whether Iran should attend. The Syrian National Coalition reached the consensus decision after two days of discussions. In further talks yesterday, the coalition was expected to approve a cabinet led by Ahmed Tumeh and charged with restoring order in rebel-held areas. — Reuters

DR Congo, M23 rebels set to sign peace deal KAMPALA: The Democratic Republic of Congo and defeated M23 rebels are set to sign a peace deal yesterday in what the UN hopes will be a key step in efforts to end decades of war in the Great Lakes region. The rebels, one of many armed groups operating in the mineral-rich but impoverished east of the DR Congo, have been routed by the national army, who are backed by a 3,000-strong special United Nations intervention brigade.

Allegedly supported by neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda but seemingly abandoned by their sponsors due to international pressure, the M23 announced last week that their 18-month insurgency was over. They are expected to put this in writing in Uganda yesterday. “Our hope is that we have a firm commitment from the M23 rebels to renounce their use of arms,” said DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende.

But with no more military leverage they are seen as having little room for manoeuvre. The agreement is expected to settle the fate of about 1,500 M23 fighters who have crossed into Uganda and are languishing in camps along the border.

Uganda has refused to hand them over to the DR Congo.

Around 100 more injured rebels have crossed to Rwanda. Mende said the rebels would be dealt with “case by case”-with many rank-and-file fighters expected to be given the option to return to the army. More complicated is the fate of around 100 M23 commanders. These include M23 leader Sultani Makenga, accused of participating in several massacres, mutilations, abductions and sexual violence, sometimes against children.

The United Nations’ special envoy to the Great Lakes, Mary Robinson, told AFP the accord would be “a very important step for peace”. She said the deal will also be followed by operations to neutralise other rebel groups in a concerted effort to end one of Africa’s most brutal and longest-running wars.

This would be “new and welcome news for the people... who have tolerated or have had to endure for far too long these armed groups, with the raping and re-raping, with the displacement of people,”

she said. “It has been intolerable, and now there really is hope,” said the former Irish president.

Role of Uganda and Rwanda But even if a deal is signed, stabilising eastern DR Congo will not be easy. Previous peace deals for the region have foundered because they were not implemented or did not address underlying problems. Oxfam yesterday warned that “with more than 30 other armed groups active in the region, the conflict is far from over” and that civilians are still being exposed to violence on a daily basis.

Human Rights Watch last week said “numerous challenges remain” and noted that eastern DRC “has been beleaguered by abuses by other armed groups, as well as by the Congolese army itself.”

Robinson said she believed Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni-who deny backing the M23 — were committed to an 11-nation regional peace agreement signed in February.

She said the priority would now shift to defeating the DR Congo-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a descendant of Hutu extremist groups that carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rwanda’s minority Tutsi-led government views the FDLR as a major security threat, and dealing with the group is seen as crucial to addressing the neighbouring country’s concerns and preventing the emergence of yet another Rwandan-backed proxy.

But not everyone in the DR Congo is convinced. Several aid agencies and Congolese civil society groups last week dismissed the peace negotiations as “nonsense” and denounced the impending “integration of criminals and foreigners” back into the army. A researcher for the Enough Project, a US group campaigning against war crimes, said Rwandan and Ugandan meddling could still scupper a deal. “It must be noted that Museveni does not hide his feelings for the M23 when he demands a general amnesty and their unconditional reintegration,” Fidel Bafilemba said.

“The fact that Uganda says it won’t extradite the rebels leads one to think there could be a plan B to rebuild the rebels.” — AFP

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

2 killed, 16 wounded at Houston house party

TEXAS: Family and friends console each other outside 7318 Enchanted Creek in Cypress, Texas, Sunday, Nov 10, 2013. —AP

HOUSTON: A house party in suburban Houston to celebrate a girl’s 18th birthday erupted into gunfire that killed two teens, wounded many others, and caused some partygoers to flee for their lives through second-story windows, authorities said Sunday. Saturday’s party in Cypress, an unincorporated area about 25 miles northwest of Houston, was promoted openly on several social media sites and drew more than 100 people, most of them 17to 19-year-olds, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said. The birthday girl’s mother attended the party at her home.

He said people were apparently dancing in the home at about 11 pm when someone fired a pistol in the air in celebration. In the ensuing confusion, someone else began firing into the crowd, causing people to stream into the narrow street, Garcia said. Partygoer Shaniqua Brown - who said she heard about the party through Instagram, a photo sharing app and website - told The Associated Press it “was not rowdy at all.” She said she first heard gunshots in the house and they continued outside as people fled and sought cover. After giving varying reports of how many people were injured, authorities clarified Sunday that

20 people were hurt, including 16 who were wounded by gunfire - two critically - and four others who suffered injuries while trying to flee. The two people killed, one an 18-year-old boy and the other a 16-year-old girl, were students at Cypress Springs High School, Garcia said.

He said investigators were seeking two suspected gunmen - one of whom is believed to be about 17 years old and the other who is thought to be about 22. Garcia chastised the party organizers, who advertised the event on social media, saying “you have no control on who to expect at your door.”

He said the organizers arranged to have people searched as they entered the home. “Anytime you have to factor in a bouncer and being searched at the door, you have already taken a turn for the worse,” he said. “It’s a horrible combination of immaturity, access to a firearm, and the inability to control one’s self,” Garcia said.

Mariah Boulden, who said it was her birthday party, said the bouncer patted people down as they entered the home. Two men refused to be searched and walked away, but they apparently hopped a neighbor’s fence and entered through a

back gate. “They weren’t supposed to be here, whoever they were,” Boulden said. Pools of blood were visible outside the two-story brick home Sunday, and the garage door was bent after people had pushed it upward while trying to escape.

Sheriff’s spokesman Thomas Gilliland said that when deputies first arrived at the home about 25 miles northwest of Houston, they were met by “mass chaos” and “kids were literally everywhere.”

He said witnesses reported partygoers jumping from the second floor in their scramble to flee.

Bruno Figueroa, who lives a few houses away, told the AP he heard five to 10 shots. He looked out his window and saw at least 30 people running down his street. “Kids were running everywhere,” he said.

Figueroa said people suddenly began ducking into backyards and behind vehicles in driveways, apparently trying to hide from a car that was slowly coming down the street. Figueroa said that from his upstairs window, he could hear the people who were hiding nearby. “They were crying, yelling, ‘My brother got shot,’ ‘Why did they do this?’” he said.

Figueroa said as soon as the slow-moving car rounded a corner and sped away, the people who had been hiding gathered back in the street. — AP

Record rise in surge of foreign students in US 30% rise in number of Saudi students WASHINGTON: Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are flocking to US colleges and universities, helping to drive the number of international students studying in America to record levels. Similarly, all-time high numbers of American students are studying abroad, although there are far fewer and they tend to do much shorter stints than students coming to the United States.

The findings are in an analysis being released that was conducted by a nonprofit group that worked with the State Department. They say international education programs do more than advance cultural enrichment; they also are an economic boon to communities that host foreign students and to the students themselves, who improve their job competitiveness.

Foreign students contribute about $24 billion annually to the US economy and about two-thirds of them primarily pay their own way or their families do, according to the Institute of International Education and the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. All told, 819,644 students came to the United States to study abroad in the 2012-2013 school year. The highest numbers were from China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada. That’s a record high, with a 7 percent increase from a year earlier and 40 percent from more than a decade ago.

Despite the increases, international students make up less than 4 percent of all students. There was some slowdown in the number of students coming to the United States in the years after the Sept 11 attacks, in part because of visa issues, but the number has since rebounded. About 235,000 of the interna-

tional students were from China, a 21 percent increase. A burgeoning middle class combined with a view that America has quality colleges and universities were factors cited as driving the demand. About one-third studied business and management once they arrived, the report said. “Chinese students and their parents are looking for high quality education, get the importance of international education, and it’s making America the No 1 destination because we actually have the capacity to absorb international students,” said Allan Goodman, president and CEO of the institute. The number of students from Saudi Arabia studying in the United States jumped 30 percent, to 45,000. These students are largely funded by a Saudi government scholarship program nearly in its 10th year, the report said. The top destinations for international students were the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Ill., Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., New York University, and Columbia University in New York.

By contrast, 283,332 US students studied abroad for academic credit - a 3 percent increase from a year earlier. In the past 20 years, the number of US students studying abroad has tripled. But less than 10 percent of American students study abroad during their college years. The United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France and China were the top destinations. Attention tied to the Beijing Olympics and more classes taught in English are factors starting to drive more American students to China, Goodman said. A State Department program called 100,000 Strong, which officially started in 2010, aims to send 100,000 American students to China over a four-year period.—AP

DAYTON: In this photo Lenard Wichtowski is reflected in the memorial to the 57th Bomb Wing during a reunion outside the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. — AP

WWII reunions poignant for dwindling veterans DAYTON: Paul Young rarely talked about his service during World War II - about the B-25 bomber he piloted, about his 57 missions, about the dangers he faced or the fears he overcame. “Some things you just don’t talk about,” he said.

But Susan Frymier had a hunch that if she could journey from Fort Wayne, Ind., with her 92-year-old dad for a reunion of his comrades in the 57th Bomb wing, he would open up.

She was right: On a private tour at the National Museum of the US Air Force near Dayton, amid fellow veterans of flights over southern Europe and Germany, Young rattled off vivid details of his plane, crewmates, training and some of his most harrowing missions. “Dad, you can’t remember what you ate yesterday, but you remember everything about World War II,” his daughter said, beaming.

When Young came home from the war, more than 70 years ago, there were 16 million veterans like him - young soldiers, sailors and Marines who returned to work, raise families, build lives. Over the decades, children grew up, married, had children of their own; careers were built and faded into retirement; love affairs followed the path from the altar to the homestead and often, sadly, to the graveyard.

Through it all, the veterans would occasionally get together to remember the greatest formative experience of their lives. But as the years wore on, there were fewer and fewer of them. According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, just a little over 1 million remain. The ones who remain are in their 80s and 90s, and many are infirm or fragile. So the reunions, when they are held, are more sparsely attended - yearly reminders of the passing of the Greatest Generation.

When veterans of the Battle of the Bulge gathered in Kansas City this summer, only 40 came, according to organizers, down from 63 last year and 350 in 2004. Of the 80 members of Doolittle’s Raiders who set out on their daring attack on Japan in 1942, 73 survived. Seventy-one years later, only four remain; they decided this year’s April reunion in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., would be their last, though they met Saturday for a final toast in honor of those who have gone before them.

A half-century ago, when retired Army First Lt Frank Towers went to his first reunion of the 30th Infantry Division - soldiers who landed at the beaches of Normandy and fought across France and Germany - he was surrounded by 1,000 other veterans. “Now if I get 50, I’m lucky,” said Towers, who is working on plans for a reunion next February in Savannah, Ga. “Age has taken its toll on us. A lot of our members have passed away, and many of them who are left are in health situations where they can’t travel.”

So why persist? “It’s a matter of camaraderie,” Towers said. “We spent basically a year or more together through hell or high water. We became a band of brothers. We can relate to each other in ways we can’t relate to (anyone else). You weren’t there. These guys were there. They know the horrors we went through.” As many as 11,000 people served in the 57th Bomb Wing that flew missions over German-held Europe from North Africa and the island of Corsica during most of the war. Hundreds survive, according to wing historians and reunion organizers. Only nine veterans made it to this fall’s event.

George Williams, 90, recalled earlier reunions with his comrades, “having a great time yukking it up and talking about things.” No one else from his squadron came to this one. “All of a sudden, it’s lonesome,” said Williams, a native of Visalia, Calif, who moved after his wife’s death to Springfield, Mo, where his son lives. “All of the people you ran around with are on the wrong side of the grass. You wonder why you’re so lucky.”

But in a Holiday Inn hospitality suite with patriotic bunting, bowls of pretzels and chips with soft drinks at

their tables, the stories flowed easily. Williams remembered the tension of his first mission, his hand ready at the tag that would release him to bail out if necessary. It went without incident, and upon their return to base, a flight surgeon measured out two ounces of whiskey for each crewman. “Sixty-nine to go,” he said then, because 70 missions was considered the tour of duty. Sometimes on later missions, he would pour the two ounces into a beer bottle to save up for a night when he needed numbing.

Robert Crouse, of Clinton, Tenn., is 89 years old, but he remembers as if it happened yesterday the time a shell blew out the cockpit windshield (“you could stick your head through it”), disabling much of the control panel.

Another plane escorted the bomber, its pilot calling out altitude and air speed as Crouse’s plane limped back to base, riddled with holes. Young recalled flying a damaged plane back to base, hearing his tail gunner’s panicked yells as Plexiglass shattered over him. “You could feel the plane vibrate; you fly through the smoke, you smell the smoke and you hear the flak hitting the plane like hail on a tin roof.”

Not all the memories are bad ones. There was the latewar mission when they hit a spaghetti factory instead of the intended target (“Spaghetti was flying everywhere,” recalled Crouse, chuckling). There was Williams’ first Thanksgiving meal overseas: a Spam turkey, spiced and baked to perfection by an innovative cook. “I still love Spam,” he said. Then there was R&R in Rome, hosted by the Red Cross. Young men not long removed from high school toured the Colosseum and other historic sites they had read about. They visited the Vatican; some met Pope Pius XII. Williams got a papal blessing of a rosary for his engineer’s fiancee.

“It was pretty good,” Williams said of his war experience, “except when they were shooting at us.” Some of the veterans fear that their service will be forgotten after they are gone. Crouse and others have written memoirs, and many of the reunion groups now have websites, magazines and other publications in which they recount their stories.

“You just hope that the young people appreciate it,” said Young. “That it was very important, if you wanted to continue the freedom that we have.” Their children remember.

Some are joining them at the reunions; others keep coming after their fathers are gone.

At this year’s reunion, Bob Marino led a memorial service and read the names of 42 members of the 57th Bomb Wing who died in the past year. A bugler played “Taps.”

Marino, 72, a retired IRS attorney and Air Force veteran from Basking Ridge, NJ, helped organize the gathering. His Brooklyn-native father, Capt. Benjamin Marino, died in 1967 and left numerous photos from the war, and Marino set about trying to identify and organize them. To learn more about his father’s experiences, he corresponded with other veterans - including Joseph Heller, who was inspired by his wartime experiences with the 57th to write his classic novel “Catch-22.”

“He never talked about any of this,” Marino said, turning the pages on a massive scrapbook as veterans dropped by to look at the photos. “Once in a while, something came out. I wish I had sat down and talked to him about it.” This was precisely the gift Susan Frymier received at the reunion in Dayton. She watched as the father who had long avoided talking about the war proudly pulled from his wallet a well-worn, black-and-white snapshot of the plane he piloted, nicknamed “Heaven Can Wait” with a scantily clad, shapely female painted near the cockpit. She listened as he described German anti-aircraft artillery fire zeroing in on his plane. “I had to get out of there. All the flak ... they were awfully close.” He described “red-lining” a landing, running the engines beyond safe speed. His voice suddenly choked. “Oh, Dad!” said his daughter, and she hugged him tightly. — AP

TUESSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Senior militant leader shot dead in Islamabad ISLAMABAD: Gunmen on the outskirts of Islamabad shot dead a senior leader of one of the most feared AlQaeda-linked militant groups fighting US troops in Afghanistan, a Pakistani Taleban commander and an intelligence official said yesterday. Nasiruddin Haqqani, a key financier of the Haqqani network, was gunned down by armed men riding a motorcycle on Sunday night in a residential area called Bhara Kahu, which is only a couple miles from the US Embassy. He had stopped to buy fresh bread at the local bakery, said Tanveer Ahmed, who was nearby when the shooting occurred but only learned the dead man’s identity later.

The attack left blood stains on the pavement and bullet holes in the bakery’s tiled wall. The Haqqani network is a key ally of the Afghan Taleban and has pledged allegiance to its leader, Mullah Omar, though it operates fairly independently. Nasiruddin’s presence in the Pakistani capital could raise questions in Washington.

US officials have accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of supporting the Haqqani network as a key proxy in the Afghan war - an allegation denied by Islamabad.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the killing, but it will likely spark suspicion in Pakistan that the Americans took him out. Nasiruddin’s death comes less than two weeks after the United States outraged Pakistani officials by killing Pakistani Taleban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike a day before the government planned to invite him to peace talks.

After the shooting, Nasiruddin’s body was taken to the town of Miran Shah in the North Waziristan tribal area - the Haqqani network’s main sanctuary in Pakistan - where he was expected to be buried yesterday afternoon, the Taleban commander, Ahsanullah Ahsan, and the intelligence official said.

Two members of the Haqqani network also confirmed that Nasiruddin was killed. The Haqqani militants

and the intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media. Nasiruddin was considered an important financier and emissary for the Haqqani network, which is currently led by his brother, Sirajuddin Haqqani. Their father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, founded the group and is well-known for fighting the Soviets after they invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

The US Treasury slapped sanctions on Nasiruddin in 2010 when it added him to its list of specially designated global terrorists. The Treasury said Nasiruddin, who is known to speak Arabic, has traveled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to raise money for the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda and the Taleban. The US has repeatedly demanded that Pakistan carry out an operation in North Waziristan to target the Haqqani network and other militants based there who conduct cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan. The

group is blamed for some of the most high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, especially in the capital, Kabul.

Pakistan has refused to conduct an offensive, saying its troops are stretched too thin fighting domestic militants at war with the state. But analysts widely believed that Pakistan is reluctant to cross the Haqqani network, believing it will be a key ally in countering the influence of archenemy India in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

The US has instead resorted to targeting Haqqani militants and their allies in North Waziristan with dozens of drone attacks, sparking tension with Islamabad.

Pakistani officials regularly criticize drone strikes in public as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, but the government has been known to support at least some of the attacks in the past, especially ones targeting enemies of the state rather than groups like the Haqqani network. — AP

India’s opposition eyes victory in upcoming polls Opinion polls notoriously unreliable?

COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan commuter rides his bicycle past an archway with a portrait Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday. — AFP

Lanka war legacy eclipses Commonwealth summit COLOMBO: Sri Lanka had hoped this week’s Commonwealth summit would showcase its post-war revival but the event is turning into PR disaster with the leaders of Canada and India deciding to boycott over human rights concerns. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) opens in Colombo on Friday, hoping to tackle a range of economic, social and diplomatic issues affecting the 53-member bloc.

Prince Charles will represent the organisation’s ageing titular head, Queen Elizabeth II. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said he was looking forward to highlighting the island nation’s “tremendous transformation” after “suffering for decades from a brutal war against terrorism” that ended in 2009. But the war’s bitter legacy has dominated the build-up, with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announcing

Sunday he would skip the summit after coming under pressure from some of his ministers to send a signal about alleged abuses committed during the conflict. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged his peers in April to follow him in boycotting the meeting to protest Sri Lanka’s refusal to probe its troops over allegations 40,000 mainly ethnic Tamil civilians were killed at the end of the separatist war.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will take part, but has pledged to push for an international investigation into the allegations, while New Zealand leader John Key said yesterday his attendance did not imply support for the Sri Lankan government. Cameron said he would put “serious questions” to Rajapakse, after watching a “chilling documentary” about the events of 2009 that shows footage of alleged war crimes.—AFP

NEW DELHI: Trailing in opinion polls and stunned by the rise of opposition leader Narendra Modi, India’s ruling Congress party is limping into a clutch of state elections, underlining the struggle it may face to retain power when the nation votes next year. Surveys last week showed that Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could win as many as four of the five states going to the polls over the coming month. Opinion polls are notoriously unreliable in India, however. The NehruGandhi dynasty’s Congress party could still cling to power in the capital, Delhi, and it may wrest control of the eastern state of Chhattisgarh from its rival.

The results of the state polls, due to be declared on Dec 8, will largely hinge on local leaders and issues, but analysts say a strong showing for the BJP will boost the momentum for Modi in the run-up to the national election due by April. “Congress is certainly very nervous because it has seen how the popular mood continues to be against it,” said Amulya Ganguli, a political commentator.

Although a deeply polarising figure, Modi’s star has brightened dramatically, in large part because many voters - particularly the growing ranks of young urban citizens - believe he could set India on a new path after nine years of corruption scandals and policy drift under Congress.

Modi is widely seen as a business-friendly reformer who has attracted investment and bolstered economic growth in Gujarat, the western

state he runs. The prospect that he may become the country’s next prime minister, almost inconceivable a year ago, has helped drive a surge in the Indian stock market.

The benchmark BSE index hit a record high this month, notching up a gain of 20 percent since its 2013 low in late August, compared with a 12 percent gain in the MSCI Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan. Goldman Sachs last week upgraded its stance on Indian equities, noting in a report titled “Modi-fying our view” that optimism over the BJP leader’s chances had trumped concerns about economic problems such as high inflation and a fiscal gap.

Furious over the report, the Congress party accused the investment bank of interfering in India’s politics. “Goldman is parading its ignorance about the basic facts of the Indian economy, and it also exposes its eagerness to mess around with India’s domestic politics,” Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told the Economic Times.

Row over opinion polls Congress has also been stung by polls showing it may be hammered in the national election, with one survey showing it may win just 102 of the 543 parliamentary seats at stake, its worst performance ever. The party has urged a ban on opinion polls, arguing that they can be “doctored by vested interests”. It has also launched a series of attacks on Modi: in an interview with Reuters, a senior cabinet minister

compared his rise to the emergence of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich.

Critics have long sought to brand the Hindu nationalist leader a fascist and blame him for anti-Muslim riots in 2002 that killed at least 1,000 people in Gujarat. Modi denies wrongdoing and a Supreme Court probe found no evidence to prosecute him. Surveys have shown that Rahul Gandhi, the young scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family that has dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947, has so far failed to electrify voters.

“They have given up the battle. They know they have no future,” BJP spokeswoman Meenakshi Lekhi said of Congress. For all its confidence, the BJP is expected to emerge from next year’s election far short of the parliamentary majority required to rule. Modi could find it tough to win around allies to form a working coalition, Ganguli said.

The local polls kicked off yesterday in Chhattisgarh, where the battle is expected to be closely fought. Surveys suggest the BJP will retain power in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, and wrest control of the desert state of Rajasthan from Congress. A small north-eastern state, Mizoram, is also going to the polls. Security will be tight during the staggered elections, especially after several small bombs killed six people at a Modi rally last month. In Chhattisgarh, long plagued by a Maoist insurgency, police said several improvised explosive devices were recovered in the run-up to voting. — Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Cambodia has sovereignty on temple land: UN Court Thai military ordered to withdraw forces

MALE: Maldivian police forcefully detain a supporter of former Maldivian president and presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed during a protest, in Male. — AFP

Protests in Maldives after outgoing president stays on MALE: Maldives police clashed with hundreds of protesters yesterday after outgoing President Mohamed Waheed said he would remain in power after his term ended, defying the opposition-led parliament and throwing the country deeper into crisis.

Waheed was to have stepped down on Sunday, but when no candidate won the necessary 50 percent of votes in a longdelayed presidential election the previous day, the Indian Ocean archipelago was essentially left in constitutional limbo.

“Since the constitution does not state what must happen, the Supreme Court has decided the government will continue instead of going into a constitutional void,” Waheed declared overnight, just minutes before his tenure officially ended. Mohamed Nasheed, who became the first democratically elected president of the holiday paradise in 2008 but who was forced from office in disputed circumstances last year, led after the first round with 47 percent of votes.

In 2008, Nasheed defeated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had ruled for 30 years and was accused by opponents and international rights groups of being a dictator.

Gayoom loyalists, including a half-brother, who also ran in Saturday’s vote, now oppose Nasheed’s bid to return to power. Nasheed’s political party, which dominates parliament, wanted one of its members to run the country until the second round of voting on Nov 16. But in a tussle between Nasheed and the old guard he is seeking to replace, that decision was overruled.

Nasheed, famous for holding a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying archipelago, will contest the runoff vote against Gayoom’s half-brother, Abdulla Yameen.

After Waheed announced his intention to remain in power, about 1,000 opposition supporters took to the streets of the capital, Male, and threw stones at police, who responded with pepper spray and batons to break up the crowd. The protests died down in the early hours, and Waheed was last seen leaving Male in a speedboat, accompanied by his wife and flanked by security.

“Unreasonable and unacceptable” Western countries and neighbouring India have looked on with growing concern as two previous attempts to hold presidential elections were aborted. The vote, decided by an electorate of some 240,000 people, finally did go ahead on Saturday and the run-off between the leading two candidates was scheduled for the next day to avoid a constitutional crisis. But the Supreme Court, which has largely acted in line with demands made by Nasheed’s rivals, delayed it until Nov 16, in a further challenge for a country known more for its luxury beaches than recent bouts of unrest.

“It is unreasonable and unacceptable for parties to continue to demand changes to an agreed election date,” the US State Department said in a statement at the weekend. A Sept 7 vote was annulled based on a secret police report which found vote rigging, while an October poll was halted by police after a Supreme Court ruling. The crisis has already hit tourism, a vital source of revenues, and the Maldives has faced fuel shortages because it is unable to pay suppliers on time amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. Whoever wins the election will also have to tackle a rise in Islamist ideology and declining investor confidence. — Reuters

NAHA: Soldiers from Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force prepare surface-to-ship missile launchers at Camp Naha in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture yesterday. — AFP

Japan military drills missiles on Pacific gateway NAHA: Japanese soldiers practised surface-toship missile drills yesterday on an island at the gateway to the Pacific, as part of a huge military exercise that has unsettled China. The practice in Okinawa was part of 18-day war games which Japan began earlier this month. They aim to strengthen its ability to protect remote territory, as a row with China over the sovereignty of some islands continues to rattle nerves.

No missile was actually fired during yesterday’s drill, which was watched by members of the media-including a large Chinese contingent, correspondents said-and saw men in camouflage readying SSM1 missile batteries at Camp Naha on the main Okinawan island. “Today’s drill was aimed at training cooperation among our units,” the commander of the fourth anti-warship missile regiment told reporters.

Around 34,000 military personnel, six vessels

and 360 aircraft are involved in the war games, which will also see the deployment of F-15 fighter jets and Patriot surface-to-air missile systems.

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 well as its diplomatic fisticuffs with Tokyo, Beijing is also butting heads with a number of southeast Asian countries over its claims to virtually the whole of the South China Sea and the islands within it. Okinawa is a significant location for the anti-ship missiles because it sits on one side of the main navigable strait for Chinese vessels wanting to get into the Pacific Ocean. 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. — AFP

THE HAGUE: The United Nations’ highest court ruled yesterday that Cambodia has sovereignty over a disputed promontory around a 1,000year-old temple, in the latest attempt to settle a long-simmering border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand. In a unanimous decision, the International Court of Justice said that a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and said Thailand was therefore “under an obligation to withdraw from that territory the Thai military or police forces or other guards or keepers that were stationed there.”

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said he was happy with the ruling even though it did not give Cambodia all the land it was hoping for. Speaking on Cambodian state television TVK, he called the decision “a gift from the International Court of Justice to our Kingdom of Cambodia.” The court granted Cambodia sovereignty over the temple in 1962 and said Thai forces were obliged to withdraw from the temple “or in its vicinity on Cambodian territory.”

Cambodia went back to the court in 2011, following several clashes between its army and Thai forces to ask exactly what judges meant by “vicinity” in 1962. The court did not draw any new maps, but said the promontory is bordered by steep slopes on most sides and to the north a border line drawn up in 1907 by a commission of French officials. Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said the verdict included “satisfactory results to both sides,” adding the two neighbors will work together to implement it.

In a televised address, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said her government would look at how to proceed following the ruling, but also stressed the need for cooperation with Cambodia. “Thailand and Cambodia share an 800-kilometer (500-mile) border,” she said, adding that the Southeast Asian neighbors “have to rely on each other for prosperity.”

Close to the border, Cambodian national Mann Vanna, 55, said he was happy with the decision. “This ruling I hope will end the long

dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, and that the Thais will respect this verdict,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “This ruling will end the black blood that has flowed from the people of both countries. Thailand has to respect it.”

Soldiers from both countries were near the temple over the weekend ahead of the announcement of the judgment at the court’s headquarters in The Hague and villagers nearby feared that the ruling could trigger new military clashes. In Srah Kdol, a Cambodian village about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the temple, several families had left ahead of the verdict and others had dug or were in the process of digging bunkers.

Prak Samouch, 45, said she had packed and was ready to leave if there was fighting. “I’m not scared, because I’m used to it,” she said, adding that she last had to leave due to fighting about

BANGKOK: A Thai opposition protester attending an anti-government rally reacts yesterday. — AFP

Thai senate debates disputed amnesty bill BANGKOK: Thailand’s senate began debating yesterday a flashpoint political amnesty bill as thousands of antigovernment protesters massed in Bangkok in a bid to heap pressure on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. If, as expected, the senate rejects the legislation later, it is likely to embolden a range of anti-government forces who have gathered in large numbers on Bangkok’s streets for nearly a fortnight.

Critics say the legislation was crafted to pave the way for a return of the polarising ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is Yingluck’s brother, and a hate figure for many among the Bangkok middle and upper classes.

Thaksin was toppled by royalist generals in 2006 and lives in exile to avoid prison for a corruption conviction that he contends was politically motivated.

“This bill violates the rule of law. All laws must be equal for everyone,” said Senator Manoj Kraiwong, echoing the views of several speakers in the televised debate.

The ruling Puea Thai party last week said it will not seek to ram through the legislation if the upper house rejects it, as predicted by the senate speaker. The opposition Democrat Party has harnessed the growing anti-government sentiment.

It is holding an anti-amnesty rally -before the expected vote by the senate-which it says could draw tens of thousands to the city’s political centre, heightening fears of clashes with police. Demonstrators, many waving Thai flags, blowing whistles and using plastic hand-clappers, were in a bullish mood ahead of the senate ruling.

“I came here to expel the Shin(awatra) family. I want them out,” said one protester called Thamathorn, giving only one name. “Don’t stay here and cheat this country.

Get out!” A Democrat lawmaker, Akanat Promphan, said the protesters would give the government a “deadline” of 6:00 pm (1100 GMT) to kill the bill before taking furtheras yet unspecified-actions.

Rallies have so far been peaceful but concerns are mounting that the issue could unleash a fresh bout of political turmoil in a country rocked by a series of rival demonstrations since 2006. Thousands of police have been deployed to protect Government House-where Yingluck’s offices are-and parliament in case protests turn ugly, a police spokesman told AFP. Police said around 15,000 anti-government protesters had gathered at a number of spots across the capital, with most expected to cluster at Democracy Monument for the rally at 6:00 pm. Police have tear gas, batons, rubber bullets and water cannon at their disposal, according to Police General Adul Saengsingkaew, but will only use “necessary force” to ensure a peaceful protest. — AFP

China to try Mongol herders in new crackdown in troubled region BEIJING: Six herders will stand trial tomorrow in China’s Inner Mongolia after trying to defend grazing land from expropriation by a forestry firm, in a case that will renew attention on rights abuses and the environment in the resource-rich region.

Ethnic Mongols have long complained that their traditional grazing lands have been ruined by mining and desertification, and that the government has tried to force them to settle in permanent houses.

Inner Mongolia, which covers more than a 10th of China’s land mass and has the country’s largest coal reserves, was rocked by protests in 2011 after an ethnic Mongol herder was killed by a truck after taking part in protests against pollution caused by a coal mine.

Ethnic Mongols make up less than 20 percent of the region’s population of about 24 million. The six

ethnic Mongol herders are facing charges of “sabotaging production and management” and “intentionally destroying public or private properties”, said Huhbulag, a lawyer appointed to represent the herders but later barred by authorities from doing so.

They were arrested in June after a clash with Chinese workers from the state-owned Wengniuteqi Shuanghe Forestry, two of the herders’ family members told Reuters by telephone. The herders had accused the workers of illegally occupying their grazing land. They could face up to seven years in jail.

“For years, the ordinary people have been disputing the land: they have petitioned and complained but there’s been no solutions given,” said Long Mei, the sister of one of the accused called Tulguur. “The ordinary people survive on their land, now that it’s been sold to other people, can the people be satis-

three years ago. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization put the temple, perched on a rocky plateau overlooking Thailand and Cambodia, on its world heritage list in 2008. UNESCO called the temple, “an outstanding masterpiece of Khmer architecture, in terms of plan, decoration and relationship to the spectacular landscape environment.”

But, ironically, the 2008 listing - intended to help protect the site - instead led to an escalation of long-simmering tensions between Cambodia and Thailand over the 1962 ownership ruling. In their judgment yesterday, judges stressed that both countries must cooperate to protect the heritage-listed temple. In 2011, the court in The Hague created a demilitarized zone around the temple after fighting left about 20 dead and displaced thousands of people, but talks about withdrawing troops went nowhere. — AP

fied?” Many Mongols in China go by only one name.

The trial comes three weeks ahead of a visit to China by US Vice President Joe Biden, during which human rights will likely be raised amid a broader crackdown on dissent and freedom of speech and assembly. The United States has expressed concern about the fate of China’s most famous Mongol dissident, Hada, who was sent back to detention almost as soon as he completed a 15-year sentence for separatism in 2010.

Tulguur’s wife, Sarangowaa, said he would not plead guilty. The herders’ lawyer, surnamed Bai, declined to comment. Officials at the court told Reuters they had no information on the case. Police said they had no knowledge about the case. Reuters was unable to locate contact information for the forestry company.—Reuters

For many Fukushima evacuees, the truth is they won’t be going home IWAKI: For many of Japan’s oldest nuclear refugees, all they want is to be allowed back to the homes they were forced to abandon.

Others are ready to move away, severing ties to the ghost towns that remain in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. But among the thousands of evacuees stuck in temporary housing more than two and a half years after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, there is a shared understanding on one point - Japan’s government is unable to deliver on its ambitious initial goals for cleaning up the areas that had to be evacuated after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

“You can’t have a temporary life forever,” said Ichiro Kazawa, 61, whose home was destroyed by the tsunami that also knocked out power to the Fukushima plant. Kazawa escaped four minutes before the first wave.

Next year, he hopes to return to a home within sight of the Fukushima plant and take his 88year-old mother back. But he wants the government to admit what many evacuees have already accepted - for many there will be no going home as planned.

“I think it will be easier for people who can’t go back anyway to be told that so they can plan their future,” said Kazawa, who remains unemployed. Lawmakers from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition parties on Monday recommended the government step back from the most ambitious Fukushima clean-up goals, and begin telling evacuees that a $30 billion clean-up will not achieve the long-term radiation reduction goal set by the previous administration. “The government and ruling party will act as one and deal with this firmly,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding that Abe would consider the proposal seriously.

The government is also considering a proposal floated earlier this month to offer new compensation to residents in the areas of high-

est radiation who have no prospect of returning home, officials involved have said. “There will come a time when someone has to say, ‘You won’t be able to live here anymore, but we will make up for it’,” the secretary general of the LDP, Shigeru Ishiba, said in a speech earlier this month.

Frustration, resignation Around a third of the 160,000 people forced to flee when the earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant remain in flimsy temporary housing units that are nearing the 3-year limit initially promised.

Social workers report an increase in domestic strife, alcoholism and illnesses such as deep vein thrombosis from lack of exercise. In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599.

Among those who remain, there is frustration, resignation and a sense that the hardest decisions remain ahead. “Politicians preferred to make people believe in something and put off making really difficult decisions until as late as possible,” said Hideo Hasegawa, who runs a non-profit group in Fukushima helping evacuees.

The evacuation area - a little bigger than Hong Kong - was carved into three zones in late 2011 based on radiation readings. The most contaminated area was predicted to remain uninhabited for at least five years and remains off limits. The Ministry of Environment has contracted work to clean up the 11 most heavily contaminated townships, with the aim of bringing the average annual radiation dose to 20 millisieverts per year based on a range suggested by the International Centre for Radiological Protection.—Reuters

Indonesians on trial over Myanmar embassy plot JAKARTA: Two suspected Indonesian extremists went on trial yesterday accused of an “evil conspiracy” to bomb the Myanmar embassy to avenge the killing of Rohingya Muslims in that country. Rokhadi, 28 and Achmad Taufiq, 22, could face the death penalty over the plan to attack the mission in May, amid anger in Muslimmajority Indonesia at persecution of the stateless Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.

Rokhadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, allegedly raised funds for the attack while Taufiq is accused of helping assemble bombs. Police say they foiled the plot when they arrested Taufiq, who was carrying a backpack full of pipe bombs, along with another man riding a motorbike in south Jakarta the night before the planned attack.

“The accused carried out an evil conspiracy,” prosecutor Okto Ricardo told the South Jakarta District Court. The men “wanted to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta so that there would be casualties, injuries and damage” to put pressure on the government in Myanmar, whom they blamed for the attacks on the Rohingya,

Ricardo said.

There have been a string of attacks on minority Muslims in Myanmar since last year, mostly in the Rohingyas’ western home state of Rakhine. Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands made homeless. Buddhist mobs are seen as the main perpetrators behind the attacks although rights groups have also accused Myanmar security forces of complicity in the violence-an allegation denied by the authorities.

Rokhadi and Taufiq are just two of several men who have been apprehended over the attacks. The trials of the accused got under way last week with the case of Separiano, who goes by one name.

Rokhadi and Taufiq were tried separately yesterday but some of the charges against them were identical.

The prosecutor told the court the men were part of an extremist group called Negara Islam Indonesia (the Islamic State of Indonesia). Rokhadi is accused of transferring 300,000 rupiah ($26) to the alleged mastermind of the plot, Sigit Indrajid, to buy a blender and hydrogen peroxide to help make bombs.

NEWS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

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Khamenei controls vast financial empire Assets of the Ayatollah

By Steve Stecklow, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Yeganeh Torbati he 82-year-old Iranian woman keeps the documents that upended her life in an old suitcase near her bed.

She removes them carefully and peers at the tiny Persian script. There’s the court order authorizing the takeover of her children’s three Tehran apartments in a multi-storey building the family had owned for years. There’s the letter announcing the sale of one of the units. And there’s the notice demanding she pay rent on her own apartment on the top floor.

Pari Vahdat-e-Hagh ultimately lost her property. It was taken by an organization that is controlled by the most powerful man in Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. She now lives alone in a cramped, three-room apartment in Europe, thousands of miles from Tehran. The Persian name of the organization that hounded her for years is “Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam” Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam. The name refers to an edict signed by the Islamic Republic’s first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, shortly before his death in 1989. His order spawned a new entity to manage and sell properties abandoned in the chaotic years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Setad has become one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, though many Iranians, and the wider world, know very little about it. In the past six years, it has morphed into a business juggernaut that now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming. The organization’s total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts.

But Setad’s holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion, Reuters has calculated.

That estimate is based on an analysis of statements by Setad officials, data from the Tehran Stock Exchange and company websites, and information from the US Treasury Department.

Just one person controls that economic empire Khamenei. As Iran’s top cleric, he has the final say on all governmental matters. His purview includes his nation’s controversial nuclear program, which was the subject of intense negotiations between Iranian and international diplomats in Geneva that ended Sunday without an agreement. It is Khamenei who will set Iran’s course in the nuclear talks and other recent efforts by the new president, Hassan Rouhani, to improve relations with Washington.

The supreme leader’s acolytes praise his spartan lifestyle, and point to his modest wardrobe and a threadbare carpet in his Tehran home. Reuters found no evidence that Khamenei is tapping Setad to enrich himself. But Setad has empowered him. Through Setad, Khamenei has at his disposal financial resources whose value rivals the holdings of the shah, the Western-backed monarch who was overthrown in 1979. How Setad came into those assets also mirrors how the deposed monarchy obtained much of its fortune - by confiscating real estate. A six-month Reuters investigation has found that Setad built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians: members of religious minorities like Vahdat-e-Hagh, who is Baha’i, as well as Shi’ite Muslims, business people and Iranians living abroad.

Setad has amassed a giant portfolio of real estate by claiming in Iranian courts, sometimes falsely, that the properties are abandoned. The organization now holds a courtordered monopoly on taking property in the name of the supreme leader, and regularly sells the seized properties at auction or seeks to extract payments from the original owners. The supreme leader also oversaw the creation of a body of legal rulings and executive orders that enabled and safeguarded Setad’s asset acquisitions. “No supervisory organization can question its property,” said Naghi Mahmoudi, an Iranian lawyer who left Iran in 2010 and now lives in Germany.

Khamenei’s grip on Iran’s politics and its military forces has been apparent for years. The investigation into Setad shows that there is a third dimension to his power: economic might. The revenue stream generated by Setad helps explain why Khamenei has not only held on for 24 years but also in some ways has more control than even his revered predecessor. Setad gives him the financial means to operate independently of parliament and the national budget, insulating him from Iran’s messy factional infighting.

Washington has acknowledged Setad’s importance. In June, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Setad and some of its corporate holdings, calling the organization “a massive network of front companies hiding assets on behalf of Iran’s leadership.” The companies generate bil-

T

lions of dollars in revenue a year, the department stated, but it did not offer a detailed accounting. The Iranian president’s office and the foreign ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. Iran’s embassy in the United Arab Emirates issued a statement calling Reuters’ findings “scattered and disparate” and said that “none has any basis.” It didn’t elaborate.

Setad’s director general of public relations, Hamid Vaezi, said by email in response to a detailed description of this series that the information presented is “far from realities and is not correct.” He didn’t go into specifics. In a subsequent message, he said Setad disputes the Treasury’s allegations and is “in the process of retaining US counsel to address this matter.” He added: “This communication puts you on notice that any action by your organization could prejudice our dispute in the United States and harm our position for which we hold you responsible.”

When Khomeini, the first supreme leader, set in motion the creation of Setad, it was only supposed to manage and sell properties “without owners” and direct much of the proceeds to charity. Setad was to use the funds to assist war veterans, war widows “and the downtrodden.” According to one of its co-founders, Setad was to operate for no more than two years. Setad has built schools, roads and health clinics, and provided electricity and water in rural and impoverished areas. It has assisted entrepreneurs in development projects. But philanthropy is just a small part of Setad’s overall operations.

Under Khamenei’s control, Setad began acquiring property for itself, and kept much of the funds rather than simply redistributing them. With those revenues, the organization also helps to fund the ultimate seat of power in Iran, the Beite Rahbar, or Leader’s House, according to a former Setad employee and other people familiar with the matter.

The first supreme leader, Khomeini, had a small staff. To run the country today, Khamenei employs about 500 people in his administrative offices, many recruited from the military and security services. A complete picture of Setad’s spending and income isn’t possible. Its books are off limits even to Iran’s legislative branch. In 2008, the Iranian Parliament voted to prohibit itself from monitoring organizations that the supreme leader controls, except with his permission.

But Reuters has put together the fullest account yet of the organization’s holdings. They include: • A giant property portfolio The head of Setad’s real-estate division said at a ceremony in 2008 that the unit was worth about $52 billion. The value of Iran’s currency has plunged since then, while property values have soared. The property portfolio has also changed, so its current value is hard to establish. Setad regularly conducts large auctions of its real estate - at least 59 to date, according to a review of Iranian newspaper advertisements and auction websites. One recent auction took place in May, when nearly 300 properties went on the block including houses, stores, tracts of farmland and even a spa-and-pool complex in Tehran. The required opening bids totaled about $88 million, based on the official exchange rate that month.

• An investment unit worth tens of billions of dollars In June, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Setad and 37 companies it controls over the organization’s alleged role in “assisting the Iranian Government’s circumvention of U.S. and international sanctions.” The Treasury also said Setad played a role in “generating revenue for the Iranian leadership,” and that one of its investment companies alone was worth about $40 billion in late 2010. But the June action covered just part of Setad’s corporate holdings. According to a Treasury spokesman, sanctions only apply to subsidiaries if the targeted entity “owns 50 percent or more of a company.”

In practice, Setad controls many businesses in which it holds very small stakes. Reuters identified at least 24 public companies in which Setad - or a company it invested in held less than 50 percent. Those holdings that are publicly traded are worth more than $3.4 billion, Reuters calculated.

That figure includes about $3 billion Setad paid in 2009 for a stake in Iran’s largest telecommunications firm. Reuters also identified 14 companies Setad has invested in - directly or through other companies - that couldn’t be valued because they are not publicly traded. All told, Reuters was able to identify about $95 billion in property and corporate assets controlled by Setad. That amount is roughly 40 percent bigger than the country’s total oil exports last year. It also surpasses independent historians’ estimates of the late shah’s wealth.

After toppling the monarchy, the Islamic Republic filed suit in the United States against the shah and his wife, Farah Pahlavi, claiming they had stolen $35 billion in Iranian funds, according to court records. In today’s dollars, that sum would be worth about $79 billion. The suit was dismissed. Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University who wrote a biography of the shah published in 2011, told Reuters he believes the estimate of the shah’s fortune was “extremely exaggerated”. He said the monarch led a truly opulent lifestyle - including owning an automobile collection that may have included 120 fancy vehicles. But, he wrote in the biography: “Those most likely to know estimate the Shah’s fortune to be close to a billion dollars.” With inflation, that would equal about $3 billion in today’s money, a fraction of the worth of Setad’s holdings.

Protection Fees Setad officials have offered two justifications for their property activities: that the assets were acquired legitimately, and part of the profits go to charity. In an interview in April with the Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh, Ali Ashraf Afkhami, who was identified as the head of Tadbir Economic Development Group - the main unit that handles Setad’s financial investments - called the organization a “custodian” of “property without owners,” and suggested that none had been confiscated. He also described the way Setad had accumulated its real estate as nothing unusual.

“Imagine that a property or piece of land has been left behind by someone after their death without any heirs or, for example, property that has been freed by customs but remains without an owner,” he said. “ These properties must be managed somehow. If the lack of ownership is confirmed through the order of the court, then the property is given to Setad. Like I said,” he added, “everywhere in the world systems have been created to take control of property or pieces of land that have no owners and the profits are put toward activities for the public good.”

Charities have played an important role in the Islamic Republic. Setad controls a charity. Other charitable trusts, known as “bonyads”, served as a vital safety net during and after the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, assisting disabled veterans, widows and orphans, and the poor.

According to the son of one slain soldier, Bonyad

Shahid (Martyrs Foundation) provided his and other families’ accommodation, wages and household items. A list of current veteran services on its website includes discount airplane tickets, technical training and the installation of wheelchair lifts on vehicles.

Setad, however, is a much broader operation than these foundations. It’s unclear how much of its revenue goes to philanthropy. Iranians whose properties have been seized

by Setad, as well as lawyers who have handled such cases, dispute the argument that the organization is acting in the public interest. They described to Reuters what amounts to a methodical moneymaking scheme in which Setad obtains court orders under false pretenses to seize properties, and later pressures owners to buy them back or pay huge fees to recover them.

“The people who request the confiscation ... introduce themselves as on the side of the Islamic Republic, and try to portray the person whose property they want confiscated as a bad person, someone who is against the revolution, someone who was tied to the old regime,” said Hossein Raeesi, a human-rights attorney who practiced in Iran for 20 years and handled some property confiscation cases. “The atmosphere there is not fair.”

Ross K Reghabi, an Iranian lawyer in Beverly Hills, California, said the only hope to recover anything is to pay off well-connected agents in Iran. “By the time you pay off everybody, it comes to 50 percent” of the property’s value, said Reghabi, who says he has handled 11 property confiscation cases involving Setad. An Iranian Shiite businessman now living abroad, who asked to remain anonymous because he still travels to Iran, said he attempted two years ago to sell a piece of land near Tehran that his family had long owned. Local authorities informed him that he needed a “no objection letter” from Setad.

The businessman said he visited Setad’s local office and was required to pay a bribe of several hundred dollars to the clerks to locate his file and expedite the process. He said he then was told he had to pay a fee, because Setad had “protected” his family’s land from squatters for decades. He would be assessed between 2 percent and 2.5 percent of the property’s value for every year. Setad sent an appraiser to determine the property’s current worth. The appraisal came in at $90,000. The protection fee, he said, totaled $50,000.

The businessman said he balked, arguing there was no evidence Setad had done anything to protect the land. He said the Setad representatives wouldn’t budge on the amount but offered to facilitate the transaction by selling the land itself to recover its fee. He said he hired a lawyer who advised him to pay the fee, which he reluctantly did last year. This was not the only encounter the businessman’s family has had with Setad. He said his sister, who lives in Tehran, recently told him that Setad representatives had gone door-to-door at her apartment complex, demanding occupants show the deeds for their units.

Several other Iranians whose family properties were taken over by Setad described in interviews how men showed up and threatened to use violence if the owners didn’t leave the premises at once. One man said he had been told how an elderly family member had stood by distraught as workmen carried out all of the furniture from her home.

According to this account, she sat down on a carpet, refused to move and pleaded, “What can I do? Where can I go?” “Then they reached down, lifted her up on the carpet and took her out.”

‘Behind the Doors’ Several Iranian foundations, such as Bonyad Mostazafan (The Foundation of the Oppressed), also have been granted legal authority to confiscate certain properties. Those organizations generally are open about the practice, listing their names and logos in real-estate advertisements. Setad’s role in confiscations is more hidden. Neither Setad’s logo nor its full name appear in newspaper advertisements listing upcoming auctions. Instead, the organization uses a vague title that doesn’t make clear the seller is connected to Setad. A call by a reporter to one of the phone numbers listed in an advertisement in May for property in the northeastern city of Mashhad was greeted by a recording that said: “You have reached Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam.”

Many of the newspaper ads found by Reuters also referred readers to a website for further information. That site doesn’t contain Setad’s proper name either. Internet website ownership records show that the site, which lists auctions for many types of confiscated goods - including boats, motorcycles, flat-screen televisions, automobiles and even fertilizer - is registered to an office in Tehran. When a reporter called it, the person who answered confirmed it was Setad’s office. — Reuters

NEWS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Indian camel herders sit near their camels during the annual cattle fair in Pushkar in the western Indian state of Rajasthan on Sunday. — AP

Moderates fade from political view in Egypt CAIRO: Moderate has become a dirty word in Egypt. Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, anyone who refuses to support either side uncritically has become a traitor to both. Polarised attitudes of “you’re either with us or against us” have forced Egyptians in the middle ground to disappear largely from political view, making any reconciliation between Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and the armybacked government ever more remote. This raises the danger of yet more of the bloodshed that followed the fall of Egypt’s first freely-elected president in July. Both sides are hardening their positions in what is already the most turbulent period in the

internal history of modern Egypt, a US ally that has a peace treaty with Israel.

Experiences of two one-time members of the National Salvation Front (NSF), an alliance of liberal and leftist parties, shows how moderates can come under verbal or even physical attack from the pro-military or Islamist camps. One is Mohamed ElBaradei, who served briefly as vice president under the army-backed interim government but resigned after security forces crushed pro-Morsi sit-ins on Aug 14, killing hundreds. ElBaradei, who won wide respect abroad as head of the United Nations nuclear agency for more than a decade, got few thanks at home for taking a stand

against political violence. Newspaper columnist Mustafa Bakri described ElBaradei’s resignation speech as a “stab in the back of the Egyptian people”. ElBaradei has now left the country.

The other is Khaled Dawoud, a former NSF spokesman who suffered even worse but at the hands of the other side. Even though he resigned from the secular alliance because it had backed the crackdown on Morsi supporters, Dawoud was attacked by pro-Islamists who stabbed him several times. “Without a doubt, it was an assassination attempt,” Dawoud told Reuters at his Cairo home, his left hand still healing after one of his attackers dragged a

Instability threatens Gulf food security Continued from Page 1 “All the Gulf countries’ imports from North America, South America, Europe and the Black Sea must pass through the Suez Canal, which militants recently tried to close by firing rocket-propelled grenades at a container ship,” report author Rob Bailey said. “Were Suez to close, imports would have to be re-routed round the Cape of Good Hope. But were regional conflict to close both Suez and the Strait of Hormuz, then Gulf governments could face real difficulties getting enough food into their countries.” Because of their reliance on two supply

routes to feed their booming populations, most GCC members have their own reserves but talk of a regional tie-up of stockpiles has been going on for years with little real progress.

Chatham House said GCC governments could hedge against supply disruption by building strategic storage facilities and improving ports on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia and Indian Ocean coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. Food could then be transported by rail, it said. It is practically impossible for the countries to become self-sufficient in food, the report said. The GCC members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. — Reuters

MERS virus found in patient’s camel Continued from Page 1 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died. In August, researchers pointed to Arabian camels as possible hosts of the virus, which has hit hardest in the desert kingdom, where 53 people have died from the disease since it appeared in Sept 2012. Like SARS, MERS appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering from a temperature,

cough and breathing difficulty. But it differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure and the extremely high death rate has caused serious concern. In other Gulf countries two fatalities from the MERS virus have been registered in Qatar, as well as one announced on Sunday by Oman. The World Health Organisation said on its website yesterday that it has been informed of 153 laboratory-confirmed cases of the MERS infection worldwide so far, including 64 deaths. — AFP

Kerry defends Geneva talks, says Iran...

Continued from Page 1 “Iran gives practically nothing and it gets a hell of a lot. That’s not a good deal,” Netanyahu told CBS television on Sunday. And in an speech to Jewish-American leaders in Jerusalem, he added: “It is a bad and dangerous deal that deals with the thing that affects our survival. And when it comes to the question of Jewish survival and the survival of the Jewish state, I will not be silenced.”

But Kerry insisted in Abu Dhabi that “war should be the last resort” to resolve the dispute with Iran. President Barack Obama “has stated unequivocally that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, that is a centrepiece of his foreign policy and he will not bluff,” he said. Representatives of Iran and six world powers gathered in Geneva with high expectations Thursday of a deal but the marathon talks ended inconclusively three days later.

Some media, and off-the-record officials, said no deal was reached because of French reservations on parts of a draft agreement that aimed at lifting some of the crippling sanction on Iran in return for the freezing of much of its nuclear program.

But yesterday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said:

“We are not far from an agreement with the Iranians but we are not there yet.” The so-called P5+1 group - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - and Iran will reconvene in Geneva on November 20 to try to iron out differences. The negotiations had stalled for years but the June election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani - seen as a relative moderate - gave fresh momentum to the talks.

Kerry who briefed UAE officials on the Geneva talks also assured them that signs of warmer ties with Iran would not undermine Washington’s commitment to its Gulf allies. UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan, meanwhile, spoke of an “exaggeration on tensions between the US and its allies” at the joint news conference with Kerry. “There could be differences in viewpoints but not on the overall regional strategy,” he said, before Kerry was due to head home at the end of an exhausting seven-nation tour. The UAE has suffered from sanctions imposed on Iran, its traditional trading partner. Kerry said UAE officials told him that trade between Iran and its Gulf neighbour dropped to four billion dollars from a high of $23 billion due to the sanctions. “That’s a huge sacrifice,” he added. — AFP

Rashed expects Assembly will be dissolved...

Continued from Page 1 Veteran MP Adnan Abdulsamad said yesterday that retaining Dashti in the Cabinet was in itself a crisis and keeping her in the job is confirming the crisis. There have been several calls for the prime minister to dismiss Dashti.

MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan however said yesterday that the there is a constitutional suspicion over the grilling against the prime minister. In another development, head of the Assembly’s priority team MP Ali Al-Omair yesterday distrib-

uted the team’s proposed program to discuss and approve various key projects following consultations with the government. The program includes 26 sessions until early May in addition to two special sessions to discuss the housing problem in December and to debate a law for establishing the multibillion-dollar projects of the Silk City and Boubyan Island. Other important projects include debating the establishment of a telecom commission, the establishment of a human rights agency, a draft law for public universities and others.

knife across his forearm several times while he was trapped in his car during a protest.

Moderate voices have been drowned out in the Egyptian media which largely glorifies the army and its chief, General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. An absence of established political par ties to encourage dynamic pluralist politics has also pushed moderate politicians into the background while the public, weary of instability, mostly backs the army in its “war against terrorism”. Dawoud rejects any suggestion that his opposition to the August crackdown reveals sympathy for political Islam. “I’m a strong opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood. They’re my ideological adver-

sary, but I don’t want to kill them,” he said.

“I’m not against August 14 because I love the Brotherhood ... but because I’m scared for my country. When 400-500 of them die, they’ll have relatives, friends and siblings who say there is no solution but revenge,” he said. Political scientist Emad Shahin said the Egyptian media ensured that real moderates would be silenced. “If you’re against the coup, then you’re with the Brotherhood. If you’re with the Brotherhood, then you’re a terrorist. And if you are for democracy, then you are a fifth columnist. That is how it’s calculated,” said Shahin, who is a professor at the American University in Cairo. — Reuters

Typhoon survivors beg for help Continued from Page 1 More bad weather was on the way with a depression due to bring rain to the central and southern Philippines yesterday, the weather bureau said. Three days after the typhoon made landfall, residents of Tacloban told terrifying accounts of being swept away by a wall of water, revealing a city that had been hopelessly unprepared for a storm of Haiyan’s almost unprecedented power. Most of the damage and deaths were caused by waves that inundated towns, washed ships ashore and swept away villages in scenes reminiscent of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Jean Mae Amande, 22, said she was washed several kilometres from her home by the surge of water. The current ripped her out to sea before pushing her back to shore where she was able to cling to a tree and grab a rope thrown from a boat. An old man who had been swimming with her died when his neck was gashed by an iron roof, she said. “It’s a miracle that the ship was there,” Amande said.

Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded, is estimated to have destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path. The damage to the coconut- and rice-growing region was expected to amount to more than 3 billion pesos ($69 million), Citi Research said in a report, with “massive losses” for private property. Bodies litter the streets of Tacloban, rotting and swelling under the sun. People walked covering their noses with rags or old clothes to mask the stench.

International aid agencies said relief resources in the largely Roman Catholic Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

Twenty-one countries pledged to send relief, including Indonesia, United States, Britain, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Hungary, Aquino said. Tacloban’s administration appeared to be in disarray as city and hospital workers focused on saving their own families and securing food. Operations were further hampered because roads, airpor ts and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage.

Aquino, facing one of the biggest challenges of his three-year rule, deployed 800 soldiers and police to restore order in Tacloban after looters rampaged through several stores. Aquino, who before the storm said the government was aiming for zero casualties, has shown exasperation at conflicting reports on damage and deaths. One TV network quoted him as telling the head of the disaster agency that he was running out of patience. The official death toll is likely to climb rapidly once rescuers reach remote parts of the coast, such as Guiuan, a town in eastern Samar province with

a population of 40,000 that was largely destroyed. “The only reason why we have no reports of casualties up to now is that communications systems ... are down,” said Colonel John Sanchez, posting on the Armed Forces Facebook page.

About 400 people were confirmed dead in Samar province, according to provincial governor Sharee Ann Tan. Baco, a city of 35,000 in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80 percent under water, the United Nations said.

US aid groups also launched a multimillion-dollar relief campaign. An official from one group, World Vision, said there were early reports that as much as 90 percent of northern Cebu had been destroyed. An aid team from Oxfam reported “utter destruction” in the northern-most tip of Cebu. Thirteen people were killed and dozens hurt during heavy winds and storms in Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially after hitting the Philippines.

Separately, at least 100 people are feared dead in a ferocious storm battering Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, the local government said yesterday, warning that hundreds more are missing. The government in the semi-autonomous region described the situation as a “disaster”, with entire villages destroyed, and said it was appealing for emergency international aid. “A tropical cyclone storm (has) wreaked death and destruction... the storm brought high wind speeds and torrential rains, causing flash floods,” said a statement from Puntland’s government.

“Information collected from coastal areas via irregular telephone contact over the past 48 hours indicates that up to 100 people might have been killed, while hundreds of other people remain unaccounted for,” it added. Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole said the “crisis was immense”, with the government declaring the situation a “disaster”. The government is organising relief efforts, but also appealed for international support. “Preliminary information also indicates that homes, buildings, boats and entire villages have been destroyed and over 100,000 livestock lost, endangering the livelihoods of tens of thousands of local people,” the government said. Heavy rains and fierce winds are expected to continue until tomorrow, it added. “Affected coastal areas are in need of emergency supplies of clean water, non-perishable foods, medicines, emergency shelter materials, and blankets,” the government said, adding it was setting up makeshift shelters for those made homeless. Local authorities in the coastal towns of Eyl and Bandarbeyla said the remote settlements were badly hit. “At least 11 people were killed and six others injured in the Eyl area this morning alone,” said Feisal Kalif, deputy commissioner of Eyl. “People are confused, and the situation is getting worse.” — Agencies

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

S P ORTS Armstrong says will testify with 100 percent honesty

Stenson worried about wrist ahead of finale

LONDON: Disgraced former Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has said he will testify with “100 percent transparency and honesty” at any independent enquiry into doping in cycling but wants assurances he will be treated fairly.

The 42-year-old Texan told the BBC World Service yesterday that there had to be consistency from those probing the extent of doping in the sport. “If everyone gets the death penalty, then I’ll take the death penalty,” he said. “If everyone gets a free pass, I’m happy to take a free pass. If everyone gets six months, then I’ll take my six months.”

Armstrong, who was stripped of his record seven Tour titles last year after a US Anti-Doping Agency investigation, has said previously that he believes he was treated unfairly and singled out for punishment. Newly-elected International Cycling Union (UCI) president Brian Cookson wants a new independent commission to investigate allegations and confessions of past doping to try and restore credibility in the sport. The UCI is also to audit its own anti-doping operations in the wake of the Armstrong scandal. Armstrong told the BBC he would do whatever he could to “close the chapter and move things forward” even if any revelations might not prove “quite as juicy” as some people expected.—Reuters

BELEK: European money-list leader Henrik Stenson is concerned about a nagging wrist problem and may dial down his workload ahead of this week’s season-ending $8 million DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

The 37-year-old Swede has been troubled by the injury for three weeks and could withdraw from the pro-am in Dubai in order to make sure he is ready for the first round of the tournament on Thursday. “I’m going to speak to my physio and see what he wants,” Stenson told reporters on Sunday after finishing in a tie for seventh place behind Turkish Airlines Open champion Victor Dubuisson of France. “Maybe if I pull out of the pro-am and give it two days of full rest, maybe I can do a light practice session on Wednesday and go. “It’s obviously going to affect my preparations but it’s been like that for the last three weeks so I’ve just got to do the best I can,” added Stenson.

“Long-term I hope I’m not damaging anything that’s going to take longer to get fixed later on.”

Stenson, looking to be crowned Europe’s number one golfer for the first time, goes into the season finale holding a lead of 213,000 euros ($284,300) over Justin Rose at the top of the money list.—Reuters

Saints boss: Nobody can stop us — except ourselves LONDON: Nobody can stop Southampton’s run towards the top of the English Premier League, except perhaps the Saints themselves, says manager Mauricio Pochettino. The unfashionable club from England’s south coast thumped Hull City 4-1 at the weekend to go third in the league, a fifth consecutive home win, and one which extended their unbeaten run in the top flight to eight matches.

“The only thing that can stop us... is ourselves,” Pochettino told reporters. “We could be our own worst enemy. “We need to keep working with the same work ethic and humility because we will probably be getting a lot of compliments due to how we played. “We need to make sure that we manage those compliments in a good way and turn them into positive energy to keep up our performances. We can’t let it get to our heads-we need to manage expectations and just keep doing what we are doing.” Compliments have been coming thick and fast since before the win over Hull, with a victory at Anfield and a draw at Old Trafford included in that eight-match unbeaten run.

Indeed, the Saints have been universally heralded for their attacking flair twinned with a miserly defence, and their performances have caught the eye of England boss Roy Hodgson.—Reuters

Ducks extend winning streak

TURKEY: US golfer Tiger Woods reacts in this file photo. —AFP

Upbeat Woods targets Major success in 2014 BELEK: Tiger Woods, third in the Turkish Open on Sunday, has one event remaining this year but he’s already focussing on next year’s Majors and returning to three of four venues where he has tasted success in the past.

Woods left Istanbul with a share of third place, four shots behind surprise winner, Victor Dubuisson of France. The world No. 1 could look back to the disappointment Thursday ’s weather-delayed opening round when he shot a two under par 70 in a round whee he managed to find only three fairways.

And while Woods’ driving improved marginally he averaged 66 over the next three days. Woods will not play again to his final event of the year when he hosts the December 5 commencing World Challenge at Thousand Oaks in Los Angeles, an event he has captured five times since its inception in 1999. The 14-time Major winner will then make his 2014 debut in the 25th anniversary Dubai Desert Classic starting on January 30.

Next year will be six years since Woods last won a Major Championship in capturing the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines.

However Woods remains quietly confident of moving closer to Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record of 18 Majors given the Masters, the British Open at Royal Liverpool and PGA Championship at Valhalla will be staged in 2014 on venues where he has won in the past.

Woods has won four times at Augusta National while he won the 2006 British Open when last staged at Royal Liverpool and he defeated fellow American Bob May in a play-off to capture the PGA Championship at Valhalla when last staged on the Kentucky course in 2000.

The US Open will be held at Pinehurst where Woods was runner-up in 2005 to New Zealander Michael Campbell. “Next year is really good for one for me in the Majors, and on top of having won at three of the four venues, I’ve had a third and a

second at Pinehurst and hopefully I can keep improving there,” he smiled. “I’m looking forward to the four venues. I like them and obviously I’ve played well on them.”

And Woods played down criticism in not having captured a 15th Major arguing he won five times this season on the PGA Tour as well as returned to No. 1 in the world.

“Compared to this time last year, I’ve got, what, five more wins since then, so I think my game has gotten a little better,” he said.

“So the way I have played this year as a whole has been very encouraging. “A couple of years ago, there were a lot of guys, so many guys here (in the media) that were saying I could never win again. I’ve got eight wins since then, so it’s been good and I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made.

“I’ve won on some venues that were very tough this year, and also being a part of the Presidents Cup with Freddie (Couples) and winning that point, too, was another special moment.”

While Woods sounds upbeat current European No. 1 Henrik Stenson faces an anxious few days to ascertain if his right wrist will be alright ahead of the final event of the 2013 European Race to Dubai.

Stenson is considering pulling out of the World Tour Championship starting today as he had to do at the recent BMW Masters in Shanghai.

“The problem with the tendons in my wrist is going to affect my preparations but it’s been like that for the last three weeks,” he said. “My only concern is that long-term, I just hope I’m not damaging anything that’s going to take longer to get fixed later on. “But I am going to speak to my physio and see what he wants me to do.” Stenson shared seventh in Turkey but with the Swede seeing his lead cut from 343,866 euros to 213,468 euros while the leading four contenders for the European No. 1 title are now separated by 343,906 and with this week’s event carrying a first prize of 1.14 million euros. —AFP

Carlsen duel fires up chess fervor in India CHENNAI: As India’s Vishwanathan Anand squared off against Norway’s Magnus Carlsen to defend his title as world chess champion, 11-year-old Shyamsundar and his 9-year-old sister Padmapratibha unfolded their cloth chess boards and sat cross-legged in the lobby of the hotel where the grandmasters were playing. Their mother, B. Tamilarasi, travelled with them 450 km (280 miles) from Madurai to Chennai, allowing them to miss school to watch the Anand-Carlsen matches and take part in chess games throughout the twoweek event.

“When I watched the inaugural ceremony for the World Chess Championship, I dared to think that they too could eye the world championship crown some day,” she said.

With India having overtaken France as the nation with the most players rated by the World Chess Federation, the country that invented the predecessor of the strategic game is finally proving to be a hotbed of chess talent.

The enthusiasm for chess ignited by Anand in the 1980s is now a fervour as India hosts the world championship this year.

Anand and Carlsen are playing a total of 12 games through to Nov. 26 on a glassencased, soundproof stage at a five-star hotel in Chennai on India’s southeast coast. Their first two matches, on Saturday and Sunday,

ended in draws. Just 22, Carlsen is considered the favourite after beating Anand in their last encounter in June. Anand, 43, is unperturbed.

“Whether someone thinks you are a favourite or not and what percentage, I don’t know what you can do with that information anyway,” Anand told a news conference last week. A household name in India, Anand is widely credited with firing up the nation’s passion for chess more than two decades ago with his world junior tournament victory in 1987 and his world championship wins starting in 2000.

Indian states including Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have made chess part of the school syllabus and countless clubs are cropping up.

Anand’s key sponsor, software services firm NIIT Technologies Ltd, runs a programme to introduce chess in more than 2,000 schools. “ The World Chess Championship has charged the country with intellectual voltage and I am getting double the number of calls I would get for enrolment every month,” said Manual Aaron, 78, who runs a chess tutoring centre in Chennai. Low-cost chess sets and books, online resources and the game’s association with intelligence make it a popular choice for middle-class parents who would cringe at their children spending time on other games. —Reuters

ANAHEIM: Rookie goalie Frederik Andersen won his sixth straight game to start his NHL career, making 35 saves in place of an ailing Jonas Hiller as the league-leading Anaheim Ducks extended their winning streak to five with a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday.

Corey Perry had a goal and an assist, Nick Bonino got the go-ahead goal in the final minute of the second period and Andrew Cogliano added an empty-netter, helping Anaheim improve the NHL’s best record to 153-1 and the best home start in franchise history to 8-0.

The Ducks are the league’s only undefeated team on home ice, and the first to win their first eight home games since the 2010-11 Los Angeles Kings. Anaheim’s 31 points through its first 19 games eclipsed the previous club mark of 30 set in 2006-07, when the team won its only Stanley Cup title.

Ducks captain and leading scorer Ryan Getzlaf, who had his first career hat trick Friday night in a victory over Buffalo, was scratched for the first time this season because of an upper-body injury. Tom Sestito scored his first goal of the season for the Canucks.

AVALANCHE 4, CAPITALS 1 Semyon Varlamov stopped 33 shots and Nick Holden scored his first NHL goal to break a second-period tie, lifting Colorado over Washington.

Patrick Bordeleau, P.A. Parenteau and Gabriel Landeskog also added goals for the Avalanche, who are off to a franchise-best 14-2 start under new coach Patrick Roy. Before this season, the best mark through 16 games was 13-3 by the 1994-95 Quebec Nordiques.

Joel Ward had the lone goal for the Capitals as they lost for a second straight night. Alex Ovechkin thought he had a goal late in the third, but it was disallowed when replay showed he kicked it in with his left skate.

BLACKHAWKS 5, OILERS 4 Marcus Kruger scored the tiebreaking goal with 8:16 left in the third period and Duncan Keith added a power-play goal 1:55 later as Chicago beat Edmonton for its third straight victory.

Kruger was alone at the edge of the crease when he took a pass from Ben Smith off the boards, turned and wrapped the puck past Devan Dubnyk to put Chicago ahead 4-3.

Keith added his first of the season on a screened shot from the point. It turned out to be the game-winner because Jordan Eberle scored short-handed for the Oilers on a deflection of Nick Schultz’s point shot with 1:28 remaining.

Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw and Bryan Bickell also scored for the Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks (12-2-4), who are 6-0-1 in their last seven games.

Edmonton also got an even-strength goal from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and power-play scores from Nail Yakupov and David Perron, but lost its third straight and fifth in six games.

Sam Gagner missed on a second-period penalty shot. Chicago goalie Corey Crawford made 19 saves.

RANGERS 4, PANTHERS 3 Brad Richards snapped a tie in the opening minute of the third period as the surging New York Rangers handed Florida its ninth straight loss.

Richards snapped a shot past goalie Tim Thomas 46 seconds in, and punched the glass in celebration of his first goal in nine games.

New York then held on for its third consecutive win and sixth in seven games. Mats Zuccarello made it 4-2 at 6:16 during the Rangers’ two-man power play, off a pass from Richards, and J.T. Miller and Derek Dorsett also scored for New York (9-8), which went over .500 for the first time this season.

Brian Campbell scored his second of the game to cut Florida’s deficit to 4-3 with 7:03 left. Henrik Lundqvist made 24 saves, but the Rangers had their nine-game streak of holding opponents under three goals broken at nine.

Aleksander Barkov had the other goal for the Panthers, who dropped to 0-5-4 in their past nine and 0-2 under interim coach Peter Horachuk.

JETS 5, SHARKS 4 Andrew Ladd scored the tying goal with 1:43 remaining in regulation and then delivered the shootout winner to lift Winnipeg over San Jose. Michael Frolik, Dustin Byfulgien and Grant Clitsome also scored for the Jets.

Ladd had the lone goal in the tiebreaker.

Dan Boyle scored two power-play goals for San Jose, but couldn’t beat Ondrej Pavelec in the shootout. Pavelec stopped Logan Couture, Tommy Wingels and Boyle.

Tomas Hertl and Wingels each had a goal

ANAHEIM: Ryan Getzlaf No. 15 and Cam Fowler No. 4 of the Anaheim Ducks celebrate in this file photo. —AFP

for the Sharks (10-2-5), who lost in a shootout for the third time in their last four games.

Ladd tied it late in the third period on a quick shot from the left circle with Blake Wheeler screening goalie Antti Niemi.

DEVILS 5, PREDATORS 0 Jaromir Jagr scored 90 seconds into the game to become the eighth player in NHL history with 1,700 points as Martin Brodeur got his 123rd career shutout in New Jersey’s victory over Nashville.

Brodeur stopped 15 shots to improve to 43-2 this season with his 673rd career victory.

Jagr, who also had an assist, boosted his career totals to 686 goals and 1,015 assists.

Former Pittsburgh Penguins teammate Mario Lemieux is seventh with 1,723 points - including 690 goals.

Cam Janssen scored 2:54 into the second period for the Devils (5-7-5), his second in three games. Marek Zidlicky made it 3-0 less

than 6 minutes later on a power play. Travis Zajac and Mattias Tedenby added goals in the third period. Carter Hutton stopped 18 shots for Nashville.

CANADIENS 4, ISLANDERS 2 Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller each had a goal and two assists as Montreal ended a four-game losing streak by beating the New York Islanders.

Brendan Gallagher and Michael Bournival also scored to help Canadiens coach Michel Therrien earn his 250th NHL win. Carey Price made 24 saves.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Brock Nelson had the goals for the Islanders, who ended a four-game road trip without a point.

The Islanders played their second game in less than 24 hours and were without recently acquired forward Thomas Vanek, who sustained an upper-body injury in a loss Saturday night at Columbus. —AP

NFL results/standings Philadelphia 27, Green Bay 13; Jacksonville 29, Tennessee 27; Pittsburgh 23, Buffalo 10; NY Giants 24, Oakland 20; St. Louis 38, Indianapolis 8; Seattle 33, Atlanta 10; Baltimore 20, Cincinnati 17 (OT); Detroit 21, Chicago 19; Carolina 10, San Francisco 9; Arizona 27, Houston 24; Denver 28, San Diego 20; New Orleans 49, Dallas 17.

American Football Conference National Football Conference AFC East NFC East W L T OTL PF PA PCT Dallas 5 5 0 0 274 258 .500 New England 7 2 0 1 234 175 .778 Philadelphia 5 5 0 0 252 244 .500 NY Jets 5 4 0 0 169 231 .556 NY Giants 3 6 0 0 165 243 .333 Miami 4 4 0 0 174 187 .500 Washington 3 6 0 0 230 287 .333 Buffalo 3 7 0 1 199 259 .300 NFC North AFC North Detroit 6 3 0 0 238 216 .667 Cincinnati 6 4 0 2 234 186 .600 Chicago 5 4 0 0 259 247 .556 Cleveland 4 5 0 0 172 197 .444 Green Bay 5 4 0 0 245 212 .556 Baltimore 4 5 0 0 188 189 .444 Minnesota 2 7 0 0 220 279 .222 Pittsburgh 3 6 0 0 179 218 .333 NFC South AFC South New Orleans 7 2 0 0 265 163 .778 Indianapolis 6 3 0 0 222 193 .667 Carolina 6 3 0 0 214 115 .667 Tennessee 4 5 0 1 200 196 .444 Atlanta 2 7 0 0 186 251 .222 Houston 2 7 0 1 170 248 .222 Tampa Bay 0 8 0 1 124 190 0 Jacksonville 1 8 0 0 115 291 .111 NFC West AFC West Seattle 9 1 0 0 265 159 .900 Kansas City 9 0 0 0 215 111 1.000 San Francisco 6 3 0 0 227 155 .667 Denver 8 1 0 0 371 238 .889 Arizona 5 4 0 0 187 198 .556 San Diego 4 5 0 1 212 202 .444 St. Louis 4 6 0 0 224 234 .400 Oakland 3 6 0 0 166 223 .333

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

S P ORTS

Johnson widens points lead AVONDALE: Jimmie Johnson seized control of the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship battle following a disastrous performance by Matt Kenseth on Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway.

Johnson widened his lead in the Sprint Cup standings to 28 points over Kenseth heading into next Sunday’s season finale at Homestead by finishing third in a workmanlike performance for the five-time champion. Johnson will take his sixth title by finishing 23rd or better next week.

“We’re heading into Homestead in the position we want to be in,” Johnson said.

“I’ll have to go down there and run 400 miles. It’s far from over. You’ve got to finish that race. Although we have a nice cushion, we still have to go down there and take care of business.”

Kevin Harvick won Sunday at Phoenix for the second consecutive year, but all eyes were on Kenseth, who struggled mightily for the first time in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Kenseth finished 23rd.

His car was off at the very start of the race and Kenseth struggled to tell crew chief Jason Ratcliff what adjustments to make on a Toyota he described at one point as “just not drivable.”

“I don’t even know what to tell you to fix, to be honest,” Kenseth radioed. “I am so aero tight. So aero tight.” Figuring track position and clean air was the only fix, Ratcliff opted for a strategy of having Kenseth do the opposite of other drivers: If they pitted, Kenseth did not, and vice versa.

It worked as Kenseth cracked the top 10, but then backfired horrifically on a disastrous pit stop at the worst possible time.

Moments after contact between Johnson and Carl Edwards knocked Johnson out of the groove and forced him to save his Chevrolet from wrecking, a caution was called for Josh Wise’s spin. The Joe Gibbs Racing crew botched the pit stop, changing strategy mid-stop, and Kenseth compounded the problem by running over his air hose. His car had to be backed up before it could be serviced. It dropped him

to 30th, two laps down, and he restarted behind Johnson at the one opportunity he’d had to make up some ground.

“After that issue, we came to pit road and left, and I expected him to be ahead of us,” Johnson said. “He was behind me and I knew it was just about trying to get points on him from there.”

Kenseth’s finish was his worst of the Chase, and worst since he was 23rd at Watkins Glen in August. He only had four finishes worse than 23rd all season, and three were either for an engine failure or a crash.

So off in the waning laps, Kenseth’s frustration could be heard over the radio when he couldn’t pass Bobby Labonte and David Gilliland.

“Man, this is bad,” Kenseth said. “I can’t believe I can’t even pass these two cars.”

Although he wasn’t great all weekend, Kenseth said he never saw Sunday’s performance coming.

“No, because we haven’t had a day like this all year,” Kenseth said. “I can’t say I was overly confident about what we had.

Obviously, it didn’t drive good or we would have been up there with the front group. I just did all I could with it, which wasn’t much.”

After seven wins this season, Kenseth’s first driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, Ratcliff did not believe the team choked.

“Everybody’s going to say, ‘Oh, the pressure got to them,’ “ he said. “Just poor execution on a track that’s so hard to pass.

You’re trying to make up for something that happened earlier and it just snowballs on you. The car wasn’t responding to changes. We’d make a change and wouldn’t help it, so we’d put that back and make a another change and I don’t know if that was better or worse, so I was like ‘Just quit working on the thing, it’s not responding.’

“We were just trying to make something out of nothing.” Harvick, meanwhile, picked up his fourth win of the season when Edwards ran out of gas headed to the white flag. Harvick sailed by on the last lap for his fourth win of the year. —AP

Photo of the day

Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttilla race during the FIA World Rally Championship in Salou, Spain. —www.redbull.com

Thunder roll past Wizards OKLAHOMA: Kevin Durant scored 33 points, including a tying 3 late in regulation and the go-ahead foul shots in overtime to send the Oklahoma City Thunder past the Washington Wizards 106-105 on Sunday. John Wall missed a driving layup attempt at the buzzer for Washington, which was seek ing its third straight win. Bradley Beal scored a career-high 34 points for the Wizards.

Oklahoma City trailed 92-82 with 3:26 left with the fourth quarter, but went on a 14-4 run. Durant capped the burst with a straightaway 3-pointer with 13.6 seconds left.

Beal missed a running 12-footer at the buzzer while being closely guarded by Serge Ibaka. In overtime, Durant blocked a shot by Wall and streaked toward the other basket. He made both free throws for a 106-105 lead with 40.7 seconds left.

TIMBERWOLVES 113, LAKERS 90 Kevin Martin scored 27 points, Kevin Love had 18 of his 25 points during Minnesota’s 47point first quar ter as the Timber wolves snapped a 22-game losing streak against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Ricky Rubio had 12 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who hadn’t beaten the Lakers since March 6, 2007.

Minnesota took a 28-point lead during the highest-scoring quarter in franchise history and maintained a healthy advantage all night in their first win over the Lakers at Staples Center since Dec. 2, 2005.

Steve Blake scored 19 points with five 3pointers, and Jodie Meeks added 16 for the Lakers, who have lost five of seven.

SUNS 101, PELICANS 94 Eric Bledsoe scored 24 points and Markieff Morris came off the bench to score 23 as the Phoenix Suns beat the New Orleans Pelicans.

Morris shot 9 of 12, and has gone 30 for 38 from the field over his past three games while averaging 24.7 points in that span.

Gerald Green scored 15 and Goran Dragic added 12 for the Suns, who have won four of five. Suns coach Jeff Hornacek became the first coach in franchise history to win his first four home games. Jason Smith scored 22 points while Jrue Holiday and Anthony Morrow each had 16 for the Pelicans.

AVONDALE: Kasey Kahne (5) (bottom left) and Brad Keselowski (2) (bottom right) lead the field into turn one on a restart during the AdvoCare 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race. —AP

SPURS 120, KNICKS 89 Danny Green had 24 points and a careerhigh 10 rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs pounded the New York Knicks for their fourth straight victory. Kawhi Leonard scored 18 points and Tony Parker had 17 in a game that was close for about 3 minutes. San Antonio scored the first 10 points, led by as many as 37, and was in complete control in between. Tim Duncan took just four shots but finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds as San Antonio shot

LOS ANGELES: Minnesota Timberwolves guard Kevin Martin (left) puts up a shot as Los Angeles Lakers center Pau Gasol, of Spain, defends during the second half of an NBA basketball game. —AP 54 percent. The Spurs spoiled the season anti-drug program, Smith shot 1 of 9 and debut of Knicks guard J.R. Smith, last season’s scored five points in 20 minutes. Carmelo Sixth Man of the Year. Suspended the first five Anthony and Andrea Bargnani both scored 16 games of the season for violating the NBA’s for the Knicks. —AP

NBA results/standings San Antonio 120, NY Knicks 89; Oklahoma City 106, Washington 105 (OT); Phoenix 101, New Orleans 94; Minnesota 113, LA Lakers 90.

Philadelphia Toronto Boston NY Knicks Brooklyn Indiana Cleveland Milwaukee Detroit Chicago Miami Atlanta Charlotte Orlando Washington

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT 4 3 .571 3 4 .429 3 4 .429 2 4 .333 2 4 .333 Central Division 7 0 1.000 3 4 .429 2 3 .400 2 3 .400 2 3 .400 Southeast Division 4 3 .571 3 3 .500 3 3 .500 3 4 .429 2 4 .333

GB 1 1 1.5 1.5 4 4 4 4 0.5 0.5 1 1.5

Western Conference Northwest Division Oklahoma City 5 1 .833 Minnesota 5 2 .714 Portland 4 2 .667 Denver 1 4 .200 Utah 0 7 0 Pacific Division Phoenix 5 2 .714 LA Clippers 4 3 .571 Golden State 4 3 .571 LA Lakers 3 5 .375 Sacramento 1 5 .167 Southwest Division San Antonio 6 1 .857 Houston 4 3 .571 Dallas 4 3 .571 Memphis 3 3 .500 New Orleans 3 4 .429

Shakedown? Rite of passage? Or a bargain?

NEW YORK: A friend makes vague threats if you refuse to kick $15,000 into the kitty so he and his pals can take a trip to Vegas without you.

At certain times and places, that’s called a shakedown, Or worse. At the moment, in at least one NFL locker room and probably more, it’s a rite of passage.

It’s hard to know who to believe as the war of words between Miami teammates-turnedantagonists Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin escalates. Among the many points of contention is whether Martin handed over the $15,000 - as Incognito contends - because he pulled out of the trip; or, as the rookie Martin maintains, because he feared being hazed even more for violating the code that prevailed inside the Dolphins’ locker room.

It will be up to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to decide, once he receives a report from Ted Wells, a respected New York attorney the league appointed to investigate the matter.

And if true, the $15,000 payoff could turn out to be a bargain.

Just this past summer, Adam Jones, the reformed Cincinnati Bengals cornerback known as “Pacman” in a previous incarnation, told the gathering at the NFL’s annual rookie symposium how he dropped $1 million in Las Vegas - over the course of a single weekend. Colts tight end Coby Fleener, a former teammate of Martin’s at

Stanford who was in the audience that day, said that as jaws dropped throughout the room, copanelist Terrell Owens looked over at Jones, smiled and said simply, “Man, you crazy!” And Owens should know.

Now 39 and unable to convince an NFL team to give him another shot, he’s trying out pro bowling as a second act, desperate to replenish the bank account he drained - aided by bad investments - the first time around.

Similar stories abound in every sport. Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are only the most recent examples in a racket whose history of profligacy stretches back a century. Baseball, basketball, hockey and even golf have seen their of newly-minted marks party their way right up to the door of the poor house. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that no one does it faster or more foolishly than pro football players. A 2009 repor t in Spor ts Illustrated, citing a variety of sources, found that 78 percent of NFL athletes, or nearly four out of every five, are flirting with bankruptcy within five years of retirement. “ That sounds about right,” cornerback Rashean Mathis said matter-of-factly in the visitors’ locker room Sunday after his Lions beat the Bears. “I’ve been in the league 11 seasons and seen or heard about a few along the way. Guys come into the league, get more money than

they ever dreamed of, and think they’re set for life. They get caught up in the lifestyle, and either don’t know, don’t want to, or can’t pull back.

“As a veteran, you see it and try to tell guys, ‘Dude, that’s not worth it.’ Personally, I think it’s the agent’s responsibility to do that. But there’s guys I look back and wish I could have reached them,” Mathis said finally. “But all you can do for some of them is pray.”

Even divine intervention, though, might not have worked with Vince Young. The former Tennessee Titans quarterback went through a reported $26 million in little more than five years, easy to believe when you hear about the time Young wanted to fly home to Houston in peace and bought up the remaining 120 of 130 seats on a Southwest flight. It wasn’t the only story, either.

During a segment on a Tennessee radio show 13 months ago, callers claiming to be bartenders and servers at some of Young’s favorite haunts testified to his largesse: routinely picking up the tab for teammates and just about everybody in the bar at local T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant average cost $6,000 a night; that after about $5,000 a week eating out at the Cheesecake Factory during his rookie season. Young tweeted his response soon after: “It’s a shame to see people revel in and rally around negativity in

the media but I guess it’s to be expected. Yes, I need a job, who doesn’t? Yes, I want to be out there playing the game I love and earning a paycheck, who wouldn’t?”

That response hints at another reason why football players may run into money problems faster that their pro counterparts. According to the NFL Players Association, the average career runs 31/2 years, compounded by the fact that those players’ first - and often only - contract contains the least amount of guaranteed money. And add up the price of a home or two, several cars, vacations, tailored clothes, generous gifts and lavish parties, agent and management fees, taxes and in a few cases, bad investments and child support - and it’s easy to see how the gravy train could run out of steam.

In some places back up the track, players are already applying the brakes. In the Baltimore locker room Sunday, right after the Ravens’ overtime win against Cincinnati, someone asked cornerback Corey Graham how the team planned to celebrate.

“Some guys go out, some guys go to dinner with their families, some guys do crazy things. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’ll figure something out.”

But a moment later, the six-year veteran added, “Nothing crazy. I’m getting a little older, I don’t do too much.” —AP

0.5 1 3.5 5.5 1 1 2.5 3.5 2 2 2.5 3

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

S P ORTS

ZHEZKAZGAN: Soyuz TMA-09M capsule carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, American Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano of Italy lands in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan. The Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and the three astronauts returned to Earth yesterday from the ISS in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan. —AP

Giroud: Arsenal’s best link player since Bergkamp LONDON: Olivier Giroud may not score 30 league goals in a season for Arsenal as Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie both did. He had an off-day in Arsenal’s 1-0 loss on Sunday at Manchester United. But Giroud is proving to be Arsenal’s best link player since Dennis Bergkamp and will be vital for France in World Cup playoffs this week and next.

Arsenal tops the Premier League and Champions League Group F in no small part because Giroud, like Bergkamp, lifts the play of the whole team and gives Arsenal options.

When he struggles, so does Arsenal. With Giroud losing balls and misdirecting passes, Arsenal fell short against United at Old Trafford.

Bergkamp had more pure talent than Giroud. But like the Dutch star, Giroud picks out teammates with graceful flicks, holds the ball up front to give Arsenal’s slick midfield time to push forward at speed and scores goals on his own.

His 16 goals in 45 league games for the Gunners isn’t great

but he sets up almost as many as he scores. Whether dropping deep, drifting wide or staying in a more central position, Giroud is easy for teammates to find.

He will also play a key role in France’s World Cup playoff games against Ukraine this Friday and next week.

Supplanting Karim Benzema, who tends to drift about, making him harder for teammates to link up with, Giroud gives France’s attack more of a central focal point.

The 27-year-old Giroud was playing in the French second division four seasons ago. Coach Arsene Wenger took a risk signing him from the relative obscurity of Montpellier in 2012. At Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, whispers of “Olivier who?” could be heard from fans desperate for the club to win its first trophy since the 2005 FA Cup. Giroud has proved throughout his career that he improves significantly in his second season at a club.

In his first season with Tours, he scored nine league goals, then he got 21; with Montpellier he scored 12 and

then 21. Last season, Giroud averaged one goal every three games for Arsenal. This term he has one in two and is on pace to get around 18.

Giroud is a deft passer - demonstrated when he and Jack Wilshere combined to split the Norwich defense with Arsenal’s opening goal in a 4-1 win at the Emirates on Oct. 19. Pundits purred about their one-touch passing that would have made master of the art Barcelona proud.

Giroud back-heeled the ball to Wilshere, who returned it to Giroud with a flick of his foot. Giroud then nudged the ball back to Wilshere, who volleyed in, all in a couple of seconds.

Giroud’s height also gives Arsenal the option of playing long balls instead of too often trying to pass the ball into the net. He is Arsenal’s best header of a ball since striker Alan Smith in the 1990s. In a 1-0 win at Borussia Dortmund on Nov. 6, Giroud seemed to hang in the air before nodding Mesut Ozil’s looping cross into the path of Aaron

Ramsey, who headed in the winner. Fans who questioned his abilities and Wenger’s failure not to recruit a more typical striker are now willing to look beyond Giroud’s goal tally. They sing Giroud’s praises to the tune of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.

Another measure of Giroud’s success is that Theo Walcott is no longer talked about as a potential center-forward for Arsenal. Walcott is clearly better on the wing, where his speed hurts opponents and where his weaknesses - an inability to play back to goal, limited holdup play and lack of awareness about the positioning of teammates - aren’t so telling. Not since Bergkamp retired in 2006 has Arsenal fielded a forward so effective all-around as Giroud.

The only big worry with Giroud is that he might get injured, especially since Wenger is so reliant on him.

Wenger tried but failed to sign another forward this past summer. That leaves the under-whelming Nicklas Bendtner as Giroud’s only backup. A frightening thought. —AP

De Villiers wrecks Pakistan

SPAIN: This file picture taken on February 1, 2011 shows Ferrari team driver Brazilian Felipe Massa watching a training session at the Ricardo Tormo racetrack in Cheste, near Valencia. —AFP

Williams sign Massa for 2014 LONDON: Williams have signed Brazil’s Felipe Massa as one of their drivers for the 2014 Formula One season, the British team announced yesterday.

Massa, 32, joins from grid rivals Ferrari, for whom he has raced since the 2006 season, with Pastor Maldonado axed by Williams.

“The Williams F1 Team is delighted to announce that Felipe Massa will join the team to drive alongside Valtteri Bottas for the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship season,” a team statement said. “ The new line -up reflects Williams’ determination to bring success back to the team,” added the statement, the marque having managed just a solitary point in the 2013 Formula One constructors’ championship with two rounds left.

Massa’s Grand Prix future was called into question when Ferrari announced they had re-signed Kimi Raikkonen for next season.

In 12 seasons in Formula One, Massa has won 11 races and recorded 36 podium finishes.

He narrowly missed out on the 2008 drivers’ world title to Britain’s Lewis Hamilton by just a single point but helped Ferrari win the constructors’ world title in both 2007 and 2008.

Massa is currently eighth in the drivers’ standings for 2013, with Red Bull’s

Sebastian Vettel having already wrapped up his fourth successive Formula One title.

“We are delighted to be able to confirm our 2014 driver line-up and welcome Felipe into the Williams family,” said team founder and principal Frank Williams.

“He is an exceptional talent and a real fighter on the race track; he also brings a wealth of experience as we begin a new chapter in our story.”

Massa said he was delighted to be joining another “iconic” team and one for whom Brazilian Grand Prix greats Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna had both raced.

“Williams is one of the most successful and important teams of all time in Formula One,” Massa said.

“When I was a kid, I always dreamed about racing for Williams, Ferrari or McLaren and I’m glad to be signing with another icon of the sport following my time at Ferrari.

“It is also nice to remember that some of the best Brazilian drivers raced for Williams and cemented a strong national link with the team.

“I hope my experience will be useful in helping the team in its effort to move on from a difficult period,” he added.

No Williams driver has won the world title since Canada’s Jacques Villeneuve in 1997, the same year the team won the last of its nine constructors’ titles. —AFP

SHARJAH: AB de Villiers stormed to an unbeaten century to help South Africa beat Pakistan convincingly by 117 runs in the fifth and final one-day in Sharjah yesterday, winning the five-match series 41. AB de Villiers scored 115 from 102 balls with ten boundaries and three sixes-his 15th one-day hundred-to lift South Africa to an imperious 268-7 before bowling Pakistan out for 151 in 35.3 overs.

Sohaib Maqsood top-scored with a solid 53 but otherwise Pakistan failed to capitalise a weakened South African bowling attack with spearheads Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, and spinner Imran Tahir rested for the meaningless match as the series was already decided.

Pakistan were 8-2 with Ahmed Shehzad (two) and Mohammad Hafeez (six) by the fifth over, once again highlighting the top-order failure in the series. It was Maqsood, who hit 56 on his debut in Abu Dhabi on Friday, who gave some consolation to another lackluster batting effort with a 63-ball half-century before he became one of two victims for Jean-Paul Duminy who finished with 2-14.

Wayne Parnell finished with 3-36.

Umar Akmal made 30 while skipper Misbah-ul Haq managed 18. Shahid Afridi (nine) and Umar Amin (five) failed once more as South Africa took the last six wickets for a mere 41 runs. The South African skipper hit a 102-ball 115 studded with ten boundaries and three sixes to lift South Africa who won the toss and batted on a slow Sharjah stadium pitch. De Villiers lifted the tempo in the final overs, hitting Sohail Tanvir’s final over for 25 runs, reaching his hundred with a four towards mid-wicket, which came off 99 balls. He then hit the left-armer for six, four and four to help South Africa add 114 in the last ten overs. At 105 he also completed 6,000 oneday runs, becoming the fifth South African batsmen to reach the milestone. Jacques Kallis (11,469), Herschelle Gibbs (8094), Graeme Smith (6976) and Gary Kirsten (6798) were others to score 6,000 or more one-day runs for South Africa.

De Villiers was initially slow, reaching his fifty off 70 balls, with a big six off Saeed Ajmal towards mid-wicket. He added an invaluable 83 for the sixth wicket with Ryan McLaren (27) before lashing out in the final overs. De Villiers had built the innings with an invaluable 62 runs stand for the fourth wicket with Faf du Plessis who made an 89-balls 46 with the help of two boundaries.

Quinton de Kock (34) added 50 with Du Plessis after Hashim Amla fell in the first over of the innings for three. Ajmal finished with 3-45 while Khan took 2-57. South Africa won the first match by one run in Sharjah before Pakistan levelled the series with 66-run win in Dubai. South Africa then won both the matches in Abu Dhabi by 68 and 28 runs respectively. The two teams now play Twenty20 internationals in Dubai tomorrow and Friday. —AFP

SHARJAH: Pakistan’s captain Misbah-ul Haq (right) plays a shot as South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock looks on during the fifth and final one day international at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. —AP

SCOREBOARD SHARJAH: Scoreboard of the fifth and final day-night international between Pakistan and South Africa at Sharjah stadium on Monday: South Africa Hashmi Amla lbw b Irfan 3 Q. de Kock lbw b Ajmal 34 F. du Plessis c Tanvir b Khan 46 JP Duminy c Shehzad b Hafeez 2 AB de Villiers not out 115 D. Miller c and b Ajmal 15 R. McLaren c Khan b Ajmal 27 R. Peterson b Khan 2 W. Parnell not out 8 Extras: (b4, lb5, w7) 16 Total: (seven wkts; 50 overs) 268 Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Amla), 2-54 (De Kock), 3-62 (Duminy), 4-124 (Du Plessis), 5-150 (Miller), 6-233 (McLaren), 7-240 (Peterson).

Bowling: Irfan 10-0-52-1 (3w), Tanvir 8-0-58-0, Ajmal 100-45-3 (1w), Hafeez 3-0-10-1, Afridi 10-0-37-0 (3w). Khan 9-0-57-2

Pakistan Mohammad Hafeez b Philander 6 Ahmed Shehzad c Philander b Tsotsobe 2 Sohaib Maqsood c Philander b Duminy 53 Umar Amin lbw b Philander 5 Misbah-ul-Haq c Miller b McLaren 18 Umar Akmal lbw b Duminy 30 Shahid Afridi c and b Parnell 9 Sohail Tanvir c de Kock b McLaren 15 Saeed Ajmal lbw b Parnell 1 Mohammad Irfan c Amla b Parnell 0 Junaid Khan not out 1 Extras: (w11) 11 Total: (all out; 35.3 overs) 151 Fall of wickets: 1-8 (Shehzad), 2-8 (Hafeez), 3-17 (Amin), 4-56 (Misbah), 5-110 (Umar), 6-128 (Afridi), 7-130 (Maqsood), 8-131 (Ajmal), 9-131 (Ir fan) Bowling: Philaner 8-2-23-2 (1w), Tsotsobe 7-0-28-1 (3w), McLaren 4.3-1-21-1 (2w), Peterson 5-0-29-0, Parnell 7-1-36-3 (5w), Duminy 4-1-14-2 Result: South Africa won by 117 runs to take five-match series 4-1

Prior ruled out of England’s last pre-Ashes tour match SYDNEY: Vice captain Matt Prior has been ruled out of England’s last tour match before the start of the Ashes series due to a calf tear but the tourists are confident he will be fit to play in next week’s first Test in Brisbane.

Wicketkeeper Prior, who sustained the injury in the match against Australia A in Hobart on Saturday, has a “low grade” tear to his left calf so will not feature in this week’s match against an Invitational XI, a team official said.

“It’s disappointing, Matt is a key part of our success over the years and obviously we want him to get recovered as quick as possible,” Prior’s team

mate Ian Bell told reporters at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) yesterday.

“There’s still a bit of time (before the first test), Matt’s got himself into fantastic shape for this tour and he’ll be really good with his rehab and I’ve got every faith he’ll be fully fit for Brisbane.

“It gives someone else an opportunity, and it’ll be good for Jonny Bairstow to get out there with the gloves on in an England shirt.”

Back-up wicketkeeper Bairstow played as a lower order batsman in four of the matches in the first Ashes series of the year but Bell did not think he had much chance of dislodging a fit Prior from

the test team regardless of how well he played this week. “I would have thought that if Matt’s fit, he plays,” said Bell. “He’s been a massive part of our success, he’s vice captain of this team, he’s an important guy in the dressing room not just what he does on the pitch.”

After losing substantial part of the Hobart match to rain, England arrived in Sydney to similar wet and windy weather on Sunday.

Their outdoor training session at the SCG had to be cancelled yesterday and Bell admitted the disrupted preparations for the series had not been ideal. “We’ve got what we’ve got, we’ve got a lot of

experience in the team so we can cope with that,” he added. “To have four hundreds out of two batting innings is a fantastic start to the tour.

Hopefully we can carry on with what we’ve done so far in terms of the batting and also some bowlers get some rhythm as well. “It would be nice to get some cricket this week, but we’ll be ready for Brisbane, no doubt about that.”

Bell also said he thought key England batsman Kevin Pietersen, who had a cortisone injection in his knee on Sunday, would play this week.

Australia have dropped batsmen Phillip Hughes and Usman Khawaja from the Invitational

XI for the four-day match, which starts on Wednesday.

Callum Ferguson, though, gets another chance to face the tourists after wet weather limited his opportunity to impress in Hobart.

“Callum Ferguson didn’t get the depth of international exposure we hoped to give him through his Australia A selection,” Cricket Australia’s Pat Howard said in a news release. “We felt it made sense to select him in the next tour match against England.” Australia name their squad for the opening Test today in Brisbane, where the series gets underway at the Gabba on Nov. 21. —Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

S P ORTS

Gulf Cup drought contrasts with thirst for Europe’s clubs DUBAI: Football is awash with Gulf money, yet the region’s teams will again be absent from the World Cup due to constant managerial changes and players’ lack of experience of foreign leagues.

For the 2014 tournament, Oman and Qatar made the last group stage of Asian qualifying but Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates suffered abject campaigns, winning only six of 24 games after the preliminary round.

Their poor showing contrasts with that of Jordan who will play the first game tomorrow of a two-leg playoff with Uruguay for a place at the finals in Brazil.

“If you look at our region, we have probably the least amount of resources going into our sport, but we are the only ones from our region who are actually at this stage, so I’m optimistic,” Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, head of the Jordan Football Association, told Reuters.

The Gulf has a contradictory relationship with football. On one hand, it appears football-mad - Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup and, together with the UAE, has invested billions of dollars in the European game. Many regional companies have paid handsomely to associate themselves with clubs like Barcelona and Manchester United. Yet there is scant interest in the local leagues, few Gulf players have made a mark internationally and the small native populations - Saudi Arabia apart - suggest the region is in for a prolonged struggle.

Perhaps the main problem is that almost

all Gulf national team players represent regional clubs.

“Playing in your own backyard, you can only go so far - when you get into the Premier League or other big European leagues you learn so many tricks, like how to handle pressure situations - it’s not about the players’ technique,” said John Burridge, a Gulf-based coach credited with unearthing Ali al-Habsi, the Omani goalkeeper at England’s Wigan Athletic.

The short-termism of the national football associations - Qatar, Saudi and the UAE have employed about 40 managers combined this century - has also proved detrimental, said Sebasti„o Lazaroni, Qatar’s coach in 2011-12 and now in charge of local side Qatar SC. “The national team has problems because they (Qatar FA) change coaches too quickly and not just the first team, but at all levels,” he said.

Saudi Arabia has largely entrusted the national team to foreign coaches but few last long, whatever their passport.

“We have to find the right coaches and stick with them for at least four years no matter what, but that seems to be very hard,” said Hafez al-Medlej, a senior member of the Saudi FA for 12 years. “The laziest decision is to sack the coach and then start all over again with a new one.”

Qatar has a population of about 2 million, of which only about 15 percent are locals. This has prompted the world’s richest country per capita to recruit foreign players from the domestic league for the

national team.

Gulf countries rarely give citizenship to expatriate residents, but Qatar has made an exception for footballers and five of the starting 11 in its final World Cup qualifier a 5-1 defeat to Uzbekistan - were originally of foreign origin.

“This is a right of every single federation,” said Mansour al-Ansari, managing director of Qatar’s national team committee. “We give every player that plays in the league the chance to represent Qatar. Why am I going to limit my talent pool? That doesn’t mean all our football clubs are filled with people that are nationalised we have a lot of Qatari players.”

Among those appearing against Uzbekistan were defender Mohammed Kasola, 28, originally from Ghana, Ibrahim Abdulmajed, 23, born in Kuwait of Palestinian descent, and Mosaab El Hassan, 30, from Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.

Ex-coach Lazaroni said the abundance of live football matches on television in the Gulf - most on Qatar-owned Al Jazeera hinders attempts to attract fans to local matches.

Such lack of interest may worry FIFA ahead of 2022 although Ansari insisted Qataris were behind their national team, which usually plays at the 14,000-capacity Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium.

“It’s our goal to get people into the stadiums because we do want people to come and enjoy the game,” said Ansari.

He said the Qatar FA was “working

heavily” towards creating a competitive team for its hosting of the World Cup, citing the under-19 and under-16 teams which have qualified for the 2014 Asian Cups in their age groups. “These are my players for 2022,” said Ansari.

The last few years have been lean for Saudi Arabia whose population of 28 million dwarfs that of its Gulf neighbors.

The three-times Asian champions qualified for four World Cup finals from 1994 to 2006, but have slumped to 101 in the world rankings from 21 in 2004.

“We used to have long training camps usually they would go to Brazil or Europe for months and we would play the league without national team players,” said former FA official Medlej. “The federation was stronger so the clubs couldn’t complain, but with more professionalism the clubs gained power and they want to adopt FIFA rules (on player releases).”

All of the Saudi squad play in the domestic league. “The players are not 100 percent professional in terms of their training, eating, sleeping and so on, so when they come to the national team from different clubs it is very difficult to have them at the same level,” said Medlej. Bahrain’s national team coach Anthony Hudson has similar gripes but he remains confident his team will qualify for the 2015 Asian Cup. “I don’t have the players for a lot of time, so it’s just prioritising your training and the points you want to get across in the time you have with them,” Hudson

said. Yousuf al-Serkal, UAE Football Association president, said the domestic league’s purpose was to improve the national team, whose solitary appearance at the World Cup finals came in 1990.

Clubs must release players 12 days before a competitive international match more than double the FIFA minimum.

This has helped the UAE rise to 71 in FIFA’s rankings, the top-rated Gulf country, but Emiratis have more affinity with European clubs such as Real Madrid.

The average attendance for the UAE’s home World Cup qualifiers was 7,542, the lowest in the Gulf. The team lost all but one match in a group including unfancied Kuwait and Lebanon.

The team have improved, though, and is unbeaten in 14 matches since September 2012 although Uzbekistan, 55 in FIFA’s rankings, was their top-rated opponent in this run. “Our goal is to create a team where if a person is asked who is the best in Asia to immediately think the UAE, Japan, (South) Korea,” said Serkal.

That may be hard to achieve - South Korea is the only Asian nation to reach the World Cup semi-finals while Japan has won three of the past four Asian titles.

Both have populations that dwarf the UAE which is home to about 1 million Emiratis.

“It is tough,” said Serkal. “On the positive side, we don’t have a vast area where we need to travel and look for players. We have a programme for this team to develop more.”—Reuters

Messi out for 6-8 weeks due to torn hamstring

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Zlatan, Neymar nominated for FIFA best goal award ZURICH: Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Neymar are among 10 candidates for the Puskas Award honoring the best goal of the year.

Ibrahimovic was nominated for his longrange bicycle kick for Sweden against England in a friendly last November, which just missed the 2012 award entry deadline.

Neymar was selected for his right-foot shot for Brazil against Japan in the Confederations Cup in June. Neymar, now with Barcelona, won the award two years ago for a solo goal for Santos.

Other nominees include Antonio Di Natale, for Udinese in a Serie A match against Chievo Verona in April, and Australian for ward Lisa De Vanna for US side Sky Blue against Boston Breakers in June.

They were among several volleys and bicycle kicks dominating the list proposed

by FIFA’s football committee and France Football magazine.

Other nominees: Peter Ankersen (for Esbjerg vs. Aarhus in the Danish league); Panagiotis Kone (Bologna vs. Napoli, Serie A); Daniel Luduena (Pachuca vs. Tigres, Mexican league); Nemanja Matic (Benfica vs. Porto, Portuguese league); Louisa Necib (Lyon vs. Saint-Etienne, French women’s league); Juan Manuel Olivera (Nautico vs.

Recife, Copa Sudamericana).

Online voting until Dec. 9 will decides a short list of three finalists which advance to a final round of polling. The winner will be announced on Jan. 13 at the FIFA Ballon d’Or event in Zurich. —AP

BARCELONA: Barcelona star Lionel Messi will be sidelined for 6-8 weeks due to a muscle tear in his left hamstring muscle, the Spanish giants said yesterday, his third leg injury this season.

The 26-year-old Argentina international limped off after just 20 minutes of Barcelona’s 41 win over Real Betis on Sunday and was replaced by Andres Iniesta.

It was the third time this season that he has been forced off with a muscular problem following hamstring and thigh injuries in his right leg.

“The club’s medical services confirmed after tests yesterday that Leo Messi has a torn hamstring muscle in his left thigh and is expected to miss the next 6 to 8 weeks,” Barcelona said in a statement.

“The first phase of Messi’s recovery will be covered in Barcelona and he will then travel to Buenos Aires,” it added.

That means Barcelona will be without Messi for up to eight matches, including its lasts two Champions League group games against Ajax and Celtic.

After Sunday’s match Barcelona boss Gerardo Martino said Messi’s injury troubles were not related and the absence of the four-time World Player of the Year could never be used as en excuse for the team to not perform.

“We have the best player in the world, but we also have four or five of the next six or seven best players in the world. Therefore, as a coach, the absence of Messi should never be used as an excuse for not winning. “The injury to Messi doesn’t have anything to do with the previous ones because it is in the other leg.

“We also need to speak with Leo, it is the third episode he has had in a short time so it is obviously playing on his mind.”

Messi suffered a bruised thigh during the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup against Atletico Madrid which kept him out for a week.

He then suffered a small muscle tear in his right thigh during a La Liga match against Almeria on September 28 which sidelined him for three weeks.

Last week Messi said on Chinese social net-

BARCELONA: Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi. —AFP working site Weibo he was still not fully fit.

“Physically I am still not at 100 percent but I am confident that as I play more matches I will recover my rhythm,” he said.

Despite losing Messi with the score still at 0-0, Barcelona cruised to victory as two goals in two minutes from Neymar and Pedro Rodriguez put them 2-0 up at the break and Cesc Fabregas struck twice after the interval.

The win left Barcelona with 37 points from 13 games, ahead of second-placed Atletico Madrid.

Fabregas said he understood Messi’s frustration, but that it was possibly best for his teammate to sit out a couple of weeks to recover his best form.

Kenya sets up task force to probe doping charges

Neymar

Nigeria’s youngsters promise bright future ABUJA: The future looks bright for Nigerian football after the country’s young stars won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup for the fourth time, underlining their strength at youth level.

The Eaglets romped to a convincing 3-0 victory over defending champions Mexico in Abu Dhabi on Friday, prompting praise from President Goodluck Jonathan and sending the football-mad country into raptures. “They (the team) are the future of Nigerian football,” said coach Manu Garba, who was assistant coach when the team won the tournament in 2007.

Stand-out stars included Kelechi Iheanacho, who was named best player after scoring six goals, including four against Mexico in the group stages.

Iheanacho, an intelligent, skilful player with a magical left foot, is said to have already attracted the eye of several of Europe’s top clubs, among them Arsenal.

Skipper Musa Muhammed is also seen as an exciting prospect, having scored three goals from right-back position, while Dele Alampasu was named best goalkeeper in the competition.

Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi, who steered the Super Eagles senior team to

Africa Cup of Nations glory earlier this year, has tipped several players in the side to make the grade at the top level.

“I was impressed with (strikers) Isaac Success and ( Taiwo) Awoniyi. They are young and will soon hit it big in this game,” he said. “They have the qualities to earn their places in the senior team in the future.” Keshi has a track record of nurturing home-grown talent rather than relying on big name foreign-based stars and made a point of selecting as many local players as possible during their successful CAF campaign. True to form, he said he was not going to introduce the young players too soon, effectively ruling out the appearance of some of the under-17 side in his squad for Brazil, should the Super Eagles overcome Ethiopia on Saturday.

Nigeria are 2-1 up from the first leg going in to the return fixture in the southern city of Calabar. Instead, former Togo and Mali boss Keshi said he preferred the youngsters to rise through the ranks.

“I will want the players to take the natural route of maturity, play for the Flying Eagles (under-20 team), then maybe the under-23s and then we can start looking at them,” he explained. —AFP

NAIROBI: Kenya yesterday named a task force to probe doping allegations, a day before the distance running giant was expected to come in for criticism at an anti-doping summit.

Sports minister Hassan Wario said the 12-member body had been asked to carry out extensive investigations and report its findings within two months.

Last year the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) asked Kenya to investigate after an undercover German television journalist reported that the bloodboosting drug EPO and other doping products were readily available to local athletes.

The allegations have cast a shadow over Kenya, famed for its record-breaking runners who hold world records from the 800m through to the marathon and where running is a major source of national pride and, in some communities, an important source of income.

“Kenyans are under a microscope for their good performance internationally, and, to maintain credibility, therefore we have to ensure that anti-doping measures are fully in place,” Wario told reporters. “We need to ensure that intelligent testing is being planned effectively to detect doping and we also need to limit the supply of doping substances,” he said.

The minister said the investigative body, to be headed by sports administrator-turned lawyer Moni Wekesa, will probe “the allegations into the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs and substance abuse

by Kenyan athletes as claimed by the sections of international and local media.”

It will also “investigate the involvement of person or persons in the administration or the supply of drugs to the athletes” and assess the true extent of doping and the availability of banned substances.

“The task force findings will be baseline for the programme against doping in Kenya,” he said. Since January 2012, increased doping tests have netted 17 Kenyan cheats. —AFP

“Messi needs to be explosive to stand out and he needs to stop for as long as it requires to be ok,” the midfielder said after Sunday’s match.

“The same thing has happened to me in the past and it is very frustrating.” Fabregas also limped off after appearing to injure his knee whilst scoring his second of the night.

The club said Monday he has a sprained knee ligament and will need roughly one week to recover. Messi’s injuries have started to worry fans of the player and the Catalan side.

“Messi’s injuries are a major problem,” said the editor of Barcelona-based sports daily Sport, before adding the situations” is starting to be worrying if not alarming”. —AFP

Cruzeiro celebrate though title not wrapped up yet SAO PAULO: Cruzeiro’s players celebrated after a 3-0 win over third-placed Gremio on Sunday although they still need two points to guarantee their first Brazilian league title since 2003.

Players lifted cardboard cups and almost 60,000 fans at the packed Mineirao stadium cheered them on a lap of honor.

With five matches remaining, the Belo Horizonte club are 13 points ahead of second-placed Atletico Paranaense, who beat Sao Paulo 3-0 and must win all their games to stop Cruzeiro.

“It’s very difficult for us not to get any more points,” said Cruzeiro striker Borges, whose first-half overhead kick set them on their way to victory. Willian and Ricardo Goulart scored in the second half to wrap up the points and the fans rejoiced at the final whistle.

Cruzeiro are not playing at home for at least three weeks and the supporters, believing their team are certain to clinch the title, took the chance to celebrate.

A championship success would cap a remarkable year for Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s most passionate footballing cities, after Cruzeiro’s fierce rivals Atletico Mineiro won the Copa Libertadores in July. It would also mark the first time a club outside Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo has won the Serie A crown since 2003. Cruzeiro’s next game is against sixth-placed Vitoria on Wednesday.

The big questions now surround which teams will grab one of the three remaining Copa Libertadores spots and which three will join Nautico in next year’s Serie B. Gremio remain in third place four points behind Atletico Paranaense, who have 58, while Botafogo and Goias are tied for fourth a point further back with 53. Unfancied Vitoria are another two points behind on 51.

At the other end of the table, last year’s

Ricardo Goulart champions Fluminense dropped into the relegation zone after losing 1-0 at Corinthians after a last-minute penalty from Alexandre Pato.

The Rio club are third-bottom with 36 points, the same as Criciuma, who beat already doomed basement side Nautico.

Ponte Preta are second-bottom with 34 points.

Vasco da Gama are one point above the drop zone after a 2-2 draw at home to Santos. If Fluminense went down they would be the first reigning Brazilian champions to be relegated. —Reuters

Zlatan, Neymar nominated for FIFA best goal award

De Villiers wrecks Pakistan

18

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Shakedown? Rite of passage? Or a bargain?

Page 17

SAN FRANCISCO: Carolina Panthers middle linebacker Luke Kuechly (left) sacks San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the fourth quarter of an NFL football game. —AP

Jaguars maul Titans as Ravens pound Bengals NASHVILLE: Maurice Jones-Drew and Jordan Todman each ran for a touchdown as the Jacksonville Jaguars held off the Tennessee Titans 29-27 Sunday.

The Jaguars (1-8) scored the most points in a game this season for first-year coach Gus Bradley. They never trailed and forced four turnovers they turned into 17 points.

The Titans scored twice in the final 4:15, the last on a 14yard TD pass by Ryan Fitzpatrick to Delanie Walker with 40 seconds left. But Johnathan Cyprien recovered the onside kick to seal the victory, leaving Tampa Bay as the only winless team. The Buccaneers host Miami on Monday night.

On a day the Titans (4-5) held a moment of silence for late owner Bud Adams, they lost quarterback Jake Locker to an injured right foot that had him on crutches and in a walking boot in the second half.

RAVENS 20, BENGALS 17 Justin Tucker kicked a 46-yard field goal with 5:27 left in overtime as the Ravens won after blowing a 17-point halftime lead and giving up a touchdown on the final play of regulation.

The tense victory ended a three-game skid for the Ravens (4-5) and thrust them into a second-place tie in the division, just one game behind Cincinnati (6-4) in the loss column. It was the defending Super Bowl champions’ first victory since Oct. 6. The Bengals have lost two straight in overtime.

Cincinnati pulled even when AJ Green caught a desperation pass from Andy Dalton for a 51-yard touchdown.

Green positioned himself behind the pack and caught the ball after it flicked off the hand of Ravens safety James Ihedigbo, who earlier had the first two interceptions of his career.

SAINTS 49, COWBOYS 17 Drew Brees completed 34 of 41 passes for 392 yards and four touchdowns as New Orleans beat Dallas. The Saints (7-2) had an NFL-record 40 first downs and a franchise-record 625 total yards.

Brees connected with Kenny Stills on a 52-yard touchdown pass, with Marques Colston on a 22-yard scoring strike, with running back Pierre Thomas for a 1-yard score and with running back Darren Sproles for a 28-yard score with 5 seconds left in the first half.

Sproles also had a 3-yard touchdown run, and Mark Ingram added a 4-yard scoring run en route to a careerhigh 145 yards rushing.

DeMarco Murray had 89 yards rushing on 16 carries and a touchdown for Dallas (5-5) early in the second quarter.

The Cowboys did not score again until Tony Romo’s 21yard touchdown pass to Terrance Williams in the last minute of the third quarter.

PANTHERS 10, 49ERS 9 Drayton Florence’s interception in the final minute sealed victory for Carolina to snap the San Francisco 49ers’ five-game winning streak and give the Panthers their fifth straight win.

Graham Gano kicked a 53-yard field goal with 10:05 remaining that held up as the Panthers (6-3) twice shut down Colin Kaepernick on last-ditch drives with swarming defense.

DeAngelo Williams broke two tackles for a 27-yard touchdown run late in the first half that pulled Carolina within 9-7. Gano missed wide left on a 48-yard field goal in the third period, but came through later. San Francisco (6-

3) got the ball back with 5:25 left at its 1, then again with 1:02 to go.

Phil Dawson kicked a season-best 52-yard field goal among his three for the 49ers, who lost tight end Vernon Davis and rookie safety Eric Reid to concussions.

BRONCOS 28, CHARGERS 20 Peyton Manning threw for 330 yards and four touchdowns, three to Demaryius Thomas, as he efficiently led the Broncos in their first game since coach John Fox had heart surgery.

Fox, who was released from the hospital Friday, planned to watch the game on T V at his offseason home in Charlotte, North Carolina, a team spokesman said.

With interim coach Jack Del Rio in charge, Manning kept the Broncos (8-1) rolling. He threw touchdown passes of 11, 7 and 34 yards to Thomas on consecutive drives spanning the second and third quarters.

Julius Thomas had a 74-yard catch-and-run on Denver’s first drive. The Broncos’ scoring drives lasted 57 seconds; 2 minutes, 27 seconds; 1:25; and 3:26. Manning has thrown for 3,249 yards and 33 touchdowns in nine games. San Diego fell to 4-5.

CARDINALS 27, TEXANS 24 Carson Palmer threw two touchdown passes as the Cardinals sent the Texans to their franchise-record seventh consecutive loss.

The Texans (2-7) were without coach Gary Kubiak, who collapsed on the sidelines against Indianapolis last Sunday night with what was diagnosed as a mini-stroke. Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is filling in as interim coach.

Arizona (5-4) scored on the game’s first play when John Abraham knocked the ball out of Case Keenum’s arm and Matt Shaughnessy returned it 6 yards for a touchdown.

Keenum threw three touchdown passes, two on remarkable catches by Andre Johnson.

JJ Watt forced two fumbles, recovering both for

Houston. The second one set up Johnson’s 5-yard TD catch that cut the lead to three with 4:34 to play.

LIONS 21, BEARS 19 Calvin Johnson had two second-half touchdown receptions and Reggie Bush rushed for 105 yards as the Lions took over first place in the NFC North.

Johnson broke Herman Moore’s franchise record with his 63rd career touchdown reception with 2:22 to go, giving the Lions a 21-13 lead with a 14-yard grab. He also had a tiebreaking 4-yard TD reception on the first drive in the third quarter.

Bush had 89 yards on the ground in the second half as Detroit (6-3) swept the season series against Chicago (5-4).

Jay Cutler threw for 250 yards and a touchdown in his first action since he injured his groin last month. He looked progressively worse as the game wore on and departed before the Bears’ final drive with what the team said was an ankle injury.

SEAHAWKS 33, FALCONS 10 Russell Wilson threw a pair of touchdowns passes and Marshawn Lynch ran for 145 yards in a one-sided follow-up to last season’s NFC divisional playoffs.

After struggling for victories the last two weeks, the first-place Seahawks (9-1) blew out a team that not so long ago was talking Super Bowl, but now is just two defeats away from its first losing season since 2007.

The Falcons (2-7) trailed 23-3 at the half after the Seahawks scored a touchdown with 1 second remaining a complete reversal of their postseason game last January.

Atlanta led 20-0 in that one after two quarters and was still up by 20 early in the fourth. Wilson led what appeared to be a historic comeback, putting the Seahawks ahead 2827 with less than a minute remaining. The Falcons bounced back with two long passes and Matt Bryant’s field goal for a 30-28 victory that sent Atlanta to the NFC championship game. This one was totally devoid of drama.

NFL results/standings Philadelphia 27, Green Bay 13; Jacksonville 29, Tennessee 27; Pittsburgh 23, Buffalo 10; NY Giants 24, Oakland 20; St. Louis 38, Indianapolis 8; Seattle 33, Atlanta 10; Baltimore 20, Cincinnati 17 (OT); Detroit 21, Chicago 19; Carolina 10, San Francisco 9; Arizona 27, Houston 24; Denver 28, San Diego 20; New Orleans 49, Dallas 17.

New England NY Jets Miami Buffalo Cincinnati Cleveland Baltimore Pittsburgh Indianapolis Tennessee Houston Jacksonville Kansas City Denver San Diego Oakland

American Football Conference AFC East W L T OTL PF 7 2 0 1 234 5 4 0 0 169 4 4 0 0 174 3 7 0 1 199 AFC North 6 4 0 2 234 4 5 0 0 172 4 5 0 0 188 3 6 0 0 179 AFC South 6 3 0 0 222 4 5 0 1 200 2 7 0 1 170 1 8 0 0 115 AFC West 9 0 0 0 215 8 1 0 0 371 4 5 0 1 212 3 6 0 0 166

PA 175 231 187 259

PCT .778 .556 .500 .300

186 197 189 218

.600 .444 .444 .333

Detroit Chicago Green Bay Minnesota

193 196 248 291

.667 .444 .222 .111

New Orleans Carolina Atlanta Tampa Bay

111 238 202 223

1.000 .889 .444 .333

Seattle San Francisco Arizona St. Louis

Dallas Philadelphia NY Giants Washington

National Football Conference NFC East 5 5 0 0 274 5 5 0 0 252 3 6 0 0 165 3 6 0 0 230 NFC North 6 3 0 0 238 5 4 0 0 259 5 4 0 0 245 2 7 0 0 220 NFC South 7 2 0 0 265 6 3 0 0 214 2 7 0 0 186 0 8 0 1 124 NFC West 9 1 0 0 265 6 3 0 0 227 5 4 0 0 187 4 6 0 0 224

258 244 243 287

.500 .500 .333 .333

216 247 212 279

.667 .556 .556 .222

163 115 251 190

.778 .667 .222 0

159 155 198 234

.900 .667 .556 .400

RAMS 38, COLTS 8 Tavon Austin returned one punt 98 yards for a touchdown, caught TD passes of 57 and 81 yards and almost single-handedly ended the Rams’ three-game losing streak.

The touchdown catches were the only receptions Austin had on his biggest day of the season, and St. Louis (4-6) won for the first time since Kellen Clemens replaced the injured Sam Bradford.

It was the Colts’ worst loss since a 55-point thrashing at New Orleans in 2011. Indy (6-3) fell for the second time at home this season and only the third time in coach Chuck Pagano’s career. Robert Mathis had two sacks for the Colts, giving him a 13 1-2.

EAGLES 27, PACKERS 13 A week after equaling the NFL record by passing for seven TDs, Nick Foles connected for three long touchdowns against the injury-ravaged Packers.

Foles connected with DeSean Jackson for a 55-yard score in the first half. Touchdown passes to Riley Cooper from 45 and 32 yards highlighted a 17-point second half for the up-tempo Eagles.

The Eagles, the NFL’s road warriors, improved to 5-5, with all their victories coming away from Philly.

Philadelphia handed Green Bay its first back-to-back home losses since 2008, Rodgers’ first season as the starter. It was the worst home loss for the Packers since falling 38-10 to the New York Jets on Dec. 3, 2006. Already without franchise quarterback Aaron Rodgers because of a left collarbone injury, the Packers (5-4) lost backup Seneca Wallace to a groin injury.

GIANTS 24, RAIDERS 20 Terrell Thomas returned an interception 65 yards to set up a go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run by fellow comebacker Andre Brown as the Giants won their third straight game.

The error-prone Giants (3-6) handed the Raiders (3-6) their first 17 points on first-half turnovers. But they got 115 yards rushing by Brown in his first game this season he’s had two broken left legs the last two years - and another big defensive game to keep their season alive.

Despite throwing another pick-6, Eli Manning threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Rueben Randle, and Cooper Taylor scored on a 21-yard return with a blocked punt.

Josh Brown added a field goal.

Terrelle Pryor scored on 1-yard run and Tracy Porter on a 43-yard interception return for Oakland. Sebastian Janikowski kicked two field goals.

STEELERS 23, BILLS 10 Pittsburgh shut down rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel in his return. A week after giving up 610 yards and 55 points in a loss to New England, Pittsburgh held the Bills (3-7) to 227 total yards, more than one-third coming on a meaningless drive in the final minutes.

Manuel completed 22 of 39 passes for 155 yards with a touchdown and an interception. The Steelers limited Buffalo to 95 yards rushing, nearly 50 below its average, and sacked Manuel three times.

Ben Roethlisberger passed for 204 yards and a touchdown, Le’Veon Bell added 52 yards rushing and a score as the Steelers (3-6) snapped a two-game losing streak. — AP

Business TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Private equity groups vie for Saudi fast-food chain Page 22

EBRD cuts forecasts for C Europe, N African economies Page 23 China to allow more private investment in state firms Page 26 Page 25

Wataniya renews exclusive partnership with Tamdeen

Zain Group records revenues of $1.1bn Net income reaches $186 million for third quarter 2013 KUWAIT: Zain Group, the pioneer of mobile telecommunications across the Middle East and Africa, announces its consolidated financial results for the third quarter and nine month period ended 30 September, 2013.

Zain Group added 3 million new customers over the last twelve months to serve 44.3 million as of 30 September 2013, reflecting a 7 percent growth rate. Zain is the market leader in six of its eight operations by customer numbers.

For the third quarter of 2013, Zain Group recorded consolidated revenues of $1.1 billion effectively flat when compared to $1.1 billion for the same period in 2012. EBITDA for the quarter reached USD 471 million compared to $492 million, a comparative decrease of 4 percent. Net Income for the quarter reached $186 million, reflecting a 12 percent decrease compared to $213 million for the same period of 2012. Earnings Per Share for the quarter reached $0.05.

For the third quarter period of 2013, if it were not for adverse ‘foreign currency translation impact’ (predominantly in Republic of Sudan) of $41 million in revenues and $17 million in EBITDA, revenue growth would have been 3 percent and EBITDA would have been stable. Regarding net income specifically, if not due to both a foreign exchange translation impact of $7 million and an exceptional $21 million loss from ‘foreign currency revaluation’, net income would have grown slightly.

Nine-month period ended 30 September 2013 For the first nine months of 2013, Zain Group generated consolidated revenues of $3.3 billion,

consolidated EBITDA for the period reached $1.4 billion, reflecting a healthy EBITDA margin of 43.2 percent. Consolidated net income reached $584 million reflecting Earnings Per Share of $0.15 for the nine month period.

For the nine month period, if it were not for adverse ‘foreign currency translation impact’ (predominantly in the Republic of Sudan) of $388 million in revenues and $167 million in EBITDA, revenue growth would have been 4 percent and EBITDA would have been stable. Regarding net income specifically, if not due to both a foreign currency translation impact of $ 86 million and an exceptional $53.7 million loss from ‘foreign currency revaluation’, net income would have grown slightly.

Key Operational Notes: 1. Group data revenues (excluding SMS and VAS) witnessed a healthy 22 percent growth, with data now forming 13 percent of all Zain’s revenues.

2. Zain Group joined a GCC-based telecoms consortium (Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS)) to build a high-bandwidth regional transmission cable system for the region that will enhance its operations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to roll-out higher quality voice and data services.

3. Zain Group publishes its second sustainability report, “Dedicated to the Promise of a Wonderful World”.

4. Seasoned telecom executive Hassan Kabbani appointed CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia 5. Zain Saudi Arabia refinances a substantial

Zain Group Chairman Asaad Al-Banwan $2.3 billion Murabaha facility with a 5 year maturity till 31 July 2018 on new favorable terms.

6. Zain Group’s joint stock company in Iraq, ‘AlKhatem Company for Communications’ holds first Annual General Meeting electing seven Board Members and seven alternate Board Members. A subsequent meeting saw the election of Mohammed Charchafchi as Chairman of the Board, Asaad Al-Banwan as Deputy Chairman and the appointment of Bader Al-Kharafi as Managing Director.

7.

In Jordan, the government introduces a new tax on consumers doubling the tax on all sales of mobile services from 12 percent to 24 percent. Authorities also double a tax on handsets from 8 percent to 16 percent.

Commenting on the results, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zain Group, Asaad Al-

Zain Group CEO Scott Gegenheimer Banwan said: “Zain’s ability to maintain stable quarter-to-quarter revenues and healthy EBITDA margins is an achievement, reflecting the company’s ability to deal competently with the rise in competition and the other challenges it faces.

With a solid 44.3 million plus customer base that continues to grow, coupled with robust growth in data revenues supported by our state-of-the-art mobile broadband networks across our geographies, we are confident the company will continue to overcome challenging market conditions and produce positive results.”

On his part, Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer noted, “Across all our markets, operationally we are performing well in local currency terms as we drive efficiency and innovation in unity with a concerted effort to improve the mobile experience for our customers. Unavoidable for-

Group Key Performance Indicators (USD and Kuwaiti dinars) for the third quarter of 2013 Group Key Performance Indicators (USD and Kuwaiti dinars) for the first nine months 2013

eign currency fluctuations continue to affect us adversely, however we are unwavering in our transformation efforts in this changing telecom environment that is characterized by intense competition not only from mobile operators but also from over-the-top (OTT) players such as Skype, Facebook and Viber, to name a few.”

Gegenheimer continued, “With a concerted focus on increasing our data offerings, it is pleasing to see a healthy 22 percent annual growth rate, with data now reflecting 13 percent of all Zain Group’s revenues. This is a trend we shall look to continue fostering as it increasingly looks to compensate for flat voice revenue growth.”

The percentage growth in data revenues is all the more significant and promising for Zain when one considers that a large proportion of the Group’s customers do not yet have smartphones and are located in rural areas across several countries that are vast in geography, where there is currently relatively low uptake in data services. Gegenheimer added, “With 3G spectrum expected to be awarded in Iraq in the near future coupled with the appeal of our experience enriching 4G LTE networks in key markets such as Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as well as advanced 3G networks in our other markets , Zain is confident of continued strong data growth and revenues”.

With respect to Zain Saudi Arabia, Gegenheimer noted his confidence on the future prosperity of the mobile operation given the several recent financial concessions negotiated by the company, notably the 5-year renewal of a $2.3 billion Murabaha facility at favorable terms.

Referring to the appointment of a new CEO for Zain Saudi Arabia in September, Gegenheimer commented: “We are confident that with the appointment of Hassan Kabbani as the new CEO, coupled with Saudi Arabia’s improved financial position will facilitate the further development of the network and roll-out of new service offerings, and that Zain Saudi Arabia’s transformation will yield positive results in the years ahead.”

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

BUSINESS

Private equity groups vie for Saudi fast-food chain Bids reflect high investor interest in Saudi assets DUBAI: TPG Capital and Abraaj Group have teamed up to compete against KKR & Co for a majority stake in Saudi Arabian fast-food chain Kudu, three banking and industry sources said.

A stake purchase by either KKR or TPG would be their first investment in the Middle East and shows the heightened interest in the region’s economic growth and its young and increasingly wealthy population. Riyadh-based Kudu, which operates more than 200 restaurants in the kingdom, is owned by four individual shareholders, including chairman and chief executive Abdulmohsen Bin Abdulaziz Al Yahya, according to data from Zawya, a Thomson Reuters unit.

Abraaj, the Middle East’s largest private equity firm, has recently roped in TPG to the bidding process and was previously bidding solely for

JAMMU: An Indian man sits near bundles of radish at a vegetable market on the outskirts of Jammu yesterday. The Indian rupee yesterday continued its slide for the fourth day against the American currency following strong dollar demand from importers and a lower opening in the domestic equity market. —AP

EmiratesLNG to build big LNG import terminal DUBAI: EmiratesLNG will build and operate the Middle East’s first land based liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility at Fujairah, having won government approval for the project, the company said yesterday.

The UAE has exported LNG since the late 1970s. But rapidly rising domestic demand and sluggish progress on raising its own production have made the OPEC member a net importer of gas over the last five years.

A population and industrial boom during the last decade have increased the UAE’s reliance on imported gas to meet power demand, especially in summer when air conditioning use surges.

EmiratesLNG, a joint venture between state-controlled International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) and Mubadala Petroleum, said it would push ahead with the project after Abu Dhabi Executive Council decided to approve the project.

“EmiratesLNG will seize this opportunity to establish itself as a key player in the Middle East within the global LNG market,” Ahmed Matar Al Mazrouei, CEO of EmiratesLNG said in a statement.

EmiratesLNG said the new terminal to be built at the busy oil port of Fujairah would be able to accommodate the largest LNG tankers, with most of the gas destined for the power sector.

It said the terminal would be able to supply the UAE with around 1.2 billion cubic feet (bcf ) per day of gas, or 9 million tons of LNG per year. The Front End Engineering Design (FEED) has been done

by France’s Technip. EmiratesLNG said it was working to ensure the timely completion of the project but gave no completion date or cost estimate. It said it was still deciding which company would be awarded the construction contract.

Dubai already imports LNG to ports in the Gulf, and the UAE gets a modest volume of Qatari gas by pipeline, which helps feed power and desalination plants at Fujairah. Building an LNG import terminal outside the Strait of Hormuz reduces the risk that the UAE’s supplies could be affected by problems in the vital oil and gas shipping lane, which neighboring Iran threatened to block last year. — Reuters

Euro-zone member Estonia exits recession TALLINN: Euro-zone member Estonia exited a brief recession after posting 0.4 percent growth in the third quarter from the second quarter, according to official data released yesterday.

Trade contributed most to pull the Baltic nation out of recession, which it entered in the second quarter, but a slowdown in construction muted the growth, according to Statistics Estonia. “The main factor keeping growth low in Estonia is the weak international economic environment,” Bank of Estonia chief economist Kaspar Oja added in a statement yesterday.

On an annual comparison, the Estonian economy grew by 0.4 percent in the third quarter, down from the 1.0 percent rate recorded in the second quarter of the year.

the stake, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the matter has not been made public. Kudu is worth around 2 billion riyals ($533 million) based on a valuation of around 20 times earnings, one of the sources, a regional private equity banker, said. The firm is expected to have net income of around 100 million riyals this year, the source added.

KKR, TPG and Abraaj all declined to comment, while Kudu could not be reached for comment.

“When you are talking about valuations of around 20 times earnings, you are clearly in a seller’s market. There are very few businesses in Saudi for sale and if it’s a consumer play, it always commands a premium and lots of attention,” the private equity source said. Saudi Arabia is the largest Gulf Arab economy and its

Bahrain Petroleum seals 2014 gasoil, jet term deals Bapco for the first time, traders said, though this could not immediately be confirmed. These firms are probably trying to expand their trading business in the Middle East and expand their sales in Africa, where they are taking advantage of growth opportunities, industry sources said. For jet, those involved in the talks included Royal Dutch Shell, BP, BB Energy, Vitol, IPG, Total, Glencore, Augusta Energy, Swiss Singapore, Galana, Addax and ENOC, traders said.

Buyer details could not immediately be confirmed with all the relevant companies.

Bapco may have reduced its overall supply volumes for gasoil, one of the sources said, though this could not be confirmed.

Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company (SATORP), a 400,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint venture refinery by France’s Total and Saudi Aramco started operations late this year and is expected to meet increasing diesel and gasoline demand in Saudi Arabia.

Traders said they were watching to see whether Saudi Aramco would be needing to secure any term volumes for next year or would reduce its requirements. If the company is absent from the term market, excess Middle East diesel supply may struggle to find buyers, they added. But others said growing demand from Africa, especially countries such as Iraq, Kenya and Tanzania, should absorb most of the exports from the Gulf.

African diesel imports are running at about 673,000 bpd and could grow to 766,000 bpd by 2015, according to analysts’ estimates.— Reuters

SINGAPORE: Bahrain Petroleum Co (Bapco) has finalized its 2014 jet fuel and gasoil term contracts with several companies, with premiums set at lower levels than this year’s, industry sources said yesterday.

Term premiums were set lower as buyers expected reduced import demand from Saudi Arabia and more supply from the Middle East next year due to new refining capacity and expansion of existing plants, the sources said.

Bapco’s negotiation, one of the first to be finalized for next year, is expected to set the tone for term negotiations by other refiners in the Middle East. Bapco set the gasoil term prices for 2014 at a premium of $2.50 a barrel above Middle East quotes and the jet fuel term prices at a premium of $2.15 a barrel, sources involved in the discussions said. This is higher than the term prices for 2013, which were set at $2.25 a barrel for jet fuel. For gasoil, Bapco had set the 2013 term premium at $3 a barrel for the first quarter of the year, and $2.60 a barrel for the rest of the year.

“Generally, the (price) levels still seem a bit high for next year, given that we are expecting more capacity in the Middle East,” a Gulf-based trader said. Companies involved in the gasoil term negotiations included Vitol, Independent Petroleum Group (IPG), Gulf Energy, Gulf Petrochem, Glencore, Augusta Energy, Addax, Galana Petroleum, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), Swiss Singapore, Phillips 66, Itochu and Mitsui, traders said.

Among the buyers, Glencore and Mitsui are likely to be entering contracts with

DIB Q3 net profit up 52%

The nation of 1.3 million people was the first ex-Soviet state to adopt Europe’s single currency, joining the euro-zone in 2011.

It slipped into recession this year with a 0.2 percent contraction in the second quarter after a 1.0-percent decline in the first quarter. Last year its gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 3.9 percent, down from a record 9.6 percent growth in 2011.

The finance ministry has forecast the economy to grow by 1.5 percent this year, but spokesman Rainer Laurits said yesterday that the figure “will probably lower”.

“Estonian economic developments depend strongly on how things go in the rest of Europe,” he said, adding that next year’s forecast remained unchanged at 3.6 percent. —AFP

consumer sector is booming.

Coca-Cola Co paid $980 million in December 2011 for a 50 percent stake in Aujan Industries, one of the largest beverage companies in the Middle East, while in the same year Carlyle bought a 42 percent stake in a Saudi-based food franchise operator that runs Domino’s Pizza and Wendy’s restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa. Citigroup Inc’s venture capital arm and Dubai-based Levant Capital bought a $100 million controlling stake in Saudi Arabian supermarket chain Al-Raya For Foodstuff Co last year.

Reuters reported in June that a majority stake in the business has been put up for sale and KKR was one of the potential bidders. HSBC Holdings is advising the sellers.— Reuters

DUBAI: Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), the largest sharia-compliant lender in the emirate, said yesterday its third-quarter net profit jumped 52 percent, boosted by lower provisioning and core business growth. The bank made 461.4 million dirhams ($125.6 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, it said in response to a question from Reuters, up from 303.6 million in the corresponding period last year.

This comfortably beat forecasts from three analysts polled by Reuters, who on average expected a net profit of 416 million dirhams. DIB’s profit for the first nine months of the year increased 33.5 percent to 1.2 billion dirhams, the bank said in an earlier statement.

The bank, like other lenders in the emirate, has benefited from a recover y in Dubai’s economy, with GDP growth of 4.9

percent in the first six months of 2013 thanks to a strong expansion of trade and tourism. In a rare interview, officials at the bank said in May they expected net profit growth in the high double-digits in 2013 after dealing with most of the bad loans which soared after the collapse of the local real estate market at the end of the last decade.

Impairments over the first nine months of the year fell 18.6 percent over the same period of 2012 to 751 million dirhams, the statement said. Customer deposits stood at 79.6 billion dirhams at the end of September, up 19.3 percent from the end of 2012, and total assets were 9 percent higher at 107.4 billion.

Loans and advances increased 1.4 percent between the end of 2012 and Sept. 30 to 59.7 billion dirhams. — Reuters

News

in brief

Etihad in talks to buy Airbus jets DUBAI/PARIS: Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways is in talks to buy jets from Airbus even as it puts finishing touches to a reported deal with rival Boeing, people familiar with the matter said. At least one of the deals could be announced at next week’s Dubai Airshow, marking the first time the Abu Dhabi carrier has played a significant role at the showcase event hosted by its closest rival, Emirates airline, the people said. The number of plane orders being discussed and the value of the deal was not immediately clear. Etihad’s potential interest includes the Airbus A320neo, a fuel-saving version of the European planemaker’s best-selling medium-haul jet, as well as a modified or expanded order for its longhaul A350 aircraft, one source said. Both Etihad and Airbus declined to comment.

Ajman Bank brings back Amiri as CEO ABU DHABI: Ajman Bank, an Islamic lender based in the United Arab Emirates, has appointed Mohamed Amiri as its chief executive, the bank said yesterday, seven months after he quit as acting head. The lender said in a statement its board had been unanimous in its decision to name Amiri, who was “the right leader to build on the exceptional strengths of Ajman Bank and lead the team forward.” Amiri replaces Mohammad Zaqout, who was only given the top job in April but was sacked in October, the lender said last month, without specifying a reason. Zaqout had taken over after Amiri resigned from his role as acting CEO. The bank, listed on the Dubai Financial Market since 2008, is 25-percent owned by the government of Ajman, one of the seven emirates of the UAE. Qatari LNG tanker Ejnan to reach Belgium Nov 29 LONDON: The Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Ejnan is scheduled to arrive at Belgium’s Zeebrugge terminal on November 29, according to AIS data on Thomson Reuters. The 145,000 cubic metre capacity vessel is currently moored at Qatar’s Ras Laffan export terminal in the Gulf.

Waha Capital Q3 profit soars DUBAI: Waha Capital, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, posted a near fourfold increase in its third-quarter profit as income from its portfolio companies increased sharply. Waha posted a quarterly profit of 107.1 million dirhams ($29.2 million), compared with 27.5 million dirhams for the year-ago period, it said in a bourse statement yesterday. The investment firm said income from its portfolio companies, which include New Yorklisted AerCap Holdings , rose to 84.9 million dirhams during the quarter from 49.5 million dirhams for the same period last year.

EXCHANGE RATES Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. ASIAN COUNTRIES 2.870 4.549 2.646 2.165 2.850 229.270 36.676 3.650 6.584 9.076 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES Saudi Riyal 75.884 Qatari Riyal 78.147 Omani Riyal 738.830 Bahraini Dinar 755.410 UAE Dirham 77.455 ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 41.100 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 40.817 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.327 Tunisian Dinar 172.090 Jordanian Dinar 401.640 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.908 Syrian Lira 3.090 Morocco Dirham 34.671 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 284.300 Euro 385.510 Sterling Pound 458.330 Canadian dollar 274.160 Turkish lira 140.160 Swiss Franc 311.730 Australian Dollar 272.080 US Dollar Buying 283.100 GOLD 20 Gram 245.000 10 Gram 124.000 5 Gram 64.000 Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal Irani Riyal

UAE Exchange Centre WLL COUNTRY Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro US Dollar Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

SELL DRAFT 254.00 260.00 295.00 363.00 280.00 434.00 2.800 3.600 4.500 2.333 3.012 2.630 76.10 740.90 38.60 370.80 718.10 75.20 74.50

SELL CASH 274.000 275.000 315.000 389.000 285.800 463.000 3.000 3.800 4.910 2.600 3.400 2.770 77.500 754.200 41.200 407.900 742.200 78.500 75.900

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat

Selling Rate 283.050 274.435 456.525 381.460 308.775 750.035 77.315 78.870 76.615 400.415 41.181 2.165 4.530 2.643 3.649 6.541 697.685 3.865 10.010

Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit Chinese Yuan Renminbi

Singapore Dollar South African Rand Sri Lankan Rupee Taiwan Thai Baht

3.045 3.815 90.185 47.055

Bahrain Exchange Company CURRENCY Belgian Franc British Pound Czech Korune Danish Krone Euro Norwegian Krone Romanian Leu Slovakia Swedish Krona Swiss Franc Turkish Lira Australian Dollar New Zealand Dollar Canadian Dollar US Dollars US Dollars Mint Bangladesh Taka Chinese Yuan Hong Kong Dollar Indian Rupee Indonesian Rupiah Japanese Yen Kenyan Shilling Korean Won Malaysian Ringgit Nepalese Rupee Pakistan Rupee Philippine Peso Sierra Leone

BUY Europe 0.007391 0.449036 0.006694 0.046916 0.375223 0.042340 0.082035 0.008166 0.039035 0.302596 0.139655 Australasia 0.258726 0.228395 America 0.266258 0.280200 0.280700 Asia 0.003400 0.045260 0.034582 0.004450 0.000021 0.002788 0.003414 0.000257 0.085323 0.003045 0.002521 0.006472 0.000070

SELL 0.008391 0.458036 0.018694 0.051916 0.382723 0.047540 0.82035 0.018166 0.044035 0.312796 0.14655 0.270226 0.237895 0.274758 0.284550 0.284550 0.004000 0.048760 0.037332 0.004851 0.000027 0.002968 0.003414 0.000272 0.091323 0.003215 0.002801 0.006752 0.000076

Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Iranian Riyal Iraqi Dinar Jordanian Dinar Kuwaiti Dinar Lebanese Pound Moroccan Dirhams Nigerian Naira Omani Riyal Qatar Riyal Saudi Riyal Syrian Pound Tunisian Dinar Turkish Lira UAE Dirhams Yemeni Riyal

0.224883 0.021668 0.001903 0.009530 0.008789 Arab 0.747655 0.038630 0.000079 0.000184 0.396776 1.0000000 0.000139 0.022798 0.001205 0.732410 0.077380 0.075177 0.002179 0.166879 0.139655 0.076423 0.001291

0.230883 0.030168 0.002483 0.009710 0.009339 0.755655 0.041730 0.000080 0.000244 0.404276 1.0000000 0.000239 0.046798 0.001840 0.738090 0.078593 0.075877 0.002399 0.174879 0.146655 0.077572 0.001371

Al Mulla Exchange Currency US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal *Rates are subject to change

Transfer Rate (Per 1000) 283.700 382.500 456.850 273.100 4.530 41.170 2.160 3.648 6.565 2.645 755.450 77.250 75.750

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

BUSINESS

Iraq offers longer credit to Indian crude buyers

commodity weekly report

Brent lower while gold struggles to make sense of things

By Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy, Saxo Bank A/S KUWAIT: While global investors were trying to get a hold of Twitter shares ahead of the much-hyped, but also very successful initial public offering, the European Central Bank took most market participants by surprise when it halved its official rate. The cut was in response to falling prices which pose a risk to the fragile recovery within the euro area.

Adding to the mix, we saw US quarterly growth and job creation surprise to the upside and it all helped to send the euro lower, especially against the Japanese yen and the US dollar.

Commodities traded in negative territory for a third week in a row with the DJ-UBS commodity index reaching the lowest level in almost 31/2 years. Rising supply without a corresponding pickup in demand has triggered falling prices across all three sectors and most commodities are currently showing a negative year-to-date return, with cocoa and palladium the exceptions.

Industrial metals At sector level industrial metals dropped the most while precious metals held up reasonably well as different signals (news wise) pulled the metals in opposite directions.

Ultimately though, both gold and silver remained stuck within their established ranges but with a negative bias.

Key crops were lower led by CBOT Wheat and Corn as a US government report late Friday was expected to confirm the dramatic turnaround in inventory levels following a near-perfect US growing season. The energy sector saw both crude oils lower with Brent Crude falling the most thereby reducing the premium over WTI crude as the reduced supply tightness witnessed in the US has now spread to the European benchmark.

Brent Crude falls The price weakness experienced in WTI crude during the past month has spread to Brent crude and this has resulted in the spread between the two crude oils contracting back below $10/barrel. A combination of softening conditions in the spot market continued long liquidation by speculators; the Geneva talks between Iran and Western nations and finally the stronger dollar have all played their part in helping to maintain the negative momentum in both crude oils.

OPEC highlighted in its annual World Oil Outlook some of the changing dynamics brought about by the increased production of shale oil. OPEC expects it could lose almost 8 percent of its oil market share in the next five years as competition from non-OPEC producers continues to increase. OPEC continues to see oil demand rise over the coming decades mainly due to an increase in fuel-based means of transportation, especially in China and India. Increased demand will be met resulting in Opec forecasting an average price of USD 110/barrel until 2020, simi-

Kuwait may also follow suit NEW DELHI: Iraq is willing to double the credit period on crude sales to 60 days if Indian refiners buy more in 2014, the head of refineries at Hindustan Petroleum said yesterday.

Iran has also sweetened the deal to expand its dwindling market share by offering free shipment and a nominal discount to Indian refiners, sources said last week. Iraq along with Saudi Arabia stepped up sales to India after western sanctions shut payment avenues and made trade with Tehran difficult.

“Iraq is very positive. They are willing to raise credit period to 60 days and waive off opening of letters of credit (LCs) provided volumes are increased,” B K Namdeo told Reuters.

He said HPCL has not yet worked out crude import numbers for 2014. Middle East oil produc-

lar to the price level we have become used to over the past three years.

There are increased hopes of a potential breakthrough in negotiations between Iran and Western governments in Geneva.

Whether the talks will lead to an imminent increase in Iranian oil exports remains doubtful, however. Nevertheless, the ongoing negotiations will continue to be closely watched as an increase in Iranian exports, together with a normalization in Libya, would almost certainly force Saudi Arabia to cut its production in order to ensure that price stability is being maintained at, and preferably not below, $100/barrel.

Momentum in both crude oils remains negative. Until we see demand pick up further losses cannot be ruled out with $100/barrel in Brent crude in sight. WTI crude has returned to trade around $95/barrel corresponding to the average price over the past three years. As US refineries begin to come on line again after maintenance work and their turnaround towards winter production, demand for WTI Crude is expected to pick up. This could apply some additional downside pressure on Brent crude oil’s current premium over WTI. Gold and silver under pressure Both gold and silver remained range bound for most of the week as traders tried to seek answers to several key questions. The stronger-than-expected pickup in US thirdquarter GDP and US job creation further removed support but without triggering a major push to the downside. The key question concerns when the US Federal Reserve will begin to reduce its monthly asset purchases, with the latest economic data having increased the likelihood of a December start.

The direction of the dollar, which has strongly recovered, especially against the euro during the past couple of weeks, is another area of uncertainty with a continued move higher in the greenback creating headwind. Juxtaposed with this we see the potential for a long overdue correction in US equities where the S&P 500 is currently showing an almost 25 percent rise in 2013. The move below support at $1,294/oz, following the stronger-than-expected October US jobs report, points towards some additional weakness in the coming week, possibly towards last month’s low of $1,252/oz. Any signs however of equity selling, and/or dollar weakness, may lend support. As usual, one eye has to also remain on bond yields. The continued rise in yields, following the October lows, leaves little room to the upside, at least at this stage.

Late on Friday the US Department of Agriculture was expected to confirm the complete reversal of US inventory levels of key crops this coming winter. A record corn crop is expected to drive the expected stock levels (prior to next year’s harvest) to the highest level in nine years, compared with currently the lowest level in 17 years (before the current crop was harvested). As a result we have seen the price of CBOT corn drop to the lowest level in three years and almost halve from the record levels witnessed last year. One supporting factor for corn may be the potential for short covering by speculators, who as of October 29 held the biggest net-short position on record.

EBRD cuts growth forecasts for Central Europe, N Africa Weak demand for exports, unfinished reforms cited LONDON: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development cut its growth forecasts for central and eastern Europe and North Africa yesterday, citing weak demand for their exports and unfinished reforms.

Deflationary pressures were also coming from the euro-zone, but internal risks of deflation were limited, the bank’s chief economist said.

The EBRD’s forecasts for its regions of operation included a drop of half a percentage point for the biggest economy, Russia. “There is weak growth despite the euro zone pick-up,” EBRD chief economist Erik Berglof told a news conference, pointing to low levels of structural reforms, high unemployment that was eroding skills and low investment. “Inflation has slowed, particularly in central and southeastern Europe. Part of this is reflective of demand conditions in the region but it is also in part from deflationary pressures coming from the euro-zone.”

The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a record low of 0.25 percent last week, after euro zone inflation slumped to 0.7 percent in October. The EBRD cut its 2013 forecast for central and eastern Europe to 2.0 percent from 2.1 percent, and dropped its 2014 projection to 2.8

Sudan devalues currency by 30% amid dollar shortages struggle to get their hand on hard currency. The black market rate has become the benchmark for banks and firms. The rate is watched by foreign firms such as cellphone operators Zain and MTN and by Gulf banks who sell products in pounds and then struggle to convert profits into dollars. Gulf investors also hold pounddenominated Islamic bonds sold by the central bank. A central bank official, asking not to be named, said the rate had been already changed in September when the government cut fuel subsides. He did not elaborate.

The secretive central bank tends not to announce devaluations, which are embarrassing for the government, which denies there is a shortage of hard currency.

The new exchange rate was shown for the first time on Reuters terminals on Monday. On Sunday it was still the old rate of 4.4, historic data showed.

from 270,000 bpd now as it aims to commission its 300,000 bpd Paradip refinery on the east coast next year, a company source said.

Iraq displaced Iran as second biggest oil seller to India in 2011/12. In the last fiscal year that ended in March Iraq supplied about 13 percent of India’s overall oil imports, according to the preliminary government data. India, the world’s fourthbiggest oil importer and Iran’s second-biggest client, relies on outside supplies for 80 percent of its oil needs, or about 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd).

HPCL operates a 130,000 bpd plant in western Maharashtra state. It also has a stake in the 180,000 bpd Bathinda refinery in northern India, which is operated by Hindustan-Mittal Energy Ltd, partowned by LN Mittal. — Reuters

A traditional fisherman sitting in his boat on Inle Lake in Myanmar’s northeastern Shan state. Myanmar has the potential to quadruple the value of its economy to $200 billion by 2030 if it presses on with reforms, embraces technology and shifts away from agriculture, a study said recently. — AFP

NEW YORK: Jonathan Niles (center) works with fellow traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks edged higher in early trading yesterday pushing the Dow Jones industrial further into record territory. — AP

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s central bank has devalued the Sudanese pound by around 30 percent against the dollar, the second such move in little over a year as the African country struggles with hard currency shortages. Sudan’s economy has been in turmoil since South Sudan’s secession in 2011 took away of three-quarters of oil production. Oil was the driver of the economy and source for dollars needed for food and other essential imports.

Sudan produces too little to feed its around 32 million people. Bidding prices for the pound were stated as 5.6871 for one dollar, compared with 4.4 previously, central bank data on Reuters terminals showed on Monday. Ask prices were 5.7155. In 2011, the official rate was around 3.

The central bank has been trying to bridge a ballooning gap with the black market rate where one dollar costs 7.8 pounds as impor t firms

ers are also offering better terms to grab a bigger slice of the Asian market as the US shale oil boom has changed the global energy landscape with Washington ceding its ranking as top oil importer to China.

Kuwait will also decide in the next three months on raising 90 days credit on crude sales to India from the current 60 days, its Oil Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali said on Saturday. “Our credibility is good, we have never defaulted. Waiver of opening of LCs will save as bank charges that we unnecessarily pay,” said HPCL’s Namdeo. HPCL has a deal to buy 60,000 barrels per day of Basrah oil from Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). It also has a contract to buy another 40,000 bpd from Total. India’s biggest refiner, Indian Oil Corp could also raise imports from Iraq to 284,000 bpd in 2014

The central bank website carried the new rate yesterday. Sudan has sought to offset the loss of southern oil reser ves by boosting gold sales, which make up almost 70 percent of exports. But a recent sharp fall of the global gold prices means 2013 revenues will be well below last year’s $2.2 billion.

In September the government lifted most fuel subsidies to help overcome a budget crisis. The scarcity of dollars had then become so bad that the central bank had started using up the general reserves of commercial banks, which are meant to be kept as deposits with the central bank , a financial source told Reuters recently.

Sudan avoided the “Arab Spring” that unseated rulers in nearby Egypt but soaring inflation has sparked small protests against President Omar Hassan Al-Bash ir, in power si nce 1989. — Reuters

percent from 3.1 percent.

It cut its 2013 forecast for Russia to 1.3 from 1.8 percent, and for 2014 to 2.5 from 3.0 percent, citing subdued investment and a drop in the price of the country’s main export, oil. It put growth at 3.4 percent last year. Russia last week slashed its long-term growth forecast to an average annual 2.5 percent by 2030, down from 4 percent.

The bank, which focuses on investment in the private sector, also cut its forecasts for its newest countries of operation - Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

Growth for these North African and Middle Eastern economies was seen at 2.8 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2014, down from 3.0 and 4.1 percent respectively. Political instability remained a concern in Egypt and Tunisia, the EBRD said.

The EBRD cut its forecast for its overall central and eastern Europe and North Africa region of operation for this year to 2.0 from 2.2 percent, and for next year to 2.8 from 3.2 percent. It saw growth last year at 2.7 percent.The likelihood had decreased of a worsening euro zone crisis but was still a risk to the forecasts, the EBRD said.

Other risks came from a slowdown in China and other large emerging economies, and from a deadlock over raising the US debt ceiling. The bank sees an economic contraction next year in euro zone member Slovenia, which is at risk of a bailout.

Slovenia could benefit from the framework provided by support from the IMF or other international financial institutions, Berglof said, but may be able to avoid an immediate crisis through borrowing in international markets.

“Slovenia will definitely need capital from the outside to deal with its problems,” he said. “The expectation right now from the government’s side is they can get this from the markets, and it seems when we talk to market participants...(that) they might be able to get that type of money.” Non-performing loans also continue to weigh heavily on bank balance sheets, in particular in Kazakhstan, virtually all southeastern European countries, Ukraine, Slovenia and Hungary.

A withdrawal by western banks from the region had slowed, but was still a concern, Berglof said. “Deleveraging we expect will continue for several years more.” — Reuters

M&S looks to India to stem fall in sales MUMBAI: British retailer Marks & Spencer is looking overseas to try to stem a steady decline in clothing sales, focusing on India to replicate a move towards more stylish fashions that has failed to convince consumers at home. Britain’s biggest clothing retailer said yesterday it planned to make India its biggest foreign market, increasing its store count there to 80 by 2016 from 36 currently.

“Three years ago our strategy changed and we identified India as a priority market and with our joint venture partner here we are confident of achieving this target,” Chief Executive Marc Bolland told reporters at the launch of a new flagship store in Mumbai. Bollard, who joined the firm in 2010 and has built a recovery plan around higher quality and more stylish fashions, has come under increasing pressure from investors as the group’s clothing sales have fallen.

They dropped for the ninth quarter running in the three months to September, while profits in the first half of its financial year shrank 9 percent. To succeed in India’s apparel market - worth an estimated $38 billion a year - M&S has to take on the world’s biggest fashion retailer Inditex SA and its Zara brand.

According to its latest regulatory filings, M&S has failed to turn a profit in India since 2009. In the year to March 2012, Marks & Spencer Reliance Retail Ltd report-

ed a net loss of 25.95 million rupees ($413,700). Over the same period Inditex Trent Retail India Ltd - which entered the Indian market as the retailer for Zara almost a decade after M&S launched its first stores there in 2000 - reported profit of 383 million rupees over the same period.

“Since they entered, Marks & Spencer has had one issue and that is getting their positioning right,” said Harminder Sahani, managing director of retail consultancy Wazir Advisors.

“They are now trying to become hot and happening and that is a very competitive segment.”

“The management acknowledges that a lot of time has gone by trying to get India right,” said an M&S consultant who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“But there is great hope in the M&S headquarters that India will work with all the changes they are making.” M&S said sales rose 28 percent in India last year, declining to give figures. M&S initially joined with Indian franchise partner Planet Retail, marketing itself as an exclusive, expensive brand.

When that strategy failed, it tried to sell itself as an affordable, quality brand via the joint venture it still operates with Reliance Retail, a unit of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. — Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

BUSINESS

Growth outlook lifts global equities LONDON: Signs of a solid US recovery boosted world equities yesterday although concern that this may encourage the Federal Reserve to reduce its economic stimulus put pressure on emerging markets. Surprisingly strong US jobs data on Friday brought forward expectations for when the Fed could start tapering its stimulus, lifting Treasury bond yields and the dollar without curtailing demand for shares on Wall St or in other major markets.

US stock index futures signalled a steadier session as the Veterans Day holiday limits activity.

“Tapering could well come earlier than March now, but people believe there is a little more upside as there were plus points in the (jobs) data,” Alastair Winter, chief economist at brokerage Daniel Stewart, said. Fed officials, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, have sounded cautious about the prospect for early

tapering since the jobs data though many investors are waiting for Bernanke’s nominated successor, Janet Yellen, to give her views before the US Senate on Thursday.

“Janet Yellen is going up to the Senate and they are going to ask her about the taper. She is not going to say ‘I’m not telling you’,” Winter said. Meanwhile the expectations for US growth helped lift European shares by 0.1 percent and off one-week lows during a subdued morning session.

Earlier the recovery hopes had boosted Japan’s Nikkei by a hefty 1.3 percent, lifting it from one-month lows. MSCI’s global barometer of world shares added 0.2 percent though it was still down 1.7 percent from the near sixyear highs touched at the end of October when it seemed the Fed might not taper until well into next year.

But Asian shares reflected the concern in

emerging markets that an earlier cutback in Fed stimulus and higher bond rates would attract capital back toward the United States.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.5 percent, hitting its lowest since Oct 11 and extending Friday’s 1 percent drop. Sentiment in Asia was also hit by data showing a sharp rise in China’s inflation rate to an eight-month high, which fanned worries that policy could tighten just when factory output and export data suggest the world’s No. 2 economy may be stabilising after a period of slower growth.

Emerging Asian currencies also came under pressure on the capital outflow fears, pushing the Indian rupee down 1.3 percent to 63.281 per dollar and the Indonesian rupiah down 1 percent to 11,551 per dollar, a one-month low.

The dollar retraced some of its gains against the world’s major currencies despite the talk

of a more imminent tapering but was well supported just below the two-month high set on Friday after the data.

The change in expectations has been reflected in the US Treasury market where yields on the 10-year benchmark jumped to 2.75 percent on Friday, from 2.60 percent.

These now offer a pick up over equivalent European and Japanese bonds.

“The dollar has come off slightly, but the defining factor is the rise in US yields,” said Jeremy Stretch, head of currency strategy at CIBC World Markets. The euro was flat at $1.3375, and not that far from a two-month trough of $1.3295 plumbed on Thursday when the European Central Bank surprised the market by cutting its main rate to a record low 0.25 percent.

The euro market is focused on GDP data later this week for the 17-nation bloc for hints about the region’s economic recovery prospects after recent positive numbers.

In commodity markets gold was taking a big hit from the tapering speculation, sliding to a three-and-a-half week low just under $1,280 an ounce to add to Friday’s 1.5 percent decline.

“Strength in bond yields and the dollar has created some weakness for gold,” said Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen. Brent crude oil rose 50 cents a barrel to around $105.60 after Iran and six world powers failed to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program, and after Chinese data pointed to a rise in fuel demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer.— Reuters

TOKYO: Pedestrians walk past a share prices board in Tokyo yesterday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 1.37 percent, or 193.42 points, to 14,280.22 shortly after the opening bell. — AFP

Low-cost airline Flybe to cut 500 jobs LONDON: Struggling low-cost British airline Flybe said yesterday it plans to axe another 500 jobs as it pursues a round of cost-cutting measures. The job losses are expected to save the airline £26 million ($41.5 million, 31 million euros) per year from next year, on top of previous initiatives to save £40 million this year and £45 million in 2014-15.

The carrier’s new chief executive, Saad Hammad, has also pledged to review unprofitable routes and bases and improve the way aircraft and crew are deployed.

The company said: “This will require tough decisions to be taken over the coming months and, regrettably, this proposal may result in the loss of around 500 jobs spread across the business.”

Flybe said the exact nature of the job losses was still being determined, but consultation with unions and staff associations will start shortly. The carrier, which acts as an alternative to train travel on

many British inter-city routes, currently employs around 2,700 people, with some 650 staff having already left since last January.

The British Airline Pilots’ Association said it was shocked by the announcement.

Its general secretary Jim McAuslan said: “Pilots are working with Flybe to secure the future of the airline, which is vital to connecting the country and driving growth and prosperity outside of London.”

The airline’s half-year results today showed its passenger numbers increased by 5.6 percent to 4.3 million, while it returned to profit with a surplus of £13.8 million. Hammad, who joined Flybe in August, said: “It was clear to me that the existing phase one and two cost savings were necessary, but we simply needed to do more and to do it immediately. “The business needed action now and so today we are explaining our next phase which encompasses a review of everything we do and how we do it.” — AFP

N Korea prefers China’s yuan over US dollar

Turkish assets steady as CB raises dollar sales

TOKYO: The Chinese currency is becoming more popular in North Korea than the US dollar as transactions through the renminbi make it easier to evade international sanctions against the North’s nuclear and missile programs, South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday.

“In the North’s capital of Pyongyang, it is not uncommon for people to use the renminbi to pay for taxi fares instead of the North Korean Won,” a South Korean diplomat in Beijing was quoted as saying.

Although North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated nations, officially bans people from using foreign currencies such as the yuan or the greenback, the use of foreign hard currencies is rampant in the black market, the diplomat said.

“North Korean people and companies are increasingly using the yuan instead of the dollar, because such yuan transactions make it difficult for them to be exposed to the international sanctions,” the diplomat said. In March, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2094 to punish Pyongyang for its third nuclear test in February, which blacklisted 19 companies based in North Korea as well as 12 North Korean figures.

Under the resolution, UN member states are required to put tighter restrictions on North Korea’s financial activities and conduct thorough inspections of air and sea cargo headed to the country.

The growing popularity of the yuan also provided evidence of deepening economic ties between North Korea and China, according to the diplomat.

Between January and September of this year, North Korea’s trade with China gained 4.4 percent from a year ago to $ 4.69 billion, according to the data released by the China Customs Information Center. —KUNA

ISTANBUL: Turkish assets held steady yesterday, supported by additional monetary tightening from the Turkish central bank that helped offset increased expectations that the US Federal Reserve may soon begin scaling back its stimulus. Turkey is susceptible to any tightening in global liquidity conditions because it relies on capital inflows to finance its large current account deficit.

The Turkish central bank will implement additional monetary tightening for two days starting on Monday in support of the lira, raising the minimum forex-selling auction amount to $160 million from $100 million. Market expectations of Fed tapering scaling back of its $85 billion monthly stimulus scheme - have increased after betterthan-expected US jobs data last Friday suggested October’s partial government shutdown did not make a large dent in the world’s largest economy.

A delay in Fed tapering has given Turkey’s central bank breathing room and allowed it to avoid interest rate hikes to support the lira in favour of less orthodox dollar sales and repo cancellations.

The lira firmed to 2.03356 to the dollar by 0909 GMT from nine-week lows of 2.0480 late on Friday.

“We think the Central Bank of Turkey will stick to its current stance and is unlikely to tighten liquidity further from here,” said Erkin Isik, a strategist at TEB-BNP Paribas.

“The market will likely wait for (the Federal Reserve’s Ben) Bernanke and (Janet) Yellen for any further clues on Fed policy and remain on the sidelines for now.”

Turkey’s 10-year benchmark bond yield was virtually unchanged at 9.10 percent, with low volume due to a holiday in the United States. The main Istanbul share index was up 0.12 percent at 74,034.88 points, outper forming the broader emerging markets index, which fell 0.02 percent. — Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

BUSINESS

EU, US return to trade talks amid spy scandal World’s largest free trade accord on cards

BEIJING: A delivery courier (R) checks the packages inside his three-wheeled vehicle along a road in Beijing yesterday. Chinese shoppers spent billions of dollars online yesterday, data showed, as they took advantage of discounts offered on Singles Day, a festival created by e-tailers to persuade the loveless to console themselves with retail therapy. — AFP

China to allow more private investment in state firms BEIJING: China will open its state-owned firms to greater investment by private companies, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday, as media raise expectations over a top Communist Party meeting on economic reforms. According to the China Daily, private partners will be allowed to take 10 to 15 percent stakes in state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The move would give such companies or investors a bigger say in decision-making, it quoted officials of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) as saying.

The agency is a powerful body that oversees large SOEs collectively worth trillions of dollars, many of which enjoy monopolies in key sectors such as rail and energy. The change appears to differ from existing partial flotations of SOEs. China’s big four stateowned banks are all quoted in Hong Kong and other overseas markets, as are units of oil giants Sinopec, CNOOC and CNPC, several subsidiaries of conglomerate China Resources, telecom behemoths China Mobile and China Unicom, and scores of other entities.

But partnerships are rare, with the China Daily noting the “rare exception” of a 2003 deal that handed private industrial conglomerate Fosun Group 49 percent ownership in a joint venture with state-run China National Medicine Corp. “All kinds of companies could join SOE restructuring,” the paper quoted Bai Yingzi, director of SASAC’s enterprise reform division, as saying.

The report came on the third day of a four-day gathering known as the Third Plenum at which leaders of the ruling Communist Party are expected to draw up a

decade-long blueprint for the world’s second largest economy. The highly-anticipated meeting, held at a heavily-secured Beijing hotel, has been used in the past by China’s leaders as a launching pad for economic reforms.

But despite much raising of expectations by state-run media, analysts say China is unlikely to embark on major reforms or privatization of state firms, and that any reforms unveiled after the plenum will likely be limited to broad outlines rather than detailed policy changes.

The China Daily report said that “specific plans on SOE reforms are expected to be drafted after the third plenum”. In a major report in March, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that China’s progress on economic liberalisation had stalled since 2008.

Aside from opening up state-owned enterprises, other topics expected to be taken up at the four-day meeting include land and administrative reforms.

The Global Times, another state-run newspaper, noted on Monday under the headline “‘Reform 2.0’ to be unveiled” that urbanisation is among the items at the top of the agenda.

Greater urbanisation is likely to increase pressure for changes to China’s “hukou” residency system, which links social benefits to a person’s registered place of abode.

The current set-up means hundreds of millions who moved from the countryside to cities in search of work are denied equal access to state medical insurance, education and other services. “Such treatment has limited their purchasing power and raised social tensions,” the paper wrote. — AFP

Egypt plans extra stimulus, to revive Suez Canal project CAIRO: The Egyptian government will launch a new economic stimulus package by the end of the year, the finance minister said yesterday, bringing forward spending plans that will help revive the economy but put even more strain on state coffers.

Pointing to efforts to attract new investment, the military-backed government also said it would launch a tender to draw up plans to develop a corridor around the Suez Canal, reviving a mega-project tabled by deposed president Mohammed Morsi.

The government ministers were speaking at a Euromoney conference aimed at boosting confidence in an economy battered by close to three years of political turmoil, dating back to the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

Boosted by financial support from Gulf states hostile to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the government installed in July is pumping billions of dollars into the economy of the Arab world’s most populous nation. Finance Minister Ahmed Galal said the second stimulus package, previously estimated at 24 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.5 billion), would be launched “before January”. The government had previously indicated it might only be brought in early next year.

The first stimulus package was initially set at 22.3 billion pounds, but the government announced on Oct. 21 it had increased it to 29.6 billion pounds.

“The second package is a heavy burden on the budget especially since it is not yet clear where the financing will come from,” said Moheb Malak, an economist at Prime Holding.

“In terms of growth it is expansionary and a positive thing. However, most of the first package went into consumption,” he said, adding that the second package should be directed towards investment in areas such as transport infrastructure.

During Mursi’s year in power, Egypt’s budget deficit widened to almost 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a number the government, backed by Gulf aid, hopes to reduce to around 10 percent this year. It also hopes investors and tourists will bring dollars, taking pressure off the Egyptian pound, which has lost almost 16 percent of its value since the uprising and even more on the black market.

Egypt’s finances are in a precarious state with a massive deficit, but the government has rejected the conventional wisdom of International Monetary Fund-prescribed austerity measures. If the plan fails, a new government expected to be elected early next year could find itself deep in debt, its currency overvalued and an economy in crisis. In separate comments to financial daily Al-Mal, Galal said the ministry was coordinating with the planning ministry to decide the size of the new spending and the sources of finance “without that causing new strain on the public finances”.

Egypt’s economy has been crippled by social and political turmoil since Mubarak’s downfall in 2011, but has been helped in recent months by funding from several Gulf Arab States that are hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates promised a combined $12 billion in loans, grants and fuel shipments after the army, prompted by mass protests, overthrew Morsi on July 3.

Investment Minister Osama Saleh signalled the government intended to press ahead with plans to develop the Suez Canal corridor.

He said a tender to draw up the plans would be finalised by the end of the month and offered globally. He did not elaborate.

It echoes plans outlined by the Mursi administration to revive and expand a series of projects initiated in the late 1990s to turn the banks of the Suez Canal into a world trading and industrial centre.—Reuters

BRUSSELS: The EU and United States began a second round of talks yesterday on the world’s largest free-trade accord despite damaging revelations of US spying on its allies. Chief negotiators, the EU’s Ignacio Garcia Bercero and Dan Mullaney for the United States, stepped before the cameras for an official handshake but made no statement as they began a weeklong round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

This second round was to have been held in October, but due to the US government shutdown had to be postponed just as the spy scandal worsened. Since then a steady flow of surveillance revelations by US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has angered European nations, prompting demands in some EU quarters that the TTIP talks be halted altogether.

Personal data protection is a hugely sensitive issue in Europe given its history of brutal dictatorship of the left and right, and there have been longstanding concerns that giant US tech companies see it as more of a commercial commodity than a sacrosanct human right.

An EU official close to the trade talks conceded “there may be issues of trust”, but stressed that Europe would not compromise its personal data protection standards even as it must discuss the wider issue of information transfer. “The transfer of data... is a key component of a modern economy,” the official said, but as far as personal data is involved, it can “only be done so in compliance with (EU) legislation on data privacy”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry last week urged European leaders not to allow the snooping row to disrupt the TTIP discussions which would create “one of the most powerful economic forces on the planet”.

A third round of talks is scheduled for December 16-20 in Washington as both sides aim for a final accord by late 2014 which would cover some 40 percent of global economic out-

put and 50 percent of trade. The EU estimates a deal would bring annual benefits of 119 billion euros ($160 billion) for the bloc’s 28 member states and 500 million people, and only slightly less for the United States.

As important, however, is that it sets the standards for global trade as years of liberalization talks in the World Trade Organization look destined to run into the sands.

Brussels and Washington have each engaged in a series of bilateral free trade deals with other countries given the WTO impasse, and last month Canada and the EU reached a deal hailed as helping pave the way to the TTIP. This week’s talks cover services, investment, energy and raw materials but the key objective is how to harmonize regulatory regimes so as to

reduce barriers to trade.

The auto sector is a prime example where standards in such areas as safety and performance could be matched up, the EU official said, noting that regulatory differences can add 20 percent to the cost of a car, much more than current tariffs do.

The aim is not a ‘one-size fits all’ system, said the official who asked not to be named, but rather to get each side to recognize the other’s regulations where possible.

That would mean for example that an EU company could comply with EU rules knowing that US authorities would accept them as valid for their home market too. The chief EU and US negotiators are due to give a press briefing on the talks next Friday. — AFP

BRUSSELS: European Union (EU) chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero (right) and US chief negotiator Dan Mullaney (left) before a working session yesterday at the EU Headquarters in Brussels. — AFP

Better outlook poses challenge for BoE rate plan LONDON: The Bank of England faces the tricky task this week of upgrading its economic and employment forecasts without stoking speculation in markets that interest rates will rise anytime soon. The BoE took a new approach to coaxing Britain’s economy back to health in August when it when it made a fall in unemployment central to its thinking about when to raise interest rates from their record lows. Since then, Britain’s recovery has exceeded expectations and outpaced most other rich economies, fuelling speculation that the BoE might have to move faster than it thought.

Growth of 0.8 percent in the third quarter beat the 0.5 percent pencilled in by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee and unemployment in the latest quarter fell to 7.7 percent, below the rate of 7.9 percent expected by the BoE. If that weren’t enough, inflation - long the bugbear of Britain’s economy - has also fallen slightly faster than predicted, helped by a pound which has risen more than 3 percent in trade-weighted terms over the past three months. For the Bank, which has spent most of the past six years explaining why its forecasts have been too optimistic, this is undoubtedly positive news. But it throws up a different challenge: how to acknowledge the improved outlook without triggering a rise in bond yields that could itself jeopardize the recovery.

A rise in US Treasury yields was one reason the Federal Reserve balked at the idea of slowing its bond purchases in September, in what would be a first step towards normalising monetary policy in the United States, where benchmark interest rates have been at nearly zero since late 2008. “The issue for the Bank of England is how to present their new forecasts without looking foolish,” said Brian Hilliard, UK economist at Societe Generale. “The bottom line is that the Bank doesn’t want to raise rates.” The Bank said in August it would not consider raising rates until unemployment had fallen to 7 percent. At the time, it did not expect this to happen before mid-2016. This week it will have to acknowledge that it could is likely to happen sooner.

Very short-term interest rates, which form the basis of lending costs in the economy, show markets are largely pricing in an interest rate hike in about two years’ time with the outside chance of a move sooner. Analysts polled by Reuters last week expected the Bank would bring its forecast for unemployment to those of private economists and would say the rate is now on course to fall to 7 percent by either Q4 2015 or Q1 2016.

Since he took the helm of the central bank in July, Mark Carney has been on a mission to promote growth and reassure firms and households that monetary policy won’t be tightened prematurely. At a news conference after the release of the Bank’s forecasts on Wednesday, Carney is likely to reiterate that the 7 percent unemployment threshold is a “way station” rather than a trigger for rate hikes. He might even float the idea of lowering the threshold - say to 6.5 percent - though a change to the forward guidance framework so soon after it was launched would raise eyebrows. —Reuters

Cameron says 2,000 mortgages approved LONDON: More than 2,000 homebuyers obtained mortgages through the British government’s flagship loan support scheme in the first month of its broader operation, with most of those first-time buyers, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday.

Britain’s Conservative government is pushing the plan, with a 2015 election in mind, as a way to help people move onto, or up, the property ladder, and stimulate growth after three years of economic stagnation. But critics say that unless the scheme is properly scrutinised it could drive up house prices in soughtafter areas like London and create a housing bubble that might burst when interest rates start to rise later this decade. The figures given

by Cameron for the first month in which the scheme has operated for both new build and existing homes compared to the almost 67,000 mortgages approved overall in Britain in September - the highest since 2008.

Most applicants for the government scheme were young, had a roughly average household income and were buying their first home, Cameron said in a statement, arguing the programme was central to his vision for Britain. “Owning a home is about more than four walls to sleep at night. It’s about independence, self-reliance, moving on and moving up,” Cameron said.

“Above all, it’s about aspiration. Help to Buy is helping people realise the dream of

home ownership - and it’s a key part of my plan for Britain.”

A total of 2,384 applications had been received from the two participating banks, largely nationalised RBS and partially stateowned Halifax Bank of Scotland.

RBS, which owns NatWest, said 73 percent of its 1,080 mortgages through the scheme were for first-time buyers. If all of the applications are finally approved, the bank will be lending 171.6 million pounds ($274.5 million) under the programme.

It said the average amount its customers wanted to borrow was 159,000 pounds and the average price of the home they wanted to buy was 167,565 pounds.

“These are majority young first-time buyers who, without ‘Help to Buy’, wouldn’t have been able to consider a mortgage or buy a home,” said Lloyd Cochrane, head of mortgages at NatWest and RBS. Halifax, owned by RBS’s part-nationalised rival Lloyds Banking Group, said it had received 1,309 mortgage applications from home buyers across the UK who have found a property to purchase. Halifax said the applications were for mortgages worth a total of 194 million pounds. RBS is allowing customers to draw down the funds before the scheme officially launches in January and said 5 customers had already purchased new homes through the scheme. — Reuters

TOKYO: An international freighter leaves the international cargo terminal in Tokyo yesterday. Japanese government announced current account, Japan’s broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world, logged a September surplus of 587.3 billion yen ($5.9 billion), marking the eighth straight month of black ink. — AFP

Oil above $105 after Iran talks end without deal LONDON: Brent crude oil edged up towards $106 a barrel yesterday after Iran and six world powers failed to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program, and after Chinese data pointed to a rise in fuel demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer. Sanctions against Iran have removed more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil from world markets, and any rise in Iranian supply could push oil prices lower, analysts say.

Marathon talks between the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany, France and Iran ended in Geneva on Saturday without agreement but negotiations will resume again on Nov. 20.

Brent was up 35 cents a barrel at $105.47 by 0855 GMT. The contract hit a four-month low on Friday and, despite rising to close the session up $1.66 per barrel,

Brent ended with a fourth straight week of losses. US crude was 20 cents lower at $94.40 a barrel, after closing up 40 cents on Friday.

Divisions emerged among the Western allies on the final day of the Iranian nuclear talks as France hinted the proposal under discussion did not sufficiently neutralize the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb. But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking to Europe 1 radio yesterday, held out hope of a deal with Iran soon: “We are not far from an agreement.”

US lawmakers said on Sunday they aimed to tighten sanctions on Iran to stop Washington giving away too much in a deal with Tehran. Oil found some support from Chinese data pointing to higher fuel demand as the economy accelerates. China’s implied oil demand

inched up 0.3 percent in October from a year earlier, after dipping the previous month, the first yearly decline in 17 months.

The improvement came as official data at the end of last week suggested China’s economy had steadied after a protracted slowdown, with factory activity growing faster than expected and a rebound in exports also stronger than the market had thought.

But a surprise increase in US jobs data on Friday, which strengthened the dollar as well as the possibility that US stimulus could be pared sooner, weighed on some commodities including the domestic crude oil contract.

“Some investors expect a reduction in the Federal Reserve’s asset purchase program sooner rather than

later,” said Carsten Fritsch, senior oil and commodities analyst at Commerzbank.

News last week that Saudi Arabia cut its crude output in October to 9.75 million bpd from 10.1 million bpd in September also helped support prices. In Libya, tensions remained high after an autonomy movement in the east said on Sunday it had formed a regional oil firm to star t selling crude af ter seizing several por ts.

Kuwait’s oil minister, Mustapha al-Shamali, said on Saturday he expected the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to keep its crude oil output target unchanged at its next meeting.

OPEC, which pumps more than a third of the world’s oil, will meet on Dec. 4 in Vienna to decide its output target. — Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

BUSINESS

Wataniya renews exclusive partnership with Tamdeen Customers to get new engaging experiences

NBK’s ‘Hala Watani’ receives more than a million calls monthly KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait’s (NBK) “Hala Watani” service receives more than one million calls on average monthly due to its ease and flexibility.

NBK was the first in Kuwait to provide customers with banking services over the phone. NBK remains the leader in providing easily accessible and technologically advanced channels to meet its’ customers needs, including the simple-to-use “Hala Watani’ call center.

NBK is keen on developing its services to meet customers’ demands and make banking more convenient. “Hala Watani” provides NBK customers a convenient and reliable means to conduct their banking transactions and manage their accounts around the

clock, seven days a week by simply calling 1801801.

In addition to “Hala Watani”, NBK provides its customers with a wide range of services to meet their banking needs in a flexible and secure manner. Those services include NBK’s most advanced mobile banking application and NBK Online banking “Watani On Line” through www.nbk.com.

All NBK customers can benefit from the most developed banking services and products on NBK Mobile Banking application and Watani On Line, including Checking balances, transferring funds, making payments, ordering checkbooks, requesting a printed account statement, branches and ATMs locater and much more.

KUWAIT: Wataniya Telecom has recently renewed its agreement with Tamdeen Entertainment Company for another year of exclusive branding partnership at the company’s entertainment venues in 360 Mall. The strategic partnership is a result of Wataniya’s continuous efforts to find creative ways to reach its customers and stay in touch with them wherever they are.

Based on the exclusive agreement between both companies, Wataniya Telecom will be branding 3 venues of the Entertainment Center in 360 Mall and that includes The Bowl Room (bowling area), Freeze Club (arcades & video games), and Infunity (family entertainment center) for a period of one year starting from October, 2013 until October, 2014.

Commenting on the partnership, Wataniya Telecoms’, General manager& CEO Eng Abdulaziz Fakhroo: “We believe in fostering relationships with organizations like Tamdeen Entertainment Company because they provide creative avenues of entertainment and connectivity for young adults and families.

Simultaneously, we want to stay close to our customers by being present in areas which are visited and liked by them. It will also help us in emphasizing our brand value and provide our customers with the latest updates on our services and campaigns.”

Ahmad Al-Osaimi, CEO of Tamdeen Entertainment also commented on the partnership. He said, “Like Wataniya, we are constantly looking for ways to provide our customers with engaging experiences. It gives us great pleasure

to renew our partnership with Wataniya and we hope to continue nurturing relationships with leading and dependable companies like Wataniya for many more years to come”.

Tamdeen Entertainment is also a partner of Wataniya Loyal Program “Nojoom”, the first loyal program of its kind in Kuwait, where customers can redeem the points that they collect through making calls, sending SMS or using the internet with vouchers that allow them to use Tamdeen Services.

Qatar Tourism jumps in third quarter 2013 Hotel occupancy up by over 13 percent DOHA: Qatar Tourism Authority released figures showing the tourism industry in Qatar continues its upward trajectory. The data was released in QTA’s third quarter (July - September) 2013 report, comparing performance to the same quarter of 2012.

All key indicators of the tourism sector demonstrated improvement and growth from the previous year comparable period: The average hotel occupancy rate rose from 50 percent to 57 percent despite the industry adding over 600 rooms, growing inventory by 4.73 percent. These jumps meant that Total Revenue amongst 4 & 5Star Hotels increased by QR 85.3 million, reaching a total of QR 703.1 million for the quarter. This 13.81 percent increase over previous year, despite being the lower summer season, sees strong demand, with an equivalent 19 percent increase in Rooms Revenue.

• 4 & 5-Star hotels make up 11,717 of Qatar’s 13,551 rooms, with calls for more economy and budget hotels from consumers.

• Regional visitors increased by 20 percent, with the greatest increases from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and UAE and Oman remaining static.

• Tourists coming from other continents rose by 13.36 percent, with arrivals from Asia showed the biggest increases at 18.27 percent.

QTA Statistics now incorporates wider field of data, which it is hoped provides greater guidance to the industry. The data is based on hotel submissions to QTA, and assists in assessing trends and underlying opportunities. Amongst the highlights: • Despite the increase in room inventory the average room rate per available room per day for both 4 & 5 Star hotels increased by 8.82 percent from previous year, rising from QR 293 to QR 319.

• Contrary to industry opinion that predicted falls in revenues due to rapid room inventory increases, Average Total Revenue per available room per day grew by 4.41 percent over Q3 2012,.

• This indicates the sector is still facing robust demand and the 4th Quarter in 2013 is likely to show strong growth.

Driving the tourism sector was increased exposure to the global economy, assisted by the influx of companies and businesses supporting Qatar’s infrastructure development.

A diverse range of events and activities in Qatar, and increased regional and international presence during the third quarter of 2013 also pushed growth in the leisure sector. These include the Eid Festival 2013, as well as performances of Cirque du Soleil at the Aspire Dome.

Over Q3 Qatar Tourism Authority had a number of key achievements: • The Eid Al-Adha Festival in October built on the success of the earlier Eid AlFitr Festival, aimed at promoting Qatar as a family tourist destination regionally.

• In September, QTA announced the official opening of its French representative office in Paris, the second representative office in Europe.

• QTA also joined the world in celebrating World Tourism Day on the 27th of September, organizing a local photography competition to raise awareness of the importance of tourism to Qatar’s economy and the local community.

• QTA led Qatar’s delegation at ITB Asia in Singapore, the largest travel show in Asia. QTA utilized the occasion to hold buyers meetings and interact with counterparts in the Asian tourism industry, setting the stage for increased tourist growth from the region.

The scene is set for continued growth, as new infrastructure readies to accelerate the growth of the sector. Doha Exhibition and Conference Center is under construction and Hamad International Airport is set for anearly2014 opening. QTA is readying the launch of a new phase in Qatar’s tourism industry with the release of the National Tourism Strategy, later this month, which will serve as the road map for the sector’s development in the coming years. QTA has a key role to play in coordinating the development of a sustainable tourism sector in Qatar, and growing tourism’s contribution to a diversified national economy.

EIAST hosts 8th International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems ABU DHABI: The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) is organizing the Eighth Meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG), an organization supported by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), which commenced on Sunday (November 10) and runs until November 14, 2013 at The Address Dubai Mall. The conference is promoting the use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) infrastructure for the common good.

On the opening day, system providers of the Global Satellite Navigation systems and international governmental and non-governmental organizations from the US, Russia, European Union, China, Japan and India shared the latest insights on services including the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), and the European Satellite Navigation System (GALILEO).

During the remaining days of this forum chaired by Omran Sharaf, EIAST’s Director of Space Image Processing & Analysis, the attending members will identify issues for discussion in future ICG plenary sessions and/or its working group meetings and present draft recommendations with regards to assemblies held since the Seventh Meeting of the ICG. Final recommendations will be reviewed towards the end of the sessions.

EIAST is also arranging a technical visit to EIAST’s Headquarters in Dubai, to explore the technology and operation of DubaiSat-1, the UAE’s remote sensing Earth-observation satellite.

Obaid Al-Mansoori, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology, said: “EIAST has proven its commitment to promoting space technology in the region through developing new satellite applications in line with UAE Vision 2021. In 2009 it launched DubaiSat-1, which has since been providing valuable information and space pictures to different government entities to propel

their strategic initiatives. DubaiSat-2 is currently preparing for its impending take off from Russia and DubaiSat-3, when ready to take to the orbit in 2017, would have equipped the UAE Engineers with the necessary skills to build our own satellites. EIAST has also been instrumental in creating increased awareness about space technology not just within the country but regionally through meaningful alliances. By hosting ICG, we hope to further expand our reach and collaboration with the international space community, and gain more knowledge about GNNS-related applications that can be leveraged to promote safety and economic development in the region.”

“In a relatively short span of time, EIAST has demonstrated its strong resolve to advance scientific pursuits in the country as well as the whole region. The meeting, which brings together experts from across the globe to discuss and act on issues that are of high relevance to the ICG, will serve to disseminate information regionally on global applications of GNSS and their socioeconomic benefits for human kind,” added Sharafta Gadimova the Executive Secretariat of

Hasan Ferdous wins a new GMC Yukon Gulf Bank’s third quarterly KOC draw

KUWAIT: Ferdous receives the key of a 2013 GMC Yukon from Yaser Sulaiman

KUWAIT: Gulf Bank announced Hasan Ferdous as the winner of the third quarterly KOC prize draw for 2013. Ferdous received a 2013 GMC Yukon delivered off the floor at the GMC Yukon dealership by Yaser Sulaiman, Executive Manager, Consumer Banking at Gulf Bank.

Gulf Bank’s quarterly prize draw for a GMC Yukon is part of the benefits offered in the KOC salary package. The KOC salary package is an exclusively designed banking package for KOC staff members. All KOC staff that transfer their salaries and have a valid Gulf Bank credit card are eligible to enter the quarterly draws.

On winning the GMC Yukon, Hasan Ferdous said, “This is a very exciting moment for me. I am glad banking my salary with Gulf Bank has paid off. The Bank has not only demonstrated that their customer service is exceptional but their opportunities are worthwhile.

Having a Gulf Bank branch at KOC is also very convenient. Thank you Gulf Bank!”

The KOC salary package provides a non-interest bearing current account especially designed to fulfill KOC staff’s banking needs. KOC staff are entitled to several exclusive benefits such as, vouchers from X-cite by Alghanim Electronics, free issuance charges for Visa and MasterCard Credit Card and special discounts upon using Gulf Bank cards at 100 outlets in Kuwait. Upon entering the draw, KOC staff are further qualified to win a GMC Yukon as an added bonus to the KOC salary tailored banking package.

Gulf Bank is the only Bank available at the KOC Head Office and it invites all KOC staff to visit the branch to find out more about the KOC salary package.

To find out more about Gulf Bank’s KOC salary package or any of the Bank’s products and services, customers can visit one of Gulf Bank’s 56 branches; call the Customer Contact Center on 1805805 for assistance and guidance, or log on to www.e-gulfbank.com, Gulf Bank’s website.

the ICG. Previous meetings of the ICG have been held in Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan; Turin, Italy; St. Petersburg, Russia; Pasadena, California USA; Bangalore, India; and the founding meeting in Vienna, Austria.

The International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems seeks to promote cooperation among ICG members on matters of mutual interest for the benefit of GNSS users and their service needs. It also explores compatibility and interoperability of GNSS in order to increase their use and support sustainable development, particularly in developing countries.

EIAST was established by the Dubai Government in 2006 with the goal of promoting a culture of advanced scientific research and technology innovation in Dubai and the UAE, and enhancing technology innovation and scientific skills among UAE Nationals. It is mainly involved in outer space research and development; satellite manufacturing and systems development; space imaging; and ground station services and support for other satellites.

Asian oil refiners face 5 years of thin margins SINGAPORE: Asian oil refiners face weak margins for turning crude into fuel over the next five years and may be forced to run plants at reduced rates as startups in China and India keep capacity well ahead of demand. China and India, already with nearly half of Asia’s more than 30 million barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity, are cranking up this year and next another 2.5 million bpd that was approved a few years back to feed rapidly expanding economies.

Also racing to build plants over the next several years are countries such as Pakistan and Vietnam, driven by a desire to cut fuel imports and limit outflows of foreign currency. The additional capacity threatens to leave refiners selling fuels into well-supplied markets as regional demand growth slows with the moderation of economic expansion, particularly in China, the world’s second largest oil consumer. Total Asian refining capacity may increase to as much as 36 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2018, according to estimates from five consultancies and research houses. “In both China and India, refinery construction will actually outpace demand growth over the next four

years,” said Stuart Traver, technical director at Gaffney, Cline and Associates in Singapore. “In the rest of Asia, refinery additions will nearly match demand growth.” The analysts’ estimates point to a capacity surplus of up to 3 million bpd by 2018 as fuel use fails to keep up.

Refining margins were at multi-month lows in October, and this year have been running at some of the lowest values since late 2010, according to Reuters data. Diesel margins could be especially poor, with up to half the capacity added in China and India focused on middle distillates.

That means refinery projects or upgrades could get delayed or plants could run at low rates as companies try to balance the situation, a North Asian refining source said. Refiners could also be forced to close older, inefficient facilities as has been done in Australia and Japan. Vietnam plans to more than double its refining capacity by 2017 to keep up with surging demand and limit fuel imports. Pakistan, also looking to cut its import bill, added a new plant in December last year, boosting its total capacity by more than a third. It has tentative plans to add two more refineries.—Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

technology

Microsoft to share best technology practices with Kuwait KUWAIT: In line with its commitment to promote enhanced government practices through the use of technology, Microsoft Kuwait will participate at the E-Government Forum for the third year in a row.

During the E-Government Forum, executives from Microsoft will be showcasing the benefits of technology and how it can help enhance business processes and performance within the government sector and, in particular, the Kuwait eGovernment framework, ultimately leading to improved governance practices. Microsoft will present informative workshops, which will focus on areas such as technology readiness and culture change challenges to the attendees to understand and implement new technologies to meet various challenges in the government sector.

During the past 12 years, Microsoft has invested

and contributed towards the ongoing development of the education, healthcare and entrepreneurial sectors within Kuwait, by engaging closely with various government agencies within the State of Kuwait. Through special training programs and workshops, Microsoft remains committed to the development of a knowledge-based economy in Kuwait, by equipping nationals with the ICT based skills they need to compete in today’s global economy.

Ibrahim Youssry, Microsoft Gulf Public Sector Director added, “The Kuwait Government has been a visionary in the development of the country’s technology infrastructure. At Microsoft, we have established a trusted partnership with the government of the state of Kuwait to work together in building towards the country 2035 National plan.

We are committed to working with governments to promote innovation and growth through technology solutions and partnerships that create economic and social opportunities. The workshop held for the IT executives from the Kuwaiti Government will empower them to use technology more efficiently in the delivery of enhanced e-services. We are honoured to have had the opportunity to demonstrate the power of Microsoft technologies to the Kuwait government sector.”

“Our strategy for the public sector is to provide a set of solutions to modernise the level of government services. This will help empower the government officials to quicken decision-making process, make information more easily available and in turn offer more value-added services to its citizen. Today, people are in increasingly becoming more tech-

savvy, especially with the use of internet, facebook and social networking; which creates a perfect climate for government adoption to host different technology solutions.”

“Today, as we embark on an exciting continuously evolving technology industry, we are looking forward to continue our successful partnership with the government of the state of Kuwait through identifying the four-mega trends that are evident in the IT industry now,” concluded Youssry.

The event will address key issues that face the government today including privacy, security, information management and client uptake. Group discussions will take place during the event to discuss the future direction of eGovernment and the provision of timely and accurate eGovernment services to citizens.

African tech startups aim to power growing economies Low internet penetration rates hold back tech growth

SINGAPORE: A person claiming to speak for activist hacker group Anonymous is seen issuing a warning through a video circulated online to “go to war” with the Singapore government over recent Internet licensing rules. A rash of website hackings in the Asia-Pacific region has exposed weak defenses against cyber attacks and highlighted the need for stronger cooperation against cross-border technological threats, analysts said. — AFP

Hackers expose Asia’s weak cyber defenses SINGAPORE: A rash of website hackings in the Asia-Pacific has exposed weak cyber defenses which must be improved to help the region deal with more sophisticated and sinister threats, particularly from criminal organizations, analysts said. Hackers claiming to be from the global activist group Anonymous compromised several government and commercial websites in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore recently, and vowed to mount wider attacks.

In the latest incident, Anonymous hackers on Thursday hijacked a section of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s official website, just a day after he vowed to “spare no effort” to hunt down anyone who attacks the regional financial centre’s technological network. Cloud computing, the proliferation of mobile devices and the increasing use of social media have allowed an escalating volume of data to flow through multiple channels, giving hackers a wider field to ply their trade, analysts said.

They warned that Anonymous, which carries out attacks to highlight issues such as Internet freedom and corruption, is just one of the groups involved, and others with a more sinister agenda could inflict serious damage. “The more sophisticated group that government and business should fear are the cyber-criminal organizations who have much greater resources at their disposal,” said Tan Shong Ye, information technology risk and cyber security leader at global business consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Their tar-

gets could be valuable intellectual property and critical infrastructure, including military and state secrets, Tan said.

Shadowy hackers who have long targeted the West are turning their sights on Asia’s fast-growing economies. “As countries become wealthier, they have more assets and therefore are more likely to become targets,” said Nina Laven, director for economics and country risk at consultancy group IHS. “We will likely see the region attracting more attacks,” she said.

Southeast Asia and the wider Asia Pacific region “are growing in significance in terms of cybersecurity issues” as Internet usage becomes more pervasive, said Caitriona H Heinl, a cyber security specialist at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.

“These increasing levels of connectivity are raising the probabilities of cross-border cyber-related threats such as transnational cybercrime,” she said.

Research firm Euromonitor said there were more than 389 million smartphones and nearly 30 million tablets and other portable computers in the Asia Pacific in 2013. Mobile Internet subscriptions alone reached over 712 million, it said.

Governments and businesses are moving to protect their networks, but hackers, in many instances, are a step ahead. “While information security risks have dramatically evolved, security strategies... have not kept pace,” PwC said in its Global State of Information Security Survey released in September. — AFP

DAKAR: When Abasiama Idaresit started a digital marketing firm in Nigeria’s bustling economic capital three years ago, he quickly learned how brutal life can be in a market where tech startups are in their infancy.

No-one would lend him money to hire staff or pay for office space, so Idaresit spent eight months hustling the streets of Lagos, trying to convince clients his plan to help them develop online campaigns was a winner.

“During those first eight months, I didn’t make a dime ... I was demoralised. At some point I wondered if it was worth it,” Idaresit told Reuters by telephone from his Lagos office. It took a money-back guarantee before a baby products retailer gave Idaresit a break with a $250 contract to develop the shop’s online presence. Within two months, the retailer’s revenue began growing by $1,000 per month. Then it hit $100,000.

Idaresit’s firm, Wild Fusions, is now a Google Adwords partner valued at $20 million, with revenues doubling year-on-year. It helps brands like Samsung, Unilever, and Ecobank develop online marketing strategies for African audiences.

Wild Fusion’s struggles are typical for startups in Africa, as the world’s poorest continent wakes up slowly to the opportunities of technology. In other emerging markets like Asia and Latin America, a tech startup with a smart idea in a booming economy might expect to attract investor interest, especially if competition is slim.

Business leaders and investors said the sector in Africa is held back by lower internet penetration as well as scarcity of early stage capital and a lack of management expertise. Many startups in the region are caught in a Catch 22 situation, said Churchill Mambe Nanje, who launched an online job search engine in Cameroon called Njorku. “To hire the best talent to develop a startup, you need capital. Finding capital is hard because you need to have a track record and a viable product but to get those, you need capital,” said Nanje, whose company has been profiled by Forbes Magazine as one of Africa’s best startups.

Part of the problem for African tech startups is that internet use, despite mushrooming in the past decade, is low. Only 16 percent of Africa’s 1 billion people use the Internet, half the rate in Asia Pacific and below a global average of 36 percent, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says.

The information and community technology sector contributed just 7 percent to the continent’s GDP last year, according to an African Development Bank report.

Economic gains from rising internet usage are likely to be strong. For every 10-percentage

point rise in broadband internet penetration, economic growth increases by 1.4 percentage points, according to the World Bank.

Experts say information and communication technology could help Africa overcome infrastructure inadequacies, satisfy rising consumer demand, boost regional trade and diversify economies, ending reliance on raw materials.

But the problem is affordability. In its 2013 report, the ITU said that, though Africa has one the highest mobile broadband growth rates, services cost between a fifth and half of average income compared to just two to five percent in other developing countries.

In South Africa, the strength of the tech sector reflects the country’s relative affluence. It has produced several billion-dollar companies, some of which have been snapped up by international tech giants.

In East Africa, Kenyan tech has also seen rapid growth. One highlight is mobile money transfer system M-Pesa, launched by the country ’s largest telecoms operator Safaricom.

M-Pesa has enabled 67 percent of Kenyan adults to access banking. Its transactions total about $1 billion per month. Revenue from Mpesa rose 20 percent to 12.50 Billion Kenyan shillings ($145.99 million) in the first half of 2013.

West Africa’s tech sector lags in terms of prominence and investment, experts say. It needs better and cheaper internet access and broader adoption of smartphones.

In Ghana, a booming regional economy, the number of mobile phone subscriptions roughly equals the population but only 3.5 percent of the population is online, according to Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications.

The scarcity and costliness of finance also impedes success. Banks in Ghana can charge up to 28 percent interest for a business loan.

Venture capital firms like Intel Capital, JPMorgan , Summit Partners and Rocket Internet have occasionally financed African ICT firms but business leaders said the sector needs much broader sources of finance.

In Silicon Valley, startups can receive up to $2 million from a range of funders including venture capital firms, ‘angel’ investors and private equity houses, according to Marcin Hejka, a regional managing director for Intel Capital.

Such a financial ecosystem does not yet exist in Africa, he says.

Ghana’s Rancard, which distributes Gmail SMS services on 55 mobile networks in Africa and beyond, received funding from Adlevo Capital and Intel Capital but its CEO recognises it was one of the lucky few.

“There are not enough early-stage tech ven-

LA schools slow rollout of iPads amid security concerns

BEIJING: Delivery men for an online shopping portal sort through goods at a distribution center in Beijing yesterday which is also dubbed “Singles Day” because unattached young people go on a gift giving binge to woo each other has evolved into China’s and possibly the world’s busiest online shopping day. — AP

LOS ANGELES: The Los Angeles school district is putting the brakes on a project to give an iPad to each student, a $1 billion initiative that is the largest rollout of its kind in the nation and has been plagued by students hacking the devices’ security features.

District officials have already provided their devices to over 25,000 students, and under their original plan would have finished distributing tablets to the last of its 650,000 students in late 2014.

Superintendent John Deasy has described the rollout as a civil rights initiative designed to give students in his district, mostly from low-income families, access to a 21st century tool common in middleclass households. Students are supposed to use it to take standardized tests, do homework, read curriculum, play learning games, capture video and more.

But they also want to use the devices for fun. In a high-profile setback, some 300 teenagers from three high schools found a way to bypass security protocols on their iPads earlier this year to access Twitter and other sites the district seeks to block.

Students have since been barred from taking the iPads home.

Following that and other concerns from school board members, Deasy has proposed delaying by a year, to late 2015, the completion of the iPad rollout.

One board member, Monica Ratliff, has questioned whether a laptop and not an iPad was a better tool for high school students, and has sought a school board vote in mid-2014 on whether to go forward with the plan. The board, at a meeting on Tuesday, is set to consider the idea of a mid-year vote.

The Los Angeles rollout would be the largest distribution of mobile computers to schoolchildren attempted in the United States, and its efforts have gained widespread attention as districts across the nation experiment with ways to equip students with such devices.

“It is certainly ambitious and I have to credit them for that,” said Richard Culatta, the US Department of Education’s director of the office of educational technology, adding that any such program was bound to experience “bumps along the road.”

Los Angeles schools are not alone in choosing the iPad or mobile computing devices. In a 2012 survey of over 364,000 US students by Project Tomorrow, more than 28 percent of pupils in grades 3 to 12 said they had access to a school-provided laptop. Some 18 percent of third through fifth graders said they were given a tablet, with lower rates for older students.

Some school districts, such as in Virginia and Nevada, encourage students to bring their own devices to school for educational use, Culatta said. The Los Angeles district, the second largest in the nation after New York, has struggled in recent years with declining enrollment and test scores that lag the California average. — Reuters

ture capital funds available for Africa,” Kofi Dadzie said. One reason for the lack of funding is the risks investors face, said Maurizio Caio, founder of UK venture capital firm TLcom Capital.

Few tech entrepreneurs in Africa have a long track record to attract investors, said Caio.

Crucially, there are hardly any examples of investors successfully exiting via an IPO or a sale, partly due to underdeveloped capital markets across the region.

One exception is Fundamo, a mobile financial services provider in Cape Town bought by Visa in 2011 for $110 million. Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria have companies that could be ready for investment, Caio said: “It’s earlier stage. It’s smaller stuff, which means riskier, which means even less capital for these guys and even more of a gamble.” Experts say it is too soon to tell if African tech will rival other emerging markets but a concerted effort is being made to build an infrastructure to facilitate expansion.

Kenya’s iHub started in 2010 with backing from Hivos, Google and Omidyar Network as a meeting place for entrepreneurs and investors. It has spawned around 50 companies.

Another East African example is the Savannah Fund which offers $25,000-$500,000 to startups in exchange for equity. In Ghana, the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology gives students one year of training by professionals from around the world who volunteer to teach software development and entrepreneurship. The best graduates get an extra year at a tech incubator in a house linked to the main campus by a rope bridge.

“The vision of the institution is to create jobs and wealth locally here in Africa,” said its CEO Jorn Lyseggen. When the right idea with the right backing meets a hungry market, a start-up can grow fast, as the experience of Nigerian online retailers Jumia shows.

Founded by two Nigerian Harvard Business School graduates, the business has benefited from Internet penetration in Nigeria of nearly 30 percent and a dearth of middle class retail outlets in the continent’s most populous nation.

Jumia is growing at 20 percent per month, orders have jumped from $50-$100 per day to millions of dollars per month and it plans to expand beyond Nigeria, said Sacha Poignonnec, Co-CEO of Africa Internet Holding, one of Jumia’s backer. “The same way the mobile companies came in to leapfrog landlines, the same way mobile banking in East Africa is leapfrogging traditional banking, we see e-commerce as a way to leapfrog traditional brick and mortar retail here,” said Tunde Kehinde, one of Jumia’s founders. — Reuters

Doing business via Skype WASHINGTON: Stories abound about business meetings gone awry via Skype, today’s virtual connection with 300 million registered users logging on to make free or low-cost voice and video calls.

Whether you Skype with someone in the same city or in Dubai, you need to be prepared and mindful to be viewed (and seen) as a professional.

You may think your colleague (attending to personal grooming issues) is off-camera, but in fact they’re not.

Especially, as more television outlets interview experts via Skype, it’s important to be prepared, when meeting face-to-face; virtually.

Here are a few handy tips to make the right Skype impression: 1. Perfect your profile: When you Skype with someone, your name, profile and profile picture make your first impression. Make sure your user name is appropriate, that the location is accurate for the business you’re conducting, and your image is professional.

2. Do a background check: If you’re using the video feature of Skype, check the background of your setting to ensure it projects a professional image.

If there are pictures, or even white boards, behind you with content you don’t want others to see, remove them or move locations. Similarly, avoid calling from places where background movement and activity may be distracting.

3. Dress the part: Just because its 11 p.m. in your time zone don’t dress like you’re headed for bed. Always dress appropriately for a video call.

Additionally, try to wear a shirt of contrasting color to your background to avoid looking like a “floating head.”

4.

Send a courtesy check: The best way to start a conversation is to send a quick message via Skype asking if the person is free and the appointed

time still works for them. Sending a simple, “Hello. Just wanted to make sure this is still a good time for our call” is a nice way to give someone time to prepare. If they don’t respond immediately, resist the temptation to bombard them with query messages. Either they’re there and ready, or they ’re not. Be patient and make the right (polite) impression.

5. Maintain eye contact: Once a video call is started, make sure you maintain eye contact with the webcam not the image on your screen. This can be tricky because the image of the person you’re speaking to is usually below the webcam but if you look at the person, rather than the webcam, you won’t be making “eye contact.”

6. Be aware of body language: Ideally your webcam will show your upper torso, as if you were sitting across a table from the other individual. Assuming that’s the case, it’s important to maintain good posture, avoid slouching, leaning from side to side, or fidgeting with a pencil or in anything else that may indicate you’re distracted.

7. Mind the volume: Depending upon the placement of the microphone on your computer, relatively unobtrusive sounds like tapping a pencil, typing on the keyboard, or even background conversations can be heard (sometimes quite loudly) on the other end. Try to keep noise distractions to a minimum. If your call requires taking notes, be sure to ask if your typing is distracting and, if so, take actions to minimize the impact. If ever in doubt about what’s appropriate, imagine you’re in an actual face-to-face meeting and conduct yourself with the same poise and professionalism. If you mind your Skype manners, you’ll be prepared to forge meaningful business relationships regardless of the distance. — Reuters

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Surprises in hunt for environmental links to breast cancer WASHINGTON: A decade-long research effort to uncover the environmental causes of breast cancer by studying both lab animals and a group of healthy US girls has turned up some surprises, scientists say.

At the center of the investigation are 1,200 school girls who do not have breast cancer, but who have already given scientists important new clues about the possible origins of the disease. Some risk factors are well understood, including early puberty, later age of childbearing, late onset of menopause, estrogen replacement therapy, drinking alcohol and exposure to radiation.

Advances have also been made in identifying risky gene mutations, but these cases make up a small minority.

“Most of breast cancer, particularly in younger women, does not come from family histories,” said Leslie Reinlib, a program director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“We have still got 80 percent that has got to be environmental,” said Reinlib, who is part of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program (BCERP) program that has received some $70 million in funds from the US government

since 2003.

Some of its researchers track what is happening in the human population, while others study how carcinogens, pollutants and diet affect the development of the mammar y glands and breast tumors in lab mice.

The program’s primary focus is on puberty because its early onset “is probably one of the best predictors of breast cancer in women,” Reinlib said. Puberty is a time of rapid growth of the breast tissue. Research on sur vivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombings in Japan has shown that those exposed in puberty had a higher likelihood of developing breast cancer in adulthood.

The 1,200 US girls enrolled in the study at sites in New York City, northern California and the greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area beginning in 2004, when they were between the ages of six and eight.

The aim was to measure the girls’ chemical exposures through blood and urine tests, and to learn how environmental exposures affected the onset of puberty and perhaps breast cancer risk later in life. Researchers quickly discovered that their effort to reach girls before puberty had not been entirely successful. “By age

eight, 40 percent were already in puberty,” said Reinlib. “That was a surprising bit of information.”

Further research has shown that the girls appear to be entering puberty six to eight months earlier than their peers did in the 1990s. A study published last week in the journal Pediatrics on this cohort of girls found that obesity was acting as a primary driver of earlier breast development.

Other studies on the girls have focused on chemicals that are known as endocrine disruptors because they are believed to cause either earlier or later breast development. Initial results showed “for the first time that phthalates, BPA, pesticides are in all the girls they looked at,” said Reinlib.

Researchers were taken aback by the pervasiveness of the exposures, but also by the data which appeared to show some plastic chemicals might not be as influential on breast development as some have feared.

“They didn’t find much of an association between puberty and phthalates, which are these chemicals that leach out of plastic bottles and Tupperware,” Reinlib said. Another major finding

regarded blood chemicals from two nearby groups in Ohio and Kentucky, both drinking water that was apparently contaminated by industrial waste.

Girls in northern Kentucky had blood levels of an industrial chemical-perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C-8) found in Teflon non-stick coating for pans-three times as high as those who drank water from the Ohio River near Cincinnati, where water was filtered with state-ofthe-art technology.

“Northern Kentucky did not have granular activated carbon filtration” in their water supply said researcher Susan Pinney, a professor at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine.

“In 2012 they put it in after they learned of our preliminar y results.”

Families were also notified of their daughters’ blood levels, she said. The chemicals can linger in the body for years. Researchers were dismayed to learn that the longer the girls spent breastfeeding as infants-typically touted for its health benefits-the higher their PFOA levels compared to girls who were fed formula.

What cannot be studied in the girls is tried on lab mice, who in one experi-

ment are being fed high-fat diets and exposed to a potent carcinogen to see how the two interact.

Mammar y tumors develop much faster in the high-fat diet group, said scientist Richard Schwartz of the department of microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University.

Fat mice have more blood supply in the mammary glands, higher inflammation levels and display changes in the immune system. Follow-up studies suggest that cancer risk stays high even if mice are fed high-fat diets in puberty and switched to low-fat diets in adulthood, he told AFP. “The damage is already done,” he said.

“Does this mean that humans are at risk the same way? We don’t know that with certainty.” But the findings do reinforce the advice that people often hear regarding how to maintain good healthavoid fatty foods, maintain a normal weight and reduce chemical exposures wherever possible, experts say.

“It can’t hurt, and it can only help,” said Schwartz. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women globally and took 508,000 lives in 2011, according to the World Health Organization. — AFP

Three astronauts return to Earth with Olympic torch

TACLOBAN CITY: New-born baby Bea Joy is held by relative Michelle Satur after her mother Emily Ortega, 21, gave birth in an improvised clinic at Tacloban airport yesterday in Tacloban city, Leyte province in central Philippines. Bea Joy was named after her grandmother Beatrice, who was missing following the onslaught of typhoon Haiyan. Ortega was in an evacuation center when the storm surge hit and flooded the city. She had to swim to survive before finding safety at the airport. — AP

‘Miracle’ baby born in Philippine typhoon rubble TACLOBAN: Emily Sagalis cried tears of joy after giving birth to a “miracle” girl in a typhoon-ravaged Philippine city, then named the baby after her mother who went missing in the storm. The girl was born yesterday in a destroyed airport compound that was turned into a makeshift medical centre, with her bed a piece of dirty plywood resting amid dirt, broken glass, twisted metal, nails and other debris.

“She is so beautiful. I will name her Bea Joy in honour of my mother, Beatriz,” Sagalis, 21, whispered shortly after giving birth. Sagalis said her mother was swept away when giant waves generated by Super Typhoon Haiyan surged into their home near Tacloban city, the capital of Leyte province which was one of the worsthit areas, and she has not been seen since.

More than 10,000 people are believed to have died in Leyte, and many hundreds on other islands across the central Philippines, which would make Haiyan the country’s worst recorded natural disaster.

But, in the most tragic of circumstances, Bea Joy restarted the cycle of life. “She is my miracle. I had thought I would die with her still inside me when high waves came and took us all away,” she said, as her tearyeyed husband, Jobert, clasped the baby and a volunteer held an IV drip above them.

The husband said the first wave that came carried their wooden home in the coastal town of San Jose many metres inland, washing all of the family outside. He said the entire community had been washed away, with the once picturesque area replaced by rubble and the bloated

remains of people and animals.

“We are supposed to be celebrating today, but we are also mourning our dead,” Jobert said. He said it was God’s will that he found his wife floating amongst the debris.

They were carried away for what felt like hours until the water subsided, and they found themselves sheltering in a school building where other mud-soaked and injured survivors had huddled.

The couple and their surviving neighbours subsisted there until yesterday morning only on bottles of water they found among the debris. Jobert said he knew that his wife was about to give birth any day, but no help or aid had come.

“She began labour at 5:00 am yesterday so we had to walk several kilometres before a truck driver hitched us a ride,” he said. The young military doctor who attended to her, Captain Victoriano Sambale, said the new mother had already broken her waters by the time the couple stepped inside the building, and then developed bleeding during the delivery.

“This is the first time we have delivered a baby here. The baby is fine and we have managed to stop the bleeding of the mother,” he said. However, he cautioned doctors were extremely concerned about potential infections that could easily be caught amid the unsterile conditions, with the medical team almost powerless now to help her.

“Definitely the mother is still in danger from infection and sepsis (septicemia). So we need to give her intravenous antibiotics. Unfortunately we ran out of even the oral antibiotics yesterday,” Sambale said.—AFP

Dar Al Shifa Hospital welcomes visit of Dr Moustafa Abu Zaid KUWAIT: Dar Al Shifa Hospital’s Dermatology and Andrology department recently welcomed Dr Moustafa Abu Zaid, Professor and Consultant of Dermatology, Andrology & Skin Care on his visit to the hospital from 26th October to 21st November 2013, as part of the hospital’s strategy to attain highly experienced and renowned doctors.

On this occasion, Dr Abu Zaid said, “It’s a pleasure to be able to contribute my experience to help patients in Kuwait improve their lifestyle towards the better, and to achieve excellent results in areas that I specialize in.

I am pleased that this visit to Dar Al Shifa Hospital is within the objectives of the hospital’s strategy which aims to align local talent with international best practices, and take advantage of the latest medical technology and modern equipment to provide outstanding medical services. “ It is worth mentioning that Dr Abu Zaid is an expert and specialist in the fields of dermatology, andrology, skin and hair. His specialization includes psoriasisvitiligo and disorders related to loss of skin pigmentation, chronic skin diseases, skin allergies and Urticarial, in addition to men’s infertili-

ty and impotence, various venereal diseases, as well as hair and scalp cosmetic diseases, botox, fillers and peeling skin injections.

Dr Moustafa Abu Zaid

MOSCOW: Three astronauts returned to Earth yesterday after a 166-day mission, bringing the Olympic torch back from the International Space Station after a historic space walk.

The trip completed the most ambitious leg of Russia’s unparallelled torch relay in the run-up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in February.

The Soyuz capsule carr ying Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, US NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and Italian colleague Luca Parmitano touched down on the frosty steppes of Kazakhstan at 0249 GMT. The torch, kept unlit throughout its space journey due to safety precautions on the space station and lack of oxygen in open space, was securely wrapped during the descent, and an employee of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos took it out of the packaging.

“Here’s the torch!” he said, presenting it to the cameras before handing it to veteran space traveller and Soyuz captain Yurchikhin, who sat smiling wrapped up in a blue blanket near the Soyuz.

Yurchikhin took off his gloves and posed for pictures with the 1.8kilogramme (four-pound) and nearly metre-long (three-foot-long) torch.

After a few minutes, Nyberg and Parmitano, who had completed his first space voyage, were also extricated from the craft, which had landed on its side-something that frequently happens due to the drag of the parachute.

The trio sat briefly in the sunshine surrounded by support staff as well as the flags of Russia and the Sochi Olympic Games before being carried to a heated medical tent to change out of their launch suits and undergo initial medical tests.

The capsule completed a “flawless descent” and touched down exactly on time in a “bulls-eye landing,” a NASA TV commentator said. “ The crew is feeling well,”

ZHEZAZGAN: International Space Station (ISS) crew member Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin holds the torch of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games after landing near the town of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan yesterday. Three astronauts returned to Earth yesterday, after 66 days aboard the International Space Station, bringing back the Olympic torch back to the planet after a historic space walk. — AFP Roscosmos said in a statement.

Dominated by the Olympic theme, the returning 37th expedition nevertheless carried out the usual scientific research and was not without drama-at one point Parmitano’s helmet started accumulating water on a space walk, cutting off all visibility and forcing him to return inside quickly.

A team of three Russians, two Americans, and a Japanese astronaut remain aboard the ISS which, before Monday’s return had been crammed with nine people, who hosted a rare conference from space last week.

Spectacular backdrop Russia sent the torch on its four-day space mission on Thursday and even covered the rocket in Olympic insignia.

The torch was “hung” in the Russian module after taking a tour of the space station.

Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky on Saturday took it for a space walk and photo op, posing spectacularly against the backdrop of the ISS and the Earth and completing a torch handover that was viewed live worldwide and shown on screens in New York’s Times Square.

The space-travelling torch will light the Olympic cauldron in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, marking the start of the Winter Games on February 7, authorities said.

The futuristic-looking torch has another connection to space-it was produced at the KrasMash factory in Siberia that makes the heavy Proton rockets Russia uses to haul satellites to orbit.

Russia has put together an impressive Olympic relay, sending the torch through all of its regions and as far as the North Pole on a

nuclear-powered icebreaker.

The relay, a no-expense-spared event that has seen many government officials, celebrities and Olympic champions participate, will also take the torch to the world’s deepest freshwater lake Baikal and Europe’s highest mountain peak Elbrus.

Following Sochi’s winning bid, promoted by President Vladimir Putin, Russia will host its first Olympic event since the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow, which were boycotted by a number of Western nations over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Although a space walk with a torch was unprecedented, other Olympic torches have travelled to space on US space shuttle voyages ahead of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta and the 2000 Games in Sydney. —AFP

Costs soar in US for twin, triplet births WASHINGTON: Mothers in the United States who give birth to twins or triplets face soaring medical costs compared to those who have single children, said a study yesterday.

The medical expenses can be five times as high for twins and up to 20 times as high for triplets and other multiple births, said the report in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The tally included all medical expenses for the mothers from 27 weeks before birth until 30 days afterward, combined with the medical costs of infant care for the first year. The total healthcare cost was around $21,000 per delivery with singletons, $105,000 with twins, and over $400,000 with triplets or more, said the study.

Researchers said their approach was the first to account for the comprehensive cost associated with multiple pregnancies by estimating all-cause medical expenses over the time period from early pregnancy to the children’s first birthdays.

For women who had single births, the majority of the overall costs were for maternal care (60 percent). For women with multiple births, the bulk of the expenses (70 percent for twins and 85 percent for multiples) went to caring for the infants, who were more likely to have health problems and to endure longer hospitalizations than the single children.

The higher costs also were attributable to more common use of cesarean section for delivery and maternal complications with multiple births. The research was based on nearly 440,000 births among US women aged 19-45 from 2005 to 2010.

A total of 97 percent (424,880) of births were singletons, 2.85 percent (12,482) were twins and 0.13 percent (562) were triplets or more. The study described multiple births as a major public health concern and called for strategies to reduce the risk in women undergoing in vitro fertilization by limiting the number of embryos implanted in the womb. — AFP

RAWALPINDI: A Pakistani child suffering from the mosquito-borne disease, dengue fever, lies in a bed, next to his mother, covered with a net at an isolation ward of a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, yesterday. Dengue, a flu-like illness is spread by the Aedes mosquito and spikes during the annual monsoons, when the rains leave puddles of stagnant water where the insects breed. — AP

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Non-surgical solution for weight loss by BSBC For the first time in the ME a breakthrough KUWAIT: Bader Sultan & Brothers Company (BSBC) recently hosted a seminar for the leading bariatric surgeons in Kuwait which shed the light on the latest innovative non invasive weight loss technology “OBALON”.

Well renowned Prof. Alfredo Genco Chairman of the Department of Surgical Science - Surgical Endoscopy Unit, Multidisciplinary Centre for the treatment of morbid obesity policlinico umberto /

Hospital -Sapienza University, Italy, conducted the seminar and discussed the advantages, safety and simplicity of OBALON, the noninvasive weight loss treatment which will be available in December.

Prof Genco highlighted how this novel non-surgical, fully-reversible device for weight loss will offer a new and different approach for people who have struggled with dieting in the past but haven’t succeed-

ed in losing weight. He also highlighted how this device works, what it consists of and how easy it is to insert and remove the Obalon after the desired weight is reached.

Prof Genco explained that Obalon balloon consists of a capsule containing a balloon that is swallowed and then inflated and as such it will occupy the upper space in the stomach to create a feeling of fullness to help people eat less. Additional balloons can be swallowed and inflated during the treatment period depending on the response of the patient. At the end of the treatment period, the balloons are removed through a short endoscopic procedure.

The entire procedure takes only 15 minutes with no sedation required.

Emad Al Zaban, General Manager Bader Sultan & Brothers Company (BSBC) said: “Obesity is a worldwide epidemic. Although bariatric surgery has demonstrated very good weight loss results, the surgeries are costly, irreversible and may be risky. We are happy to be the pioneer in introducing such a breakthrough technology to the Middle East. He further stressed how this revolutionary method, “Obalon balloon”, will offers an easy, discreet non-surgical weight loss solution which will definitely change the lives of many.

The seminar shed light on how obese patients struggle with losing weight and how with Obalon doctors will soon be able to offer patients an effective and safe non-surgical solution for weight loss which will for sure be the number one choice for physicians and patients as well.

‘Jamun’ beneficial for diabetics NEW DELHI: Jamun not only acts as a powerful antioxidant that helps to improve immunity but its most profound benefit lies in its being of special use in the treatment of diabetes.

The fruit is acidic and astringent in nature and has a sweet taste. Glucose and fructose are the major sugars found in the ripe fruit, it is also laden with minerals, and provides fewer calories, as compared to other fruits, Diabetic Living India reported.

Jamun is believed to be of special use in treatment of diabetes. In Unani and Ayurvedic systems, it is used for digestive disorders. The leaves, bark, and seeds are the most useful parts among which the seeds are popular for their anti diabetic properties.

In traditional Ayurvedic medicine Jambolan was used to help with thirst, diarrhea, and in healing of wounds. The key ingredient that shows anti-diabetic action is jamboline (a chemical) in the seeds.

Extracts of the bark, seeds and leaves have been found to cause a marked prolonged decrease in blood sugar and glycouria (sugar in urine).

Several studies have shown that jamun has hypoglycemic effects with up to 30

percent reduction in blood sugar. Seeds are rich in alkaloids which have the hypoglycemic effects.

Diabetic patients can consume jamun fruit daily to control their sugar levels, which certainly helps to enhance the insulin activity and sensitivity.

In addition, seeds powder can be taken as an adjuvant both for type-2 diabetes, insulin dependent or non-insulin dependent. The real benefit is at the stage of IFG (Impaired fasting glucose) which can be well-controlled with jamun, both with fruit as well as the seed powder. Regulation of IFG prevents the early onset of diabetes and further conditions.

Since it is a good source of vitamin A and C, so is very beneficial for eye and skin health. Jamun acts as a coolant and also possesses anti- diarrhoeal properties, so is beneficial for the digestive system.

It is also used in the treatment of sore throat and asthma in Ayurveda. Jamun leaves were used for healing pus-filled wounds in the ancient days, which suggests that it has anti-bacterial and healing properties too.

Being rich in antioxidants, it improves immunity and helps to prevent cancer.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

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ccountant Makram Awadhain celebrated his wedding with the daughter of Abdulnabi family at the Marshal El Gezirah Hotel on the Nile River in Mansourah, Egypt.

Paasha Pune Marriott

arriott International, Inc. yesterday said it has signed a letter of intent with Protea Hospitality Holdings of Cape Town, South Africa to acquire Protea Hotels’s brands and its management business that operates or franchises 116 hotels across three brands with 10,184 rooms in South Africa and six other Sub-Saharan African countries. The transaction would nearly double Marriott’s distribution in Africa to more than 23,000 rooms, and would also provide Marriott with a proven operational platform and leadership team to accelerate Marriott’s expansion plans and solidify its leadership position in the dynamic and growing African hotel market.

Protea Hotels, founded in 1984, manages, franchises and leases hotels across the Protea Hotels brand (104 hotels), comprising a full and diverse range of outstanding hotels and resorts; the award-winning lifestyle boutique Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! brand (2 hotels); and the superior deluxe African Pride Hotels collection (10 hotels). In addition to its industry-leading 80 hotels in South Africa, Protea Hotels has a significant presence in Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria,Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

As part of the transaction, Protea Hospitality Holdings would create a property ownership company to retain ownership of the hotels it currently owns (and enter into long-term management and lease agreements with Marriott for these hotels). It would also retain a number of minority interests in other Protea managed hotels. At closing Marriott would manage approximately 46 percent of the rooms, franchise approximately 40 percent of the rooms, and lease approximately 14 percent of the rooms.

Arne Sorenson, president and chief executive officer of Marriott International, said, “Africa has significant untapped potential for travel and tourism, both as a destination and source of new global travelers. The continent’s GDP is anticipated to grow at over five percent annually over the next several years which we expect will raise more people into the emerging middle class. With the Protea Hotels acquisition, our expanded

footprint should allow us to become the first choice of Africa’s rapidly growing population of young, sophisticated travelers, and drive loyalty to our Marriott Rewards program both within Africa and globally.

Protea Hotels enjoys unparalleled brand recognition in Africa, and our combined portfolio of Protea Hotels and current Marriott International brands would create a platform for accelerated growth and new job growth in South Africa and across the continent.”

Alex Kyriakidis, president of Marriott International for the Middle East and Africa, said, “The development cycle for opening new hotels in Africa is typically long due to the challenges posed by emerging infrastructure, so joining forces with Protea Hotels and their highly respected management team is the strongest way to jumpstart Marriott’s footprint in Africa. The Marriott Middle East and Africa management team can deliver value and greater growth for Protea’s hotel owners by leveraging these terrific brands, represented by 116 hotels and more than 10,000 rooms in seven countries, with Marriott’s global sales, marketing and development infrastructure. We believe this would also result in more job creation in South Africa and across the continent.”

Arthur Gillis, chief executive officer of Protea Hospitality Group, said “Protea Hotels has grown organically to become the largest and leading hotel group in Sub-Saharan Africa. Aligning with a global giant such as Marriott ensures we can realise the Group’s full potential for all of our stakeholders. In Marriott we have found a perfect fit across culture, values and commitment to industry leadership which will ensure that we remain at the forefront of African hospitality.”

The otherwise non-binding letter of intent includes provisions that the parties will negotiate exclusively with each other. The transaction is subject to completion of due diligence, negotiation and execution of definitive documents, receipt of customary third party and governmental consents and approvals and satisfaction of other customary conditions for transactions of

this kind that the parties expect will be included in the definitive transaction documents.

The proposed terms of the transaction are not being disclosed at this time. The parties stated that they plan to sign definitive agreements by year-end 2013 and the transaction could close in the first three months of 2014. In any event, Marriott does not expect the transaction would have a material impact on its 2014 results.

JW Marriott Bengaluru

KDNA to hold ‘Malabar Maholsavam’ no Nov 15

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elated birthday wishes to our loving daughter Pearl Angel D’Souza, who celebrated her fourth birthday on 11th Nov. May Almighty God bless you and keep you always in good health. Best wishes from your dad Greg, mom Bhumika, grandma Nicky TiPeisy & Vico, cousin Vernon, Marshal & family, Francis and family, best wishes from baby Florangel who is in Goa, Steven & family Skyra and Slayoon.

Alaa Selim in Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort

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l Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort welcomes Alaa Selim, the new Hotel manager.

Alaa holds a Master Degree in Business Administration in Marketing and has over 15 years of experience in Hospitality Industry.

Alaa has held various positions in top class hotels in Kuwait such as JW Marriott, Courtyard Marriott, and Palms Beach Hotel & Spa, Kuwait.

He says: “As the largest and only international chain hotel in northern Kuwait, this will present a wonderful new challenge.

I’m very much looking forward to working with the excellent team here to continue to provide our guests with the highest standards of service.

We wish Alaa Selim all the best of luck with his new team in Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort.

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

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ozhikode District NRI Association will hold a mega carnival ‘Malabar Maholsavam 2013’ on Friday, November 15 at “Mananchira Square,” the Indian Central School open auditorium, Abbassiya.

Addressing a press conference, the KDNA office-bearers informed that the day-long carnival will showcase the rich cultural heritage of Kozhikode and display some of Malabar’s diverse and distinct cuisines before the expatriate community in Kuwait. The purpose of conducting Malabar Mahotsavam 2013 is to strengthen the relief and to continue charity activities of the association for the poor and needy who are striving very hard for their

livelihood.

Popular Malayalam Writer, Actor and Director Joy Mathew will attend the event as the chief guest.

“Mazhavil Manorama” Comedy Festival Team “Calicut V4U” and Karirali TV Patturumal Winner Dilna Hassan also attend to entertain the audience. Other cultural program by Nandhananm School of Dance, Heat Beats Kuwait, Jungle Boys Kuwait, Abhinaya Kuwait, KKMA and by KDNA Members will make the show an unforgettable event. Cooking competition and ‘Henna Designing” contest for exclusively for ladies will be other attractions of the event, “Mananchira Square” the carnival venue will be bubbly from 9.30 am on wards with people moving

around food courts that display the rich diversity of Malabar’s delicacies and dishes, exhibition halls that showcase paintings and photographs of Malabar.

As a finale to the entire show, the KDNA office-bearers will lead a colorful procession with the accompaniment of a dazzling pageant and ‘chenda melam’ at 4 pm. Association President Zubair MM, General Secretary Suresh Mathur, Treasurer Sathian Varoonda, Advisory Board Member Krishnan Kadalundi, Program Gen Convenor Nasar Thikkodi, Convener Ilyas Thottathil and Organizing Secretary K Alikoya were present at the press meet.

Gokulolsavam 2013 successful

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eva Darshan’s children’s wing Bala Darshan Kuwait successfully held its annual competition, Gokulolsavam 2013, on November 5 at the Indian Community School, Khaitan. Over 350 children from the four units of Bala Darshan Kuwait competed in 13 different variety competitions. The day-long competitions, held on seven stages simultaneously, showcased the knowledge the children have gained from the weekly classes.

The inaugural function was anchored by Anitha Jayan. The convener of the event, Prabhakaran M welcomed the children and their par-

ents. Gangadhar Shirsath, Principal of Indian Community School Khaitan, inaugurated the event. The Founder member and Advisory board member of PART (Progressive Art Realization Troop Kuwait), Shri. Sasi Krishna gave the felicitation speech on behalf of his organization. Event joint convener Roopesh gave the vote of thanks. As part of the ongoing yearlong celebration of Swami Vivekananda’s 150 birth anniversary, Seva Darshan has been holding various programs in Kuwait.

At the venue of Gokulolsavam, its professional forum Vichar Bharati in association with PART held an open canvas exhi-

bition on Swami Vivekananda. The exhibition was inaugurated by Sr Tresa, the state president of Kerala Handicapped Welfare Association and prominent social worker. Prominent artists from Kuwait like Sunil Pookode, Sasi Krishnan, Basheer Kavasheri, Prince, Jacob, Arunkumar were joined by the budding artist from Bala Darshan Kuwait and their parents to create a 45 meter log canvas. The event was highly appreciated by the attendees. The organizers have announced that the awards will be presented to the winners and the participants at a function which will be shortly announced.

Soorya India Fest on Nov 15

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n association with UAE Exchange, Soorya Kuwait Chapter shall be staging ‘Soorya India Festival 2013’, on the evening of Friday, November 15, 2013, at the Indian Community School (Sr.) Auditorium, Salmiya at 7 pm.

This time, Soorya shall be presenting two dancing couples with two oldest dance forms of India - a Bharatanatyam by Anuradha and Sridhar and an Odissi

by Arupa Lahri and Bijan Kumar Palai. Recipients of several accolades for their performances, the dancing duets have individuated themselves by a passion for perfection, vibrant nritta and sophisticated senses of Abhinayam.

“The recitals by Anuradha and Sridhar, one of India’s top duet exponents of Bharatanatyam and Arupa Lahri and Bijan Kumar Palai, one of the leading duet Odissi dancers of the country, will enthrall the art lovers of Kuwait”, according to officials.

As usual, the entry for the show will be restricted with invitations. For more details, please contact at sooryachpater@gmail.com Soorya India, led by versatile mastermind Soorya Krishnamurthy, is present in 19 countries. It has been propagating the art of India’s outside the country for the last 14 years with active support of its chief patron Dr BR Shetty, Managing Director, NMC group of companies.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

W H AT ’ S O N

International Women Committee celebrates Egyptian Day

The Egyptian Ambassador’s spouse, Badriya Abu Bakr, the Military Attache’s spouse, Muna, and Cultural Office President Muna Rabie’a with the performers on stage. — Photos by Joseph Shagra

T The Egyptian Ambassador’s spouse, Badriya Abu Bakr delivers a speech.

he International Women Committee organized an ‘Egyptian Day ’ ceremony on Sunday at the Radisson Blu Hotel - Hashemi Ballroom. Egyptian Ambassador’s spouse, Ms. Badriya Abu Bakr, the Military AttachÈ’s spouse, Ms Muna, Cultural Office President Muna Rabie’a and embassy staff, members, guests and diplomats wives attended the event.

Here below is the speech by Egyptian ambassador’s wife, Badriya Abu Bakr Thank you all for coming today to share this special morning with me. I’ve been looking forward to this for a month. A lot of effort was put into all these performances to be able to deliver this idea well and I would like to thank each person who shared their time, effort, talents and ideas.

It is a pleasure to share a part of me today, that part is not small in its greatness or it’s meaning to me.

Sometimes referred to by some as “El Mahrousa” which literally means “the guarded one”, or Om El Donia, mother of the world, or Hebet El Neel, gift of the Nile River. To me it is simply, “the precious’. As all of you consider this part to be precious to you as well. I think it is very obvious what I mean by the precious, it is my beloved country, it is Egypt.

Today, I will not talk about its history or details that you have read. Today, I will show you things that you don’t get to see in a book. For those of you who have had the chance to visit Egypt, you might have seen or had an idea that the attire is a mostly uniform “gallebya”,

but the truth is that different regions around Egypt have different personalities shown through the ‘gallabeya”.

Today I will take you on a magic carpet ride. We will fly briefly by the different parts of Egypt to see how the “gallabeya” is different from one place to another. ..........After all what we saw, don’t you agree that Egypt is “my precious”? So, pray with me for Egypt May God bless...Egypt.

(From left) South African Ambassador’s spouse Siegel, Claire Daniel, Farah Aai, Yasmine Shuhaibar, Ibtisam Al-Haj, Palestinian Ambassador’s spouse Rima Al-Khaldi, and Narjis Al-Shatti.

Badriya Abu Bakr, the Military Attache’s spouse Muna, Cultural Office President Muna Rabie’a and embassy staff.

(From left) Libyan Ambassador’s spouse Riman, Jordanian Ambassador’s spouse Khawlah, Badriya Abu Bakr, Narjis Al-Shatti and Christine Khuraibet.

Vera Al-Mutawa, Zahra Al-Hasawi, and Christine from the American Embassy.

Azerbaijani Ambassador’s spouse Sevigne, Turkish Ambassador’s spouse Anna, Narjis Al-Shatti and two members of the Russian embassy.

Claire Daniel, Badriya Abu Baker, Palestinian Ambassador’s spouse Rima Al-Khaldi, Yasime Shuhaibar and Rafi Khan.

Indonesian Ambassador’s spouse Eva, Afi Khan, Yasmine Shuhaibar, Azerbaijani Ambassador’s spouse Sevigne and Christine Khuraibet.

Al-Tanoura (an Egyption popuar dance)

The ‘Pharaohs’ Dance (Khuloud, Menna, Sarah and Salma)

The ‘Women Farmer’ Dance (Hala, Asma, Nouf and Remonda)

The ‘Nouba’ Dance (Habiba, Aliya, Lama and Abrar)

The ‘Saieedi’ Dance (Nouf and Bassant)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

TV PROGRAMS

03:25 Lion Man: One World African Safari 03:50 Lion Man: One World African Safari 04:15 Too Cute!

05:05 America’s Cutest Pets 05:55 Animal Cops Houston 06:45 ER Vets 07:10 ER Vets 07:35 Call Of The Wildman 08:00 Monkey Life 08:25 The Magic Of The Big Blue 09:15 The Most Extreme 10:10 Breed All About It 10:35 Breed All About It 11:05 Lion Man: One World African Safari 11:35 Lion Man: One World African Safari 12:00 Animal Cops Houston 12:55 Monkey Life 13:20 Call Of The Wildman 13:50 Saving A Species: Gorillas On The Brink 14:45 Snow Leopards Of Leafy London 15:15 Snow Leopards Of Leafy London 15:40 Lion Man: One World African Safari 16:05 Lion Man: One World African Safari 16:30 My Cat From Hell 17:30 The Most Extreme 18:25 Bad Dog 19:20 Great Animal Escapes 19:50 Great Animal Escapes 20:15 Too Cute!

21:10 Too Cute!

22:05 Shamwari: A Wild Life 22:35 Shamwari: A Wild Life 23:00 Bondi Vet 23:55 ER Vets 00:25 ER Vets 00:50 Animal Cops Houston 01:45 Mermaids: The New Evidence 02:35 Untamed & Uncut

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

The Weakest Link My Family Me Too! The Green Balloon Club Jollywobbles Tweenies Me Too! The Green Balloon Club Jollywobbles Tweenies My Family Little Britain The World’s Toughest Driving

03:25 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 04:10 The Boss Is Coming To Dinner 04:35 Cash In The Attic 05:20 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 05:45 Bargain Hunt 06:30 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 07:15 Chef At Home 07:35 The Boss Is Coming To Dinner 08:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 08:45 Bargain Hunt 09:30 Marbella Mansions 10:20 Bill’s Kitchen: Notting Hill 10:50 Come Dine With Me: South Africa 11:45 Come Dine With Me 12:35 Celebrity MasterChef 13:30 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 14:15 Antiques Roadshow 15:05 Holmes On Homes 16:00 Holmes On Homes 16:55 Cash In The Attic 17:40 Bargain Hunt 18:25 Antiques Roadshow 19:15 Homes Under The Hammer 20:10 The Little Paris Kitchen 20:35 A Taste Of Greenland 21:30 Come Dine With Me 22:20 Antiques Roadshow 23:15 Bargain Hunt 00:00 Cash In The Attic 00:45 Homes Under The Hammer 01:40 Come Dine With Me 02:30 Celebrity MasterChef

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

BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World BBC World

Eastenders Doctors Outcasts The Weakest Link My Family The World’s Toughest Driving Little Britain Eastenders Doctors The Weakest Link Outcasts The World’s Toughest Driving Eastenders Doctors The Weakest Link Last Of The Summer Wine Beautiful People Walter’s War Rev. Dinnerladies Mistresses Dead Boss The Weakest Link Last Of The Summer Wine Outcasts Eastenders Doctors Beautiful People Dead Boss

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

Mythbusters Border Security Storage Hunters Dirty Money How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Sons Of Guns Mythbusters Flying Wild Alaska Overhaulin’ Border Security Storage Hunters Dirty Money How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Diamond Divers Bush Pilots Jungle Gold Border Security Storage Hunters Dirty Money Alaska: The Last Frontier Overhaulin’ Ultimate Survival Dirty Jobs Mythbusters

19:30 20:20 20:45 21:10 21:35 22:00 Grylls 22:50 23:40 00:30 Grylls 01:20 02:10

Sons Of Guns Storage Hunters Dirty Money How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Get Out Alive With Bear

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

Disappeared Deadly Sins Killer Kids Dr G: Medical Examiner Ghost Lab Nightmare Next Door Deadly Sins Nightmare Next Door I Was Murdered Stalked: Someone’s Watching On The Case With Paula Zahn Extreme Forensics Dr G: Medical Examiner I Almost Got Away With It Deadly Sins Nightmare Next Door On The Case With Paula Zahn I Was Murdered Stalked: Someone’s Watching Couples Who Kill Extreme Forensics Dr G: Medical Examiner On The Case With Paula Zahn On The Case With Paula Zahn I Almost Got Away With It Deadly Sins True CSI Deadly Women Killer Kids Couples Who Kill Ghost Lab

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

Mighty Planes Junk Men Junk Men Through The Wormhole The Gadget Show The Tech Show Mega World Building The Future Nextworld Gadget Show - World Tour The Tech Show James May’s Man Lab Mega World Junk Men Junk Men Through The Wormhole Mighty Planes Weird Connections The Gadget Show The Tech Show Mighty Ships James May’s Man Lab Mega World Junk Men Junk Men Moon Machines Rocket City Rednecks Rocket City Rednecks Junkyard Wars The Gadget Show The Tech Show Rocket City Rednecks Rocket City Rednecks Stuck With Hackett Stuck With Hackett Dark Matters: Twisted But

Dual Survival (Brazil) Car vs Wild Get Out Alive With Bear Dual Survival (Brazil) Car vs Wild

Weird Connections The Gadget Show The Tech Show Rocket City Rednecks

05:45 The Aviators 06:15 Danger Hunters 07:05 Timewatch 08:00 I Shouldn’t Be Alive 08:50 The Aviators 09:15 The Aviators 09:45 Trashopolis 10:35 Crime Scene Wild 11:30 The Real Inglorious Bastards 12:20 Timewatch 13:10 The Aviators 13:35 The Aviators 14:05 World’s Busiest 14:55 Chernobyl: Life In The Dead Zone 15:50 Altered Statesmen 16:45 World’s Toughest Expeditions With...

17:40 Timewatch 18:35 I Escaped Death 19:25 Richard III: The Unseen Story 20:20 World’s Busiest 21:10 The Aviators 21:35 The Aviators 22:05 World’s Toughest Expeditions With...

23:00 Richard III: The Unseen Story 23:55 The Fight 00:50 Most Evil 01:45 World’s Toughest Expeditions With...

02:35 Richard III: The Unseen Story

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

The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody Sonny With A Chance Sonny With A Chance Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Austin And Ally Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm A.N.T. Farm Jessie Good Luck Charlie Sofia The First Doc McStuffins Mickey Mouse Clubhouse A.N.T. Farm A.N.T. Farm Jessie Jessie Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Shake It Up Shake It Up Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm That’s So Raven Dog With A Blog Good Luck Charlie The Adventures Of Disney That’s So Raven Gravity Falls Jessie Violetta Dog With A Blog Austin And Ally Gravity Falls Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie A.N.T. Farm Violetta Jessie My Babysitter’s A Vampire Good Luck Charlie Gravity Falls Shake It Up Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody Sonny With A Chance Sonny With A Chance Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place

03:30 The Fight 04:25 I Shouldn’t Be Alive 05:20 The Aviators

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE- GHOST PROTOCOL ON OSN MOVIES ACTION

03:00 Little Einsteins 03:25 Special Agent Oso 03:40 Special Agent Oso 03:50 Imagination Movers 04:20 Handy Manny 04:35 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 04:40 Special Agent Oso 04:50 Special Agent Oso 05:00 Timmy Time 05:10 Imagination Movers 05:35 Little Einsteins 06:00 Jungle Junction 06:15 Jungle Junction 06:30 Little Einsteins 06:50 Special Agent Oso 07:00 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Jungle Junction 07:30 Jungle Junction 07:45 Handy Manny 08:00 Special Agent Oso 08:15 Jungle Junction 08:30 Higglytown Heroes 08:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:10 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 09:35 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 09:50 Doc McStuffins 10:05 Doc McStuffins 10:20 Zou 10:35 Henry Hugglemonster 10:45 Mouk 11:00 Sofia The First 11:25 Zou 11:40 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 11:55 The Hive 12:05 Doc McStuffins 12:20 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 12:45 Mouk 13:00 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 13:05 Higglytown Heroes 13:20 The Hive 13:30 Doc McStuffins 13:45 Doc McStuffins 14:00 Zou 14:15 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 14:30 Henry Hugglemonster 14:45 Henry Hugglemonster 14:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 15:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 15:45 Higglytown Heroes 15:55 The Hive 16:05 Doc McStuffins 16:20 Zou

12:45 The Presence 14:30 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 17:00 Covert One: The Hades Factor 20:00 Bait 22:00 Three Kings 00:00 Imago Mortis 01:45 Bait

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

Mad Buddies Falling Star Today’s Special Lying To Be Perfect Mad Buddies A Thousand Words Lying To Be Perfect The Animal High School Tucker And Dale vs Evil Stakeout High School

04:00 06:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 18:45 21:00 23:00 01:00 02:45

The Wishing Well Neverland Will The Lucky One Hide Away Five Another Harvest Moon Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 360 Another Happy Day Another Harvest Moon Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:15 13:15 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:15 01:30

The Door In The Floor Something Borrowed Happythankyoumoreplease Incendies Dolphin Tale Stealing Bess Mystery, Alaska Dolphin Tale When Love Is Not Enough Amour J. Edgar Summer Of Sam

05:15 07:15 09:00 10:45 13:30 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:15 01:00

Pop Star Madea’s Big Happy Family Hotel Transylvania Les Miserables Chimpanzee Now Is Good Hotel Transylvania Premium Rush Flight Taken 2 Phil Spector

HIGH SCHOOL ON OSN MOVIES COMEDY 16:35 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 16:50 Mouk 17:05 Art Attack 17:30 Goof Troop 17:55 Tarzan 18:20 Quack Pack 18:45 Mouk 19:00 Zou 19:10 The Hive 19:20 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 19:35 Sofia The First 20:00 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 20:05 Pajanimals 20:25 Doc McStuffins 20:40 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 20:45 Zou 21:00 Pajanimals 21:15 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 21:30 Goof Troop 21:55 Tarzan 22:20 Quack Pack 22:45 Lilo And Stitch 23:10 Sofia The First 23:35 Doc McStuffins 23:50 Pajanimals 00:05 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 00:10 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 00:35 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 00:50 Zou 01:10 Doc McStuffins 01:25 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 01:50 Jungle Junction 02:10 Handy Manny 02:25 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 02:30 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:55 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship

03:15 Style Star 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 E!ES 05:05 E!ES 06:00 THS 07:50 Style Star 08:20 E! News 09:15 Scouted 10:15 Married To Jonas 10:40 Chasing The Saturdays 11:10 The Wanted Life 12:05 E! News 13:05 Extreme Close-Up 13:35 THS 14:30 Style Star 15:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 16:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 17:00 What Would Ryan Lochte Do? 17:30 What Would Ryan Lochte Do? 18:00 Hello Ross 18:30 Married To Jonas 19:00 E!ES 20:00 Eric And Jessie: Game On 20:30 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:30 The Wanted Life 22:30 Fashion Police 23:30 Chelsea Lately 00:00 Chelsea Lately 00:30 The Spin Crowd 00:55 The Spin Crowd 01:25 E!ES 02:20 E! Investigates

07:00 07:25 07:50 08:15 08:40 09:05 09:30 09:55 10:20 10:45 11:10

Max Steel Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Crash & Bernstein Kickin It Ultimate Spider-Man Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Lab Rats Lab Rats Pokemon Bw: Adventures In

Unova 11:35 Max Steel 12:00 Zeke & Luther 12:25 Zeke & Luther 12:50 Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja 13:15 Scaredy Squirrel 13:40 Pair Of Kings 14:05 Pair Of Kings 14:30 Phineas And Ferb 14:55 Phineas And Ferb 15:05 Phineas And Ferb 15:20 Pokemon Bw: Adventures In Unova 15:45 Kickin’ It 16:10 Kickin’ It 16:35 Crash & Bernstein 17:00 Lab Rats 17:30 Kickin It 18:00 Kickin It 18:25 Phineas And Ferb 18:35 Phineas And Ferb 18:50 Phineas And Ferb 19:00 Phineas And Ferb 19:15 Slugterra 19:40 Crash & Bernstein 20:05 Ultimate Spider-Man 20:30 Marvel Avengers Assemble 20:55 Hulk And The Agents Of S.M.A.S.H. 21:20 Hulk And The Agents Of S.M.A.S.H. 21:45 Phineas And Ferb 22:10 Phineas And Ferb 22:35 Lab Rats 23:00 Kickin It 23:30 Scaredy Squirrel 00:00 Programmes Start At 7:00am KSA

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

03:00 03:30 04:00 04:30 Leno 05:30 06:00 06:30 07:00 08:00

Siba’s Table Andy Bates American Street Andy Bates American Street Food Wars Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives United Tastes Of America Chopped Iron Chef America Food Network Challenge Unwrapped Food Crafters United Tastes Of America Extra Virgin Barefoot Contessa Food Network Star Reza, Spice Prince Of India Aarti Party Unwrapped Unique Sweets Food Network Challenge Tyler’s Ultimate Barefoot Contessa Siba’s Table Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Symon’s Suppers Chopped Barefoot Contessa Roadtrip With G. Garvin Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Guy’s Big Bite Reza, Spice Prince Of India Siba’s Table Charly’s Cake Angels Chopped Iron Chef America Reza, Spice Prince Of India Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Heat Seekers Meat & Potatoes Outrageous Food Reza, Spice Prince Of India

08:30 The War At Home 09:00 How I Met Your Mother 09:30 Two And A Half Men 10:00 Modern Family 10:30 Friends 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 All Of Us 12:30 Seinfeld 13:00 The War At Home 13:30 Friends 14:00 Go On 14:30 Two And A Half Men 15:00 Modern Family 15:30 The Daily Show Global Edition 16:00 The Colbert Report Global Edition 16:30 All Of Us 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 How I Met Your Mother 18:30 Melissa & Joey 19:00 The Crazy Ones 19:30 Arrested Development 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Weeds 22:30 Brickleberry 23:00 Family Guy 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Weeds 02:00 Brickleberry 02:30 Family Guy

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

Treme Revenge Once Upon A Time Touch Drop Dead Diva Royal Pains Revenge Once Upon A Time The Blacklist Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Royal Pains Touch Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Royal Pains Once Upon A Time Grey’s Anatomy Homeland Hemlock Grove Treme Touch Homeland Hemlock Grove

04:00 How I Spent My Summer Vacation 06:00 True Justice: Violence Of Action 08:00 Tombstone 10:30 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 13:00 Burden Of Evil 14:45 The Presence 16:30 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 19:00 Covert One: The Hades Factor 22:00 Bait 00:00 Three Kings 02:00 Imago Mortis

How I Met Your Mother Go On Seinfeld The Tonight Show With Jay The War At Home All Of Us Friends Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Seinfeld

04:00 True Justice: Violence Of Action 06:00 Tombstone 08:30 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 11:00 Burden Of Evil

04:30 The Adventures Of Scooter The Penguin 06:00 Rh+ The Vampire Of Seville 08:00 Toyz Goin’ Wild 09:45 Gabe The Cupid Dog 11:30 Elf 13:15 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 15:00 Kim The River Of Peace 16:30 MIA And The Migoo 18:00 Gabe The Cupid Dog 20:00 Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax 22:00 Kim The River Of Peace 23:30 MIA And The Migoo 01:00 Toyz Goin’ Wild 02:45 Kim The River Of Peace

03:00 International Rugby Union 05:00 International Rugby Union 07:00 Rugby League World Cup 09:00 PGA Tour Highlights 10:00 PGA European Tour Highlights 11:00 Trans World Sport 12:00 International Rugby Union 14:00 Darts Grand Slam 18:00 Rugby League World Cup 20:00 Futbol Mundial 20:30 ICC Cricket 360 21:00 PGA European Tour Highlights 22:00 Live Darts Grand Slam 02:00 Futbol Mundial 02:30 ICC Cricket 360

05:00 UFC - Primetime 05:30 PGA European Tour Highlights 06:30 This Week In WWE 07:00 Darts Grand Slam 11:00 Rugby League World Cup 13:00 PGA Tour Highlights 14:00 PGA European Tour Highlights 15:00 International Rugby Union 17:00 NHL 19:00 WWE Bottom Line 20:00 NFL 22:30 PGA Tour Highlights 23:30 Trans World Sport 00:30 WWE NXT 01:30 International Rugby Union

03:00 03:30 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:30 10:30 12:30 13:00 15:00 15:30 16:30 17:30 18:30 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:00 23:00 01:00

ICC Cricket 360 Top 14 Highlights World Cup Of Pool World Cup Of Pool Golfing World Golfing World ICC Cricket 360 World Pool Masters World Pool Masters International Rugby Union Futbol Mundial Rugby League World Cup ICC Cricket 360 Trans World Sport World Pool Masters World Pool Masters International Rugby Union Top 14 Highlights ICC Cricket 360 Futbol Mundial Golfing World Rugby League World Cup International Rugby Union

Classifieds TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

FOR SALE

Kuwait

KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (07/11/2013 TO 13/11/2013)

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:45 AM

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

1:15 PM 3:30 PM 5:15 PM 8:15 PM 11:15 PM 1:00 AM

SHARQIA-2 THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

FANAR-4 THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

SHARQIA-3 DJINN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) DJINN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

SHARQIA-1 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

MUHALAB-1 DJINN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) DJINN (DIG) MUHALAB-2 ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) MUHALAB-3 THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D)

12:30 PM 2:15 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:30 PM 7:30 PM 9:30 PM

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

FANAR-1 KALBY DALILI (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

FANAR-2 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:30 PM 6:30 PM 9:15 PM 12:05 AM

FANAR-5 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 GRAVITY GRAVITY GRAVITY GRAVITY NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

MARINA-1 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG)

1:45 PM 3:45 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:05 AM

MARINA-2 DJINN (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) DJINN (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG)

12:30 PM 2:15 PM 4:30 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 1:00 AM

MARINA-3 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED AVENUES-1 GRAVITY (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) AVENUES-2 KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) QALB AL ASAD (DIG) (ARABIC)

2:00 PM 4:45 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:45 PM 8:30 PM 11:15 PM

1:30 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM

KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG)

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

AVENUES-3 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG)

2:15 PM 4:45 PM 7:15 PM 9:45 PM 12:15 AM

AL-KOUT.4 ENDER’S GAME (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) ENDER’S GAME (DIG)

1:15 PM 3:30 PM 5:30 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 11:45 PM

BAIRAQ-1 THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:15 PM 6:45 PM 9:15 PM 11:45 PM

360º- 1 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:45 PM 3:30 PM 6:15 PM 9:00 PM 11:45 PM

360º- 2 ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

BAIRAQ-2 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG) 12:45 PM CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (DIG) 3:00 PM DJINN (DIG) 5:00 PM KALBY DALILI (DIG) 7:00 PM DJINN (DIG) 9:00 PM KALBY DALILI (DIG) 11:00 PM DJINN (DIG) 1:00 AM NO SUN+TUE+WED

360º- 3 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG)

2:00 PM 4:45 PM 7:30 PM 10:15 PM

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

360º- 4 KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG)

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:30 PM 11:45 PM

AL-KOUT.1 THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG-3D)

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

AL-KOUT.2 ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (DIG) DJINN (DIG) DJINN (DIG) ESCAPE PLAN (DIG) DJINN (DIG)

12:45 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:45 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

AL-KOUT.3 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG)

12:45 PM 3:45 PM 6:30 PM 9:15 PM 12:05 AM

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

PLAZA CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) KALBY DALILI (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG)

5:30 PM 8:15 PM 10:15 PM

LAILA THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DIG) THOR: THE DARK WORLD (DIG)

5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:30 PM

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

6:30 PM 9:30 PM

AJIAL.2 KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) 6:00 PM ALL IN ALL AZHAGU RAJA (DIG) (TAMIL) 9:00 PM AJIAL.3 KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI) KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI)

6:45 PM 9:45 PM

AJIAL.4 PANDIANADU (DIG) (TAMIL) PANDIANADU (DIG) (TAMIL)

7:00 PM 10:15 PM

METRO-1 AARAMBAM (DIG) (TAMIL) AARAMBAM (DIG) (TAMIL)

7:00 PM 10:00 PM

METRO-2 PANDIANADU (DIG) (TAMIL) KRRISH 3 (DIG) (HINDI)

6:30 PM 9:45 PM

2003 model, single owned, good condition, white Pathfinder is for sale.

Interested, you may please do contact 66988269.

(C 4565) 12-11-2013 Nissan Pathfinder 2003 model, in good condition, white. Serious buyer may contact 97277135 Mitsubishi space Wagon, 2004 model, dual A/C, 145000 km, 7 seater, maroon metallic color car in excellent condition for urgent sale within a week, at KD 1400 o.n.o. Contact: 99775373. (C 4562) GMC Acadia 2012 Panorama, seats leather, excellent condition, low mileage 10000 km, DVD/CD/AUX. Contact: 67669382. (C 4563) Volkswagen EOS 2008, only 47,000 km, sports convertible, excellent condition, expat owned. Contact: 97743826. (C 4560) Ford Expedition 2011, 43,000 km, perfect condition, expat owned, asking KD 6,500 on best offer.

Contact: 97743826. (C 4561) 10-11-2013 CHANGE OF NAME I, Amira holder of Indian Passport No. Z2519936, issued at Kuwait on June 02, 2013, permanent resident of Clover Village, Rosehill Terrace No. 7, Pune 40, MS and presently residing in Kuwait do hereby change my name from Amira to Amira Sayed, with immediate effect. (C 4566) 12-11-2013 I, Bommry (sur name), Manjunathan, (given name), S/o Bommini Raghava Reddy, date of birth: 24.07.1980, residing

at No. 31, Nemilli, Nemili village & Post, Thiruvalluvar District, Pincode-631201, holder of Indian Passport No. J0365702, shall hencefore be known as Bommini (sur name), Manjunathan, (given name) Bommry (sur name), Manjunathan, (given name). (C 4564) 11-11-2013

112

Prayer timings Fajr:

04:47

Shorook

06:09

Duhr:

11:32

Asr:

14:33

Maghrib:

16:55

Isha:

18:14

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

Airlines BBC JAI KLM THY JZR JZR QTR DLH ETH GFA THY PIA UAE ETD OMA MSR RJA QTR FDB THY DHX JZR FDB BAW KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD FDB IRA GFA MEA TMA UAE MSR SYR FDB DHX JZR JZR

Arrival Flights on Tuesday 12/11/2013 Flt Route 43 DHAKA 574 MUMBAI 411 AMSTERDAM 772 ISTANBUL 539 CAIRO 267 BEIRUT 1084 DOHA 637 DAMMAM 620 ADDIS ABABA 211 BAHRAIN 764 SABIHA 239 SIALKOT 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI-INTL 643 MUSCAT 612 CAIRO 642 AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA 1076 DOHA 67 DUBAI 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 503 LUXOR 69 DUBAI 157 LONDON 412 MANILA 416 JAKARTA 206 ISLAMABAD 53 DUBAI 302 MUMBAI 362 COLOMBO 284 DHAKA 352 COCHIN 332 TRIVANDRUM 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 1070 DOHA 301 ABU DHABI-INTL 55 DUBAI 619 LAR 213 BAHRAIN 404 BEIRUT 213 BEIRUT 871 DUBAI 610 CAIRO 341 LATAKIA 57 DUBAI 870 BAHRAIN 165 DUBAI 561 SOHAG

Time 00:05 00:10 00:30 00:45 00:40 00:40 00:55 01:10 01:45 02:10 02:15 02:20 02:35 02:45 03:05 03:10 03:15 03:45 04:20 05:35 05:40 05:50 05:50 06:40 06:45 06:25 07:40 07:50 07:55 08:45 08:50 08:10 08:15 08:40 09:00 09:10 09:20 09:40 10:05 10:40 11:55 12:10 12:50 13:00 13:40 13:50 11:15 11:30 12:55

KAC QTR KAC KAC SVA JZR QTR UAE KAC ETD RJA SVA ABY GFA KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR UAL QTR FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC GFA OMA FDB MSR JAI AXB ABY IRA DLH ETH ALK MEA ETD UAE GFA QTR FDB KLM JAI JZR AIC UAL JZR

514 1078 672 546 500 325 1072 857 562 303 640 510 127 215 678 786 542 742 177 982 1080 63 166 618 674 774 104 217 647 61 618 572 393 129 605 634 3718 229 402 307 859 219 1074 59 415 576 239 981 981 185

TEHRAN DOHA DUBAI ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH NAJAF DOHA DUBAI AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA ABU DHABI-INTL AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA RIYADH SHARJAH BAHRAIN MUSCAT JEDDAH CAIRO DAMMAM DUBAI WASHINGTON DC DULLES DOHA DUBAI PARIS DOHA DUBAI RIYADH LONDON BAHRAIN MUSCAT DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MUMBAI KOZHIKODE SHARJAH ISFAHAN FRANKFURT LIEGE COLOMBO BEIRUT ABU DHABI-INTL DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA DUBAI AMSTERDAM COCHIN AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA CHENNAI BAHRAIN DUBAI

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

Airlines AIC TAR AXB JAI KLM BBC DLH ETH THY PIA UAE ETD OMA MSR QTR FDB QTR JZR FDB JZR THY RJA GFA KAC THY FDB BAW KAC KAC ABY KAC UAE ETD QTR FDB IRA GFA KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR MEA KAC DHX TMA JZR MSR UAE

Departure Flights on Tuesday 12/11/2013 Flt Route Time 976 GOA 00:05 327 DUBAI 00:15 490 MANGALORE 00:15 573 MUMBAI 01:10 411 AMSTERDAM 01:45 44 DHAKA 01:45 637 FRANKFURT 02:10 621 ADDIS ABABA 02:45 773 ISTANBUL-ATATURK 02:55 240 SIALKOT 03:20 854 DUBAI 03:50 306 ABU DHABI 04:00 644 MUSCAT 04:05 613 CAIRO 04:10 1085 DOHA 04:15 68 DUBAI 05:00 1077 DOHA 05:15 560 SOHAG 06:20 70 DUBAI 06:30 164 DUBAI 06:55 765 ISTANBUL-SABIHA 07:05 643 AMMAN 07:05 212 BAHRAIN 07:15 545 ALEXANDRIA 07:15 771 ISTANBUL-ATATURK 07:30 54 DUBAI 08:30 156 LONDON 08:45 513 TEHRAN 09:25 671 DUBAI 09:30 126 SHARJAH 09:40 101 LONDON 09:50 856 DUBAI 09:55 302 ABU DHABI 10:05 1071 DOHA 10:10 56 DUBAI 10:20 618 LAR 10:55 214 BAHRAIN 11:25 561 AMMAN 11:25 541 CAIRO 11:30 165 ROME 11:50 677 MUSCAT 12:20 324 AL NAJAF 12:40 405 BEIRUT 12:55 785 JEDDAH 13:00 521 BAGRAM 13:00 223 AL MAKTOUM INTERNATIONAL 13:45 176 DUBAI 13:45 611 CAIRO 14:00 872 DUBAI 14:15

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

FDB SYR QTR KAC KAC KAC SVA KAC JZR ETD QTR UAE JZR RJA ABY SVA GFA JZR JZR UAL FDB QTR GFA KAC FDB OMA KAC ABY MSR JAI KAC AXB IRA KAC DHX ALK MEA ETD GFA KAC FDB UAE KAC KAC JZR ETH KLM JAI QTR JZR KAC

58 342 1079 673 741 617 501 773 238 304 1073 858 538 641 128 511 216 184 266 982 64 1081 218 283 62 648 361 120 607 571 351 3942 604 343 171 230 403 308 220 301 60 860 381 205 554 3718 415 575 1075 528 411

DUBAI LATAKIA DOHA DUBAI DAMMAM DOHA JEDDAH RIYADH AMMAN ABU DHABI DOHA DUBAI CAIRO AMMAN SHARJAH RIYADH BAHRAIN DUBAI BEIRUT BAHRAIN DUBAI DOHA BAHRAIN DHAKA DUBAI MUSCAT COLOMBO SHARJAH LUXOR MUMBAI KOCHI KOZHIKODE ISFAHAN CHENNAI BAHRAIN COLOMBO BEIRUT ABU DHABI BAHRAIN MUMBAI DUBAI DUBAI DELHI ISLAMABAD ALEXANDRIA ADDIS ABABA DAMMAM ABU DHABI DOHA ASYUT BANGKOK

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

34

stars CROSSWORD 366

STAR TRACK Aries (March 21-April 19) Being practical and conscientious is of special importance today. Sorting things out and getting them organized efficiently keeps you busy. You may adopt a more unconventional appearance or manner of communicating and expressing yourself to others. You have a most remarkable insight and you are a clever inventor.

Others sense your concern over their welfare and you may not be able to escape the positive admiration that comes your way because of your need to make people or things work well together. Someone may take you to lunch or do a favor without expecting reciprocation. Others appreciate your kindness. Your friendships, partnerships and other relationships mean a lot. They are a primary sources of strength and support.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Ambition and the desire for status can get a little out of touch with reality.

Stay focused—attend to the normal duties and then you will see where you can be of benefit and move forward. Business opportunities that include conferences and lectures may open new possibilities. Circumstances can throw you into positions where you must use your mind and deal with communications, service or enclosed hidden interests. You may deal with education, psychology, spiritual enlightenment or the teaching of principles and techniques. This afternoon a friend may interest you in a competition sport that is good for your mind as well as your body. You may enjoy setting up a regular schedule for this activity. Learn ways to increase your energy level.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

ACROSS 1. A health resort near a spring or at the seaside.

4. Of or relating to the life and times of kings Charles I or Charles II of England.

12. An arrangement of objects or people side by side in a line.

15. Airtight sealed metal container for food or drink or paint etc..

16. Acting according to certain accepted standards.

17. The compass point midway between east and southeast.

18. A legal document codifying the result of deliberations of a committee or society or legislative body.

19. United States parliamentary authority and author (in 1876) of Robert's Rules of Order (18371923).

20. A genus of Platalea.

22. Any of numerous composite plants having flower heads with well-developed ray flowers usually arranged in a single whorl.

24. Beside one another in a row or rank.

25. Nocturnal badger-like carnivore of wooded regions of Africa and southern Asia.

26. German chemist who was co-discoverer with Lise Meitner of nuclear fission (1879-1968).

28. A card recording an employee's starting and quitting times each work day.

30. Unusually great in size or amount or degree or especially extent or scope.

33. A public promotion of some product or service.

34. Formally making a person known to another or to the public.

35. Unwind from or as if from a reel.

37. A Mid-Atlantic state.

38. Greenish-yellow pear.

42. North American evergreen with small pinkish bell-shaped flowers and oblong leaves used formerly for shinplasters.

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

47. East Indian tree whose leaves are used for fodder.

50. An ugly evil-looking old woman.

51. Give qualities or abilities to.

53. Proceeding from or ordered by or subject to a pope or the papacy regarded as the successor of the Apostles.

55. A doctor's degree in religion.

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

59. Half the width of an em.

60. A United Nations agency created by a multinational treaty to promote trade by the reduction of tariffs and import quotas.

63. 100 satangs equal 1 baht.

67. A mixer incorporating a coil of wires.

70. A tax on various goods brought into a town.

71. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

73. The 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.

74. Having or using only one filament.

77. The most common computer memory which can be used by programs to perform necessary tasks while the computer is on.

78. (of champagne) Moderately dry.

79. Music composed for dancing the saraband.

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

DOWN 1. Any of a number of fishes of the family Carangidae.

2. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

3. (prefix) Opposite or opposing or neutralizing.

4. Genus of large deciduous nut-bearing trees.

5. A dark-skinned member of a race of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived.

6. A ribbon used as a decoration.

7. A European river.

8. An antibiotic (a semisynthetic oral penicillin (trade names Amoxil and Larotid and Polymox and Trimox and Augmentin)) used to treat bacterial infections.

9. Tie or link together.

10. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

11. (comparative of `near') Being the one of two that is less distant in space.

12. A long noosed rope used to catch animals.

13. Flexible twig of a willow tree.

14. (Brit) An area of open or forested country.

21. German mathematician (1804-1851).

23. The visual property of something that shines with reflected light.

27. Exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health.

29. A unit of weight equivalent to 1000 kilograms.

31. Remove the hand from.

32. A student who studies excessively.

36. A river in central Europe that arises in northwestern Czechoslovakia and flows northward through Germany to empty into the North Sea. 39. A law passed by US Congress to prevent employees from being injured or contracting diseases in the course of their employment.

40. Building material used as siding or roofing.

41. An athlete who plays basketball.

43. Made of wood of the aspen tree n.

44. A legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge).

45. A Russian prison camp for political prisoners.

48. A cut of pork ribs with much of the meat trimmed off.

49. A guided missile fired from shipboard against an airborne target.

52. Remove a bar from (a door, for example).

54. A blind god.

56. The provincial capital and largest city of Saskatchewan.

58. Of or relating to Attica or its inhabitants or to the dialect spoken in Athens in classical times.

61. A grant made by a law court.

62. A crown-like jewelled headdress worn by women on formal occasions.

64. A dull persistent (usually moderately intense) pain.

65. (British) Common sense.

66. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

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

69. God of love and erotic desire.

72. An adult male person (as opposed to a woman).

75. A heavy brittle metallic element of the platinum group.

76. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

You are practical as you deal and work with others and you may also be able to help others see the practical side of issues. You know just what to do and can act quickly and accurately. You have wonderful creative ideas and when you are feeling brave you will do well to put your idea on paper, date it and unveil the item for all to see when the time is right. Your career could open up by taking up different methods than the usual—new approaches. You may be especially dynamic and assertive just now. There is a lot of energy available for whatever needs to be accomplished. Penetrating analysis, particularly with a group in relation to work or community projects, may be in order soon.

You evaluate some group choices this evening.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) After a little too much breakfast, you might decide to park further away from your office this morning. The power of organization on a social scale— business, political and such—seems to come to your attention today. It is as if ambition and authority are answers in themselves, rather than only a means to an ideal objective.

This can lead to duplicity and confusion; proceed with care. Your intuitive powers are strong and can be used successfully as you choose methods and make important decisions. This afternoon you may enjoy a visit to the library to check out a special book or movie that you have been waiting so long to absorb. This evening, marriage contracts and partnerships are seen as keys to success and happiness and they are rewarding.

Leo (July 23-August 22) If you go that extra mile, no one can block your way. Your potential for success is enormous and this is a lucky day as well. With all of this emotional energy, you could speak or communicate very well. You have a strong mental drive. Perhaps through teaching or guiding you will find yourself helping someone younger than you. You can demonstrate great understanding and sensitivity to the needs of a friend or stranger. You are in a good position to communicate or guide others. This afternoon your friends may include you in some group activity. It is certainly a good time to be with your friends. This evening there is a kind of romantic wistfulness. This could mean a longing for a soul mate or a yearning to save the world.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You bring out your dream journals and try to figure out your latest dream.

A dream about your financial situation helps you to clarify some emotional issues that have been plaguing you lately. We sometimes tend to see our self-worth in terms of our net worth. You are at your most practical when it comes to dealing and working with others. You know just what to do in difficult or puzzling situations and you can act without letting emotions get in the way. You feel successful and able to solve problems—quick answers, great wit and a surplus of insights and solutions are at the ready. Good advice from a guide or older person may help you to see that you will soon be able to make your financial dreams come true. A visitor gives you compliments.

Word Search

Libra (September 23-October 22) Keep those positive thoughts coming—you are learning how to transform the negative. This is a great day to work with others. Round-table discussions or conferences with higher-ups may be in order all day. Financial understanding and a practical turn of mind are qualities that take on greater importance. You have a wheelerdealer attitude with a knack for knowing how to put people, ideas and things together profitably. Playing the role of a catalyst can be rewarding. If there is not a permanent love relationship, you may find one developing this afternoon. If there is a permanent relationship, you will find the feelings between the two of you have deepened. A sense of support and harmony on the home front make this a happy time.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You try to right a wrong today and feel better for having made the effort. A business contact wants to build a friendship with you and as you get to know more about each other, you discover you have many things in common drawing you together. You are in a good position to communicate concerning groups and society in general. This is a perfect time to be assertive and to move forward with your career decisions. You have all the drive and energy you could want, and it should be easy to channel it. The path is open and clear. Don’t be afraid to let others, especially your loved ones, know that you need a little attention. Your accomplishments are your self-image, rather than your personality. Get out-of-doors today, rain or no rain.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) This morning you may find yourself unusually motivated or driven in new and unexpected directions. You could receive unexpected backing and, in general, your efforts are successful. There may also be an opportunity to teach one or more new employees, or to be available for answering questions they may have. New and unexpected emotions may surface. It may have occurred to you that a little extra income would be nice for the upcoming holiday season. An opportunity to tutor is available and you consider the work as it is temporary. A loved one may want a gift that you cannot afford; however, with a part time job, you can get that perfect gift if you want. It is easy for you to find the proper path to help you make dreams real.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You know exactly what you are doing, but it may take longer than you think to accomplish your tasks—a lot of interruptions prevail, most of the day. You have a quick wit and may have to resort to using that wit just so the tension is eased somewhat. Expect a sense of support and goodwill from those around you. This is a time of much energy and drive, perfect for wading through the interruptions that come your way.

Exercise is a necessity today and if the weather is acceptable get outside and walk. Your mind runs to humanitarian values and thoughts of what could and should be improved upon. Ideas connected with group work and goals making your inner vision real are natural. Community work just may naturally be in the forecast.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) An easy, calm day should find everything running smoothly. Ideas and interaction with authority figures or older people may be in the forecast.

Working with—rather than against—the flow should be easy for you to do, but perhaps not for someone older than you. Lightning fast when it comes to the business deal, you seem to have direct insight into what is worthwhile as well as worthless in a situation. You will find a way to cut through the red tape and get at what is important. Be patient when working with the senior members of your firm; you will want them to see the worth of your presentation and that will take thorough, clear and patient communication. You work through all that is superficial, no matter what kind of sacrifice.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) This workday flows along without too many problems. Your evaluation of matters as well as the decisions you make today will be clear and focused.

There could be a slowdown in transportation, but confirmation of schedules should help assuage this situation. There is much communication with friends and family this afternoon. Someone is getting married or having a baby. Plans could be in the works for a party. With a love of authority figures, plus an appreciation for authority and your elders in general, you are welcome at most any social scene. You may find yourself involved in a golf game, tennis or other similar sport activity this afternoon. Not only do you enjoy all sorts of sports—you enjoy the chatter with friends.

Yesterday’s Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

i n f o r m at i o n For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128 GOVERNORATE Sabah Hospital

24812000

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

Hawally

Al-Madeena

22418714

Al-Shuhada

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Faiha

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Kaizen center

25716707

Rawda

22517733

Adaliya

22517144

Al-Jahra

25610011

Khaldiya

24848075

Al-Salmiya

25616368

Kaifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salem

22549134

Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Qadsiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Gar

22531908

Shaab

22518752

Qibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Qibla

22451082

Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Omariya

24719048

N Khaitan

24710044

Fintas

23900322

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Khaled Hamadi

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist

25665898 25340300

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

25655535

Dentists

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

22618787

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

22666300 25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

Neurologists

22639939

Dr. Mousa Khadada

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

3729596/3729581

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Kaizen center 25716707

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888 Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

22666288

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

Dr Anil Thomas

Dr. Salem soso

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

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 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

36

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LIFESTYLE F e a t u r e s

Comics lovers will be drawn to Ohio museum

Juli Slemmons holds a “Calvin and Hobbes” comic by cartoonist Bill Watterson at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

T

here is a place where Snoopy frolics carefree with the scandalous Yellow Kid, where Pogo the possum philosophizes alongside Calvin and Hobbes. It’s a place where Beetle Bailey loafs with Garfield the cat, while Krazy Kat takes another brick to the noggin, and brooding heroes battle dark forces on the pages of fat graphic novels. That doesn’t even begin to describe everything that’s going on behind the walls of the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on the Ohio State University campus, opening to the public Saturday.

“This is the stuff that makes me drool,” says Jim Borgman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist who now draws the “Zits” newspaper comic strip. “I enjoy art of all kinds, but it’s as if cartoons were segregated for many years and not allowed into such hallowed halls. And this is kind of a moment of setting things right, I think, giving cartooning its due when it has been in the wings all these years.”

Jeremy, the kid from “Zits”? He’s in there, too, since Cincinnati native Borgman donated most of his art and papers to the museum. The whole thing started with Milton Caniff, the influential comic artist whose beloved “Terry and the Pirates” and “Steve Canyon” adventure strips lived in the nation’s funny papers for a half-century.

Caniff graduated from Ohio State and loved the place so much that he wanted his original art and other papers to be kept here forever. He handed it all over to the university in 1977. Along with library curator Lucy Shelton, Caswell then began urging his cartoonist friends to do the same. Two classrooms in the journalism building soon began to fill with the new comics archive.

“Prior to that, most universities ignored that type of popular culture,”

F

File photo shows a comic called “Hogan’s Alley” by Richard F Outcault from Oct 18, 1896 in Jeremy Stone frames a Billy Ireland comic strip from Dec 11, 1921 called “The Columbus, Ohio.—AP Passing Show” at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. photos

says current curator Jenny Robb, noting that for many years original comic strips were just thrown out with the trash and animation celluloid sheets — known as “cels” — were routinely wiped clean and reused.

Today, the museum collection includes more than 300,000 original strips from everybody who’s anybody in the newspaper comics world, plus 45,000 books, 29,000 comic books and 2,400 boxes of manuscript material, fan mail and other personal papers from artists. The university says it’s the largest collection of cartoon art and artifacts in the world.

The museum has originals from everyone from Richard Outcault — whose “Yellow Kid” in a 19th century comic strip spawned the term “yellow journalism” — to Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”), classic “Pogo” story lines from Walt Kelly, Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury,” Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy,” early “Blondie” strips from Chic Young and the entire collection of Jeff Smith, an Ohio State graduate who created the hugely popular “Bone” series of comic books.

It’s all been moved to a new 30,000-square-foot home in a high-profile corridor of the sprawling Columbus campus, into a space renamed for Ireland, the former editorial cartoonist for The Columbus Dispatch who was one of the pioneers of the art form. His family donated a big chunk of money for the project.

The new place has also got what’s been missing at the museum’s two previous campus locations: a large gallery space for permanent and rotating exhibitions of comics and cartoon art that will finally give it the air of a proper museum. Brian Walker, who collaborates on the “Beetle Bailey” and “Hi and Lois” newspaper strips created in the 1950s by his 90-year-old father, Mort, is putting together one of the first exhibits.

Early pieces by graffiti artist Banksy added to Los Angeles auction

our early works of elusive British artist Banksy will go on sale at an auction in December, joining the artist’s “Flower Girl” piece, Julien’s Auctions said yesterday. The four graffiti works include “Happy Choppers,” a 2002 mural that first appeared on a wall at the Whitecross Street Market in London and features a stenciled group of military helicopters, one adorned with a pink bow. The piece is estimated to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000, and will join the sale of “Flower Girl,” a stencil work that first appeared on a Los Angeles gas station wall. It is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $300,000.

Beverly Hills-based Julien’s Auctions said the auction marked the first time that Banksy’s public street art had gone on sale in the United States. The works were all put up for sale by private owners whose identities remain confidential. The consignors to decide whether Banksy receives any part of the proceeds, Julien’s said. Also included in the sale are two other works from Banksy’s 2003-2004 tour in Germany, which were discovered on walls in Berlin. “TV Girl” features a stencil of a girl holding a television set with an orange heart on the screen, while “Umbrella Rat” depicts a rat dressed in a bowler hat and tie, parachuting with an umbrella.

“TV Girl” is expected to fetch between $80,000 and $120,000 while “Umbrella Rat” is estimated between $40,000 and $60,000. The final piece to be added to the collection is a 2003 work called “Black Bobby,” from Banksy’s tour in Sydney, Australia.

It features a silhouette of a British policeman writing a ticket and is valued between $20,000 and $30,000.

Other works in the “Street Art” collection include canvases and paper

Photo shows the cover of the New York Journal from Oct 18, 1896 in Columbus, Ohio.

pieces by artists Risk, Indie 184 and MearOne. Banksy is the pseudonym of a graffiti artist who first emerged in Bristol, England, as part of an underground group. He hides his identity and real name, and his works have become collectors’ items, prized for their trademark spraypaint stencils and offering social commentary. The auction follows a month-long “street residency” by Banksy in New York through October, during which he placed murals, sculptures and artwork around the city.

One stunt included selling original canvas artwork for $60 at a street-side stall, with buyers having no idea they were purchasing Banksy originals.

He also dropped off a painting at a Housing Works thrift shop, which funds charities for AIDS and the homeless, snubbing the art world. The thrift shop auctioned the painting, which fetched more than $600,000.

As Banksy’s street work often appears on private property, it has brought up questions of ownership.

This year, two of his murals were pulled from a Miami auction when questions arose about the ownership of one and how it had been obtained.

The work, “Slave Labour,” eventually sold at a private auction in London for $1.1 million in June, a sign of growing demand, and prices, for a Banksy original. The artist also appeared in the 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” with his face obscured and voice altered.—Reuters

“I told my father, this is what we’ve all be working for for 30 years,” says Brian Walker, who has written or contributed to three dozen books on the history of comics. “It’s kind of like the ultimate dream that we hoped would happen someday, where all this great artwork is being kept safely and archived and made accessible to the public.”

It’s partly because of the Walkers that the museum is what it is today.

They held thousands of original comics and artifacts donated to the Mort Walker-founded International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Fla. When the museum ran into financial trouble during the recession, the Walkers were persuaded in 2008 to donate the entire collection, which included 200,000 original strips, to Ohio State.

About a decade before, the museum got the entire collection of the defunct San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, which included 2.5 million clipped newspaper comic strips and Sunday color comics. Robb says she’s especially proud of the collection of original strips and other papers donated by Bill Watterson, the famously reclusive creator of the “Calvin and Hobbes” strip.

“We think this will be a destination for comics fans from around the country and around the world,” Robb says. “We hope that Ohio State is synonymous with cartoons in the way it is synonymous with football.” The grand opening of the museum is timed to the Festival of Cartoon Art, which every three years brings artists and other to the university to talk about the craft.—AP

Germany plans to step up research into ‘Nazi art trove’ heirs T

he German government said yesterday it plans to speed up research into the rightful ownership of recently unearthed artworks looted by the Nazis, amid mounting calls for a full online list. Federal and regional authorities involved in shedding light on the vast trove of artworks, including masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse, held talks on Friday, the government’s spokesman said. Representatives from the culture and finance ministries and the southern state of Bavaria agreed they “want to advance considerably faster the research into the origins of the artworks from this collection”, Steffen Seibert told reporters.

“We want that works with an unclear history of acquisition... in consideration of the legal aspects of the ongoing investigation process, are immediately published,” he said. “We will announce further details on the procedure this week.” The head of the World Jewish Congress yesterday added his voice to calls for an inventory of the artworks to be published on the Internet.

Ronald S Lauder told Die Welt daily that time was of the essence with possible heirs now elderly and that “injustice” would continue as long as clarity was lacking. “The German government must show these pictures,” he told the newspaper. “Valuable time has been wasted.

Neither the possible claimants nor possible witnesses in the return process are getting any younger,” Lauder said. “Injustice will not be removed but continued so long as there is no clarity created about the owners.”

And he warned that if nothing happened “we will raise the pressure”.

Despite international calls, German prosecutors have refused to publish a full inventory of the works, citing a need for more time to fully catalogue them and for discretion in their probe. They have launched an investigation on charges of tax evasion and misappropriation of assets against Cornelius Gurlitt, in whose Munich apartment the more than 1,400 works including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste —AFP

A painting believed to be by Henri Matisse is seen on a computer screen during a news conference on November 5, 2013 in Augsburg, southern Germany.—AFP photos A reproduction of a painting by German artist Otto Dix is seen during a press conference in Augsburg.

China’s richest man smeared over Picasso painting

C

hina’s richest man is under fire after his company spent $28 million on a painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, with people questioning the extravagant purchase and his patriotism. Tycoon Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group bought the 1950 painting “Claude and Paloma”, depicting Picasso’s two youngest children, at auction last week for more than double the high estimate of $12 million. “With that money, how many sick people could receive treatment? Why not give something back to society first?” said one person posting on China’s hugely popular microblogs, adding: “China’s nouveau riche are short of nothing except conscience.”

The manager of Wanda Group’s corporate art collection defended the purchase, the Global Times newspaper reported yesterday. “Only an enterprise with culture can understand art and collect the best artwork in the world,” Guo Qingxiang was quoted as saying. “Chinese people should be proud rather than focus on how much

money was spent.”

Wang, whose personal wealth is estimated

by Forbes magazine at $14 billion, has recently sought to make a splash in cultural circles.

Last year he bought US cinema chain AMC Entertainment, while in September he hosted a Hollywood star-studded gala to announce a planned entertainment complex in China. But others questioned why the firm bought a Western painting, saying Wang should spend more on Chinese works.

Some Chinese companies and individuals have sought to buy up Chinese art and antiques overseas to repatriate them, and one microblog user asked: “Why not purchase Chinese paintings?

What happened to passing on our own heritage?”

Another added: “You can buy back China’s lost treasures first if you have so much money to burn.”—AFP

37

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

LIFESTYLE M u s i c

&

M o v i e s

Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’, the real passions of virtual love

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US actress Rooney Mara , director Spike Jonze, US actress Scarlett Johansson, and US actor Joaquin Phoenix poses for a photograph as they arrive for the premiere of the film “Her” during the 8th Rome International Film Festival yesterday in Rome.—AFP

S director Spike Jonze’s latest flick “Her”, in competition at Rome’s film festival this week, is a witty, poignant tale of love between a man and a disembodied voice which explores the staggering potential of technology but also its limits. The film, which had its European premiere at the festival on Sunday, sees lonely, Los-Angeles-based Theodore—played by Joaquin Phoenix of “Gladiator” and “Walk the Line” fame— get a new operating system on his phone which answers daily questions and promises to be his ideal virtual companion.

Decked out in hipster tweed and velvet outfits, Theodore is quickly smitten by the seductive voice of Samantha—played by Scarlett Johansson (“Lost in Translation” and “Match Point”) -- who sensually wishes him good morning and goodnight and tells him he has new mail. With no past or history, she wants to “learn everything”, while he discovers she brings colour back into his life with “the way you look at the world.”

Set in the near future, in a world where voice recognition is common currency and people talk constantly into their earpieces, technology offers to fill in a void left by a broken marriage, but cannot bridge the ultimate gap—physical affection.

Theodore’s job as a professional writer of love letters for others falls gradually by the wayside as he takes his new flame on walks in the countryside or to the mall and opens up his soul to the clever, increasingly empathetic voice.

After a night of tender passion, she asks him “can I watch you sleep?” to which he replies “I’ll dream of you.” As Samantha becomes seemingly ever more human, Theodore’s infatuation risks getting out of hand, but the film shies away from offering a moral reading of the post-modern relationship which saw Phoenix and Johansson perform a love story without meeting on set.

The unusual, hotly-anticipated romantic drama was well received by critics in Italy’s Eternal City.

“Technology cannot be the best way to express feelings but if it’s the only way, it’s better than nothing,” Jonze told a press conference in Rome. The Academy Award winner for “Being John Malkovich” described how he had chosen to focus more on romance than on technology. “Each shot is based on their lives as a couple. We all want to be loved for what we are but, at the same time, we are afraid.

Each time we fall in love it’s a risk we take,” he said.

“In the film we tried to look at some of the needs, fears and expectations we have in relationships.

Samantha is programmed to evolve and once she is launched there is no limit as to what she can do or become,” he added.—AFP

Marvel-ous ‘Thor’ hammers India's Shyam Benegal won' t give box office rivals up director's chair

George Clooney arrives at the 2013 BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday in Beverly Hills.—AP

George Clooney Actor Chris Hemsworth arrives at the premiere of Marvel’s ‘Thor: The Dark World’ at the El Capitan Theatre.—AFP

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arvel superhero Thor hammered his rivals at the North American box office this weekend, estimated figures showed Sunday.

“Thor: The Dark World,” the latest blockbuster based on Marvel’s iconic comic book character, took a hefty $86.1 million in its opening weekend, figures from Exhibitor Relations showed.

Starring Australian heartthrob Chris Hemsworth as the hammer-wielding son of Odin, the movie is a follow-up to the franchise’s 2011 money-spinning first installment, “Thor.”

Although the opening was far less lucrative than other recent superhero movies in the “Iron Man” or “Dark Knight” franchises, analysts say it benefited from the phenomenal success of 2012’s $1.5 billion hit “The Avengers,” which saw Thor join forces with other characters. “The Avengers was viewed and liked by such a wide audience that its characters’ subsequent solo outings receive a boost in sales,” said analyst Ray Subers on the Box Office Mojo site.

Trailing a distant second was screwball Jackass comedy “Bad Grandpa,” which took $11.3 million in its third week. Animated comedy “Free Birds” was third with $11.2 million, while “Last Vegas,” starring Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline on a senior’s bachelor party to Sin City, was fourth with $11.1

million. Last week’s top-spot debutant, the science fiction blockbuster “Ender’s Game” meanwhile tumbled to fifth.

The film, adapted from Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel and starring Harrison Ford, took $10.3 million. “Gravity”—with Oscar-winners Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts adrift in space after a devastating accident— was in sixth place with $8.4 million.

The critically acclaimed slavery drama “12 Years a Slave,” regarded as an early contender for Oscars glory, was in seventh with $6.6 million.

Paul Greengrass’s “Captain Phillips,” a thriller starring Tom Hanks as a cargo ship captain captured by Somali pirates, earned $5.8 million. The film is based on the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama. British romantic comedy “About Time,” starring Domhnall Gleeson as a love-struck time-traveler, was in ninth place with $5.2 million.

Animated sequel “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” rounded out the top 10 with $2.8 million.—AFP

on Philippine typhoon: ‘ Terrible’

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he mounting death toll in the Philippines weighed heavily on the minds of George Clooney and Idris Elba, honored at the Britannia Awards Saturday night in Los Angeles. Clooney said he was following the news about Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines Friday. As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone from one of the worst storms ever recorded.

“It’s a terrible disaster,” said Clooney on the red carpet. The “Gravity” actor said he believes celebrities will rally in support of those affected by the typhoon, as they did for earthquake-ravaged Haiti and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. “We did the Golden Globes a week before we did the Haiti telethon and we were able to sort of rally some troops around and we’ll see what goes on from here and see what we’re able to do. It’s just happened a day ago so we’re figuring it out,” Clooney said.

The Academy Award winner added that while there is no way to know if global warming was responsible for the typhoon, denying the existence of climate change is “ridiculous.” “Well it’s just a stupid argument,” Clooney told reporters. “If you have 99 percent of doctors who tell you ‘you are sick’ and 1 percent that says ‘you’re fine,’ you probably want to hang out with, check it up with the 99. You know what I mean? The idea that we ignore that we are in some way involved in climate change is ridiculous. What’s the worst thing that happens? We clean up the earth a little bit?”

Fellow honoree Elba echoed Clooney, calling on the “world community” to “pitch in” and “help as much as we can.” “I’m so, so upset about what’s happened there. I mean it’s such a tragic tragedy,” Elba said. “My thoughts to all the people and people who have lost their homes and all the deaths.”—AP

John Lennon’s detention sheets to be auctioned

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ohn Lennon apparently wasn’t an advocate of peace and love in high school. A pair of the late Beatle’s detention sheets show him being punished for “fighting in class,” “shoving” and being a general nuisance. The sheets from Quarry Bank High School for Boys in Liverpool are to be sold online

by TracksAuction.com later this month.

One of the sheets says Lennon showed “just no interest whatsoever” in school. The company said yesterday that the detention sheets date from 1955 and 1956. Despite his poor school record, Lennon went on to co-write some of the most memorable pop songs in music history.—AP

In this image taken on Wednesday Nov 6, 2013 an employee of the auctioneers TracksAuction.com holds a pair of detention sheets which reveal the school day misdemeanors of a 15-year-old John Lennon, when he attended Quarry Bank High School for Boys at a hotel in Liverpool England.—AP

Indian movie director, producer and screenplay writer Shyam Benegal poses prior to be awarded by the Arts and Letters Order (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), at the Guimet museum in Paris.—AFP

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here’s not much the veteran Indian director Shyam Benegal doesn’t know about filmmaking—including the supposedly modern technique of crowdfunding he used to make his 1976 movie “The Churning”. Half a million rural farmers contributed two rupees each to help make the feature, then famously turned up by the lorry-load to see “their film”, turning it into a box-office hit. “Imagine half a million people going to the cinema to see their own story,” the much-celebrated Benegal, 78, told AFP in Paris.

“It was very successful in the sense that it also made money for the farmers,” he said, describing it as his own version of crowdfunding, the 21st-century practice in which lots of people pool a little money to finance a project via the Internet. Benegal’s 1987 film “Susman” was funded in a similar way by weavers’ cooperatives, cementing his reputation as a director with ingenious ways of getting films made.

Low-budget with gritty storylines and talented character actors, the three films about rural oppression Benegal made between 1973 and 1976 established him as one of a new generation of Indian filmmakers.“The Churning” (“Manthan”) tells the true story of the battle to set up milk cooperatives in the western Indian state of Gujarat, while in “Night’s End” (“Nishant”) a woman is abducted and gang-raped and her husband’s complaints ignored by officials. In “The Seedling” (“Ankur”), a woman is sexually exploited by the son of a wealthy landowner.

Now Indian film has another ‘new generation’ “I was among those who made films that were slightly different from the formulaic films that were very popular with Indian audiences,” Benegal said. “In the old days... you could not think in terms of making a film without songs and dances.

This is a unique form to India... that’s how Indian cinema was defined for a long time,” he said. Forty years later, Benegal said India now had another crop of new directors breaking away from old cinematic formulas.

“We have a very interesting new generation of Indian filmmakers,” he said, highlighting Anurag Kashyap, the director of the two-part “Gangs of Wasseypur”, as “one of the most remarkable”. Kashyap was one of four Indian directors feted at this year’s Cannes film festival, along with Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar. Johar’s short film about a gay relationship was an example of the risks some directors are now willing to take with

taboo subjects.

Other notable directors Benegal cited included Mani Ratnam, who works mainly in Tamil cinema, and Vishal Bhardwaj, whose “Maqbool” was based on Macbeth.

Benegal made his first film when he was still at school, and young people who seek his advice are often told to “bash on regardless”. The director says he has always tried to take his own advice, as when the censor board refused to give “Night’s End” a certificate.

“I appealed to the prime minister (Indira Gandhi) herself and she watched the film,” he said. “She felt that there was nothing there that deserved it to be banned and so it was released only after the prime minister saw it,” he said. Benegal was in Paris for the close of the Guimet Museum’s “100 Years of Indian Cinema” season, where he was the guest of honor. Featuring about 30 films, it included works from the earliest days of Indian cinema through to more recent hits such as the 2001 film “Lagaan”, about a group of villagers who win an exemption from taxes by beating British officials in a game of cricket.

‘If I was satisfied I would stop making films’ Others works included Satyajit Ray’s 1959 “Apur Sansar”, the third film in his Apu Trilogy, and 2002’s “Devdas”, one of the films that established Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as a star. A selection of Benegal’s films was also shown. But the season was also a reminder of the many Indian films that have been lost forever. “Preservation is a huge problem in India not only before but even now,” said Benegal.

Until the 1950s film negatives were made out of nitrate stock, making them highly flammable. Fires wiped out entire archives at a time. Others deteriorated due to poor storage conditions. “A large number of our films disappeared like that and although we are a little more careful now we are not as careful as we should be,” he said. Benegal, who is currently working on a 10-part television series about the Indian constitution, said that at 78 he was still not ready to retire. “If I was satisfied I would stop making films,” he said. “(But) I don’t think I’ve reached anywhere close to that point.”—AFP

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LIFESTYLE A w a r d s

Miley Cyrus smokes on stage after receiving her award for Best Video during the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA) 2013.—AP/AFP photos

Miley Cyrus

lights up a joint and Amsterdam

at

US singer Miley Cyrus arrives during the MTV Europe Music Awards 2013 ceremony.

a w a r d s US singer†Eminem winner of Global Icon and Best HipHop Award appear on stage.

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Dutch DJ Afrojack and Irish presenter for MTV Europe, Laura Whitmore.

S pop sensationalist Miley Cyrus took her publicity-seeking further still on Sunday by smoking a cannabis joint as she received her award for Best Video at the MTV European Music Awards in Amsterdam on Sunday. The evening’s biggest winner was hip-hop icon Eminem who took home two awards, but Cyrus, 20, kept the spotlight firmly on herself after kicking off the show by twerking with a latex-clad dwarf called Little Britney.

Thanking the director of her hit single “Wrecking Ball” for the award, Cyrus took to the stage in a tight white body suit and platform heels and said: “I don’t have room for the award in my bag but I did find this ...” She then took what appeared to be a half-smoked joint out of her Chanel bag and lit it up at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, where you can buy cannabis in the city’s coffee shops and where Cyrus had been photographed earlier with Dutch DJ Afrojack.

“I’d like to thank Terry Richardson for putting this together,” said Cyrus, a selfconfessed weed smoker. The world’s pop glitterati descended on Amsterdam for the event, with Eminem putting in a surprise performance by stepping out of a giant boombox after winning the Global Icon and Hip Hop awards. Canada’s Justin Bieber won the Best Male award for the fourth year running, and thanked his fans in a prerecorded video message.

The UK’s One Direction won the award for Best Pop, and US singer Beyonce won Best Live, with both also saying a cursory thanks in a pre-recorded video. Norwegian Internet sensation and comedy duo Ylvis performed their hit “The Fox” (What Does the Fox Say?), which has clocked over 200 million views on YouTube in the last two months, wearing matching fox outfits with long tails on an otherwise galacticthemed night. China’s Chris Lee (Li Yuchun) won the award for Worldwide Act, the

third year that an Asian artist has won the award.

Talent show winner Lee thanked the audience and “all the people who love Chinese music” as she accepted the award, wearing thigh-length leather boots and beating off competition from the likes of South Korea’s Exo and Morocco’s Ahmed Soultan. US actor and singer Jared Leto attempted a moment’s silence in memory of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which may have killed over 10,000 people over the weekend, but was overwhelmed by whistles and screaming.

The evening’s MC Redfoo hailed Eminem as “truly an icon,” who has sold over 80 million albums and won 11 MTV video music awards and 13 Grammies since 1999.

“Wow, this is crazy. Thank you to everybody for everything over the years, I love award, I love award, I love math,” Eminem said. “I was just sitting back there sipping my drink looking at all those amazing artists, thinking how am I gonna win?” US singer Katy Perry said after winning the award for Best Female.

The event held a “satellite” party with DJ Afrojack at famed Amsterdam venue the Melkweg, featuring a special guest performance by hip-hop veteran Snoop Dogg, rapping through a glove-shaped diamante-encrusted microphone. Organizers said that the show at the Ziggo Dome required at least 30 liters of body paint, 20 liters of liquid latex and 20 kilos of glitter.

The MTV Europe Awards are held each year in a different European city, with past hosts including Frankfurt in 2012, Belfast in 2011 and Madrid in 2010. Next year’s event will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.—AFP

US singer Bruno Mars holds his trophy for Best Song, Locked Out Of Heaven on stage.

US singer Bruno Mars performs.

Members of US rock band Thirty seconds to Mars Tomo Milicevic, Shannon Leto and Jared Leto pose with their Best Alternative Award.

Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber performs.

US singer Katy Perry poses with the Best female award.

US singer Katy Perry performs.

US singer Kate Perry performs.

Macklemore of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performs.

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LIFESTYLE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

A w a r d s

US singer and DJ Redfoo performs.

Winners of the

US singer Robin Thicke performs.

US Stefan Kendal Gordy aka Redfoo performs.

European Music Awards: Best UK & Ireland Act: One Direction Global Icon Award: Eminem Best Look: Harry Styles Biggest Fans: Tokio Hotel Best Song: Locked Out Of Heaven, Bruno Mars Best Hip-Hop: Eminem Best Alternative: 30 Seconds To Mars Best Female: Katy Perry Best New Act: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Best Rock: Green Day Best Electronic: Avicii Best Male: Justin Bieber Worldwide Act: Chris Lee Global Icon: Eminem Best Pop: One Direction Best Live: Beyonce Best Video: Wrecking Ball, Miley Cyrus

(From left) Matthew Followill, Jared Followill, Nathan Followill and Caleb Followill of the band Kings of Leon.

Actor Will Ferrell, dressed as the character Ron Burgundy.

Fans wait for celebrities’ arrivals on the red carpet.

US singer Ariana Grande poses.

Dutch singer Eva Simons

Dutch model Sylvie Van der Vaart poses.

Chinese pop singer and actress Chris Lee holds her trophy for Worldwide Act Award.

Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy performs.

Irish presenter for MTV Europe, Laura Whitmore.

Singer Austin Mahone performs.

British singer Rita Ora

John and Edward Grimes of Irish duo Jedward pose.

Miley Cyrus lights up a joint and Amsterdam at MTV awards

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013

The Al-Kout Mall in Fahaheel is considered one of the major attractions in Kuwait. This picture won several international prizes.— Photo by Sherif Ismail

Lady Gaga launches ‘Artpop’ at VIP New York party M

Musician Lady Gaga and Artist Jeffrey Koons attend the ArtRAVE: Lady Gaga’s “Artpop” Official Album Release.

US singer Lady Gaga walks the red carpet during the unveiling of her new album “ARTPOP” in New York yesterday.—AFP

White truffles fetch three times the price of gold at Italy auction

ulti-platinum selling diva Lady Gaga electrified several thousand handpicked groupies with a live performance at the Brooklyn docks, kicking off the global release yesterday of her third album. Strutting and writhing across the stage dressed in a white leotard and white whig, Gaga late Sunday performed tracks from her new album “Artpop,” launched in collaboration with US artist Jeff Koons.

Fans in fishnets, men in sequined drag and lipstick, girls in stilettos, older men in kilts and the odd grandmother, the crowd was as eclectic as they were die-hard Gaga fans, mobbing her with cell phone cameras and dancing madly. “Artpop” signals a return to the limelight for Stefani Germanotta, the 27-year-old privately educated New Yorker best known as Lady Gaga, after she was forced to tone down her wall-to-wall engagements to undergo hip surgery.

She has collaborated with several world famous contemporary artists, including Koons, who portrayed her as a post-modern Botticellian Venus for the album artwork. “I just want 11/11 to be a time for us all to really open our minds and project a brand-new future in communication, in technology, in visual art,” Gaga told a packed press conference ahead of the VIP launch party, in reference to the date.

“Artpop” is a return to the danceable synthpop of Gaga’s massively successful 2008 debut album “The Fame” after she experimented with other styles on her second album, “Born This Way.” Gaga established her reputation with chart-topping songs and outlandish costumes, and has surrounded herself with a constant media buzz. Critics however gave the hotlyanticipated new album only lukewarm reception. Even though some tired audience members drifted away from the event before it was over, most fans seemed smitten.

Gaga sang “Aura” in front of Koons’ enormous white statue of her sitting, legs splayed, and holding a giant blue ball in front of her. She sashayed through the room to the stage and powered through the explicit lyrics to “Sex Dreams,” then made an emotional dedication to Koons. Gaga has a fight on

her hands to retain her “Queen of Pop” crown after Katy Perry supplanted her as most followed person on Twitter, and with a twerking Miley Cyrus stealing the headlines. Before assembled journalists Gaga took off in a custom-made flying dress to proclaim a new cultural revolution.

She strapped into the fly suit and buckled her helmet wearing a cut-out black leotard and knee-high sparkly white stiletto boots. She then took off and propelled through the air.

“I think that anytime you have a voice in the world and you’re a public figure if you have the potential to start a revolution I feel it is your duty to do so,” she said. Gaga called the batteryoperated flying dress Volantis, and an “early prototype” for what she said could be a new dawn in travel.

She presented the device as part philosophy, part science, and part metaphor for herself, but was vague on what use it could ever have. But instead of gliding from the back of a Brooklyn warehouse to a small platform in front of the cameras, Gaga hovered for a few seconds several times. The device came to juddering halts, and she walked the last few steps towards the podium.—AFP

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leven white truffles have gone under the hammer in Italy for 274,200 euros ($367,620), including a pair bought by an anonymous buyer in China who paid out 90,000 euros, auctioneers said yesterday. A “famous Chinese writer” bidding by satellite telephone from Hong Kong fiercely outbid competitors for a 950-gram pair of truffles, organizers said, paying three times the price of gold for the white delicacy.

The auction, which took place Sunday in the Grinzane Cavour castle in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, also saw an unnamed buyer snap up a 305-gram specimen to be given as a gift to New York’s new mayor, Italo-American Bill De Blasio.

“It is an exceptional result, another edition which has given us great satisfaction,” Tomaso Zanoletti, head of the Piedmont region’s wine body, Cavour Enoteca, said in a statement.

The sums raised at the 14th edition of the White Truffle of Alba auction will be given to the Piedmont Foundation for Cancer Research and go toward the purchase of a CAT scanner for the “San Lazzaro” hospital in Alba. The funds raised by the Hong Kong sale will go to the Mother’s Choice institute which cares for orphans and mothers in difficulty, the organizers said.—AFP

Musician Lady Gaga attends the ArtRAVE: Lady Gaga’s “Artpop” Official Album Release Party.

Truffles are displayed during the World Alba White Truffles Auction in Grinzane Cavour in northwestern Italy yesterday.—AFP

US singer Lady Gaga speaks during the presentation of her new album “ARTPOP”.