23 Jan

CR IP TI ON BS SU

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Bullying, violence widespread in schools

Five dead as Ukraine police launch assault on protesters

Bitter cold to linger as US digs out from snow

Benzema edges Real towards Cup semis

7 7 18 Nod to raise housing subsidies to KD 30,000

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RABI ALAWWAL 22, 1435 AH

State to give increase as a grant, not a loan

Max 21º Min 09º High Tide 03:31 & 16:14 Low Tide 10:01 & 22:46

By B Izzak conspiracy theories

Trapped in the hawameer net

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

I

t has been almost two weeks since we learnt about the visa scam. A few influential people were caught trafficking visas. The numbers of trafficked workers was shocking. As many as 140,000 people were trafficked in the country illegally. As usual, no names of perpetrators were mentioned.

There were just hints.

The norm in Kuwait is to talk about a group of untouchables and call them hawameer (a hover of trout). In this case it describes highly influential people. I do not know why they don’t call them sharks (it would suit them better). Why are they named after lovely and tasty sea creatures. Hamour is the best fish and we all like it!

Whatever, back to my story. The essence of the story is that no names were given and no more explanation was provided about what is going on.

We only heard that files of fake companies were suspended. Maybe they will reopen in good time, I have no idea. Currently, a thorough investigation is going on in the ministries of interior and social affairs and labour.

In the past three days, there have been many police checkpoints. It is like the crackdown campaign when they used to stop every car and check IDs. I do not know if they are looking for those 140,000 people. How would they know them?

Another question comes to mind. Is it the fault of these 140,000 people? Did they know that they were scammed? Actually, they paid good money to buy the visa. Many of these poor people might have sold their belongings back home to be able to buy the visa, thinking that they are coming to a magic land with gold in the sand. Then the poor souls face reality.

My other question is: If the ministry of interior catches them, are they going to deport them without compensation? After all, whoever brought them already cashed the money. If this happens, does this not mean that they are encouraging other people to do so too? Where is the crime and punishment? The whole crime would fall on those who bought the visa.

Let it be a fair game. We need to know that the visa traffickers will be investigated and they will pay back at least the amounts they took from these poor people who were caught and face deportations. Is there an authority that will defend these people or are they considered criminals now? Let’s hear that a visa trafficker was caught and he paid the price for it.

This would help stop visa trafficking in Kuwait. Then we will not only hear that the ministry rounded up one or the other number of illegal residents and deported them.

KUWAIT: MP Safa Al-Hashem gestures during a National Assembly session yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Subsidization program flawed: Sheikh Salem

By Ahmad Jabr KUWAIT: Former finance minister Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah called for reforming Kuwait’s subsidization program in order to achieve more justice in distribution as well as save the state’s budget from an imminent deficit. “While subsidization as a principle is adopted in many countries around the world, there is no doubt that the mechanism in which subsidies are presented in Kuwait is flawed,” Sheikh Salem said in a column published by Al-Rai daily yesterday. “Subsidies granted today contradict the main goal of subsidization when they are presented to ever yone with the same basics and prices, and for all purposes and areas of uses (individuals, institutions, companies)”.

Meanwhile, the former longtime governor of the Central Bank argued that subsidies can be improved Sheikh Salem Al-Sabah by being rationalized and focused to serve the people who need them the most.

The Cabinet on Monday reiterated earlier calls to curb current expenditure and highlighted the risks on the national budget from relying heavily on oil revenues.

The Cabinet said in a statement following its weekly meeting that current expenditure “may pose a very serious flaw on the national economy in the present and the future”. “The Cabinet discussed the various aspects related to this subject, measures and actions to be taken to address the imbalances and to avoid further complications that would trigger the most serious impacts at various levels”, the statement read.

Continued on Page 13

KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the housing law that stipulates raising government’s subsidies on building materials for Kuwaitis to KD 30,000 per each family building a house. The bill’s passage came after the government told MPs that the increase will not have to be repaid but is free for all citizens who received a housing loan from the government to build their homes.

Initially, MPs had insisted that the government raise the housing loan from KD 70,000 to KD 100,000 and that the increase should be paid in cash to citizens.

Under the law enacted in 1993, the housing loan is a soft loan that is repaid to the government in easy instalments over a period exceeding 50 years. After waiting for several years, the government provides Kuwaiti families with a piece of land, a loan of KD 70,000 and subsidized building materials worth KD 10,600. After the amendment, the loan will remain the same at KD 70,000, but the amount of subsidies will be increased to a maximum of KD 30,000, effectively increasing housing benefits by around KD 20,000.

Forty-nine MPs, including all Cabinet members present, voted for the amendment while MP Ali Al-Rashed abstained. The amendment was passed in the first and second reading and sent to the government for implementation. MPs are still insisting that two more issues raising the children’s allowance from KD 50 to 75 per Continued on Page 13

Fiery exchanges over Assad’s fate at talks MONTREUX, Switzerland: The biggest push yet to end Syria’s bloodshed was marked by fiery exchanges yesterday as the warring sides and global powers clashed over President Bashar Al-Assad’s fate at a UN peace conference. After a day of formal speeches set to be followed this week by talks involving the two sides, UN leader Ban Ki-moon urged Syria’s regime and opposition to finally work together to end the bloodshed. “Our purpose was to send a message to the two Syrian delegations and to the Syrian people that the world wants an urgent end to the conflict,” Ban said in a closing press conference at the talks in

the Swiss town of Montreux. “Enough is enough, the time has to come to negotiate,” Ban said. “We must seize this fragile chance.”

But official statements made by the delegations yesterday gave no hint of compromise, as the two sides met on the shores of Lake Geneva for the first time since the start of the conflict in March 2011.

Branding the opposition “traitors” and foreign agents, Syrian officials insisted Assad will not give up power, while the opposition said he must step down and face trial.

Continued on Page13

MONTREUX: (From left) Lakhdar Brahimi, John Kerry, Ban Ki-moon and Sergey Lavrov join hands after their meeting yesterday. (Inset) Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah speaks during the socalled Geneva II peace talks. — AFP

in the

news

Refineries halted after power cut

UAE executes Sri Lankan for murder

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s three oil refineries, with a total production capacity of 930,000 barrels per day, halted operations yesterday following a power cut, a spokesman for the national refiner said. “The three refineries have stopped operations, with the exception of the gas plants, after a power cut,” said Khaled Al-Asousi, spokesman for the state-owned Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) which owns the three refineries. Asousi said that both crude production and exports of crude oil and refined products in the OPEC member have not been affected by the incident, which took place around noon Kuwait time (0900 GMT). More than two-thirds of the output of the three refineries of Al-Ahmadi, Shuaiba and Mina Abdullah is intended for export. Sousi said that resuming operations at the refineries may take up to two days. “We have already started the damage assessment process and if everything is fine, production at the three refineries is expected to start after 24 hours, (but) could take 48 hours,” Sousi said.

SHARJAH: A Sri Lankan man has been executed by firing squad in the UAE emirate of Sharjah for murdering an Emirati man eight years ago, media reported yesterday.

The 26-year-old man was executed after the victim’s family refused an offer of ‘blood money’, the English-daily Gulf News said. The Sri Lankan had been convicted of deliberately running the Emirati man over with a vehicle in 2006 following a money dispute, the paper said. Rights watchdog Amnesty International identified the condemned man as domestic helper Ravindra Krishna Pillai and said the killing occurred “accidentally” in Pillai’s attempt to escape the man, a friend of his employer, after he tried to sexually assault him. The London-based group had slammed the trial as “unfair”, saying Pillai had had no access to his government-appointed lawyer. Although the law in the United Arab Emirates includes capital punishment, executions are rare in the Muslim Gulf country, and death sentences are typically commuted to life in prison.

DAVOS: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Shaways talks to Kuwaiti politician Rola Dashti prior to a panel session during the World Economic Forum yesterday. — AP

Biofuel from desert plants with seawater PARIS: Aerospace giant Boeing and its research partners in the Middle East said yesterday they would start field trials after recording progress in making biofuel from desert plants fed with seawater. The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium, affiliated with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, will plant two hectares of the saltwater-tolerant plants called halophytes in the region’s sandy soil and the plants will be fed with waste water from a fish and shrimp farm. The plants have seeds which are high in oil content, but the project has found the shrub-like plants to be more effective than other crops in producing fuel due to their cell structure. That is due to their very low level of lingin, which binds plant cells together, meaning it takes less energy to process the entire plant into fuel.

The pilot project is expected to begin later in 2014 and last three years.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

LOCAL

Kuwait Transplant Society welcomes India Kidney Fed Organ donation seminar tomorrow

By Sunil Cherian

KUWAIT: Australian Ambassador to Kuwait Robert Tayson visited Kuwait Times yesterday and discussed matters of mutual interest with Editor-in-Chief Abdul AlRahman Al-Alyan. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Kuwaitis raise $9.4 million for Syrians KUWAIT: Kuwait Relief Organization (KRO) said it has raised a total of $9.4 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people.

The sum is part of a three -day Kuwaiti national fund-raising campaign to help the Syrian people. The campaign came to a close Tuesday evening.

KRO Director General Jaber AlWandah said that the Kuwaiti initiative received wide-scale response from many societies.

The move, which was launched in compliance with an appeal by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, reflected official and popular support for the Syrian people, he said.

He urged philanthropists to continue supporting the humanitarian initiative through charities sprouting out in Kuwait for one month.

The fund-raising campaign was launched by the KRO Sunday in cooperation with the Ministry of Information to raise funds to build houses for the war-traumatized Syrian refugees.

Meanwhile, Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad AlSabah headed yesterday Kuwait’s delegation taking part in the opening ses-

sion of the Geneva-II conference on Syria in Switzerland.

The convention, that got underway with participation of delegations representing many states and key organizations, most notably the UN and the Arab League, is aimed at implementing communique of the Geneva-I conference on Syria, namely ceasing the violence and reaching a comprehensive political settlement to the Syrian crisis.

Attendees include delegations of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states, namely Kuwait, along with Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. They also include representatives of the major powers; the United States, Russia, France, China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

Among the participants are officials representing Turkey, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea. From Europe, the attendees include Cathrine Ashton, representing the European Union, in addition to delegates from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Spain and Italy.

Also taking part in the crucial conference are officials representing the Vatican, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab Leagaue Secretary General, Nabil Al-Araby. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Dr Mustafa Al-Mosawi, Consultant Surgeon at the Organ Transplant Center, Kuwait and Vice President of Kuwait Transplant Society has been trying to make people aware of the need and importance of organ donation. “Asian societies generally tend to hesitate the idea of organ donation”, Dr Mosawi said. However, people in the Middle East are comparatively more open than the rest of Asia, the doctor added. Dr Mosawi was in praise of the ME leaders than the Asian religious leaders who are not that positive about organ donation. “The world needs 1 million kidneys today,” Mosawi said.

“But on yearly basis, only 100,000 people donate their kidneys, meaning only 10 percent of the need is met. The rest just die.”

When Mosawi met the visiting Fr Davis Chiramel, Chairman, Kidney Federation of India, little did he realize that the two share many ideas in common. He was pleasantly surprised when Fr Davis, a Catholic priest who donated his kidney to a Hindu patient four years ago, had shared the news that over the past year, the Kidney Federation of India was able to get 400,000 donation consent forms signed by volunteers.

Mosawi introduced Chiramel to a Kuwaiti citizen who is a recipient of heart transplanted at Apollo Hospital, Chennai. There was also a Kuwaiti donor in the meeting who shared his experience of donating his kidney to his mother. “A donor, a recipient and a campaigning doctor is all what you need in Kuwait to spread awareness of donation,” the priest said.

“Europe has a donation culture”, Mosawi said. “Here, for cultural and other reasons, some people think negatively of donating organs after death.

What we need is a campaign starting right from the primary school level,” the doctor said.

Kuwait has the record of having the first kidney transplant in the Middle East. A kidney can

KUWAIT: Mustafa Al-Mosawi, Consultant Surgeon at the Organ Transplant Center, Kuwait and Vice President of Kuwait Transplant Society (left) is presenting Fr Davis Chiramel, Chairman, Kidney Federation of India his donor card at Kuwait Transplant Society, Rawda.

be kept on a perfusion machine for 48 hours, but it only takes 6 hours for the transplant, Mosawi said.

In the meeting at the Kuwait Transplant Society, Rawda, the donors, recipients and organizers shared inspiring stories of organ donation. Mosawi recalled a television program in which a lady was shown doting on a young girl. “This young girl must be your daughter,” says a character, to which the lady replies: “No, the girl has my son’s heart transplanted in her.”

The Kuwaiti recipient said he thanked every

day and prayed for his donor’s family. Most Indian patients cannot afford to buy organs or meet hospital expenses. As a result, most organs end up in overseas patients. KD 12,000 is the approximate cost for a liver transplant, and KD 3,000 for a kidney.

Chiramel is in Kuwait for a seminar on organ donation organized by the Thrissur Association of Kuwait tomorrow at Community Hall in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh. The organizers also plan to get 1,000 consent forms signed by volunteer donors during the meeting on Friday.

Media cooperation protocol signed KUWAIT: Director of Center for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies Dr. Yacoub AlKandari praised the distinguished efforts exerted by Kuwait New Agency in the media field, locally and globally, describing it as “bank of information”.

He added during his meeting with the head of KUNA center for strategic studies and news analysis, Dina Al-Beajan, that establish-

ing such a center is a remarkable step in the progress of the agency’s work, to further shed light on the issues that matter Kuwait at the local, regional and international levels. He explained the tasks of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Center that was established in 1994 and its departments, besides the nature of the studies it conducts by a group of distinguished academics in various fields.

Al-Kandari expressed hope that cooperation between the Gulf center and KUNA would be fruitful to best serve issues that concern Kuwait the most. Al-Beajan hailed the unlimited support offered by Al-Kandari and all staff at the center in offering advices and recommendation to KUNA. The two sides discussed signing a joint cooperation protocol to conduct joint studies, conferences and training courses. — KUNA

One killed in Ghazali Road accident KUWAIT: A driver died after he became trapped inside his car which caught fire following an accident on Tuesday. The Iranian man was pronounced dead from fatal burn injuries after firefighters extinguished the flames and removed his body from the car wreck. The accident was reported on the Ghazali Road as firefighters, paramedics and police arrived at the scene shortly after the accident was reported.

Criminal investigators transported the body to the forensic department after examining the scene. A case was filed for investigations.

Alcohol smuggling A Kuwait International Airport employee faces charges after he was caught attempting to smuggling alcoholic drinks for a friend. Airport detectives reportedly noticed the man, who is employed by the Directorate General for Civil Aviation, escorting a passenger to an upper storey to avoid custom checks after arriving to Kuwait. They received permission to follow the duo; who were soon put under arrest after 19 liquor bottles were found in the passenger’s suitcase. They were referred to the authorities to face charges.

Camp workers die Two camp workers died after they left coal burning

inside their tent for heating before they went to sleep Monday night. Paramedics accompanied police to the scene located near Nuwaiseeb Road in response to an emergency call, and pronounced the two dead shortly after their arrival. A preliminary medical test revealed that the Asian men died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their sleep. The bodies were taken to the forensic department after criminal investigators examined the scene. A case was filed.

Drug addicts Two people were arrested for drug abuse and possession while investigations are ongoing in claims that one of them was kidnapped. Jahra police had arrived at Subbiya Road where a man reported in an emergency call that his friend was kidnapped. Upon arriving to the scene, the officer discovered that the caller was under the influence of drugs, and after searching him, found heroin and other drugs in his possession.

They were able to find his friend after an hour of s e a rc h i n g, a n d t h e m a n w a s a l s o i n e b r i a t e d. H e claimed that he was able to escape a kidnap attempt, and gave a description of the alleged suspects for investigations.

KUWAIT: Parliament members engaged in a heated debate during yesterday’s National Assembly session about proposed increase to the housing loan and other topics, including children and rent allowances. The parliament overwhelmingly passed amendments to the housing loan which stipulate a KD30,000 subsidization for building materials. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

LOCAL

KUWAIT: Vehicle inspection department officers set up checkpoints at the press street yesterday as part of ongoing road safety campaigns carried out by the General Traffic Department in the Ministry of Interior. —- Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

News

in brief

Jazeera may invest in KAC KUWAIT: Following the parliament’s approval of a decree law to turn Kuwait Airways into a shareholding company, which opens the door for local aviation companies take part in its privatization, Jazeera Airways Chairman Marwan Boodai stressed that his company was keen on making more investments in the Kuwaiti aviation business in general, including in KAC. He added that like any other investment opportunity, inventors have to run proper feasibility studies prior to making any decision. “As far as KAC is concerned, it had not issued an audited budget for the past few years,” he remarked underlining that he was conservatively interested in investing in KAC.

Children vaccination KUWAIT: Informed health sources said that the health ministry has recently upgraded its child vaccination strategy for children below five to use one vaccination shot against six diseases instead of the five-disease one previously used.

The sources added that the new vaccination would provide immunity against polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, viral hepatitis and haemophilus influenza type B.

Shuaiba power problem KUWAIT: The Ministry of Electricity and Water said yesterday that the power went off in some parts of Shuaiba industrial area due to an electric fuse malfunction in one of the transformers.

The ministry said in a statement that the malfunction which occurred at 11:10 am was fixed and the power was fully restored in the area by 12:45 pm, adding that the ministry is investigating the cause of the problem.

KPIOS employees stage protest KUWAIT: Dozens of employees at the

Kuwait Pipe Industries and Oil Services Company (KPIOS) staged a sit in yesterday morning in protest for not being paid salaries for two months, according to their statements. They demonstrated at the company ’s headquarters in Sulaibiya near the Central Prison, Al-Aan news website reported yesterday. The protesting employees, who are expatriates and bedoons, expressed frustration for what they said was ‘empty promises’ from company officials who they accused of repeatedly delaying their pay.

Iraq’s oil fields KUWAIT: Well-informed oil sources said that Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Explorations Co. (KUFPEC), a KPC subsidiar y, has recently qualified for developing Iraq’s oil fields and received a letter from Iraq in this regard. Aside from the security situations in Iraq, KUFPEC would face some challenges such as hindrances to its reserve increasing policy since many Iraqi oil fields refuse disclosing information about their assets and the number of barrels they produce, which is against investment policies. “The best option would be to produce gas to be used in Kuwait ”, added the sources. Notably, during his recent visit to Iraq, HH the PM asked his counterpart about the reason KUFPEC was not operating in Iraq, which brought the idea to both officials’ attention.

Established by its parent company KPC, KUFPEC is an international oil company, engaged in exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas outside Kuwait, active in Africa, Middle East, Asia, UK, Norway and Australia. KUFPEC participates in 60 joint venture prjects with similar companies in E&P of Oil and Gas both as an operator and partner in 14 different countries.

Ministry probes visa trafficking KUWAIT: A committee was formed at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor to probe complaints and problems on visa trafficking in Kuwait in response to recent reports which suggested that a network of employees was running a secret visa trafficking business and puts obstacles in front of efforts to fight the crime.

According to a source, the committee was formed on the orders of Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and State Minister of Planning and Development Hind Al-Subaih.

“It was given a one-month ultimatum to finish collecting all complaints, evidence and information about visa trafficking in recent years in a bid to identify the main sources of the problems and set the proper direction to protect the rights of both expatriate labor forces and employers,” said the source who spoke to Al-Qabas on the condition of anonymity.

He gave good indications that the s te p co u l d h e l p i d e n t i f y s u s p e c t s and then refer them to the public prosecution.

Bullying and violence widespread in schools Reprisal stops parents from reporting bullying

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Bullying, violence and fears of spoiling family reputations if parents report abuse against their children are prevalent in schools in Kuwait. Ali, 14, is a student in a private nonArabic school in Hawally and is waiting to graduate. Although being a polite boy with high ambitions to become a surgeon, he was forced to be part of fights in and out of school. “If I don’t fight back, the students won’t respect me and will think I’m chicken. I was hurt sometimes but I always took my right. The students know many students from other schools, and mostly each nationality has a gang and they fight after school. Inside the school they use pencils in their fights, but outside they even use weapons,” he told Kuwait Times.

His older brother was injured in one of these fights when he came to protect him a few months ago. “When boys from higher classes attacked me, my brother came after school for revenge. The other boys also came and their leader had a samurai sword and tried to hit my brother in his face. When he put out his hand to protect this face, he injured his hand and almost cut his finger. Now he has a permanent disability in his hand, yet the 16-year-old attacker is still free as the case is in the court. His parents offered my brother financial compensation, but he refused and wants this criminal boy to be punished,” added Ali. Aggression and bulling is not the only problem in this school. According to Ali, students have found empty bottles of alcohol in the school yard. Narcotic pills are also sold for KD 1 in the school. Because the school is coed, a boy had a physical relationship with a female student in the school and she is now pregnant. But it seems the school management is not very interested in these serious issues taking place at the school.

The Ministry of Education supervises schools, and there is a special department in charge of private schools. According to Abdullah Al-Basri, Director of the Educational Affairs and Acting Director of the Private Education Department, if any internal problem occurs at a school, the director of the school should investigate the problem. “In Arabic schools, the director is a representative of the ministry, while in non-Arabic ones, the representative works for the owner of the school and is of the same nationality as the school. If such a director doesn’t take action or deals with parents’ complaints, the parents can come to our department at the ministry and file a written complaint,” he noted.

Many parents are afraid of complaining as they think their children may be harmed or their grades may be affected. Basri assured the parents that their complaints will be confidential. “If the management of the school doesn’t respond to a parent’s complaint, he should come to us

KUWAIT: Students in a school in Kuwait are seen at the start of the school year. The file image is used for illustrative purposes only. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat and file a complaint under his name. It should not be a general one like ‘students are abused or beaten’; it should be like ‘my son is being bullied’.

The complaint has to be specific so the administrative supervisors from the ministry investigate the case, as we have previously received many unfounded complains,” he explained.

The administrative supervisors then go to the school and inspect the subject of the complain and write their report. “The supervisors will listen to the testimony of students without the presence of the teacher so they can speak freely.

In case that the complaint is genuine, the legal department at the Ministry will correspond with the school on their violations and will decide the sanctions taken against the school. Also, all involved parties including the principal, school director and others may be called for investigation at the ministry. The ministry’s administrative supervisors also go on random inspections to different schools and send reports to the ministry and deal with any violations,” stressed Basri.

The Private Education Department at the Ministry has a team of specialists in psychology to study aggression in schools. “The team studies this and other phenomena to get to know the reasons behind them. Inspectors also observe and study verbal or physical attacks on students by teachers. And if they find such inci-

dents, the school management should prove any sanctions taken against the guilty teacher with documents. Corporal punishment of students may be normal in some cultures or countries for instance, but it’s not acceptable in Kuwait, so the teacher should be informed about this,” he concluded.

According to Othman, a teacher at a public high schools for boys in Mubarak Al-Kabeer, such problems do not exist at the school where he teaches. “Our school is small and we have only 14 classes. So in general, the environment is friendly. All students know each other, and fights rarely happen. And if one breaks out, it’s ended quickly as the administration is very strict and respected. They don’t allow any fights inside or even outside the school. Also, all students are Kuwaitis, so differences are slight,” he explained.

Manal, a mother of two boys, both studying in a public school in Ahmadi, agreed that bullying and aggression exists in their school. “I heard from my sons that fights happened in their school and some students were injured with pencils. They once told me that a boy was injured in a fight where knives were used. But I thank God that they never have never participated in any serious fights. In the beginning, I was afraid that something bad may happen to them, but later I felt they will be fine,” she hoped.

Kuwaiti aid to Egypt ‘not up to aspirations’ KUWAIT: In an interview with Kuwait’s local Arabic daily Annahar, Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi hailed bilateral relations between Kuwait and Egypt.

Though he stressed his understanding of the political reasons behind it, he noted that Kuwait’s aid and support in the aftermath of the June 30 revolution was not up the Egyptians’ aspirations.

Al-Beblawi also stressed that Kuwaiti investors in Egypt were completely protected and despite improving American-Iranian relations, the security of the Arabian Gulf states will always be a priority for Egypt.

Commenting on the situation in Egypt, Al-Beblawi said that the Muslim Brotherhood was dying out and that the coming parliamentary elections will end them once and for all.

‘Detectives’ rob Asians

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality continued its inspection campaigns on food stores in the capital municipality areas yesterday. Director General of Food and Markets Nassar bin Lami said the campaigns resulted in issuing 217 citations in addition to closing three stores and sending 248 samples for laboratory tests. — Hanan AlSaadoun

KUWAIT: An Asian expat told Rumaithiya police that he was kidnapped by an unidentified person who claimed he was a detective before robbing him of KD 108. Meanwhile, another Asian told Shuwaikh police an unidentified person robbed him of KD 75 and he also posed as a detective. * At Mubarak Al-Kabeer police station, a Kuwaiti youth accused an unidentified person of breaking into his car and stealing a bottle of perfume. * Hawally police arrested a citizen after hearing her threatening to kill a man following a car accident and the verbal argument that followed. * Criminal detectives from Hawally arrested several Africans of various nationalities who swindled and cheated a number of people. Several complaints were received by Salmiya detectives from jewellery stores in addition to citizens and expats on the use of counterfeit dollars and fake gold. The suspects entered the country on visit visas through hotels.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

LOCAL

Anti-doping cooperation among world bodies Regional office opened in Kuwait KUWAIT: President of Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and Chairman of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah opened here yesterday the regional office of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Speaking on the sideline of the Third Conference of the Regional Anti-Doping Organizations (RADO) which kicked off on Tuesday, Sheikh Ahmad said that Kuwait was keen on hosting the regional office for WADA due the GCC country’s commitment to sports.

He noted that the WADA regional office will play an integral part in informing the youth on the dangers of doping in sports, saying that the OCA would cooperate with WADA in this aspect.

The Third Conference of the Regional AntiDoping Organizations (RADO) began with the participation of representatives of 123 countries.

The conference will last till Friday.

In a speech read out on behalf of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) President Sheikh Ahmad AlFahad Al-Sabah, OCA Director General Hussein AlMussallam stated that combating doping is of a great importance to sports. He noted that the use of doping threaten the very sense of fairness in sports.

He pointed out that the 15 years-long cooperation between OCA and WADA proved very fruit-

ful in curbing doping in Asia, particularly during the Asian Games.

The number of athletes who used to test positive for doping usage was between 50-60, but through cooperation with WADA, the OCA managed to take this number down to 15 only, AlMussallam unveiled.

He stressed that the OCA is keen on continuing cooperation with WADA and RADO to eradicate doping in Asia sport.

He called on all countries to take all necessary measures and to cooperate with international and regional organizations to put an end to such a negative phenomenon.

He expressed hopes the conference would end up with resolutions and recommendations to achieve this important goal.

For his part, WADA Chief Craig Reedie applauded the high level cooperation between WADA and OCA. Holding this conference in Kuwait for the third time shows WADA’s great interest in intensifying efforts to combat doping in sport in Asia and the whole world, Reedie said.

He stated that WADA aims to raise awareness about the dangers of athletes’ use of steroids in sport and to encourage athletes to abide by relevant regulations.

Kuwait guest of honor at Cairo Book Fair CAIRO: Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah said yesterday that Kuwaiti leadership was proud of Egypt’s decision to name Kuwait as guest of honor at the 45th Cairo International Book Fair.

“Kuwaiti leadership is proud of this choice and considers it a great Egyptian and Arab honor for Kuwait culture,” the Information Minister said upon arrival at Cairo to partake in the opening ceremony of the book fair.

Sheikh Salman, who doubles as chairman of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL), expressed gratitude for Egyptian Minister of Culture Mohammad Saber Arab and Head of the General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO) Ahmad Majahed for their choice of Kuwait as a guest of honor for Cairo Book Fair.

He also lauded the historic and

deeply-seated political and cultural relations between Kuwait and Egypt. He pointed out that the Cairo International Book Fair, which was launched in 1969, is one of the largest and most important book fairs in the Middle East.

“The fair is held this year amid special political and social developments which highlight central and important role of intellectuals in writing the history of nation,” the minister said. He stated that Kuwait pavilions in the book fair will remain open for two week.

The minister unveiled that Kuwaiti contribution to fair will include photo galleries and the latest publications of the Ministry of Information and the NCCAL. Moreover, Kuwaiti bands will perform a special operetta and folklore arts. Kuwaiti several writers and intellectuals will deliver a number of lectures and partake in the book fair seminars. —KUNA

He underscored the importance of cooperation among all relevant organizations and all making use of the best practices examples in doping control.

The four-day conference features various activities that tackle wide array of key issues relevant to latest studies, approach, legislations and success stories as well as international conventions in fighting doping in sports.

RADO are established by a group of countries to coordinate, manage and implement dopingfree sport programs in a specific region.

Member states pool financial resources and expertise to implement quality anti-doping programs that comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.

There are currently 15 RADO bringing together over 119 countries worldwide.

RADO can help international federations, major event organizations and other stakeholders with: in-competition and out-of-competition testing utilizing a global network of qualified Doping Control Officers, therapeutic Use Exemptions ( TUE) through trained and functioning TUE Committees, results management and appeals through regional expert panels, and education and awareness, using local languages and personnel to deliver anti-doping messages. —KUNA

KIA top foreign investor in China BEIJING: Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has become the biggest foreign investor in China’s renminbi (RMB or yuan) public market with a total USD 2.5 billion investment quota, the Chinese government said.

According to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), KIA received fresh quota of $500 million this week for direct investment in the Chinese securities market.

With the new allocation, KIA’s accumulated investment quota as a qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) reached $1.5 billion.

Separately, in 2012, KIA received a $one billion quota under another program managed by China’s central bank to invest in the domestic interbank bond market.

The latest announcement boosted KIA’s combined investment quota in the Chinese stock and interbank bond markets to $2.5 billion, promoting KIA as top foreign investor in China’s renminbi public market. This came amid the yuan’s strengthening trend against the dollar, which makes it more difficult for foreign investors to get approval of quota.

The yuan has appreciated about 30 percent since 2006. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Dignitaries at the opening of ‘Auto Moto 2014’ exhibition.

Zain platinum sponsor of ‘Auto Moto ‘ exhibition KUWAIT: In line to being closer to youth’s and the general public’s interest in the ever evolving and exciting automotive industry, Zain, the leading telecommunications company in Kuwait, announced its Platinum sponsorship of the ‘Auto Moto 2014’ exhibition that is being held from Jan 21 to 25 at 360 Mall. The event is held under the patronage of the Minister of Information and the Minster of State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Hamoud Al-Sabah. This was Zain’s second consecutive year of sponsorship of this highly attended event.

‘Auto Moto 2014’ exhibition will inspire youth’s aspirations of the automotive world whereby the event accommodates 70

exclusive cars and bikes from 27 International renowned worldwide automotive brands. The event additionally exhibits various automotive models debuts, whereby attendees can be able to go on test drives to try out their favorite cars and bikes.

Zain’s sponsorship of this event is indicative of its dedication to youth’s passion and aspirations, sparing no efforts in supporting premium events that cater to the younger generation.

Based on the exhibition’s previous success, Auto Moto has become Kuwait’s biggest automotive show providing an excellent platform between the manufactures, local agents and local clients.

Environment Council to hold meeting KUWAIT: Chairman of the Environment Public Authority Salah Al-Mudhi said the Supreme Council for Environment will soon hold its first meeting for 2014 with the presence of Minister of Oil and the council acting chairman, Ali Al-Omair.

Al-Mudhi said yesterday participants in the meeting will discuss the camping issue and EPA’s plans on safeguarding the environment. They will also examine a proposed law for a unified GCC system concerning materials that are harmful to the Ozone layer, he noted.

The authority will organize a ceremony, on Thursday, to honor those who participated in the successful campaign to remove illegal camps in South Al-Ahmadi, said the Chairman. All 850 camps were removed from the area, with about

3,500 tents, including other camps used to raise animals or for other commercial purposes, said Al-Mudhi.

The team had faced many obstacles due to the heavy rains, he noted, praising the cooperation between the authority, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Interior. The campers were cooperative with the team, said Al-Mudhi, noting that the authority had previously given a deadline for them to evacuate for safety reasons.

Removing camps in this area aims to protect citizens from lethal gas or oil leakage, since AlAhmadi has oil refineries, he said, adding that it is also a procedure to protect the country’s vital projects in that area. —KUNA

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

LOCAL

HRW annual report blasts West on Syria “Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have reportedly armed and funded extremist groups that have been responsible for repeated atrocities, and along with Kuwait, have closed their eyes to funding by their citizens.”

KUWAIT: New York-based Human Rights Watch slammed western governments for failing to put enough pressure and end the slaughters in Syria, in the organization’s 2014 report which was released on Tuesday. The organization criticized Gulf governments for funding extremist groups in Syria.

“Governments in the (Middle East) region have also been unhelpful.

Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt have reportedly refused to enforce Arab League sanctions, sending oil to keep Syria’s killing machine running. Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have reportedly armed and funded extremist groups that have been responsible for repeated atrocities, and along with Kuwait, have closed their eyes to funding by their citizens. Iran and Hezbollah continue to back the Syrian government,” the Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2014 said.

The report said, “The Syrian government’s policy of waging war by killing civilians, and increasing abuses by rebel groups, elicited horror in 2013 but not enough pressure from world leaders to end atrocities and hold perpetrators to account,”. The initial international response was more effective when several African countries faced mass atrocities.

The report which summarizes key

spread protest in many countries, including Turkey, Thailand, and Ukraine. In Egypt, both the Muslim Brotherhood government and the military-dominated government ignored the proper limits on governmental power, but the military’s overthrow of its predecessor led to intensified oppression and the worst mass killing in the country’s recent history.”

The report also highlighted abuses in struggling democracies, calling Egypt the “most glaring example of the abuse of majoritarianism in 2013.” The report criticized the government of former President Mohammed Morsi, which it said ruled “in a manner that left secular and minority groups fearing exclusion in an Islamist-dominated government.”

The New York-based group also said that in the wake of Morsi’s militarybacked ouster in July, the interim government of General Abdel Fattah elSissi had launched the “worst repression that Egypt has known in decades, including by killing hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood protesters.”

“Authoritarian governments adopted the form but not the substance of democracy, as if all that matters is a vote on election day, not public debate for the rest of the year,” Roth said. “This feigned democracy rejects basic principles: that laws apply to those in power,

harmful to human rights. A US presidential reform panel called for an end to the bulk collection of metadata, more effective judicial review, greater privacy protection for non-Americans, and increased transparency. Some governments with poor records of protecting free speech may respond by insisting that user data stay within their borders, raising the possibility of increased Internet censorship.

Focus on Kuwait In Kuwait, the report said, recurring political disputes between the government and Parliament paralyzed political institutions and the passage of most new legislation. A constitutional court ruling in June 2013 dissolved the parliament formed in December 2012.

However, the court upheld controversial amendments to the electoral law that had prompted the opposition’s boycott of the polls in 2012 and sparked violent street protests.

Elections in July 2013 led to the formation of a new parliament, including two women among its 50 members, one less than in 2012.

The report says that Kuwait continues to exclude thousands of stateless people, known as bedoon, from full citizenship, despite their longstanding roots in Kuwaiti territory. The government has aggressively cracked down on

Women in Kuwait continue to face discrimination in many other aspects of their lives, and large legal gaps remain in protections for women and the country has no laws prohibiting domestic violence, sexual harassment, or marital rape. human rights issues in more than 90 countries worldwide and draws on last year’s events contrasted the handling of the conflict in Syria with the speedy reaction of the international community in Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. HRW executive director Kenneth Roth presented the report at a press conference held in Berlin, Germany- the country, Roth says, has been a flashpoint of global outrage over the NSA’s operations. The report further criticized Middle East governments for failing to do the necessary.

The report said, “In many countries, a misguided equation of democracy with the presumed desires of a majority prompted rulers to suppress minority views and groups, most notably in Egypt. The disclosures of the whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that the US government’s mass surveillance has eradicated much of our privacy in a world that virtually requires electronic communication. But global outrage at this assault on the right to privacy offers some promise of change.”

“Despite a swiftly rising death toll and horrific abuses, Russia and China neutered the UN Security Council and enabled the killing of Syrian civilians by both sides,” Roth said. “As the Geneva II peace talks begin, with uncertain prospects of success, they shouldn’t become the latest excuse to avoid action to protect Syrian civilians. This requires real pressure to stop the killing and allow the delivery of the humanitarian aid they need to survive.”

Russia, backed by China, has consistently protected the Syrian government from international action at the United Nations, whether explicit condemnation, an arms embargo, or referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC), HRW said. But for its own reasons, the United States has also been reluctant to push for justice via the ICC. “According to media reports, Gulf countries and individuals are arming and funding extremist opposition groups responsible for atrocities, while Iran and Hezbollah back the abusive government of Bashar Al-Assad,” the report said.

According to the report, despite this failure in Syria, the doctrine of a global “responsibility to protect” vulnerable people from mass atrocities, endorsed by the world’s governments in 2005, was strengthened by the reaction to the prospect of mass atrocities in several African countries, though much more needs to be done to avoid largescale killing there, Human Rights Watch said. In the Central African Republic and South Sudan, the African Union, France, the US, and the UN reinforced international missions in an effort to prevent the slaughter of civilians.

Pressure from allies and an increased UN peacekeeping presence convinced Rwanda to stop its military support for the latest in a succession of rebel groups committing atrocities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the report HRW said, “A notable number of governments paid lip service to democracy while mocking the rights central to democratic rule. New governments, including in Egypt and Burma, purported to enact the majority’s will without regard to the limits on majorities that are critical to any real democracy with respect to the rights of dissenters and minorities. But people did not take such assaults on democracy sitting down, with wide-

and that governments should respect free speech and uphold the rights of unpopular minorities.”

Snowden’s revelations and reporting on the impact of targeted killings in Yemen and Pakistan have undermined US efforts to hide human rights abuses spawned in the struggle against terrorism. That has led to intense public scrutiny of global mass electronic surveillance and of targeted killings by aerial drones. While the exposure of abusive US counterterrorism practices has not stopped them, there is new international pressure for change, HRW said.

For the first time a HRW’s report includes a warning about data protection. A major topic in the report concerned the revelations of mass surveillance by the United States made public by fugitive and former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. Spying on private communications violates fundamental data protection rights, said HRW, calling for a clear regulatory framework to keep intelligence services in check HRW said

Kenneth Roth the US was setting a dangerous example for the world with its sweeping surveillance programs.

Roth slammed US President Barack Obama’s speech last Friday, in which he pledged surveillance reforms as not going far enough. “All Obama has offered us is some vague assurance that people’s communications will be listened to only if there is a national security interest at stake, which is a pretty fuzzy broad standard,” Snowden said. “In none of this has there been a recognition that non-Americans outside the United States have a right to the privacy of their communications,” he was quoted saying.

The report said that President Barack Obama halted some Bush-era programs such as its forcible disappearance of suspects to torture them in secret CIA detention centers, but he has stymied efforts to prosecute the people who ordered the torture or even to investigate their crimes. “In May, Obama suggested that the time was coming when drone attacks should not be treated as an element of a global war on Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and he outlined stringent policies to avoid civilian casualties.

But it is not clear whether these policies are being followed.”

Global outrage following Snowden’s disclosures sparked a UN General Assembly resolution stigmatizing indiscriminate global surveillance as deeply

free speech.

HRW said, “A new effort to dramatically reduce the number of migrant workers in Kuwait has led to the implementation of regulations to allow for swift and unlawful deportation.”

On the topic of minorities treatment the report said: “There are at least 105,702 stateless people in Kuwait, known as bedoon. After an initial registration period for citizenship ended in 1960, authorities shifted bedoon citizenship claims to a series of administrative committees that for decades have avoided resolving the claims.

“Authorities claim that many bedoon are “illegal residents” who deliberately destroyed evidence of another nationality in order to get the generous benefits that Kuwait provides its citizens,” the report said.

In March 2011, the government granted bedoon certain benefits and services, such as free health care and education, as well as registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Some Bedoon have complained there are still administrative hurdles to accessing these benefits. In March 2013 the Parliament passed a law to naturalize 4,000 “foreigners” in 2013, touting this as a measure to address the citizenship of bedoon. Activists in the bedoon community have said this measure has not benefitted their community, but is being used to grant citizenship to children born to Kuwaiti mothers and foreign fathers. The government confirmed to HRW that so far no bedoon had benefited from the law. Some bedoon activists say that the real number of bedoon in Kuwait is closer to 240,000, reflecting the government’s failure to update its statistics, the report stated.

Members of the bedoon community frequently take to the streets to protest the government’s failure to address their citizenship claims, despite government warnings that bedoon should not gather in public. Article 12 of the 1979 Public Gatherings Law bars non-Kuwaitis from participating in public gatherings.

Women’s rights On women’s rights the report said that in January, Kuwait gave women the right to apply for posts as prosecutors, which until then were only open to male candidates. This will allow women to pursue careers as judges in the future. However women continue to face discrimination in many other aspects of their lives, and large legal gaps remain in protections for women.

Kuwait has no laws prohibiting domestic violence, sexual harassment, or marital rape. In addition, Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men cannot give their spouses or children Kuwaiti citizenship. Kuwaiti law does not let women marry a partner of their choice if their father will not grant permission, the report said. “In May, the Kuwaiti authorities announced that Saudi Arabian women would not be provided with drivers’ licenses while in Kuwait without the permission of their male guardians; women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia,” the report said.

“On the issue of freedom of assembly, the report said that government forces responded with excessive violence to multiple demonstrations by bedoon and Kuwaiti citizens. HRW documented one case where special forces officers beat a demonstrator in April 2013 when detaining him, and heard allegations of many more cases,” the

report said.

The report said, “The year 2013 saw increased violations of free speech in Kuwait. The authorities brought cases against at least 29 people who expressed critical views of the government over Twitter, Facebook, blogs, other social media platforms, and at protests. HRW knows of nine cases in 2012.”

Most of these cases have been brought under article 25 of Kuwait’s penal code of 1970, which prescribes a sentence of up to five years in prison for anyone who publicly “objects to the rights and authorities of the Amir or faults him.” The article gives no detail on what constitutes an offense. Kuwait would have to demonstrate incitement to violence or similar crimes for these cases to meet international standards

on permissible restrictions of free speech. HRW documented eight cases of political commentary that did not amount to incitement to violence, but that Kuwaiti courts in 2013 found violated article 25,” the report said.

In Ramadan, His Highness the Amir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah issued a pardon for all those been jailed under article 25. “However, the authorities subsequently brought charges against at least one individual under that article, indicating that the pardon does not represent a change in government policy,” the report said.

Migrant workers On the topic of migrant workers, HRW says, migrant workers make up around 2 million of Kuwait’s population of 2.9 million, including more than

600,000 domestic workers. In March 2013, the government announced that it intended to reduce the number of expatriate workers by 100,000 every year for the next 10 years, in order to bring the total down to one million.

Kuwait has since adopted a number of mechanisms facilitating quick, nonjudicial deportations in order to reach its goals.

In April, Kuwait implemented a policy of deporting migrants after they had committed their first major traffic violation. By September, according to local human rights organizations, the Ministry of Interior had deported 1,258 expatriates for traffic violations. In August, the health ministry announced that it would deport any expatriates with confirmed cases of infectious diseases, though Human Rights Watch had not documented any such deportations at time of writing. These deportations occur without any judicial review.

Kuwait has also adopted indirect methods to push migrants to leave. In March, Kuwait adopted regulations requiring expatriates applying for a driving license to be 18 or over, pass a driving test, be a legal resident for at least two years, have a university degree, and earn at least KD400 per month. The report said that local media reported in August that authorities began evicting expatriate tenants from private homes owned by Kuwaiti citizens. According to local NGOs, residential buildings that are rented out to expatriates must be classified as “investment accommodations.”

Death penalty On June 18, 2013, Kuwaiti authorities hanged two Egyptian men, one convicted of abduction and rape, and the other on murder charges. It was Kuwait’s second round of executions in 2013, and the first time it had applied the death penalty since 2007.

The report concluded, “The United States, in its 2013 US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report, classified Kuwait as Tier 3-among the most problematic countries-for the seventh year in a row. The report cited Kuwait’s failure to report any arrests, prosecutions, convictions, or sentences of traffickers for either forced labor or sex trafficking, and weak victim protection measures.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

LOCAL In my view

Egyptians pin hopes on Sisi D

espite sporadic protests by Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters, Egypt managed to pass an important milestone last week when it successfully held a two-day constitutional referendum. The poll was one of the main objectives of the military drawn road map that was issued following last July’s overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi. It now opens the way for another major goal, which is to hold fresh presidential vote, in March, to be followed by new legislative elections.

But turnout for the constitutional referendum was less than what was expected by the media and polls: At about 39 percent of those eligible to vote. Still the result was an overwhelming “yes” for the new constitution sending a message that Egyptians wanted stability and security, six months after the overthrow of Morsi. It was a blow to the Muslim Brotherhood and those who support them since more people turned out to vote for the new constitution than in 2012, when the MB drafted its own basic law.

Everything is relative really as Egypt inches slowly toward restoring full democratic rule while recovering from the tumultuous events that marked the three years following the unseating of former President Hosni Mubarak. The election of Morsi divided the Egyptians even when he was celebrated as Egypt’s first freely elected leader. Eventually his contentious policies and accusations of serving his followers at the expense of the rest of citizens forced the army to step in to save the country. A new figure emerged on the scene; that of the army’s top man Gen Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. He has become the central figure in Egyptian politics and his popularity has reached record levels as he contemplates calls to run as president in March.

He is expected to make his decision soon and pundits believe he will contest the presidential elections. Egypt needs a strong leader now and while the lofty goals of the Jan 25 uprising may have been sidestepped, the priority now for most Egyptians is the restoration of stability and the defeat of terrorism.

Those who believe that Egypt has rid itself of six decades of military rule will be disappointed. The military establishment will continue to play a central

role in Egyptian political life. The new constitution has given unprecedented privileges to the military establishment and the defense minister. And those who think that the June 30 demonstrations against Morsi’s rule have underlined the goals of the Jan 25 uprising are also wrong. The fact is that a new course has been set for the country; one that resurrects the so-called “deep state” with its ruling and influential elites who are allied with the military. It is not unlike the era of Mubarak when an authoritarian clique governed through artificial democratic institutions.

It is also a disappointment to a generation of young and secular Egyptians who constituted the driving force behind the uprising that eventually toppled Mubarak. But the majority of Egyptians is tired and wants stability. They are now willing to overlook the reinstatement of the military’s rule in return for an end to chaos and economic stagnation. They also know that a strong military is the only answer to spreading terrorist attacks that are slowly moving from far-away Sinai and into the heart of the Nile Valley.

Sisi knows that his decision to run for president will be greeted by millions. He had hoped that a big turnout for the referendum would justify his decision. So far his candidacy is the only realistic scenario for the future. But if he decides not to run, the political stage will have to be rearranged. There are no strong candidates who can create a popular surge and unify Egyptians. Political parties are small and ineffective and with the absence of the Islamists, none of the remaining players can rally the crowds.

There is a sense of urgency about concluding the goals of the roadmap and restoring legitimate institutions. The military-backed transitional government has failed to alleviate economic burdens that have become Egyptians’ most important concern.

Naturally, Sisi knows that moving to the presidential palace will not end Egypt’s huge challenges. His soaring popularity today may suffer a year or two from now if his government fails to revive the economy or defeat the terrorists. But this is a price he must be ready to pay. The path toward completing the goals of the roadmap is open now and in few months Egypt will move into a new post-Islamist era.

Al-Anbaa

By Osama Al-Sharif

kuwait digest

A lesson from India

By Dr Shamlan Yousuf Al-Essa

I

am visiting the largest and most prestigious democracy in the Third World. This multiethnic and multi-religious country lives a quiet and peaceful life that is far from grudges, hatred and unjustified violence. The Indian city of Mumbai celebrated the New Year with noise, fireworks, music and dancing in the streets that lasted until 5 am. Mumbai’s celebration this year has a funny story that we citizens should benefit from and follow. Commander of Mumbai’s police ordered hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars to conclude their celebrations at 1:30 am, and the reason behind this is security, because this city witnessed terrorist operations during celebrations twice, once in 1993 and another in 2008, and the result was tens killed and wounded. Businessmen, the owners of hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs were to be harmed by the decision of the police commander and went to the top court in Mumbai, and the ruling was historic as it refused to limit parties until 1:30 and decided to allow celebrations until 5 am in all the places mentioned above.

What is the lesson to be learned from the Indian experience in Mumbai? The first lesson is that in democratic countries, the executive authority does take decisions that affect people’s interests and their private lives alone. In Kuwait, the government issued a decision to ban New Year parties, and kept owners of restaurants, hotels and clubs from holding parties, and there is no reason for this ban other that the government’s attempt to appease Islamic parties and factions in order to get their approval at the expense of citizens, particularly the Christians, and this is violation of the simplest of constitutional rules that allow celebration of reli-

gious occasions.

The second lesson is that the civil society and citizens in general bowed to the abusive policies of the government, as owners of hotels, restaurants and malls did not file complaints against the government because their interests were harmed, because the legal culture is almost non-existent in a large sector of citizens. The government lately cancelled a public lecture about a well known Islamic personality without reason.

The third lesson: Kuwait’s government did not only violate the law by banning parties, but the encroachment on freedoms principle and the people’s right to listen to lectures and seminars, as long as they are peaceful, cultural and scientific. Policemen had the audacity to say they will raid tents, apartments, homes and farms where parties are to be held, without having the press, members of parliament or all those defending freedoms saying anything that this is contrary to the simplest principles of personal freedom, because no one has the right to raid a camp, house or flat with the aim of fighting vice and ban parties. The government - any government - is not responsible for people’s behavior, because the morals issue is relative and differs from one individual to another.

Among the strange ironies in our country is that the issue of morals and religion is limited to private freedoms only, while the stealing of public funds, corruption in state departments, bribery, wasta and influence are all accepted religiously and morally, but youth parties are prohibited and banned. — Al-Watan

In my view

The unfinished revolutionary

By Mahir Ali

I

n a year marking the centenary of the outbreak of a landmark European conflict that profoundly shaped the 20th century, the specific causes and wide-ranging consequences of what was once commonly known as the Great War will no doubt be closely examined and hotly debated.

Events in the Middle East are perhaps the most obvious instance of how great-power machinations during the course of that war - the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and the following year’s Balfour Declaration, for example - continue to influence current affairs.

For much of the 20th century, it was deemed uncontroversial to consider the two Russian revolutions of 1917 particularly the second one - as the most consequential outcome of the war in world-historical terms. The February revolution overthrew a feudal tsarist order that had withstood challenges from below for at least a dozen years. The October revolution sought decisively to bury the past for good, and was facilitated in part by the fact that interim regime persisted with the folly of a war in which the poorly equipped Russian army, allied with Britain and France, faced massive losses against the Germans.

The man whose single-minded determination was crucial to the Bolshevik project died 90 years ago this week, barely six years after the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd. “Even in the camp of his enemies,” noted the writer Maxim Gorky, “there are some who honestly admit: In Lenin the world has lost the man ‘who embodied genius more strikingly than all the great men of his day’.”

One of the more prominent figures in this camp, the future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, is credited with the intriguing observation that if Lenin’s birth was Russia’s worst misfortune, his death was its second worst.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, to give Lenin his proper name, was in many ways an unlikely candidate for elevation to supreme power in the vast Russian realm. A fierce combatant at the intellectual level, his struggle was mainly conducted in European exile, and even among the emigre intelligentsia, he was a divisive figure. His thesis that Russia could effectively skip the bourgeois-democratic phase taken for granted in Marxist circles and transition from a largely feudal economy to a socialist one was viewed with skepticism even by some of his closest comrades.

With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, it is of course easy to dismiss the experiment that Lenin initiated as a monstrous failure. It’s equally easy to overlook the fact that Lenin and many of his peers were convinced that the success of their project was contingent on similar revolutionary outbreaks elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Germany. And, while such outbreaks did indeed occur in the aftermath of the First World War, they were sooner or later crushed by the forces of the existing order.

It is impossible to say exactly how the trajectory of the Soviet Union - established in 1922, after an extraordinarily destructive civil war in which a number of western powers intervened on the side of the anti-Bolshevik White Army would have varied had Lenin remained at its helm for longer. But there would no doubt have been significant differences. The Leninist concept of a heavily centralized van-

guard party has been thoroughly derided, sometimes with good cause, but even the Communist Party would have been a rather different beast had it not been reduced to an intellectually impotent vehicle for one-man rule, as it was under Josef Stalin, who made sure he was the only member of Lenin’s central committee left alive by 1940.

It has become commonplace over the decades to conflate Leninism with Stalinism, and while the case for continuity is simple to make, it is open to challenge at several levels. Innumerable statues of Lenin have been toppled since 1989, most recently amid the unrest in Ukraine, but reports of their demise almost never mention the fact that the personality cult around Lenin was strictly a posthumous phenomenon that served the purpose of Stalin and his successors. It is particularly potently exemplified by the pride of place still occupied in Moscow’s Red Square by the granite mausoleum containing Lenin’s mummified corpse, a travesty that his widow failed to prevent in the face of Stalin’s insistence. The Lenin who left an abiding imprint on world history, for better or for worse, deserves to be rescued from a resting place he never chose and would probably have abhorred.

A few years ago, the restless European intellectual Slavoj Zizek made a similar point when he noted: “One cannot separate the unique constellation which enabled the revolutionary takeover in October 1917 from its later Stalinist turn: The very constellation that rendered the revolution possible (peasants’ dissatisfaction, a well-organized revolutionary elite, etc.) led to the Stalinist turn in its aftermath therein resides the proper Leninist tragedy. Rosa Luxemburg’s famous alternative ‘socialism or barbarism’ ended up as the ironic identity of the two opposed terms: the ‘really existing’ socialism WAS barbarism.

“Consequently, to repeat Lenin does not mean a return to Lenin - to repeat Lenin is to accept that ‘Lenin is dead’, that his particular solution failed, even failed monstrously, but that there was a utopian spark in it worth saving. To repeat Lenin means that one has to distinguish between what Lenin effectively did and the field of possibilities that he opened up, the tension in Lenin between what he effectively did and another dimension ... To repeat Lenin is to repeat not what Lenin did, but what he failed to do, his missed opportunities.

Today, Lenin appears as a figure from a different timezone: It’s not that his notions of the centralized party, etc., seem to pose a “totalitarian threat” - it’s rather that they seem to belong to a different epoch to which we can no longer properly relate. However, instead of reading this fact as the proof that Lenin is outdated, one should, perhaps, risk the opposite conjecture: What if this impenetrability of Lenin is a sign that there is something wrong with OUR epoch? What if the fact that we experience Lenin as irrelevant, “out of sync” with our postmodern times, impart the much more unsettling message that our time itself is “out of sync,” that a certain historical dimension is disappearing from it?”

There is certainly scope in that evaluation for, if nothing else, a fruitful debate.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Iraq PM calls for ‘stand’ against Anbar militants Page 8

Mexican national’s lawyers want execution halted Page 9

KIEV: A demonstrator throws a stone as protesters clash with police in the center of Kiev yesterday. At least two activists were shot dead yesterday as Ukrainian police stormed protesters’ barricades in Kiev, the first fatalities in two months of anti-government protests. — AFP

Ukraine PM takes hard line on protests 5 killed US revokes visas for ‘several’ Ukrainian officials KIEV: Ukraine’s prime minister said yesterday that anti-government protests had brought “terrorists” onto the streets of Kiev and pledged to punish all “criminal action”, even as protesters confronted police near government headquarters.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, speaking to his cabinet, took a tough line on the protesters, who yesterday massed anew in their hundreds, inflamed by reports of at least five demonstrators dying overnight - two of them from gunshot wounds.

In words that appeared to foreshadow a police crackdown, Azarov said: “Terrorists from the ‘Maidan’ (Independence Square) seized dozens of people and beat them. I am officially stating that these are criminals who must answer for their action.” Azarov accused opposition leaders of inciting “criminal action” by calling for anti-government protests, which he said destabilized the situation in Ukraine, a large former Soviet republic of 46 million people.

But in a move underlining US criticism of his government’s heavy-handed treatment of the protesters, the US embassy in Kiev said it had revoked the visas of several Ukrainians linked to police violence against protesters in November and December. It did not name the officials but said it was considering further action against those responsible for the current violence. The European Union called on Ukraine’s government and opposition to “engage in a genuine dialogue”. “I strongly condemn the violent escalation of events in Kiev overnight leading to casualties. The reported deaths of several protesters are a source of extreme worry,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

WASHINGTON: Snow crews clear the sidewalk on Tuesday in Washington, DC. The DC area is embracing a snowstorm which could bring as much as 10 inches of snow. — AFP

Bitterly cold US digs out of northeast snow NEW YORK: Millions of Americans braved a miserable commute across the East coast Wednesday after a fierce storm dumped more than a foot of snow from the MidAtlantic to New England. The federal government stumbled back to work as bitter wind chills kept temperatures 10 to 25 degrees below average with hundreds of flights canceled and roads still icy. In New York, the mercury would not rise beyond -10 Celsius but bone-chilling gusts would make it feel as low as -13 Fahrenheit, the National Weather Service said.

Schools were open and most subway lines ran smoothly but new mayor Bill de Blasio was roasted in the press for bungling the second winter storm of his less than four-week administration. More than 1,700 plows were to be mobilized across America’s biggest city Tuesday night to clear up to 10 inches of snow. But when the flakes hit earlier than expected Tuesday, residents across New York complained that road crews were too slow to mobilize, causing a string of accidents and traffic gridlock.

“I can’t believe de Blasio could do this. He is putting everyone in danger,” Barbara Tamerin, 70, was quoted as telling The New York Post on the well-heeled Upper East Side. “What is he thinking? I can barely get around - and I’m on snowshoes!” In Washington DC, it was back to work for the federal government, which told civil servants - who already had Monday off for the Martin Luther King holiday - to stay home Tuesday.

Yesterday, federal agencies were to open two hours

late. Employees could also take unscheduled leave, and those that can were allowed to work from home. Most area schools, in the city and neighboring Maryland and Virginia, were to remain closed again yesterday. The commute was slow, the glare of the sunshine combined with sand and salt on the roads mucking up windshields, making visibility poor and causing drivers to pull over on the highway. Chicago residential areas were still digging out yesterday after being dumped with six to 12 inches of snow, canceling hundreds of flights and slowing trains, an AFP reporter said.

Philadelphia recorded up to 14 inches of snow on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. “On the East Coast, the biggest snowfall event of the season thus far is wrapping up for the Mid-Atlantic and will persist until early Wednesday for southern New England,” it said.

FlightAware, a website that monitors air traffic in real time, said more than 1,400 flights into, out of or within the United States had been canceled Wednesday and nearly 3,000 Tuesday. National rail company Amtrak said it would operate “a modified schedule” on its Northeast Corridor line between Washington and Boston, as well as on two other routes in the hard-hit region.

In total governors of three states - Delaware, New Jersey and New York - declared states of emergency. New Jersey’s Chris Christie, who is battling allegations that his office bullied political foes, also canceled a gala on Ellis Island in New York Harbor to mark the start of his new term. — AFP

Weeks of protests The protesters have been out on the streets since November, angered by President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision to shun a trade pact with the EU and instead accept financial aid from Russia to prop up Ukraine’s ailing economy. But events took a violent turn on Sunday after a mass rally called by the opposition to protest against sweeping new laws that ban any sort of anti-government protest. In continued overnight violence into yesterday, two people died from gunshot wounds, according to a statement by the general prosecutor, and a third was said to have been killed in a fall from

atop the Dynamo football stadium.

Fifty people were detained overnight and 29 of them were officially charged with taking part in mass unrest, police said.

A total of 167 police have been injured. There was no immediate figure for civilians injured. Azarov said earlier that police deployed on the streets did not possess firearms and the interior ministry has denied that police have used guns during the crisis. Yesterday’s violence erupted ironically as Ukraine marked ‘National Unification Day’ - the day in 1919 which brought together that part of the country that had been under Russian rule with that which had been in the AustroHungarian empire.

Battle zone In the worst violence that anyone can remember in Kiev, a 200-metre stretch of the city centre close to government buildings and the parliament has been turned into a battle zone as hard-core protesters, ignoring opposition leaders’ pleas only for peaceful demonstration, have bombarded police with petrol bombs and cobblestones. Riot police have replied with rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. A group of priests held the two sides apart on Tuesday but the crowds were back yesterday after the deaths were reported.

Yanukovich has suggested he is ready for peace talks with the opposition but these have yet to materialize and opposition leader, boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko, returned to the barricades on Tuesday after Yanukovich refused to see him.

In a Unification Day message, Yanukovich expressed the conviction that 2014 would be a year of “mutual understanding and frank discussion about our common future”.

As snow fell yesterday, hundreds of protesters glared at police lines across a 40-metre ‘no-man’s land, beating on drum barrels with sticks to mimic similar action by police on their riot shields. Riot police, known as Berkut, staged a baton-charge to push back protesters and seized canisters of harmful chemicals they said the demonstrators had been readying to use against them. After the Berkut withdrew, protesters returned to the spot. Earlier yesterday, police, using teargas, tried to dismantle a protest camp but were repelled by demonstrators hurling home-made petrol bombs, witnesses said. — Agencies

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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Regional nations approve military force for S Sudan NAIROBI: East African nations have approved a 5,500strong military force for war-torn South Sudan to end weeks of bitter fighting that has devastated the young nation, Kenya’s foreign minister said yesterday. Thousands have been killed and half a million civilians forced to flee the fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebels allied to his sacked deputy Riek Machar. “The Security Council within IGAD has already adopted a resolution allowing 5,500 troops into South Sudan,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told reporters, referring to the seven-member Intergovernmental Authority on Development. IGAD is mediating deadlocked talks in Ethiopia between the warring parties, to end a conflict in

which the United Nations says atrocities have been committed, including mass killings, sexual violence and widespread destruction. Uganda, an IGAD-member, has already sent troops to South Sudan on its own and taken a key role in the fighting in support of Kiir, and it was not clear if those soldiers would be included in the force.

Rebel chief Machar has demanded Kampala withdraw all forces, claiming Ugandan fighter jets have tried to kill him, and has questioned the neutrality of IGAD as a mediator. A draft cessation of hostilities deal seen by AFP and put to delegates in Addis Ababa proposes an IGAD-led team to monitor the proposed deal on the ground.

Mohamed said the force would “support the monitoring

and verification of cessation of hostilities, to ensure that peace and normalcy return to the Republic of South Sudan”. But she also said the force could be deployed “even before” a deal was agreed.

Mohamed said that Kenya-which deployed troops in South Sudan to help evacuate citizens trapped in the fighting-has been approached to send in troops as part of the force. “Some countries have already agreed to send troops, others are considering,” Mohamed said, initially saying Kenya would be willing to take part, but then later saying a decision had yet to be made. The draft IGAD ceasefire accord presented to peace delegates meeting in Addis Ababa, notes the “scale of human suffering... with

great loss of human life”, since fighting broke out on December 15.

It also specifically highlights that both sides must “refrain” from attacking civilians, including summary executions, use of child soldiers as well as “rape, sexual abuse and torture”. Fighting has spiraled into ethnic killings between members of Kiir’s Dinka people-the country’s largest group-and Machar’s Nuer. Many fear the conflict has spun out of the control of the politicians who sparked it. An emergency regional summit of IGAD leaders planned for Thursday in Juba has been cancelled, but the same issues of striking a deal will be discussed at the African Union in Addis Ababa next week. — AFP

Iraq PM calls for ‘stand’ against Anbar militants Diplomats urge Baghdad to foster reconciliation BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called yesterday for residents of the conflict-hit province of Anbar to “take a stand” against anti-government fighters, as the UN warned of worsening displacement.

His call came as government forces pressed an offensive against militants, including those affiliated with the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who overran parts of the Anbar provincial capital Ramadi weeks ago.

Diplomats have urged Baghdad to foster political reconciliation to undercut support for the militants, but with elections looming in April, Maliki and others have taken a hard line and focused on wide-ranging security operations.

“I ask the people of the province-the tribes, the notables, and all who live there-to be ready to take a stand, to take serious action against those dirty people, without making any sacrifices,” Maliki said in his weekly televised address.

He added, referring to Fallujah, another city in Anbar that is entirely in the control of anti-government fighters: “It is time to finish this subject, and end the presence of gangs in this city, and save the people from their evil.”

Parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, both former insurgent bastions in Anbar west of Baghdad, have been in the hands of militants for weeks, the first time anti-government fighters have exercised such open control in Iraqi cities since the peak of the insurgency that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.

Soldiers, policemen and SWAT forces have combined with pro-government tribal allies in an offensive that continued Wednesday against gunmen holding several neighbourhoods of Ramadi, an AFP journalist in the city said.

The army said in a statement that 13 militants were killed in firefights there. In Fallujah, meanwhile, shelling in southern and central neighbourhoods left one person dead and 10 people wounded yesterday, a medic said.

Residents of the city blame the army for the shelling, but defence officials say the military is not responsible.

The government has tweaked its language in recent days from referring to all anti-government fighters in Anbar simply as Al-Qaeda, and now uses terms such as gangs.

And while Fallujah residents and tribal sheikhs have said ISIL has tightened its grip on the city in recent days, several other militant groups and anti-government tribes have also been involved in fighting government forces in both cities in Anbar.

Iraqi security forces, meanwhile, have recruited their own tribal allies to fight alongside them.

Over 22,000 families displaced The United Nations warned on Tuesday of “an exponential increase in the number of displaced and stranded families”, with more than 22,000 families having registered as internally displaced.

The UN said the actual figure was likely to be higher, as not all those who fled had registered. It said of those who had left, most had found refuge elsewhere in Anbar, but some had gone as far afield as the northern Kurdish region.

Fighting originally erupted in the Ramadi area on December 30, when security forces cleared a year-old Sunni Arab protest camp. It spread to Fallujah, and militants moved in and seized the city and parts of Ramadi after security forces withdrew.

Violence elsewhere in the country on Wednesday left eight people dead, security and medical officials said.

The deadliest incident occurred in Baghdad’s western outskirts, where three mortar shells slammed into a residential neighbourhood, killing at least three people.

Attacks in and around the restive northern cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Kirkuk killed five others in all. The latest violence brought to more than 700 the number of people killed so far this month, according to an AFP tally. By comparison, fewer than 250 people died as a result of violence in all of January 2013. — AFP

BAGHDAD: Burned cars sit at a car dealer’s shop a day after a car bomb explosion in Baghdad, Iraq, yesterday.

Violence spiked in Iraq after the government staged a deadly crackdown on a Sunni protest camp last April.

Militants have also targeted civilians, particularly in Shiite areas of Baghdad, with coordinated car bombings and other deadly attacks. — AP

Bunny in Mandela statue causes stir JOHANNESBURG: A new, 9-meter (29.5-foot) sculpture of Nelson Mandela is billed as the biggest statue of the South African leader. It also has a tiny, barely visible quirk: a sculpted rabbit tucked inside one of the bronze ears.

South African officials want the miniature bunny removed from the statue, which was unveiled outside the government complex in Pretoria, the capital, on Dec 16, a day after Mandela’s funeral. The department of arts and culture said it didn’t know the two sculptors, Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren, had added a rabbit, said to be a discreet signature on their work.

The bronze rabbit, sitting on its haunches with one floppy ear, is about half the height of the ear canal. “It doesn’t belong there,” said Mogomotsi Mogodiri, a department spokesman. “The statue represents what everyone in South Africa is proud of.”

His department said in a statement that there are discussions on “how best to retain the integrity of the sculpture without causing any damage or disfigurement.”

Translation: pull the rabbit out of the ear without botching the statue. The giant work stands with arms outstretched, symbolizing Mandela’s devotion to inclusiveness, outside the Union Buildings, where the body of the prisoner who opposed white rule and became South Africa’s first black president lay in state after his Dec. 5 death at the age of 95.

Trademark Telephone calls and emails sent by The Associated Press to the artists were not immediately returned. Earlier this week, South Africa’s Beeld newspaper quoted the artists as saying they added the rabbit as a “trademark” after officials would not allow them to engrave their signatures on the statue’s trousers. They also said the rabbit represented the pressure of finishing the sculpture on time because “haas” - the word for rabbit in the Dutch-based Afrikaans language - also means “haste.”

Paul Mashatile, arts and culture minister, said the sculptors have apologized for any offense to those who felt the rabbit was disrespectful toward the legacy of Mandela.

The government had appointed Koketso Growth, a heritage development company, to manage the statue project.

CEO Dali Tambo, son of anti-apartheid figure Oliver Tambo, said he was furious when he heard about the rabbit, and said it must go. “That statue isn’t just a statue of a man, it’s the statue of a struggle, and one of the most noble in human history,” Tambo said. “So it’s belittling, in my opinion, if you then take it in a jocular way and start adding rabbits in the ear.”

It would be, he said, like depicting US President Barack Obama with a mouse in his nose. Tambo said the artists,

who belong to South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority, were selected for their talent but also in part because the project was a multi-racial effort in keeping with Mandela’s principle of reconciliation. He said their signatures could be added on the statue in a discreet place, perhaps on Mandela’s heel. — AP

PRETORIA: In this photo taken Jan 16, 2014 a new, 9meter (29.5-foot) sculpture of Nelson Mandela, with a barely visible sculpted rabbit tucked inside one of the bronze ears. The statue is billed as the biggest statue of the South African leader. Officials want the miniature bunny removed from the statue, which was unveiled outside the government complex in Pretoria, the capital, on Dec 16, a day after Mandela’s funeral. — AP

Latvia first woman PM wins confidence vote RIGA: Latvia’s parliament yesterday gave the green light to a new centre-right coalition government led by its first ever woman prime minister. Laimdota Straujuma, 62, won the parliamentary vote after Valdis Dombrovskis stepped down over a supermarket roof collapse that killed dozens in the capital Riga in November.

The technocrat and former agriculture minister won by 64 votes to 27 with 2 abstentions, in the 100-seat parliament. She heads a broad coalition commanding a solid 66-seats comprising four of the five parties represented, plus six independent MPs. Straujuma vowed in parliament to continue Dombrovskis’s austerity-oriented economic policies during her nine months of power in the runup to October’s general election. “The government will be professional and enthusiastic. We are ready for lots of serious work. We’ll work together and work honestly,” she told lawmakers.

Dombrovskis stepped down on November 27 saying he took “political responsibility” for the deadly roof cave-in that killed 54 people and so far not disclosed his plans for the future.

The 42-year-old trained physicist then presided over Latvia’s entry into the euro-zone on January 1 — the central goal of his administration-in a caretaker capacity. Polls just prior to entry showed only a fifth of people in the austerity-weary nation favored the changeover while nearly 60 percent opposed it. This can be explained by the fact that Latvians were asked to a take steep pay cuts amid a deep recession as the government pushed on to meet euro-zone entry targets. Straujuma’s coalition adds the small Greens and Farmers’ Union (ZZS) party to Dombrovskis’s previous right-of-centre trio including the Unity party, Reform Party and the National Alliance.

Lawmaker Igors Pimenovs of the pro-Russian leftist Harmony

Centre party, now the sole opposition party, on Wednesday slammed the coalitions plan to press on with tight spending. “It is a road to nowhere and will lead to a dead end economy,” Pimenovs said. But those policies have driven a spectacular recovery from the world’s deepest recession in 2008-9 during the global financial crisis. Latvia is now expected to top the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rankings for a third consecutive year when 2013 data is released next month. President Andris Berzins has urged the new government to steer clear of populism before the October general election and European Parliament elections due in May. “This is a government based on reasonable compromise,” Berzins said in a Tuesday endorsement. Straujuma served as agriculture minister since 2011 — a key post in a country with a strong farmers’ lobby. She is widely regarded as having done a good job in demanding a better subsidy deal from Brussels for Latvian farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Straujuma, who had held the portfolio as a non-partisan, was given fast-track membership in the Unity political party in order to become their official nominee for the head of government.

The portly technocrat is compared at home to German chancellor Angela Merkel and known for an endearing giggle and slightly professorial, absent-minded manner. Iveta Kazoka, an analyst at the Providus centre for public policy, told AFP that Straujuma’s future was in her own hands. “She is self-admittedly a technocrat who has been placed in the highest political office in Latvia. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t,” Kazoka said.

“The first weeks of her reign will tell whether there is any future for her in Latvian politics. If she is successful, then she will probably stay in that office for quite a long time.”— AFP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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Afghanistan cracks down on commercials that favour US troops KABUL: The Afghan government, increasingly at odds with Washington, is cracking down on advertisements that promote keeping US troops in Afghanistan after 2014 and has already shut down a spot aired by the country’s most widely watched broadcasters.

The commercials - some funded by a US organisation - have drawn official criticism because they urge President Hamid Karzai to abandon his refusal to sign a security pact with the United States that would enable the troops to stay.

Broadcasters, which ran the spots for several weeks, came under investigation on grounds that their source of funding was unclear. All have pulled the advertisements off the air. “We have launched an investigation into broadcasters to find out where they receive money from for such

advertisements,” Basir Azizi, a spokesman for the attorney general, told Reuters yesterday.

Despite Karzai’s refusal to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) unless several conditions were met, many Afghans are uncertain the army is able to fend off Taleban insurgents without help from the NATO-led ISAF coalition of troops.

The commercials often include interviews with rank-and-file Afghans calling on Karzai to sign the accord immediately. In one spot, the head of a cultural association tells the president: “You should accept the people’s demand and sign this as soon as possible.” The crackdown is the latest symptom of K arzai’s hostility to Washington. Last week, he cited a deadly attack on a restaurant to accuse the United States of doing too little to fight terrorism.

Media freedom Afghanistan’s media watchdog said pressure on broadcasters was hurting attempts to establish the industry’s independence. “Such actions by the government are a clear attempt to limit freedom of speech and put at risk advances in the media industry,” Mujib Khelwatgar, Director General of NAI media watchdog, told Reuters.

Government figures show that more than 50 private television stations, 150 radio broadcasters and about 1,000 newspapers have sprung up since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Broadcasters were aware that the spots were funded by ISAF or related groups, but saw “public service” advertising as a source of revenue.

These include media groups like Radio Killid.

“Killid Radio is being paid 400 to 500 euros by ISAF per minute to air adverts for the BSA on a

daily basis,” Najiba Ayubi, the director of Radio Killid, told Reuters.

Afghanistan’s most popular channel, Tolo TV, is paid by Ads Village to run the spots, according to industry sources. The company says it is funded

by ISAF and the U.S. state aid agency USAID. “All adverts are treated with similar terms and conditions, whether it is on BSA or a brand of mineral water,” Massood Sanjar, Tolo TV’s channel manager, told Reuters.

Industry sources said that Tolo TV paid $700$1,000 a minute to air the spots several times over a 24 hour period. The ISAF declined to indicate how much it spends on advertising, saying: “Public information released... is intended to inform and educate the public on the mission and operations of ISAF and our Afghan National Security Forces partners.” — Reuters

Chicago priest sex abuse victims demand more files 6,000 pages of church documents posted online CHICAGO: Victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests vowed to keep pushing for more information on how allegations were handled by the Archdiocese of Chicago and other Catholic orders, and are encouraging other victims to come forward.

More than 6,000 pages of internal church documents posted online Tuesday by attorneys showed how officials at the highest level of the third-largest US archdiocese tried to contain the scandal, including by moving accused priests from parish to parish while hiding their histories from the public.

But the documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, cover only 30 of the at least 65 clergy members for whom the archdiocese says it has substantiated claims of child abuse.

St. Paul, Minnesota, attorney Jeff Anderson said he will push for documents involving the other 35 archdiocese priests. “This is a great step, but what is settled is far from what we’re

shooting for,” Anderson said Tuesday at a news conference. Archdiocese officials have said they’ll review and develop a process to release documents on those 35 other cases.

Angel Santiago, who was abused in the 1980s by one of the 30 priests singled out in the documents, said he hopes more victims of abuse come forward.”These files here represent a lot for us survivors. For some of us it will be answers, for some of us it will be peace of mind ... for all of us, it’s a start,” Santiago said.

“And the more that we find more survivors, the stronger we get and we can get more files out of the archdiocese.”

Documents on abusive clergy Other victims said they also want the Church to release documents on abusive clergy in other religious orders in the Chicago area. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called on Cardinal Francis George to “disci-

CHICAGO: Attorney Jeff Anderson, second from left, places his hand on the files of Catholic priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors in the Archdiocese of Chicago, prior to a news conference Tuesday, in Chicago. Joining Anderson is attorney Marc Pearlman, left, parents of and victims of abuse. Newly released documents offer the broadest look yet into how one of its largest and most prominent American dioceses responded to the scandal. — AP

pline or demote and denounce and even defrock some of the members of his staff who are responsible for these individuals being hurt and ... at a minimum turned a blind eye to these horrific crimes and worse, concealed those crimes and enabled more crimes just like them.”

He also said some priests who abused in the Chicago archdiocese are working elsewhere now. Chicago attorney Marc Pearlman said he and Anderson have “many cases” pending with the archdiocese, which “allows us to keep putting pressure on them.”

“There should be zero tolerance within any diocese in country, and anyone found to have shielded a sex abuser should be fired,” Pearlman said. The documents include more than 6,000 pages of internal communications between church officials, disturbing testimony about specific abuses, meeting schedules where allegations were discussed and letters from anguished parishioners. The names of victims and details considered private under mental health laws were redacted.

Late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin often approved the reassignments, the documents show. The archdiocese removed some priests from ministry, but often years or decades after the clergy were known to have molested children.

In a letter distributed to parishes last week, George apologized to victims and Catholics, and said the archdiocese agreed to turn over the records to help the victims heal.

The archdiocese released a statement Tuesday saying it knows it “made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify” and that it is “working hard to regain trust, to reach out to victims and their families, and to make certain that all children and youth are protected,” the statement read.

Officials in the archdiocese said most of the abuse detailed in the files released Tuesday occurred before 1988 but not after 1996, and that the cases ultimately were reported to authorities.

But victims’ lawyers argue many of the allegations surfaced after George assumed control of the archdiocese in 1997, and some of the documents relate to how the church handled the cases more recently. — AP

Mexican national’s lawyers want execution halted HUNTSVILLE: Mexican officials are incensed because Texas has opposed legal efforts and spurned diplomatic pressure to spare a prisoner who was in the US without legal permission when he was condemned for fatally shooting a Houston police officer two decades ago. Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was set to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday for the January 1994 slaying of Guy Gaddis, 24. Gaddis, who’d been on the force for two years, was driving Tamayo and another man from a robbery scene when evidence showed he was shot three times in the head and neck with a pistol Tamayo had concealed in his pants. The car crashed, and Tamayo fled on foot but was captured a few blocks away, still in handcuffs, carrying the robbery victim’s watch and wearing the victim’s necklace.

Tamayo’s attorneys considered last-day attempts to keep him from the death chamber after a federal district judge on Tuesday rejected their lawsuit challenging what they argued was Texas’ unfair and secretive clemency process.

They and the Mexican government also contended that Tamayo’s case was tainted because he wasn’t advised under an international agreement that he could get legal help from his home nation following his arrest. Secretary of State John Kerry previously had asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to delay Tamayo’s punishment, saying it “could impact the way American citizens are treated in other countries.” The State Department repeated that stance Tuesday.

But Abbott’s office and the Harris County district attorney opposed postponing what would be the first execution this year in the nation’s most active capital punishment state, where 16 people were put to death in 2013. The Mexican government said in a statement this week that it “strongly opposed” the execution and reminded that failure to review Tamayo’s case and reconsider his sentence would be “a clear violation by the United States of its international obligations.”

Mexican officials and Tamayo’s attorneys contend he was protected under a provision of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Legal assistance guaranteed under that treaty could have uncovered evidence to contest the capital murder charge or provide evidence to keep Tamayo off death row, they said.

Clemency “We are continuing to pursue our options for appeal, and vindication of Tamayo’s right to review of the consular rights violation in his case,” said Maurie Levin, one of Tamayo’s lawyers. Tamayo’s appeal to a federal court in Austin sought an injunction against Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which he appoints. The board can recommend Perry grant clemency, but it’s an action they rarely take.

Levin and lawyer Sandra Babcock argued the state’s clemency procedures were “an affront to what clemency is supposed to be, a ‘failsafe’ in our judicial system.”

Abbott’s office countered the procedures met U.S. Supreme Court guidance. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said. “If

you commit a despicable crime like this in Texas, you are subject to our state laws, including a fair trial by jury and the ultimate penalty.”

Tamayo was in the US without legal permission and had a criminal record in California, where he had served time for robbery and was paroled, according to prison records. “Not one person is claiming the suspect didn’t kill Guy Gaddis,” Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, said. “He had the same rights as you and I would have.

“This has been looked at, heard, examined and it’s time for the verdict of the jury to be carried out.” Legal challenges about consular notification and Mexican nationals on Texas death row aren’t new. At least two other inmates in similar circumstances were executed in Texas in recent years.—AP

TEXAS: In this Jan. 19, 2014 photo, a woman holds up a sign showing a photo of Texas deathrow inmate Edgar Tamayo that reads in Spanish “The town of Miacatlan offers you our support, Edgar Tamayo Arias” during a protest demanding Tamayo’s pardon in his hometown of Miacatlan, Mexico. Lawyers for 46-year-old Edgar Tamayo are suing Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, challenging what they argue is an unfair and secretive clemency process in Texas. Tamayo was set for lethal injection yesterday in Huntsville. — AP

WASHINGTON: In this Jan. 17, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at the Justice Department in Washington. President Barack Obama is launching an initiative to combat sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, turning the spotlight on a problem that has devastated millions of Americans yet rarely receives such White House attention. — AP

Obama targets college sexual assault epidemic WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is launching an initiative to combat sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, turning the spotlight on a problem that has devastated millions of Americans yet rarely receives such White House attention.

Obama planned to sign a presidential memorandum yesterday creating a task force to protect students from sexual assault, with a new White House report declaring that no one in America is more at risk of being raped or assaulted than college women. The report, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action,” says that 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted at college but that only 12 percent of student victims report the assault.

The report was compiled by the White House Council on Women and Girls and was being released yesterday, but the White House provided an advance copy to The Associated Press. It says nearly 22 million American women and 1.6 million men have been raped in their lifetimes, with victims more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse and a wide range of physical ailments, including chronic pain and diabetes.

The report says rape’s prevalence is highest at college, fueled by drinking and drug use that can incapacitate victims. Obama is giving the task force of administration officials 90 days to come up with recommendations for colleges to prevent and respond to sexual assault, increase public awareness of each school’s track record and enhance coordination among federal agencies to hold schools accountable if they don’t confront the problem.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, chair of the Council on Women and Girls, said men

must be involved to combat the problem and the president wants to lead a cultural shift of men speaking out. “The president is committed to solving this problem, not just as president of the United States, but as a father of two girls” who will soon be heading to college, Jarrett said in an interview.

The report also declares that the criminal justice response to sexual assault is too often inadequate and lays out a goal of increasing arrest, prosecution and conviction rates without any specific targets. The report blames police bias and a lack of training to investigate and prosecute sex crimes for low arrest rates and says the federal government should promote training and help police increase testing of DNA evidence collected from victims.

The report mentions the wave of sexual assault in the military - Obama last month gave the Pentagon a year to better prevent and respond to the crime within its ranks or face further reforms. White House officials say they want to set the example by turning around the sexual assault epidemic in the military.

Obama is bringing Attorney General Eric Holder, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Education Secretary Arnie Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius to the Oval Office on Wednesday to press them to work on the problem. Then he plans to join an ongoing meeting of his Council on Women and Girls attended by more Cabinet members in the East Room, where he is to sign the memorandum creating the task force. Vice President Joe Biden, who authored the Violence Against Women Act and has led other efforts to reduce sexual assault, also plans to attend. — AP

Gates says poor countries not doomed to stay poor NEW YORK: Philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates pitched an optimistic future for the world’s poor and sick in their annual letter Tuesday, arguing passionately against three myths they say hurt efforts to bring people out of poverty, save lives and improve living conditions. In their sixth yearly letter, which in the past has focused exclusively on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual activities, the co-chairmen of the world’s largest charitable foundation seek to dispel notions that poor countries are doomed to stay poor, that foreign aid is wasteful and that saving lives will cause overpopulation.

“All three reflect a dim view of the future, one that says the world isn’t improving but staying poor and sick, and getting overcrowded,” Bill Gates writes in the 16-page letter.

“We’re going to make the opposite case, that the world is getting better, and that in two decades it will be better still.”

Gates says GDP per capita figures, adjusted for inflation to 2005 dollars, show that many countries such as China, India, Brazil and even Botswana that were once considered poor now have growing economies. And in Africa, a place the Microsoft co-founder says is all too often dismissed as hopeless, life expectancy has risen since the 1960s despite the HIV epidemic. Also, more children are going to school and fewer people are hungry.

Generous donor “I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a prediction,” he said. “By

2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world.” Gates also argues against claims that foreign aid is wasteful because it is too expensive, because it is stolen by corrupt officials receiving it or because countries who receive it become dependent on it.

He says that in Norway, the world’s most generous donor of foreign aid, the amount of its budget that goes to foreign aid is only 3 percent. In the US, it’s less than 1 percent, or about $30 billion per year, of which $11 billion goes to vaccines, bed nets and other health causes.

Measles vaccinations, eradicating smallpox, controlling tuberculosis in China and a plan to eliminate polio in Latin America are all public health efforts achieved with aid funding.

“Health aid is a phenomenal investment,” he writes. “When I look at how many fewer children are dying than 30 years ago, and how many people are living longer and healthier lives, I get quite optimistic about the future.”

His wife, Melinda, wrote a section of the letter dispelling the myth that saving lives worldwide will lead to overpopulation. She points to countries such as Brazil where both child mortality and birth rates have declined.

When more children survive, she says, parents have smaller families. “The planet does not thrive when the sickest are allowed to die off, but rather when they are able to improve their lives,” she says. “Human beings are not machines. We don’t reproduce mindlessly. We make decisions based on the circumstances we face.”—AP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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

Philippines, Muslim rebels hope to sign pact soon KUALA LUMPUR: The Philippine government and the country’s largest Muslim rebel group yesterday began what they hope will be the final round of talks on ending a decades-long rebellion.

Negotiators from the government and the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front said they are guardedly optimistic they can iron out differences on the final issues of rebel disarmament and the extent of minority Muslim control over resource-rich waters in the fourday negotiations that opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

An agreement on those issues would

conclude the yearslong talks and lead to the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement, presidential peace process adviser Teresita Deles said. The proposed peace pact would grant minority Muslims broader autonomy in the south in exchange for ending more than 40 years of violence that has killed more than 120,000 combatants and civilians and held back progress in the resourcerich but poverty-wracked region.

Disarming the guerrillas under an accord called “normalization” is among the most delicate stages of the talks and involves convincing rebel commanders

to lay down their weapons in a restive region where some have had long-running clan feuds outside of the insurgency. A volatile mix of unlicensed guns, weak law enforcement and the presence of many armed groups has long engendered a gun culture in the region.

Deles said the two sides have discussed the thorny issue since last year and need to thresh out the remaining details, including ways of helping former combatants regain normal lives and establishing independent commissions to oversee the rebel “decomissioning” and the formation of a security force in

the broader Muslim autonomous region, to be called Bangsamoro.

“The last mile is always the hardest,” Deles said. While a final peace agreement could possibly be signed soon, rebel negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said more needed to be done afterward, including the crafting and passage of a law authorizing establishment of the more powerful autonomous region.

Despite growing optimism, both sides warned a peace pact would not immediately end the violence in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation where at least three other armed Islamic

groups have opposed the Malaysian-brokered talks and vowed to continue an uprising for a separate Muslim homeland.

Rebels from one group, the Moro National Liberation Front, took scores of hostages in September and occupied coastal communities in southern Zamboanga city in a bloody siege they launched after accusing the government of reneging on its commitments under a 1996 autonomy deal.

Thousands of troops ended the weekslong uprising with a major offensive that killed more than 200 people, most of them insurgents. —AP

China activist Xu Zhiyong in silent protest at trial Three protesters detained BEIJING: Prominent Chinese activist Xu Zhiyong was tried yesterday for his role in anti-corruption protests but defied the court by refusing to speak, his lawyer said, calling the proceedings a “piece of theatre”.

Prosecutors called for Xu, founder of the New Citizens Movement, to be sentenced to the maximum five years in jail for “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place”.

He was accused of being involved in demonstrations featuring banners call-

take part in a piece of theatre, we are not actors, we can’t act,” he said.

“The court tried to persuade Xu to speak... and spent 10 minutes trying to persuade the lawyers to speak,” added Zhang, who says the trial is procedurally flawed and the evidence was not sufficient to prove the crime.

‘Xu silence throughout trial’ The trial was completed in a six-hour hearing, he said, adding no date was set for the verdict. Xu is one of several New

Jinping, and overseas rights groups have condemned the proceedings as hypocritical.

Also yesterday, an overseas investigation said relatives of top Chinese leaders leaders including President Xi Jinping and former premier Wen Jiabao have used offshore tax havens to hide their wealth.

At least 20 supporters from across China gathered near the courthouse, with a group of around 10 unveiling a red banner calling for officials to disclose

BEIJING: A supporter, center, of Xu Zhiyong is detained by policemen while she gathers with other supporters near the Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, where legal scholar and founder of the New Citizens movement Xu stands trial, in Beijing yesterday. The trial of the prominent activist who has led a grassroots campaign demanding a fairer society and official accountability to better fight corruption started in Beijing, while police blocked journalists and supporters from getting near. Xu stood trial yesterday on charge of disrupting public order. —AP ing for asset disclosure by officials-seen as a key measure against graft. Dozens of uniformed and plain-clothes police surrounded the court in Beijing, with some physically pushing reporters away.

Several Xu supporters said at least three protesters nearby had been detained. Xu’s lawyer Zhang Qingfang told AFP he and his client had remained silent inside the court. “We don’t want to

Citizens Movement activists-including businessmen and a lawyer-due to stand trial this week in what has been viewed as part of a government crackdown on dissent.

They are all almost certain to be found guilty by China’s politically controlled courts. The trials come despite a much-publicised anti-corruption drive

by China’s Communist party under Xi

their assets-similar to the actions which led to the charges against Xu. “If you don’t expose your assets, it shows you must have a secret,” said one of them, Wu Guangzhong.

“Declaring assets is the most common way of preventing corruption.”

Zhu Jiaqi, from Tianjin, added: “It should be an open trial but it’s held in secret. Xu’s voice reflects the voice of

the basic and ordinary people.”

Repeatedly detained Foreign diplomats were allowed into the court building, but were told they would not be permitted to attend the hearing itself, one European representative told AFP. BBC footage showed men wearing hoods wordlessly forcing a journalist and cameraman backwards along a pavement, while a CNN reporter said on Twitter that officials broke his camera.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said journalists entered “a restricted area, so the managing staff removed them from the premises”. Xu’s trial was “a reflection of China’s rule of law and judicial independence”, he said, adding: “China’s judicial bodies are trying him in accordance with the law.”

Between 20 and 40 people involved with the loose-knit New Citizens Movement have been detained since last year, according to members, while at least three have previously been put on trial.

The arrests have been seen as part of a wider campaign to enforce ideological unity since Xi became the head of the Communist party in late 2012. Xu trained as a lawyer at one of China’s top universities and became widely known in 2003 because of a campaign against a form of extra-legal detention that resulted in the law being changed.

He was at the core of an emerging group of “rights defence” lawyers, who sought to use legal arguments and court cases to push for political reform. But Chinese authorities, who do not permit independent and organised forms of dissent, arrested him in 2009 on tax evasion charges, which were dropped months later after a public outcry. In recent years Xu-whose wife gave birth to a daughter this month-lived under regular surveillance. He has been repeatedly detained and held under house arrest by state security agents, who even attended his wedding in 2011.

Standing outside the courthouse, Ma Zhurong from the northern province of Shaanxi praised Xu for helping people like her pursue individual justice. “Xu Zhiyong is just someone who helped powerless people using the law,” she said. “(He) wanted to speak up for those who suffered.” —AFP

Briton gets 14 years for drug smuggling SURABAYA: A British woman was jailed for 14 years yesterday but escaped the death penalty after admitting that she smuggled crystal methamphetamine into Indonesia from China.

Andrea Waldeck had confessed to taking the drugs through the airport in Surabaya, in the east of Indonesia’s main Java island, hidden in her underwear but claimed she was coerced into carrying them.

After being found guilty and sentenced at a Surabaya court, the former police worker hung her head as she was led down to the cells.

The sentence was lower than prosecutors’ recommendation of 16 years for the 43-yearold, who had smuggled 1.5 kilograms (three pounds) of crystal meth into Indonesia. She could have received the death sentence for smuggling that quantity of drugs under Indonesian anti-narcotics laws, which are some of the toughest in the world.

“Andrea Waldeck has been proven legally and convincingly guilty of offering to sell or become a middle person to sell drugs,” said presiding judge Faturrachman, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. He handed Waldeck a 14-year sentence and ordered her to pay a two-billion-rupiah ($167,000) fine.

But he said the sentence was lighter than the recommendation as Waldeck had “honestly admitted her mistake, which helped the trial proceed smoothly”.

After the verdict Waldeck said she was still considering whether to appeal. Wearing a white shirt, black trousers and red waistcoat of the type worn by prisoners in Indonesia, she looked nervous at yesterday’s hearing, biting her bottom lip as she listened to a translation of proceedings.

Waldeck admitted at a previous hearing that she had smuggled the drugs into Indonesia from China. She was arrested late

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses media at the venue of his sit-in protest in New Delhi. Delhi’s “anarchist” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal faced savage press criticism yesterday after a two-day protest in the capital that could check the dizzying rise of India’s new political star. —AFP

New Delhi’s corruption-slayer stumbles with pavement protest NEW DELHI: Delhi’s “anarchist” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal faced savage press criticism yesterday after a two-day protest in the capital that could check the dizzying rise of India’s new political star. The 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner, who took office less than a month ago amid a wave of support for his ideals, called for mass demonstrations on Monday to press for police reform.

After two days and a night sleeping rough on a pavement in the centre of the capital, he called off the agitation late Tuesday with few of his demands heeded and his credibility shaken. “It seems Kejriwal, who branded himself an anarchist, is unable to transform himself from rabble-rouser to a responsible chief minister,” the Hindustan Times said in an editorial yesterday.

Kejriwal formed his Aam Aadmi (common man) Party just over a year ago, and it made sensational gains in Delhi’s state election in December with its no-tolerance approach to endemic corruption.

Its core support came from the poor and the educated middle-class who saw an alternative to India’s graft-tainted Congress party, in power nationally, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

After taking office, he won plaudits for shunning the VIP culture of Indian politics, taking the metro to his inauguration and travelling elsewhere in his trademark small blue car.

Early moves such as providing abandoned buses for the homeless to sleep in earned favourable headlines, as did pledges to provide cheap electricity and free water. A flood of members, including entrepreneurs and a television anchor, joined AAP and the party suggested it would contest up to 400 seats in national elections due by May. But the radical tone of recent announcements from Kejriwal, who threatened to disrupt the annual Republic Day military parade on Sunday, and his decision to protest in a city he was elected to run, were widely criticised.

The Times of India said the sit-in had been a distraction from an opportunity to improve Delhi and show good governance, adding that “the middle class is unlikely to fall for such gimmickry”.

Others supported his cause and saw courage in his actions, meaning the episode might have lost him fewer voters than editorial writers in the

English-speaking media have assumed. “Who is he fighting for? Us!” said Vishesh Sharma, who sells snacks on a street in central Delhi. “What he did was right. These cops are corrupt and extort bribes from poor people like us.”

Samir Ahmad, who works in a parking lot in the same area, said Kejriwal’s target was “a very good cause”. “Take our case, whenever there is any controversy or conflict in the parking lot and we call the cops, first they come late and then they try and extract money from us,” he said.

‘Defending vigilantism’ Kejriwal launched his protest on Monday to demand that five policemen whom he accused of misconduct be suspended and the city’s police force be put under his control, instead of the central government.

Some of the police he targeted were involved in a late-night incident last week when Delhi’s state law minister, AAP member Somnath Bharti, identified a house suspected of being used for prostitution and drug-dealing.

In front of the media, Bharti became angry when police refused to raid the property in the absence of a warrant. Bharti and his supporters were then accused of detaining four African women, trapping them in a car and forcing one o r and a police complaint.

The Hindu said in its yesterday editorial it was “strange” that Kejriwal “should be defending vigilantism by his ministers”. “Forgotten here is that Indian law does not permit arbitrary search and seizure, especially involving women in the dead of the night,” it added.

In a face-saving compromise, Kejriwal agreed to end his demonstration after securing an agreement-”a victory,” he called it-that two of the five targeted police officers would be sent on leave.

How the episode will affect Kejriwal’s credibility will be crucial for the national elections.

Most expect him to return to street protests and direct action, as he attacks many of the institutions he sees as upholding a corrupt system that has failed to deliver for the poor. But not immediately. After two days exposed to the elements, Kejriwal was reported to be suffering from bronchitis and underwent hospital tests. —AFP

Pakistan attacks kill 13 as violence surges

SURABAYA: Andrea Ruth Waldeck, of Britain, center, is escorted by security officers after her sentencing hearing at a district court in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, yesterday. The court sentenced Waldeck to 14 years in jail yesterday after finding her guilty of drug smuggling and ordered her to pay a fine of $167,000. —AP April at a hotel in Surabaya after she managed to sneak through airport security in the city with the drugs hidden in four plastic bags in her underwear, according to her indictment.

Two members of a drugs gang had been en route to the hotel to pick up the narcoticsbut police knew about the plan and managed to get there first and arrest Waldeck, it said.

She claimed that her boyfriend in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou had asked her to traffic the drugs in exchange for $5,000, according to her indictment.

She had previously worked in southwest-

ern England as a police community support officer, a part-time member of the police with limited powers. Foreigners regularly fall foul of Indonesia’s tough anti-drugs laws. British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death in January last year after she was caught trying to bring $2.4 million worth of cocaine into the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

French drug smuggler Michael Blanc was freed from prison in Jakarta this week on parole after 14 years behind bars, a rare early release for a foreigner. —AFP

QUETTA: Gunmen opened fire on Pakistani police escorting a Spanish cyclist through a volatile province yesterday, killing six officers, while a bomb targeting a polio vaccination team killed seven people in the northwest.

The pair of attacks in two different parts of the country was the latest in a surge in violence that left many questioning whether the government has a plan to tackle the country’s stubborn militancy problem. Radical Sunni Islamic militants have stepped up attacks against members of the minority Shiite Muslim sect in recent years, and violence has been especially bad in the impoverished southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Yesterday, gunmen opened fire at a group of police escorting a Spanish cyclist in Baluchistan, killing six policemen and wounding the cyclist.

The attack took place in the district of Mastung, police official Mohammad Ibrahim said, adding that nine officers were also wounded in the shooting. Ibrahim said more than a dozen tribal policemen were escorting the Spanish cyclist, who was traveling from Iran to Pakistan. The cyclist’s name was not immediately available.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Ibrahim said he suspected the same sectarian group that targeted a group of Shiite pilgrims returning from Iran on Tuesday was responsible for yesterday’s incident as well.

Critical Police had said 20 people died when a bomb exploded near the pilgrims’ bus, but yes-

terday, a local police official, Asad Cheema, said the death toll had risen to 28. Some of the wounded were still listed in critical condition.

Shiite Muslims rallied yesterday in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, demanding action to stop the continued violence against their sect.

In a show of protest, they brought many coffins out into the street with the dead from the attack on the pilgrims.

“We will not bury our dear ones until the government acts against the attackers,” local Shiite leader Agha Dawood said. In the northwest - where Islamic militants have repeatedly targeted health workers carrying out anti-polio vaccinations and policemen who are supposed to protect them - a bomb rigged to a bicycle exploded next to a police patrol on its way to guard a polio vaccination team. Six officers were killed as well as a boy who was nearby, said officer Shafiullah Khan. The blast happened in the Charsadda district, just outside the provincial capital of Peshawar. The bomb also wounded 11 people, four of them tribal policemen, Khan said. It was the second such attack in the past 24 hours. On Tuesday, gunmen killed three health workers in an attack on a polio vaccination team in the southern port city of Karachi.

Pakistan, one of only three countries in the world where the polio virus is still endemic, has seen relentless attacks on polio vaccination teams. Militants oppose vaccinations against polio and consider such campaigns a cover for spying against Pakistan and a conspiracy to allegedly make male Muslim children sterile. —AP

NEWS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Nod to raise housing subsidies to KD 30,000 Continued from Page 1

The Jose Gasparilla is illuminated while at anchor in Hillsborough Bay on the evening of Jan 20, 2014 in Tampa, Florida. — AP

month and raising the housing allowance from KD 150 to KD 250 monthly. The government has warned that it will not accept any of the draft laws because they will constitute a huge burden on the budget.

Commerce and Industry Minister Abdulmohsen AlMudej said the government arrived at the proposal with the Assembly’s financial and economic affairs committee and the amendment is more profitable for citizens.

He said that increasing the housing loan to KD 100,000 would only increase the debt of citizens who will continue to repay the debt over a very long period of time.

The minister insisted that it will be much better for citizens to receive all building materials required by them at a highly reduced rate, adding that the amendment has raised the area of a house that can receive state subsidies from 600 sq m to 750 sq m. The amendment states that the extra subsidies will be given to citizens who have obtained the housing loan and those who are already building their homes.

During the debate and before the government told

MPs that the increase in the subsidies is a grant and not a loan, MPs insisted that the government must increase the housing loan to KD 100,000 or at least allow citizens to choose whether to take the increase in cash or in the form of subsidies. But after learning that the increase is a grant, MPs overwhelmingly supported the proposal.

The government had warned that the KD 30,000 loan increase would cost state coffers around KD 6 billion, warning that this and other proposed increases would pose serious risks to the country’s finances.

MP Riyadh Al-Adasani said that the housing problem in Kuwait is “manipulated” to benefit real estate merchants, saying it is unbelievable that the price of a square meter hit KD 1,000. Adasani said the price of land in Kuwait is almost double the prices in other Gulf states, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai. MP Mubarak AlHarees said that the housing loan of KD 70,000 was raised in 1993 and since then, it has remained unchanged, while the price of land and the cost of construction more than doubled. Assembly Apeaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem then adjourned the session until Feb 4.

exchanges over Assad’s fate at talks Subsidization program flawed: Sheikh Salem Fiery Continued from Page 1 simply bringing the two sides together for the first time is Continued from Page 1 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned last year that expenditure could exceed oil revenues, which make up more than 90 percent of the national income, as early as 2017. The government, meanwhile, warned that a budget deficit could become a reality by 2021.

But cutting subsidies has been a political challenge for the government in recent years as it failed to convince MPs of its pro-rationalization arguments. In fact, the parliament yesterday passed a law that grants KD 30,000 in subsidization of building materials for each housing application which already entitles citizens to a KD 70,000 government loan. MPs quoted in an Al-Rai report yesterday questioned the timing of the government’s warnings, suggesting that it was an indirect attempt to thwart laws aimed to raise social benefits.

Finance Minister Anas Al-Saleh said in a statement two weeks ago that the government “will continue a review of its spending on subsidies” by focusing on achieving “a decrease in general, but [subsidies] will not be eliminated”. “It is only to make sure that the subsidies are going to the right people, that they are not going to people who do not need the subsidies,” he added.

His predecessor Sheikh Salem echoed similar sentiments in his column yesterday, saying that current subsidies lead to a ‘form of injustice’ as it mostly benefits people with financial means.

“Subsidies are supposed to be limited to low-wage income individuals,” he said.

“It must be redirected to serve those who are more eligible to it, keeping in mind that it does not affect the income of the majority of citizens”.

Identifying subsidies as a “main entry of the state’s financial reform process”, Sheikh Salem reiterated the “huge risk”

facing the national budget “unless its structural flaws are not promptly addressed”. “All studies and reports released in this regard agree that the general budget will face an inevitable deficit if current spending continues to increase in the same rates recorded during the past nine months,” he said after identifying current expenditure as “one of the main reasons behind the budget’s structural flaws”. Sheikh Salem spoke more profusely on current spending, “which grew in astronomical, unrealistic and unsustainable rates until it reached around 85 percent of the total expenditure in the state’s current budget of nearly KD 21 billion”.

Current spending refers to the public sector’s payroll, allowances and subsidies that the state provides. “Payroll and allowances increased from KD 3.2 billion in the 2004/2005 fiscal year to KD 10.4 billion in 2013/2014, or by 325 percent, which means that it more than tripled during this span,” he said. “Meanwhile, subsidies increased during the same period from around KD 865 million to around KD 4.8 billion, or by 555 percent, which means that it grew by five times and a half”.

“By performing calculations based on future projections, subsidies are expected to reach around KD 12.6 billion in the 2029/2030 budget,” Sheikh Salem warned. “That figure currently forms nearly 60 percent of the estimated national budget for 2013/2014”. The veteran economist further outlined numbers to show the significance of the risks at hand, indicating that the average annual increase in subsidies during the past nine years reached nearly 25.5 percent. “This rate surpasses the annual growth rates of population which is estimated at 3.15 million, nominal GDP, which increased 14.6 percent, real GDP, which increased 5 percent, and most

importantly, general revenues, which increased 16.2 percent,” he indicated.

In order to address this issue, Sheikh Salem underlined the ‘critical and urgent need’ to rationalize subsidies.

“Rationalizing subsidies does not mean eliminating it altogether,” he clarified, “but restructuring it to achieve the following goals: limiting subsidization to a limited group of basic goods and services, as well as redirecting subsidies to benefit those who are actually and directly eligible for it while eliminating indirect subsidies”.

Kuwait’s welfare system includes providing subsidized petrol and energy to all residents, in addition to food and housing for Kuwaitis only. Subsidization allowed Kuwait to maintain one of the world’s cheapest electricity and water rates for decades. Last November, Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah said that the welfare state was ‘unsustainable’ and mentioned the need to rationalize spending as key in order to maintain decent welfare levels for Kuwaiti citizens.

“It is our collective duty to take a serious position on the issue and address it in a technical and realistic way in order to maintain the level of luxury which we currently enjoy, so that the future generations can enjoy it as well,” Sheikh Salem concluded. Sheikh Salem Al-Sabah was not retained in the Cabinet announced earlier this month, based on his request citing health reasons. His tenure lasted for five months only, but was characterized by his views which advocate cutting spending as a key factor to push development and avoid fiscal risks on the national budget. Sheikh Al-Sabah was the Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait from 1986 until he resigned in Feb 2012 following a period in which he was highly critical of the sharp rise in public spending in the state.

“Assad will not go,” Syrian Information Minister Omran Al-Zohbi said on the sidelines of the conference.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem wasted no time firing a broadside at the opposition in his opening speech, which went on long beyond the allotted time of less than 10 minutes, forcing Ban to repeatedly ask him to wrap it up. “You live in New York. I live in Syria,” -Muallem snapped, ignoring the UN chief’s appeal. “They (the opposition) claim to represent the Syrian people. If you want to speak in the name of the Syrian people, you should not be traitors to the Syrian people, agents in the pay of enemies of the Syrian people,” Muallem said. He insisted Assad’s future was not in question, saying: “Nobody in this world has a right to withdraw legitimacy from a president or government ... other than the Syrians themselves.”

Ahmad Jarba, the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, called on the regime to “immediately” sign a deal reached at the last peace conference in Geneva in 2012 setting out “the transfer of powers from Assad, including for the army and security, to a transition government”. He said that would be “the preamble to Bashar Al-Assad’s resignation and his trial alongside all the criminals of his regime”. Syrian state television broadcast Jarba’s speech in a split screen alongside footage of death and destruction under the heading “Terrorist Crimes in Syria”.

Leading a series of sharp US accusations against the Syrian regime, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted Assad cannot be part of any transitional government. “There is no way, not possible in the imagination, that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain legitimacy to govern,” Kerry said. US officials also slammed the Syrian delegation for its incendiary remarks and claims of improved aid access as “laughable”. “Instead of laying out a positive vision for the future of Syria that is diverse, inclusive and respectful of the rights of all, the Syrian regime chose inflammatory rhetoric,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Expectations are very low for a major breakthrough at the conference, but diplomats gathered here believe that

a mark of some progress and could be an important first step. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the talks will “not be simple, they will not be quick” but urged both sides to seize a “historic opportunity”. About 40 nations and international groups were gathered, but no direct talks are expected until possibly tomorrow - when opposition and regime delegations will meet in Geneva for negotiations that officials have said could last seven to 10 days.

The UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told the closing press conference he would meet on Thursday with both sides to discuss the next step in negotiations. “Tomorrow I am going to meet them separately and see how best we can move forward,” Brahimi said. “Do we go straight into one room and start discussing or do we talk a little bit more separately?... I don’t know yet.”

Erupting after the regime cracked down on protests inspired by the Arab Spring, the civil war has claimed more than 130,000 lives and forced millions from the homes. Recent months have seen the conflict settle into a brutal stalemate - with the death toll rising but neither side making decisive gains. With no one ready for serious concessions, world powers will be looking for short-term deals to keep the process moving forward, including on localised ceasefires, freer humanitarian access and prisoner exchanges.

Notably absent from the table was crucial Assad backer Iran, after Ban reversed a last-minute invitation when the opposition said it would boycott if Tehran took part. Pitting Assad’s regime, dominated by the Alawite offshoot of Shiism, against largely Sunni Muslim rebels, the conflict has unsettled large parts of the Middle East. There were stark reminders of the conflict’s impact in the run-up to the talks, with continued fighting on the ground and new evidence in a report alleging that Assad’s forces have systematically killed and tortured 11,000 people. The opposition called at the conference for an international inquiry into the allegations. “We have to stop this spiral of violence. We do call for an international inspection to visit places of detention and see the facts of torture that our citizens face every day,” Jarba said. — Agencies

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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Issues

Egypt Brotherhood members aim to outwit informants

By Sarah Benhaida

M

uslim Brotherhood members in Egypt only agree to meet after sunset and are wary of everyone including family members, as part of tactics to outwit informants. Three years after Egypt’s revolt which toppled president Hosni Mubarak, their 85-year-old movement is now designated a “terrorist organisation” by the country’s military-installed authorities. The standing of the Islamist group has eroded dramatically in the face of a crackdown launched by the government since the military’s July 3 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The Brotherhood, which has won all elections in postMubarak Egypt, is in complete disarray, with its top leadership behind bars and hundreds of members and supporters on the run or living in constant fear. After several approaches, some of its members finally agreed to meet up with AFP at their homes or cafes in the capital. “Ibrahim”, 23, played host at his residence in a Cairo neighbourhood, but only after assurances that his real name would not be revealed. At the gate of his building, Ibrahim cast worried looks around him, afraid that the doorman who he suspects of being “close to the security forces” would report him for meeting journalists.

And before he started to talk, his friend Mohamed removed the SIM cards from mobile phones, saying the “security forces can tap conversations even when the phone is switched off”. Such precautions are essential because “the authorities are trying to divide society and calling on people to denounce” the Brotherhood, said Ibrahim. His biggest fear was neighbours made to feel it was their national duty to report suspected Brotherhood members to police. “Apart from neighbours, some feel threatened by their own families,” said Amani, whose best friend Mona was arrested last week along with her husband, leaving behind three children aged between six and 13.

Mona was arrested for wearing a full body veil, while her husband sports a long beard, seen as trademarks of Islamists, she said. “There is an anti-Islam racism in Egypt,” said Amani, who wore a long blue veil, blaming unrest in Egypt on an international conspiracy. Street clashes since July have left more than 1,000 people dead, mainly supporters and members of the Brotherhood, and the “terrorist” tag has further tightened the noose. Brotherhood leaders are on trial facing charges which carry the death penalty, while those participating in demonstrations or possessing its leaflets face up to five years in jail.

Survival tactics Shaymaa Awad, 32, an Islamist activist whose family are active members of the Brotherhood, said she and many like her were always devising ways to outsmart the authorities. “A friend uses a photo of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as his mobile phone wallpaper for when police” stop him at checkpoints, Awad said during a meeting at a cafe. Sisi, Egypt’s powerful army chief, ousted Morsi after massive protests against the Islamist’s one year in office, although he himself was named defence minister by the elected president.

Three weeks later, Sisi called upon Egyptians to take to the streets and grant him a “mandate” to break up two sitin protests in Cairo by Morsi supporters demanding his reinstatement. “My aunt demonstrated (after Sisi’s call). She gave him a mandate to kill me as she knew I was at Rabaa al-Adawiya,” Awad said. She was referring to one of the Cairo squares where more than 600 people were killed on Aug 14 after police unleashed a brutal crackdown to end the sit-ins.

Awad’s troubles began on July 4, a day after Morsi was toppled. She and her family were staying at her father’s government apartment in northern Egypt when they were evicted because he was a senior Brotherhood member.

Awad moved to Cairo and now rarely sees her family. “When I go (to see the family), I go at night and don’t stay long because I know the security forces have already visited our new home looking for me,” she said. “My name is on their list of terrorists ... so I don’t tell anyone where I live. There are still many things I want to do, so I won’t allow them to get me easily,” a determined Awad said with a smile.

And for that she uses modern technology. She has installed an application on her mobile phone which when pressed can instantly alert the family and human rights activists in case she is arrested. “I have also given passwords of my accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Gmail to different people, so that in case I’m caught they can close them down,” she said. —AFP

All articles appearing on these pages are the personal opinion of the writers. Kuwait Times takes no responsibility for views expressed therein. Kuwait Times invites readers to voice their opinions. Please send submissions via email to: opinion@kuwaittimes.net or via snail mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait.

The editor reserves the right to edit any submission as necessary.

How to help, not harm, world recovery?

By Paul Carrel

O

n the face of it, a combination of record low interest rates, ample liquidity and faster economic growth should sustain the world’s recovery from financial crisis this year. Confident that the outlook for the world’s biggest economy is brightening, the Federal Reserve has paved the way for an end to its stimulus program and, after a bout of market turmoil last year, investors seem prepared for the shift. But the US central bank’s effort to return to pre-crisis policy settings still represents a huge leap in the dark as it exits from an unprecedented bout of money printing.

An ill-judged move could threaten economic revival worldwide, just one of the dilemmas facing policymakers from America, Europe and Asia as they gather for an annual meeting in Davos.

Protagonists will include US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and central bankers Mark Carney, Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda. A “senior leader” from China is also expected.

Broadly, the risks they face are slower-thanexpected US growth, euro zone deflation, an absence of structural reforms in Japan, and bad loans in China. There will doubtless be others.

“While the Fed is trying to normalize monetary conditions to avoid a credit bubble, China is trying to implement financial sector reforms to bring one to an end,” said Michael Spencer, economist at Deutsche Bank. “Both potentially threaten the sustainability of growth.”

The balance of risks for this year may be tilted towards the United States and the euro zone, even if the policy challenges facing Japan and China appear greater. Investors have already priced in a lot of good news, with European shares hitting a 5-1/2 year high last week. The risk

is that weaker-than-expected growth could knock markets and unsettle the global recovery. “What could trigger a correction is that growth turns out to be weaker than markets have discounted,” said Andrew Bosomworth, a senior portfolio manager at Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund. “In the case of equities, markets have discounted some pretty rosy economic conditions.”

The Genie and the Ogre The challenge for policymakers in the United States and Europe is to manage policy expectations at a time when inflation is not performing as expected. Some Fed officials worry tepid price rises mean the US recovery is not as solid as it seems. With growth and job creation should come inflation. Given that uncertainty, US central bankers must convince hesitant consumers that even if the era of quantitative easing is drawing to a close, an interest rate rise remains a long way off.

“The Fed’s next challenge is not over tapering, it’s over rates and guidance,” said Sassan Ghahramani, CEO of New York-based SGH Macro Advisors, which advises hedge funds.

If it fails to convince, market interest rates which often set the cost of borrowing could rise too quickly and choke off recovery in the United States and beyond. If that happens, investment will leach out of emerging markets as US funds return home lured by higher returns. “It’s a corollary of quantitative easing and easy money going to emerging markets,” said Ghahramani. “Now that there is less of that QE and easy money, where does it come out of? It comes first out of those markets.”

If low inflation is a puzzle in the United States, prices could actually start falling in Europe. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who speaks at Davos on Thursday, expressed concern last week. “If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the

ogre that must be fought decisively,” she said.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi feted at Davos last year as the euro zone’s saviour - draws a distinction between deflation as a protracted fall in prices, and necessary internal price adjustments in some countries allowing them to become more competitive. “The risk is that the internal devaluations that need to be done in these countries morph into deflation,” said Bosomworth.

Draghi is talking up the ECB’s readiness to act but it shows little appetite to embark on a round of Fed-style quantitative easing to stimulate the economy. In the meantime, the deflation threat stalks the bloc. Euro zone inflation is running at 0.8 percent. That is well below the ECB’s target of just under 2 percent but it stands at almost minus 2 percent in Greece. In Italy, the bloc’s third largest economy, the rate is just 0.7 percent and if Rome gets serious about tackling its towering debts - at 130 percent of GDP - inflation and growth could evaporate and make paying down that debt even harder. “We can’t just look at deflation risk in isolation,” said Bosomworth. “It’s linked at the hip to debt sustainability.”

Abenomics: Time to Deliver In Japan, policymakers have had some success with their efforts to fight deflation after years of economic stagnation. Their plan - dubbed “Abenomics” - is to combine fiscal spending, economic reforms and monetary stimulus to pull the world’s third-biggest economy out of its long slump. Premier Abe’s efforts have paid dividends with Japanese growth outpacing its G7 counterparts in the first half of 2013. However, some policymakers beyond Asia see the policy cocktail as a high-risk strategy about which they have doubts, particularly as progress on reforms aimed at boosting the economy’s long-term growth poten-

tial has been slow.

A Reuters poll of economists conducted last week found a consensus that Japanese companies are unlikely to raise wages much this year and inflation will remain well below the official target of 2 percent. With a few high-profile exceptions, businesses are cautious about passing on higher profits to their employees, which is seen as vital to Abe’s hopes for sustained growth. Abe has also yet to deliver on promised long-term reforms to counter the drag of Japan’s ageing and falling population and to reduce the country’s massive public debt.

Having said that, the poll predicted the economy will continue to recover this year as companies and consumers rush to beat a planned rise in sales tax. And unlike much of the world, Japan will avoid any US backwash from its policy shift, rather its exporters will benefit if the dollar strengthens as US market rates rise. “The Japanese rates market does not track the US rates market at all, so they don’t get hurt by rising US rates but they benefit from the rising dollar, so they get a nice free ride from the US,” said Ghahramani. Perhaps of even greater importance than Japan’s policy mix is China’s ability to take excess credit out of its economy without causing a crash. The Chinese economy grew 7.7 percent in 2013 but slowed in the final three months. There is little sign of a sharp tightening in monetary policy, but rising money market rates and bond yields in recent months indicate the People’s Bank of China is committed to removing excessive debt from the economy. “Rumours of an imminent financial crisis in China have been around for years,” said Berenberg bank economist Robert Wood. “But China can deal with these problems,” he said. The government seems ready to accept lower rates of GDP growth as long as that growth is sustainable and does not cause politically dangerous mass unemployment.” —Reuters

Europe rushing to find Iran bonanza

By Juergen Baetz

F

rance is sending business executives by the planeload to Iran.

German and Dutch entrepreneurs are taking courses on how to close a deal in Tehran, and carmakers are drawing up plans for investment.

Europe’s business community is abuzz with preparations to rush back into Iran, an economic powerhouse in the Middle East, as some sanctions are suspended. And the interest is welcome - Iran is desperate to revive its economy after years of international isolation. Under a deal with world powers, Tehran has agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief and the unfreezing of about $4.2 billion in overseas assets. Iran and world powers now have six months to conclude a permanent deal.

As always, in business, it’s about getting in first. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Foreign Minister Javad Zarif will meet with the world’s business elite this week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland’s Davos ski resort, and are likely to discuss trade opportunities.

More hand-shaking will take place soon thereafter in Tehran, when France’s business lobby group flies in executives representing about 100 firms for “exploratory” talks to take advantage of the sanctions’ suspension, an official with the organization said.

Their competitors are doing the same, so firms from the oil and gas sector, carmakers and other manufacturing companies want to move quickly, added the official, who spoke

only on condition of anonymity because the subject remains sensitive within governments. “Everyone is in the same state of mind,” she said.

The Opportunity For businesses, getting into Iran is a chance not to be missed. The country boasts a well-educated population of about 75 million and some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, much of which is still unexplored due to decades of sanctions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. European countries have historically strong trade ties with Iran - more so than the US, which has had tougher sanctions in place for longer. European sanctions only began in limited form in 2007.

The recent, more punitive measures had caused Iran’s currency to tumble while unemployment soared and ballooning inflation ate up the people’s purchasing power. But this week, some sanctions were lifted on the export of petrochemical products, shipping, insurance and the trade of precious metals. The possibilities for growth are obvious judging by how much trade has fallen. Imports to the 28-nation EU, Iran’s biggest trading partner, plunged from Ä16.5 billion ($22 billion) in 2011 to Ä5.6 billion ($7.6 billion) in 2012 and a mere Ä395 million ($534 million) in the first half of 2013. Exports from the bloc to Iran dwindled from around Ä11 billion to Ä7.4 billion in 2012.

Executive Interest Among the first signs that business is ready to resume is the surge in demand for flights. Austrian Airlines last week announced it will resume

five weekly flights to Tehran, and its parent company Lufthansa said it’s thinking about adding more seats to its daily flights. Turkish Airlines, which serves six Iranian destinations, is seeking permission to increase its routes’ frequencies. Even though there are fears that sanctions could go back up when the current deal expires in six

Netherlands, the Dutch ambassador to Iran, Jos Douma, last week held what he called a “speed-date session” with companies interested in getting back into business with Iran. One focus was to export spare parts for Iran’s aging planes and agricultural products. “They need all kinds of things,” he said.

In this April 20, 2011 file photo, a line of Peugeot 206s, containing its hatchback and sedan, are on the production line at the Iranian state-run Iran Khodro automobile manufacturing plant near Tehran. —AP months, companies are upbeat.

“Optimism is predominating that there has finally been something of a relaxation in political relations and therefore in business possibilities,” said Volker Treier, head of trade relations at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce. The association last week held an event on doing business in Iran and executives “filled the room very quickly”, Treier said. The sectors represented included machinery, vehicle production, food, medical technology and pharmaceuticals. In the

Oil For foreign firms, the biggest prize in Iran is undoubtedly its sanctions-crippled oil and gas sector. “Iran clearly has huge resources. Its production has been curtailed in recent years,” oil company BP said in a statement. “It clearly has a lot of potential.”

It cautioned, however, that “this is likely to be a very complicated political process.” Iran’s oil and gas industry is in poor shape since sanctions often made it impossible to upgrade production sites. Iran also needs to

modernize its business laws, said Howard Rogers, the director of the Natural Gas Research program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Other hurdles include the tight sanctions on financial transactions, which mostly remain in place. “It’s unbelievably difficult for companies to get paid from in Iran,” Douma said.

Considering the big sums involved in oil production, companies will be cautious with investments. While major players such as France’s Total, Anglo-Dutch Shell or Italy’s Eni are keen to get back in business, they are for now sticking to a wait-and-see approach until the sanctions will be lifted permanently. “My expectation would be a rush of large players if sanctions come down,” said Rogers.

Iran’s oil minister is holding meetings in Turkey this week to seek closer cooperation. As an initial step, Turkey hopes to boost crude imports by about a third.

Cars The other big opportunity is Iran’s auto market, which had been important for European manufacturers before the sanctions hit. France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault, in particular, stand to gain from renewing their once-sizeable Iran activities. As recently as 2011, Peugeot sold 455,000 cars in Iran, making the country its second-largest market after France. The company is now following the situation with interest, said spokesman Pierre-Olivier Salmon. “The group has renewed contacts to prepare a possible resumption of activities with Iran,” he added. —AP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

S P ORTS

Mancini: City building on my foundations

Tough challenge to keep crown LONDON: Kenyan Priscah Jeptoo will face a strong challenge for her London Marathon crown as the Olympic champion, the world champion and one of the greatest distance runners of all time line up against her on April 13.

Olympic champion Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia, world champion Edna Kiplagat of Kenya and double 10,000m Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia are the front runners in a field that includes eight athletes who have run under 2 hours 25 minutes. The world record stands at 2:15:25 and was set by Britain’s Paula Radcliffe in London 11 years ago. London Marathon race director Hugh Brasher, announcing the field yesterday, said: “We are delighted to welcome back Priscah Jeptoo. “Our champion was a deserved winner of the World Marathon Majors title and has shown with her performances over the last two years that she will be extremely difficult to beat.”

Jeptoo, who won an Olympic silver in London in 2012, produced the world’s second fastest time last year to win in 2:20.15 and she will need to reproduce that kind of form against an elite field that also includes three athletes who have run quicker than 2 hours 20 minutes. Jeptoo followed up her London win with victory in the New York Marathon in November when she clinched the World Marathon Majors title and a $US500,000 pay cheque. Dibaba, who has won three world 10,000m titles, two world 5,000 metres crowns and three Olympic titles, will be making her debut over 26.2 miles (42.195kms). —Reuters

LONDON: Galatasaray manager Roberto Mancini says he has no bitterness towards his former club Manchester City and believes their success this season is partly due to the foundations he laid during his three-year tenure at the club.

Mancini was sacked at the end of last season despite taking City to their first major honors in three decades with an FA Cup victory in 2011 and the English Premier League title the following year.

In an interview with the BBC’s World Service he also said that his former rivals Manchester United needed to restructure their declining squad if they are to compete for the title.

The Italian, who made way for Manuel Pellegriuni and moved to Galatasaray after leaving City last year, said: “Chelsea changed and bought some new players, City bought four or five new players.

“After many years, it’s the time for United to refresh their team.”

City are currently chasing four trophies this season. They reached the Capital One Cup final on Tuesday with a record 9-0 semi-final aggregate victory over West Ham United and are second in the Premier League table, a point behind leaders Arsenal. They are also still involved in the Champions League and FA Cup having scored 106 goals in all competitions so far. —Reuters

Alcott heading for Games LONDON: British Alpine skier Chemmy Alcott has won the battle to compete at her fourth Winter Olympics despite re-breaking a leg last August and being unable to prove her fitness before the selection deadline. The 31-year-old was named yesterday in a 56-strong Team GB squad, Britain’s biggest since 1988, for next month’s Games in Sochi. Alcott, who came 11th in the 2010 Vancouver super-combined and in the 2006 Turin downhill, had faced an anxious wait after returning to full-time training only in November. She had been due to make her World Cup comeback in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy at the weekend, her last chance to demonstrate a return to race fitness, but the downhill was cancelled due to heavy snowfall. The London-born skier has battled back from careerthreatening leg breaks, including one in Canada in 2010 that left a bone sticking out of her skin. She has also had to contend with a loss of official funding. “Being able to compete in my fourth Olympic Games is no less meaningful for me than competing in my first in Salt Lake City in 2002,” she said on her Facebook page.

“Since Vancouver I have done everything I could have done to be in Russia. Preparations were far from ideal but with my self belief and confidence and the support I have from everyone I can’t wait to get into that Olympic start gate.” — Reuters

Mancuso tops in Cortina ITALY: Showing signs of a big jump in form just in time for the Sochi Olympics, American skier Julia Mancuso led downhill training Wednesday ahead of four days of World Cup racing.

Mancuso, whose best finish this season in any event was 12th, clocked 1 minute, 38.87 seconds down the sunny Olympia delle Tofane course.

Johanna Schnarf of Italy was second, 0.06 seconds behind, and overall leader Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany was third, 0.29 behind. “I felt like I had a good run,” Mancuso said. “It wasn’t perfect everywhere, but I was really going for it.”

Mancuso has always saved her best skiing for the Olympics. She won gold in giant slalom at the 2006 Turin Games and took silver in downhill and supercombined at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“Definitely my confidence is getting better and better,” she said. The Cortina schedule calls for super-G races Monday and Sunday and downhill races tomorrow and Saturday. Two of the races were originally scheduled for Cortina last weekend but got wiped out by heavy snowfall. The other races were moved from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, due to a lack of snow in the German resort.

Apart from World Cup finals, skiers rarely face four races in four days. Even at the Olympics and world championships, there are days off between races.

“That’s not a problem for me since I’m doing all events. I’m used skiing every day,” Hoefl-Riesch said. “Of course four days in a row is a tough schedule. But it

shouldn’t be a problem.”

However, there is a possibility of more bad weather in the coming days. “I hope that there’s not so much snow coming again, because the slope is really good right now. It’s perfect,” Hoefl-Riesch said.

“It would be great to have nice and fair races.” Hoefl-Riesch has two career wins in Cortina and seven podiums. Mancuso won a super-G in Cortina in 2007 and has six second-place finishes on the Tofane course. But she hasn’t won a race since a parallel slalom in Moscow two years ago, and she feels her equipment has been a big reason.

“Even though we’ve had canceled races I’ve been spending a lot of times on my boots (free) skiing,” Mancuso said.

“That’s the most important thing for me to feel really comfortable and confident on my equipment. ... I’ve put in the hours I needed.”

With the US team set to name its Sochi squad on Sunday, two other Americans also fared well. Stacey Cook was sixth and 21-year-old Jacqueline Wiles was 12th.

The Sochi Games open Feb. 7 and Mancuso’s preparation over the past few days has included a lot of mental training, visualizing the course and “just focusing on really good skiing.” “I’m sure if I’m skiing well then the results will come,” she said. “And it doesn’t even matter what place I end up in the races going into it. Even today having a really good training run that’s a really good confidence (booster) for me.” — AP

BOSTON: Los Angeles Kings right wing Justin Williams (14) makes a move with the puck in this file photo. — AP

Blue Jackets see off Kings COLUMBUS: RJ Umberger scored twice to lead the Columbus Blue Jackets to their franchiserecord seventh straight win, a 5-3 victory Tuesday night over the Los Angeles Kings.

Nathan Horton scored in his 600th NHL game, Artem Anisimov had a goal and an assist and Ryan Johansen also scored for Columbus, with James Wisniewski picking up two assists.

Sergei Bobrovsky moved to 8-0 in his past eight starts with 26 saves.

Jeff Carter, Dwight King and Robyn Regehr had goals for the Kings, who have lost three in a row. Mike Richards had two assists.

The Blue Jackets have been surging since getting Horton, who missed the first 40 games after shoulder surgery, and Bobrovsky, who sat out most of December with a strained groin, back on the ice. They’re 8-1-0 with Horton, a big freeagent signing last summer from Boston, in the lineup.

Julia Mancuso

F1 meets ‘Alien’ for new season LONDON: Formula One’s new crop of cars will look like something out of a science fiction horror movie with front ends that are the stuff of nightmares, according to Caterham principal Cyril Abiteboul.

“It does remind me a little bit of the monster in ‘Alien’,” the Frenchman told Reuters when asked about the nose on his team’s yet-to-be-revealed 2014 creation.

The new cars will hit the track for the first time in testing at Jerez in southern Spain next Tuesday but some teams are discreetly presenting them this week online.

Force India released a side-on image of their VJM07 on Wednesday, showing off a new, blacker livery while avoiding a front-end view. They said the front of the car was a temporary solution and would look very different for the start of the season in March.

“It is going to be ugly,” Abiteboul said of the Renault-powered Caterham, which will be unveiled in the Jerez pitlane on Tuesday.

“Kids should be dreaming when they see a Formula One car. I don’t know what sort of dream or nightmare you will get when you look at those cars. “It does remind me of Alien...with something coming out of the mouth and whatever.

It’s not very nice.”

The technical rules have changed significantly this season and cars have to combine a high chassis and low nose tip, which can be much narrower than last year. There has already been talk of ‘anteater-style’ solutions. “I think it’s a natural consequence of the regulation and

the impact system at the front,” said Abiteboul.

“It is what it is. Maybe we will have to address that as a collective issue of Formula One because we need to be seeing some dream,” he added. “I think it’s going to be a problem for Formula One that maybe Formula One will have to address.”

Formula One went through an ‘ugly’ phase in 2012, when cars had stepped noses in response to a regulation change introduced for safety reasons to ensure the high front end did not penetrate cockpits and injure drivers in an impact.

To improve the look, teams were allowed to use non-structural ‘vanity panels’ to cover the broken noses last year but the rules have changed again for 2014.

“Various solutions have been developed which satisfy the regulations but also try to recover some of the aero performance and that’s led to some structures that are a little bit different,” said Caterham technical director Mark Smith.

He recognised fans might not find the lack of flowing, continous lines to be aesthetically pleasing.

“The regulation has obviously driven the tip of the nose down to help in certain types of impact situation,” he said.

“That has driven some solutions that clearly may not be the solution you’d come up with if you were purely looking for an aesthetic wing.”

McLaren are due to reveal their car on their website on Friday, with Ferrari following in similar fashion on Saturday and Sauber on Sunday. — Reuters

MAPLE LEAFS 5, AVALANCHE 2 Phil Kessel scored twice, James van Riemsdyk had a goal and an assist and Toronto beat Colorado for its sixth straight win. Nazem Kadri also scored and James Reimer stopped 35 shots for Toronto.

The Maple Leafs are on their longest winning streak in eight years after losing four in a row.

Toronto has climbed to fourth in the Eastern Conference standings during its win streak.

Rookie Nathan MacKinnon scored two goals for the Avalanche, and Jean-Sebastien Giguere had 19 saves in relief of Semyon Varlamov.

Colorado generated more early chances but Toronto scored first. Dion Phaneuf sent a puck from his own end off the backboards and Kessel, who got behind the Avalanche defense, put a soft shot past Varlamov 3:56 into the game.

ISLANDERS 5, RANGERS 3 Thomas Vanek scored a power-play goal with 4:38 left, and the Islanders rallied from two goals down for a second straight day and beat the Rangers.

Vanek capped the comeback as the Rangers were trying to kill a penalty for too many men on the ice. Colin McDonald and defenseman Thomas Hickey scored in the second period to get the Islanders even.

Matt Martin scored a rare goal in the first, and Frans Nielsen added an empty-netter. Kevin Poulin made 30 saves in the Islanders’ ninth win in their past 11 road games.

John Tavares had three assists and Kyle Okposo added two in front of a nearly full crowd on a snowy night in New York.

Rick Nash scored twice in the first period for his second straight multigoal game, and Chris Kreider added a goal for the Rangers, who had won three in a row. Cam Talbot made 32 saves while subbing for Henrik Lundqvist, who missed the game due to illness.

JETS 3, DUCKS 2 Ondrej Pavelec made 40 saves, Evander Kane had a short-handed goal and an assist in his return from a four-game injury absence, and Winnipeg ended Anaheim’s 10-game home winning streak.

Blake Wheeler and Andrew Ladd also scored for the last-place Jets, who also handed Anaheim its first regulation loss at home this season after a 20-0-2 start at Honda Center.

Bryan Little had two assists as Winnipeg hung on for its fourth consecutive win since coach Paul Maurice replaced Claude Noel.

Cam Fowler and Nick Bonino scored for the NHL-leading Ducks, who hadn’t lost at home since Dec. 3. Anaheim has won 19 of 22 overall, but has lost two of its last three games.

Anaheim was just the fourth NHL team in 40 years to earn a point in its first 22 home games to start a season. The Ducks were the only NHL team that hadn’t lost in regulation at home this season.

CANUCKS 2, OILERS 1 Rookie Kellan Lain and Zack Kassian scored and Vancouver won its first game without suspended head coach John Tortorella in a victory over Edmonton.

The Canucks have won just three of their past 11 games. Roberto Luongo made 28 saves for the win.

The Canucks were also without leading scoring Henrik Sedin, who missed his first game in close to a decade with an injury.

The Canucks were also without Tortorella, who was suspended for 15 days by the NHL on Monday for an altercation during a game against the Calgary Flames on Saturday. Jordan Eberle scored for the Oilers, who have lost five in a row and 10 of their past 12.

DEVILS 7, BLUES 1 Mark Fayne and Ryan Carter scored 24 seconds apart early in the first period to spark New Jersey Devils over St. Louis. Jaromir Jagr, Ryane Clowe, Adam Henrique, Damien Brunner and Eric Gelinas added goals and the Devils celebrated a return to the snow-bound Prudential Center after losing three of four on the road. The seven goals were a season high. It was the biggest outburst by the Devils, and the most surrendered by the Blues.

Cory Schneider, 3-0-2 in his past five appearances, made 26 saves. The game went on as scheduled despite a heavy snowstorm that held the crowd to an announced turnout of 2,000.

Alex Steen scored for the Blues who sported two impressive marks coming in: they were 142-1 against Eastern Conference foes and 15-5-3 on the road.

PANTHERS 4, SABRES 3 Ed Jovanovski scored the go-ahead goal and added an assist in his 1,100th career game, sparking Florida over Buffalo. Sean Bergenheim, Jesse Winchester and Nick Bjugstad also scored for Florida, which improved to 4-0-1 in its past five trips to Buffalo. Tom Gilbert set up two goals in helping the Panthers overcome a pair of onegoal first-period deficits and then hang on for the win.

Tim Thomas stopped 32 shots, including 15 shots in the final period to improve to 7-3-2 in his past 12 games. Drew Stafford scored twice and Steve Ott also scored for the Sabres (13-287), who dropped to 0-2-2 in their past four.

SENATORS 2, CAPITALS 0 Kyle Turris and Jason Spezza scored, Craig Anderson made 34 saves and Ottawa beat Washington to hand the Alex Ovechkin-less Capitals their sixth straight loss.

With NHL scoring leader Ovechkin sidelined with an unspecified lower-body injury, Washington generated few quality scoring chances, failing to convert on five power plays.

During their six-game skid, the Capitals have scored just seven goals. It was the third time Washington has been shut out this season, with all the games at home. Ottawa improved to 7-12 in its past 10 games.

STARS 4, WILD 0 Erik Cole and Ray Whitney scored power-play goals, and Dallas stopped a three-game losing streak with a victory over Minnesota.

Kari Lehtonen made 18 saves as Dallas won for the second time in its past 11 games. It was his second shutout of the season and No. 24 for his career. Jordie Benn scored on a penalty shot, beating Darcy Kuemper at 11:22 of the third period. — AP

Wales seek Six Nations landmark LONDON: Captain Sam Warburton, who has not played rugby since suffering a shoulder injury in November, hopes to be fit to lead Wales’s defence of the Six Nations championship when they will be seeking an unprecedented third successive outright win.

Warburton suffered the nerve damage in their 30-26 defeat by Australia but said at the tournament’s official launch on Wednesday that he hoped to be available when his team get the tournament underway against Italy in Cardiff on Feb. 1. “I think I am going to be available for selection but we might decide if it’s better to play a club game first he said.” Warburton, who also missed the final and decisive test of the British and Irish Lions’ series victory over Australia last year, said the target of three Six Nations titles in a row had been brought up as his team sat dejected in their Cardiff dressing room after suffering their eighth successive defeat at the hands of the Wallabies.

“Shaun Edwards (assistant coach) talked about three in a row after that Australia match,”

he said. “He said to look for positives and to go away and play ourselves into the squad for the Six Nations where we would have a chance to create history.” Several teams have won two successive championship titles then taken a share of a third - before points difference was introduced to split teams finishing level - but nobody has completed an outright hat-trick.

The bookmakers are as unsure as anyone, with Wales the tightest of favourites at 2/1 ahead of England and France.

With away games against Ireland and England on the horizon, it looks a difficult challenge, especially in the light of Wales’s continuing dire form against the southern hemisphere sides, but their incredible recent form in the world’s oldest rugby tournament ensures they remain real contenders. Their challenge takes place, again, against a backdrop of political infighting with the regional teams at loggerheads with the Welsh Rugby Union while also involved in constant negotiations about the future of the Heineken Cup. —Reuters

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

S P ORTS

After Kramer’s blunder, only gold counts in Sochi BRUSSELS: It was the blunder of the Vancouver Games. With Sven Kramer closing in on the 10,000meter speedskating title, his coach sent him into the wrong lane on a changeover. Gone was the chance for triple gold and the opportunity to become one of the top stars of the Olympics.

With the same coach still at his side, the dominating Dutchman plans to show in Sochi he can bounce back from the darkest moment of his career.

He will only get over it if he gets gold in the 10K in Sochi, Geert Kuiper, a trainer of Kramer at the TVM commercial team, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. If he does not win there, it will only rub more salt into the wound.

Not that Kramer has any choice. He is already established as one of the greatest skaters of his generation and one of the greatest of all time with six world and six European all-around titles. But there is another title he is after.

It is beyond question that I have to win, Kramer

told NOS Dutch network during a pre-Sochi training camp. That is also the reason why I am into sports. And at 27, his time finally should be coming.

Like four years ago, nearly 17 million people in the skating-mad Netherlands think likewise, counting on gold in the 5,000, 10,000 and team pursuit.

Even if Ireen Wust looks mighty strong for the womens races, little compares to the attraction the nation feels for Kramer. The Olympic oval, though, is about the only place where he has let his fans down. He was the most promising Olympic rookie at 2006 Turin Games, with confidence to match his powerful build and giant strides.

His first gold seemed assured in the team pursuit. Yet, Kramer made an error by clipping a marker to bring down the whole team. He left Italy only with silver, bronze b and heartache. He only had his nose at the door in Turin, Kuiper said. In Vancouver, he could have won it all.

He started well enough, breezing to the 5,000 gold. Then came the lane changeover which would

define his Olympic career. He was a few laps removed from gold in the 10,000 when coach Gerard Kemkers inexplicably sent him into the wrong lane and, confused, Kramer followed his advice.

In that second, with that elementary error which defies belief, he became known for failure as much as success. It has only made him more dogged in the pursuit of Olympic gold. After Vancouver, an injury in his upper right leg forced him to sit out a year and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

He regrouped and became pickier in selecting when and where to race. An all-around title forces a skater to be prolific from 500 to 10,000 meters, and in todays world with ever more international competition, that becomes tougher and tougher b even for Kramer.

So when he had to prepare for Sochi, he decided to sit out the European championships in earlyJanuary, even though he could have become the sole record holder with seven golds overall.

Instead of going through four tough races over two days so close to the games, he went to Tenerife, off the north African coast, preferring warm-weather training to sub-zero Hamar in Norway.

He has learned to pick his moments better.

There is no more pressure to win everything, Kuiper said.

And on top of that, competition gets tougher, especially from Dutch teammate Jorrit Bergsma, another long-distance specialist.

There might be some pressure for bragging rights at home, too. As things stand, Kramers girlfriend Naomi van As has two Olympic gold medals as a player on the Dutch field hockey team from the 2008 Beijing Games and 2012 London Games.

Van As also was in the stands four years ago when she saw Kramer hesitate on the changeover before following Kemkers advice to take the wrong lane. He has given it a place in his life, Kuiper said, but the scar remains. — AP

N Zealand beat India by 15 runs in 2nd ODI

ADELAIDE: Diego Ulissi of Italy celebrates after winning stage two of the 2014 Tour Down Under cycling race near Adelaide. — AFP

Ulissi bags Tour stage MELBOURNE: Lampre-Merida rider Diego Ulissi staved off the challenge from local favorite Simon Gerrans to claim the second stage of the Tour Down Under yesterday.

Gerrans retained the leader’s jersey but Ilissi could not be denied his seventh professional career victory which put the 24year-old Italian in second place, seven seconds behind the Australian.

“I’ve never believed in my chances to win this stage because I had the impression that Simon Gerrans was by far the strongest,” said Ulissi, who crossed the 150 kilometre stage through the Adelaide Hillsline in three hours 52 minutes and 15 seconds.

“I thought he’d be unbeatable but I managed to beat him thanks to the help of the great team I have behind me.”

Australian road champion Gerrans closed on Ulissi but could not overtake the Italian.

Far from being upset, the Orica-

GreenEdge rider was focussing on today’s race featuring the notorious Corkscrew Hill climb shortly before the finish in Campbelltown.

“It was close but I can’t win them all,” said Gerrans. “He’s (Ulissi) a classy rider. But I wasn’t expecting he’d pass me as fast as he did. “... it’s a good result for me today as I have a bigger advantage over my other rivals with the time bonus of the second place.

“Tomorrow is going to be the most decisive stage with the Corkscrew climb so close to the finish.” Cadel Evans’ third place on the stage helped the 2011 Tour de France champion jump from ninth overall to fourth, 13 seconds off the lead.

“I went too early, and got swamped at the finish,” said the BMC rider Evans. “I hope to get it right in the next few days, I didn’t have the legs and timing to do it today.” — Reuters

KUWAIT: All-rounders XI, ISP school boys & CCC teams posing after the match.

Kuwait cricket’s U-16 school tournament KUWAIT: Kuwait Cricket’s venture in finding talented youngsters through grass root level cricket saw four teams in close contention for the top spot in the ongoing U16 school cricket tournament being played at Gulf Consults ground at Jleeb. For the second year in a row, Future Star XI, Friends Cricket Club, Delhi Public School & International School of Pakistan will lock horns to clinch a place in the final.

In all, twelve school and club teams to the likes of Future Stars XI, Delhi Public School, DPS Titans, Cricket Coaching Club, Cricket Coaching Club A, Gladiators, Allrounders XI, Omariya Cricket Club, Royal Coast XI, Friends XI, International School of Pakistan and Emerging Buds participated in the robin league round matches which

saw very keen tussle amongst the youngsters. Future Star XI and Delhi Public School are the two unbeaten teams so far in the tournament while Friends XI and International School of Pakistan are equally talented and one a given day they can upset the applecart of the favorites.

Jibran of Future Star Academy has clearly been the batsman of the tournament so far with two centuries under his belt and is running for the title of the highest scorer of the tournament.

Future Star XI will play against Friends XI in the first semi final & Delhi Public School will face a stiff challenge from dark horses International School of Pakistan in the second semi final to be played at GC ground on January 25, 2014.

KUWAIT: Emerging Stars team posing with Delhi Public School Titans.

HAMILTON: New Zealand beat India by 15 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method in the rainshortened second one-day cricket international yesterday to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. Tim Southee claimed four wickets, including the critical one of Virat Kohli for 78.

Kane Williamson top-scored with 77 as New Zealand made 271-7 batting first in a match reduced to 42 overs per side, and India, set a revised target of 293, was held to 277-9 in reply.

The second international mirrored the first as New Zealand reached a competitive total after being sent in and India’s chance of winning seemed strong until Kohli fell at a crucial stage.

India’s second straight loss meant it forfeit the No. 1 ranking in one-day internationals to Australia.

Kohli made 123 in the first match on Sunday when New Zealand won by 24 runs. He was pivotal again and the match tipped substantially in the home team’s favor when Southee grabbed his wicket in the 30th over with India still needing 129.

After Kohli was dismissed in the first over of the batting powerplay, India’s hopes fell on the shoulders of captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He made 56 including a half century from 42 balls which was completed with a six off Southee.

But when he was out in the 40th over, skying a catch to Williamson off Corey Anderson, India still needed 40 runs from 17 balls, a task that seemed beyond its remaining batsmen.

Anderson dismissed both Ravindra Jadeja (12) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (11) to add three wickets to his rapid-fire 44, which was a key contribution to New Zealand’s total.

India needed 81 off the last seven overs, and 50 from the last 24 balls. But when Dhoni fell, their winning target became oppressive and they wilted under its weight.

They still needed 22 from the last over but the rain which spoiled the match when it delayed play for almost two hours during the New Zealand innings, returned with three balls remaining, when stumps was called. “I think when the New Zealand team was bowling there was a bit extra in the wicket and it was nipping around,” Dhoni said. “As the game progressed, even when the fast bowlers were bowling, it was not coming on nicely which meant it became quite difficult to freely play the big strokes.

“Even somebody like Virat, who is in tremendous form, found it quite difficult to consistently hit.” New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum welcomed a performance which saw his team take another step towards the consistency they have been seeking.

“With the bat it was a good performance to get that size total,” he said. “In a reduced game against such a good batting lineup as India’s we knew we needed all of those runs. “It was a tremendous game of cricket and it was great to be on the right side of it. “ The batting of Kane ( Williamson), Ross (Taylor) and Martin (Guptill) was critical in giving us a good platform to work from and then Corey (Anderson) came in and showed again how much he is learning at this level and what a dangerous player he is.”

Anderson slugged five sixes in an innings of

HAMILTON: Bhuvneshwar Kumar of India (right) fields as New Zealand’s Jessie Ryder bats during the second one day international cricket match against India at Seddon Park. —AFP

SCOREBOARD HAMILTON, New Zealand: Completed scoreboard in the second one-day international between New Zealand and India at Seddon Park in Hamilton yesterday: New Zealand M. Guptill c Shami b Raina 44 J. Ryder C Dhoni b Shami 20 K. Williamson st Dhoni b Jadeja 77 R. Taylor c Dhoni b Shami 57 C. Anderson c Dhawan b Sharma 44 B. McCullum c & b Shami 0 L. Ronchi not out 18 N. McCullum b Kumar 1 K. Mills not out 2 Extras: (lb1, w7) 8 Total: (seven wickets; 42 overs) 271 Fall of wickets: 1-25 (Ryder), 2-114 (Guptill), 3174 (Williamson), 4-248 (Anderson), 5-250 (B. McCullum), 6-251 (Taylor), 7-252 (N. McCullum) Did not bat: T. Southee, M. McClenaghan Bowling: Kumar 7-1-43-1, Shami 7-0-55-3 (2w), Sharma 6-0-46-1 (4w), Jadeja 8-0-46-1, Kohli 20-12-0, Ashwin 8-0-50-0 (1w), Raina 4-0-18-1 India S. Dhawan b Southee 12 44 from 17 balls to give New Zealand a crucial boost late in its innings. Williamson steered the innings through the crucial middle overs, reaching a half century from 52 balls and putting on 89 for the second wicket with Guptill and 60 for the third with Taylor.

Taylor, who made 57 for his 26th half century in one -dayers, joined Anderson in a late onslaught in which they added 74 runs for the fourth wicket in 4.4 overs.

New Zealand’s innings was twice interrupted by rain: For only 10 minutes on the first occasion

R. Sharma c Ronchi b Southee 20 V. Kohli c sub b Southee 78 A. Rahane c Ronchi b McClenaghan 36 M. Dhoni c Williamson b Anderson 56 S. Raina c Southee b Mills 35 R. Jadeja b Anderson 12 R. Ashwin c Guptill b Southee 5 B. Kumar c N. McCullum b Anderson 11 M. Shami not out 1 I. Sharma not out 1 Extras: (lb3, w7) 10 Total: (nine wickets, 41.3 overs) 277 Fall of wickets: 1-22 (Dhawan), 2-37 (R. Sharma), 3-127 (Rahane), 4-164 (Kohli), 5-226 (Raina), 6257 (Dhoni), 7-259 (Jadeja), 8-265 (Ashwin), 9275 (Kumar) Bowling: Mills 9-1-50-1, McClenaghan 8-1-45-1 (1w), Southee 9-0-72-4 (1w), N. McCullum 8-040-0 (3w), Anderson 7.3-0-67-3 (2w) Result: New Zealand won by 15 runs (D/L method) but then for almost two hours from the 34th over when it was 170-2. It returned with eight overs trimmed from its allocation but coped well, striking 101-5 runs in 8.4 overs.

The Kiwis were 248-4 when Anderson was out in the 39th over, then lost five wickets for four runs. Mohammed Shami produced another outstanding display of bowling at the death, claiming the late wickets of Taylor and Brendon McCullum (0) to finish with 3-55 from seven overs. The third match is on Saturday at Auckland. — AP

International players’ chief lashes ICC reforms MELBOURNE: Cricket’s most powerful players representative says planned reforms of world cricket will widen the gap between the sport’s big three and smaller nations, undermining the competitiveness of the international game.

Paul Marsh, head of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations which combines the player associations of seven of the International Cricket Council’s 10 full members, described aspects of the leaked reform proposals as “disturbing,” saying they will broaden disparities between cricket’s “rich and poor.” Although details of the proposals have not been made public, they are reported to give India, England and Australia control over the ICC, test cricket, its revenue, and a greater say in when and where they play series. The three also would hold dominance over the ICC’s decision-making executive board.

Marsh yesterday joined widespread criticism of the new regulations drawn up by a working group of the ICC finance and commercial affairs committee. South Africa has already condemned the draft document as “fundamentally flawed.”

The proposed reforms would likely see

the revision or abandonment of the Future Tours Program which guarantees smaller nations regular series against the big three sides. “The proposals relating to scheduling are disturbing,” Marsh said.

“Of significance is the section that offers a guarantee from Cricket Australia and the ECB to play three tests and five ODIs per cycle to each of the top eight members, yet there is no mention of any such guarantee from the BCCI.” Marsh said all ICC member nations, including Australia and England, rely heavily on proceeds from India tours for the sustainability of the sport in their country.

“What chance do the majority of members have of survival if the BCCI decides not to tour their countries on at least a semi-regular basis?” he said.

Marsh also raised concerns about the proposal’s recommendation that revenues be distributed to ICC members on a pro-rata basis, “based on commercial contribution.”

“The result of this will be the countries that need ICC income most will receive the least while the ‘big three’ will get the lion’s share even though they are already financially healthy because of the value of the

rights to their bilateral series.

“The role of ICC events should be to assist in leveling the financial playing field by distributing the proceeds from these events fairly, rather than further widening the gap between the rich and poor.”

ICC chief executive Dave Richardson indicated there was still a long process to be followed before any reforms were implemented. “These are just recommendations that they have put together, it’s by our working group of members of our finance and commercial affairs committee,” he said. “ They are representatives from England, Australia and India. “Those proposals are still to be discussed in full by our finance committee as an example and the full ICC board when it meets at the end of January.

“So at this stage it’s far too premature for the ICC to make any comment on the content of the proposals because as we speak, we’re still going through them, getting further clarifications, finding out exactly what is intended, and then hopefully we will be able to have (a) proper discussion about these at the board meeting at the end of the month.” — AP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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Bookies and the NFL both wary of weather LAS VEGAS: Roger Goodell once had his beer freeze while watching a game in Chicago, so sitting outside at the Super Bowl shouldn’t be too much of a burden for the NFL commissioner.

But what if - and this is a very real possibility - the stadium is blanketed in the kind of blizzard-like conditions that wreaked havoc across the Northeast on Tuesday? What if the NFL doesn’t get lucky and score a chilly yet tolerable Super Bowl evening at the Meadowlands?

Even worse, what if snow, sleet, ice or any combination in the first outdoor cold weather Super Bowl determines who wins the big game?

Could happen, and Goodell and other NFL officials won’t be the only ones poring over weather forecasts leading up to Feb. 2. Oddsmakers in Las Vegas will be keeping a close eye on it, too, as a possible factor in whether the Denver Broncos can cover what is now a 21/2-point spread against the Seattle Seahawks.

“Probably the most important guy being interviewed next week will be (television weatherman) Al Roker,” said Jimmy Vaccaro, who runs the sports book at the South Point hotel.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if the forecast doesn’t include wind and snow or sleet.

Goodell has embraced the idea of cold, though he had little choice in the matter after NFL owners decided to reward the owners of the Jets and Giants for getting a new stadium by giving them a Super Bowl. He’ll sit outside for the misery that could accompany the usual mastery of a Super Bowl. If all goes according to plan, he will hand out the Lombardi trophy to the best team in the land, and everyone will go home happy.

But some who are in the business of making the point spread for the game believe that if something like Tuesday’s storm hits the day of the game it could tilt the game in favor a team that relies more on power football and defense rather than finesse. And in this Super Bowl, that would be the Seahawks.

“With the game being in New York and the early forecast for below normal temperatures in the teens that certainly favors a defensive team and a running team,” said Jay Kornegay, sports book director at the LVH. “That would certainly be an advantage to the Seahawks.”

Partly because of that, Kornegay and his oddsmakers made the Seahawks a 2-point favorite when betting opened Sunday for the game. But bettors enamored with the idea of Peyton Manning winning a second Super Bowl quickly caused the odds to

shift to Denver’s favor with a flood of money on the Broncos. The knock on Manning, though, is that for all his greatness he’s not a good cold-weather quarterback. He played much of his career inside in Indianapolis and is 4-7 in games that are below freezing at kickoffs, though some of those were games where he played sparingly because the Colts had already locked up playoff seeding.

Others were against New England, when the Patriots clearly had the better team. And Manning did complete 39 passes for 397 yards and four touchdowns against Tennessee last month when the temperature at kickoff in Denver was 18 degrees.

“I won’t try to answer it because I didn’t give it any validation in the first place,” he said afterward about his supposed cold-weather struggles.

Both football fans and oddsmakers found out how unpredictable a big storm can make the game last month when winter weather made conditions miserable in several cities. It took players in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore the first half to get used to the conditions, then they responded with an unlikely series of wild plays and drama in lighting up the scoreboard in the second half.

That has oddsmakers scratching their heads about what to do about this year’s game. They often

figure things out in advance with lines that come remarkably close to the final result, but a Super Bowl in the snow would be something new to everyone.

“If it’s big snow you can take all the handicapping and anything we thought we knew and throw it out the window,” said Johnny Avello, the book director at the Wynn hotel.

The so-called sharps - those who wager the biggest money in this gambling city - usually wait until closer to the game to make their bets, and they may wait even longer for this game. The 10-day forecast coming out this week will shed some light on the possibility of a storm, but most will probably wait until the weather picture becomes clearer to put their money down.

“There will probably be more money on Seattle if the forecast is for colder than normal with rain or sleet,” Vaccaro said. “But the biggest thing that will make the wise guys get off their wallets now is if Denver goes to 3 (point favorite). If it’s 85 degrees out they will still take plus 3 with Seattle.”

It won’t be 85, might not even be 35. But the bookies and the NFL have at least one thing in common for a Super Bowl that could be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Neither of them can do anything about the weather. — AP

Thunder roll over Blazers OKLAHOMA CITY: Kevin Durant scored 11 of his 46 points in the final 3:23 to help the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Portland Trail Blazers 105-97 on Tuesday night.

Durant has scored at least 30 points for eight consecutive games, the longest such streak of his career. He made 17 of 25 field goals, including 6 of 7 3-pointers.

Reggie Jackson added 15 points for Oklahoma City (32-10), which took a one-game lead over Portland in the Northwest Division.

Portland had won the previous two meetings this season. LaMarcus Aldridge had 29 points and 16 rebounds and Wesley Matthews added 21 points for Portland (31-11).

DOHA: George Coetzee of South Africa hits his tee shot on the 7th hole during the first round of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at the Doha Golf Club. — AP

Coetzee leads in Qatar DOHA: Steve Webster shot a sensational albatross on his very first hole at the Qatar Masters yesterday but despite his feat the opening round lead was held by South Africa’s George Coetzee after a late birdie blitz. Englishman Webster, who started out on the par five 10th tee, saw his five-wood approach from 254 yards disappear into the cup.

But despite that feat he eventually had to settle for a share of second place with Dawie Van der Walt after Coetzee finished with three consecutive birdies to take a one-shot lead with an eight-under 64. Van der Walt had earlier carded a fluent 65 to take the provisional clubhouse lead but Webster was set to overtake him after being four under after just three holes. But after a steady display, a bogey on his 15th saw Webster end up in a tie for second with Van der Walt who had carded a bogey-free round.

Webster’s albatross was the second of the season on the European Tour after Dutchman Joost Luiten produced one at the Volvo Golf Champions in Durban earlier this month. However, this was the first time at this level that anyone had shot an albatross on his opening hole. Webster was pleased with what he called a “dream start”. “254 to the pin, wind slightly off the left. I was going to say 5 iron but it was a 5 wood. Hit a great shot obviously straight at it,” said Webster.

“Because I carry a big crowd following me, there was about two people behind the green and one of them started jumping up and pointing down. Thought, don’t know whether it’s gone over the back to the rocks, get up there and he starts clapping. Dream start.

“I played great after that and was just really consistent, gave myself a lot of putts and gave myself a lot of chances. I was

probably a little disappointed with 7?under to be honest. I should have finished probably nine or ten, but it’s a good start.” Coetzee, who was tied second with Sergio Garcia at last year’s Qatar Masters won by Chris Wood, played a brilliant back nine which he began with an eagle on the 548-yard 10th, where Webster had recorded his feat.

However, he dropped a shot on the 13th before three straight birdies from the 16th helped him clinch the lead.

Spaniards Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Elviro Nacho shared fourth on 66 along with Frenchman Francois Calmels and England’s Ross Fishe.

A group of six players including American John Daly, South African great Ernie Els and India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar, were a further shot down on 67.

Defending champion Wood had a forgettable first round as he shot a 73 to be in a tie for 85th position. Van der Walt said he will try to keep his focus in the latter rounds, drawing lessons from last week’s Abu Dhabi Golf Championship where he carded an impressive 68 in the first round before fading away to finish a poor 71st.

“I had a terrible week and looked like a blind squirrel, I couldn’t do anything right,” said the South African. Nacho, too, had a bogey-free round, while Frenchman Calmels dropped two shots that somewhat blotted an otherwise spectacular round in which he had six birdies and an eagle.

The 2006 champion and European number one Henrik Stenson hit form with a 68 after missing the cut last week in Abu Dhabi while his playing partner Jason Dufner of the US carded a 70.

Irishman Darren Clarke was forced to miss out on his 500th European Tour appearance after pulling out with a muscle injury. —AFP

Kenyans threaten to defect over taxes NAIROBI: Top Kenyan athletes may consider defecting to other countries if the east African nation goes ahead with plans to tax athletes’ earnings, they said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters in the North Rift Valley athletics hub Eldoret, Wesley Korir, who won the Boston City Marathon in 2012, and is now a legislator, led a group of athletes who are furious with the Kenya Revenue Authority’s (KRA) plan.

“If this matter goes on like this, I will defect to another country which will appreciate my effort,” said twice Berlin Marathon winner Florence Kiplagat. KRA said in a statement that athletes should pay taxes like other taxpayers. “We are taxed abroad. Then we invest our remaining earnings here although the Government does nothing to support us. We work hard to give this nation a positive image abroad yet we get nothing in return. I can chose to change my nationality now,” said Kiplagat.

“We would rather invest in other countries that appreciate our effort than in a country where our earnings from our sweat is taxed,” the former Boston Marathon champion said.

Korir noted that majority of the athletes are civil servants and have invested heavily in real estate and other businesses, which attract taxation, saying a further taxation would be double blow for the development

of athletes. The MP stated that the oil-rich countries pay handsomely for gold medals won in competitions yet Kenya’s tax collector wants to find ways of making money from the athletes’ earnings. “Qatar pays her gold medallists 100 million Kenyan shillings ($1.17 million) while this country is trying to devise ways of fleecing the athletes of their hardearned money,” a furious Korir said. He said that, contrary to common belief, they earn huge sums of money but pocket only 15 per cent of their winnings.

“The breakdown for taxation and deductions is as follows: 30 to 35 per cent for the country of origin, 15 per cent for the agent, 10 per cent for the manager, and now the KRA wants to add salt to injury by slapping a 30 per cent tax of that amount,” he said. “That is exploiting us.” KRA spokesperson Maureen Njongo said they would ensure athletes do not pay the same taxes in two countries.

“Sportsmen should furnish us with details of their taxation abroad to be factored in our records,” said Njongo. Twice world 1,500m champion Asbel Kiprop said the taxation plan would spell doom for the already impoverished athletes. “Athletes live in debt and pay so many bills to those who make them run, including air ticket refunds that if the taxation plan is implemented, it will kill the sport,” he said. — Reuters

HEAT 93, CELTICS 86 LeBron James scored 11 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, Chris Bosh added 16 and the Heat blew an 18-point lead before rallying to beat the Celtics.

Chris Andersen scored 13 points and made all five of his shots for Miami, which ended the game on a 9-0 run. Brandon Bass scored 15 points, Kris Humphries had 14 points and 13 rebounds, and Jeff Green had 12 points for the Celtics, who outrebounded Miami 46-33 but shot only 39 percent.

Rajon Rondo, still coming around after returning from knee surgery, missed all eight of his shots, plus missed a pair of free throws with the Celtics down four with 44.4 seconds remaining. Avery Bradley, the Celtics’ other starting guard, was lost in the second quarter with a sprained right ankle.

NETS 101, MAGIC 90 Andray Blatche came off the bench and had a team high 18 points and reserve forward Mirza Teletovic added 14 points as the Nets beat the Magic for their eighth win in nine games.

One night after routing the crosstown rival New York Knicks, the Nets kept up the surge.

Their 8-1 start in January is a NBA best after a disappointing 10-21 start to their second season in Brooklyn. Joe Johnson and Paul Pierce each had 13 points apiece for the Nets.

KINGS 114, PELICANS 97 Rudy Gay tied a career high with 41 points, and the Kings cruised to a victory over the Pelicans. Isaiah Thomas had 20 points and 11 assists, while DeMarcus Cousins had 18 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks for the Kings, who’ve won five of eight.

Gay hit 16 of 25 shots, including 5 of 8 from 3point range. Tyreke Evans scored 17 for New Orleans, which trimmed a 23-point first-half deficit to six shortly before halftime, only to fall behind by 23 again in the third quarter.

TIMBERWOLVES 112, JAZZ 97 Kevin Love had 19 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists to help the Minnesota Timberwolves run past Utah and sweep a home-

OKLAHOMA CITY: Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) fouls Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) as he drives to the basket in the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game. — AP

NBA results/standings Brooklyn 101, Orlando 90; Miami 93, Boston 86; Sacramento 114, New Orleans 97; Oklahoma City 105, Portland 97; Minnesota 112, Utah 97.

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT Toronto 20 20 .500 Brooklyn 18 22 .450 NY Knicks 15 26 .366 Boston 14 29 .326 Philadelphia 13 28 .317 Central Division Indiana 33 7 .825 Chicago 20 20 .500 Detroit 17 24 .415 Cleveland 15 26 .366 Milwaukee 7 33 .175 Southeast Division Miami 30 12 .714 Atlanta 21 19 .525 Washington 20 20 .500 Charlotte 18 25 .419 Orlando 11 31 .262

GB 2 5.5 7.5 7.5 13 16.5 18.5 26 8 9 12.5 19

and-home set with the Jazz. Ricky Rubio has returned to his spontaneous, free-flowing style and had 11 points and 13 assists for the Wolves, who snapped a seven-game losing streak in Utah. Corey Brewer scored 19 points and Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Martin each contributed 18.

Western Conference Northwest Division Oklahoma City 32 10 .762 31 11 .738 Portland Denver 20 20 .500 Minnesota 20 21 .488 Utah 14 29 .326 Pacific Division LA Clippers 29 14 .674 26 17 .605 Golden State Phoenix 23 17 .575 LA Lakers 16 26 .381 Sacramento 15 25 .375 Southwest Division San Antonio 32 9 .780 28 15 .651 Houston Dallas 25 18 .581 Memphis 20 20 .500 New Orleans 16 25 .390

1 11 11.5 18.5 3 4.5 12.5 12.5 5 8 11.5 16

Each time the Jazz threatened to get close in the fourth quarter, J.J. Barea hit big baskets and had 15 points to keep the Jazz at bay.

Gordon Hayward returned from a five-game absence to lead the Jazz with 27 points, but he was the only starter in double figures. — AP

McDonald’s launches World Cup daily prize give away 42 packages for two to watch a match in Brazil

A

s the excitement around the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil starts to gain momentum, McDonald’s Middle East and Africa announced details of its highly-anticipated FIFA World Cup competition, in which millions of prizes will be up for grabs.

As the official partner and restaurant of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, McDonald’s brings all the thrill and excitement of football to millions of customers around the world.

McDonald’s in the Middle East and Africa is offering 42 lucky customers the chance to win an all-expense paid trip to watch a match live in Brazil. The Big Match competition, launched in restaurants on January 11th, will see one winner fly to Brazil to watch a game with a friend, every day during the campaign. Throughout the duration of the promotion, customers who purchase any large-size extra value meal will receive a game card entitling them to win instant prizes including Coca-Cola bandanas, key rings and ice cube trays. In addition, diners will also have the opportunity to win thousands of prizes, such as the Sony Play Station 4 (PS4), Sony PS Vita, Adidas-branded bags and caps, and a replica of the Brazuka, the official 2014 FIFA World Cup ball.

The prizes are sponsored by other official 2014 FIFA World Cup partners Sony and Adidas.

Adel Fahmy, Marketing Manager at McDonalds’ Kuwait said: “As the official partner and restaurant of the FIFA World CupTM, McDonald’s is passionate about delivering the excitement of FIFA World Cup TM to its customers

in the GCC. “Football fans from around the world dream of attending the 2014 FIFA World Cup and we are proud to be able to offer our valued customers the opportunity to experience the thrill of the game at a live match in Brazil as well as millions of other prizes.”

The daily draws are conducted under the

supervision of the Ministry of Commerce in the State of Kuwait to ensure complete transparency.

Promoting balanced and active lifestyles has always been a key objective for McDonald’s at both a local and corporate level. McDonald’s worldwide has been part of FIFA World Cup through their partnership program since 1994.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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India plans anti-graft unit after match-fix bid NEW DELHI: India’s football chiefs will set up an anti-corruption unit after reports emerged that an ILeague club may have been targeted by illegal betting syndicates, a top league official said yesterday.

Mumbai FC club official Atul Bagdamia told a joint workshop organised by FIFA and Interpol in New Delhi last week that he had been approached by a businessman last year who offered to sponsor a visit by his team to Malaysia to play a series of friendlies. When subsequent calls indicated that the

mystery Malaysian wanted to fix matches, the club broke off contact but did not report the matter to the All India Football Federation.

The Indian Express newspaper quoted Bagdamia as saying: “When they mentioned match-fixing, I immediately broke contact with them.”

I-League chief executive Sunando Dhar said that although no damage was done, clubs had been told to report all such approaches in future even as the setting up of an anti-corruption unit was being

planned. “It could be a hoax, or an one -off approach, but we have to be careful now,” Dhar told AFP. “It is better to take precautions. Among the measures being taken is the setting up of an anticorruption unit.” Last month five players and three team officials from a Malaysian club were handed life bans and fined 20,000 ringgit ($6,000) each after being found guilty of match-fixing.

The I-League had not been known to be a target of illegal bookmakers, who have usually been asso-

ciated with India’s most popular sport, cricket.

A cricket-fixing scandal in 2000 saw three Test captains, Hansie Cronje of South Africa, Mohammad Azharuddin of India and Salim Malik of Pakistan, being banned for life by their respective boards.

The cash-rich Indian Premier League’s Twenty20 tournament was embroiled in a spot-fixing controversy last year that led to life bans on three cricketers, including former Test bowler Shantakumaran Sreesanth. —AFP

Benzema gives Real victory at Espanyol

ITALY: Juventus’ Arturo Vidal (right) gets the ball past AS Roma’s Kevin Strootman during an Italian Cup, round of eight, soccer match. — AP

Roma defeat Juventus in Italian Cup quarters ROME: Gervinho scored a late winner as Roma beat league leader Juventus 1-0 in the Italian Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday.

The Ivory Coast forward acrobatically finished Kevin Strootman’s cross after a well-worked move with substitute Miralem Pjanic to line up a two-legged semifinal with either Napoli or Lazio.

It was a match between the top two sides in Serie A. Roma lost 3-0 in the league to Juventus earlier this month to slip eight points behind the two-time reigning league champion.

“It was a win we wanted at all costs,” Roma captain Francesco Totti said. “Today we showed that we are at the same level as a great Juve side.

“For me, there’s not all this distance between us and them. But it’s normal that everyone looks at the current table. We’re doing really well, but they’re going beyond the limits.” It was also a matchup between the two clubs which have won competition the most times, with both boasting nine Italian Cup victories.

Roma, which lost last year’s final to bitter rival Lazio, started well and had two good opportunities inside the opening 11 minutes but first new signing Radja Nainggolan and then Alessandro Florenzi fired wide. Juventus players and staff called

furiously for a red card for Mehdi Benatia when he dragged down Sebastian Giovinco as the forward was attempting to race onto Andrea Pirlo’s long ball. However, Benatia escaped with a booking.

The home side went close to taking the lead 10 minutes from halftime when Maicon rolled a tantalizing ball across goal and past Juventus goalkeeper Marco Storari - but there was no Roma player on hand to tap it in.

Juventus had the ball in the back of the net in the opening minute of the second half but Federico Peluso’s header was ruled out as Mauricio Isla’s cross had already gone out of play.

“Maybe we were a bit too timid in the first half but I don’t remember us suffering particularly,” Juventus coach Antonio Conte said. “They scored when they had a good chance, while when it happened to us they ruled out the goal.”

Conte clearly felt the refereeing decisions had not gone Juve’s way, starting with Isla’s cross.

“The ball seemed in to me,” he said. “Also Benatia’s foul on Giovinco was that of the last man but we accept the referee’s decision. It’s disappointing to be knocked out of a competition, but I don’t have anything to reproach the lads for.” — AP

BARCELONA: A first-half goal from Karim Benzema guided Real Madrid to a 1-0 win at Espanyol in the first leg of their Copa del Rey quarterfinal on Tuesday.

Nine days after Madrid eked out a 1-0 victory at Espanyol’s Cornella-El Prat Stadium in the Spanish league, the visitors were again limited to the narrowest of winning margins - despite dominating the first half, when Cristiano Ronaldo hit the post before Benzema headed home in the 25th minute.

The second half was more evenly matched and Espanyol’s Sergio Garcia came close to an equalizer before Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas denied Jhon Cordoba in a one-on-one in the 83rd minute. “Espanyol played better in the second half and made us suffer, but that is normal,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said. “The tie isn’t decided.” Casillas had a quiet first half, with Espanyol only mustering one clear scoring chance in the 18th when Luis “Pizzi” Afonso wasted Garcia’s pass by sailing his close-range shot over the crossbar. Early on, Ronaldo appeared eager as ever to add to his season tally of 31 goals in all competitions.

He had four shots before halftime and hit the post with one of them in the 21st minute, but the new Ballon d’Or winner faded in the second half. Benzema broke the deadlock when the France international headed a cross from Alvaro Arbeloa that was flicked on by Gareth Bale.

Goalkeeper Kiko Casilla got a hand on the ball but couldn’t keep it out. Espanyol pressed forward after halftime and Garcia twice shot wide, while Casilla stopped Arbeloa twice before denying Benzema on the break. The closing stages swung back in Espanyol’s favor and Casillas was forced to rush out to stop substitute Cordoba before weathering a final barrage of

SPAIN: Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema (third right) duels for the ball against Espanyol’s Sidnei Rechel (second right) and Raul Rodriguez (right) during a Copa del Rey soccer match. — AP corner kicks.

Ancelotti praised Casillas, who only starts in the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, while Diego Lopez plays in the Spanish league.

“I want to congratulate Casillas because he is playing well,” Ancelotti said. “Iker is just as much

a starter as Diego Lopez.” In other first legs this week, Barcelona visits Levante on Wednesday, when third-tier Racing Santander plays at Real Sociedad. Defending champion Atletico Madrid hosts Athletic Bilbao today. The second legs will be played next week. — AP

Spanish judge to hear case over Neymar deal MADRID: A Spanish judge yesterday agreed to hear a case lodged against Barcelona president Sandro Rosell over the signing of Brazilian striker Neymar.

Judge Pablo Ruz of the National Court in Madrid issued a ruling accepting the case but adding that there was no “urgency or necessity” to hear Rosell’s testimony at this stage.

Barcelona have maintained since the signing was made last May that the whole operation cost the club 57.1 million euros ($77 million), but that they couldn’t divulge how much each of the parties involved in the deal had received on confidentiality grounds.

That led to a member of the fan-owned club, Jordi Cases, lodging a complaint last month against Rosell alleging misappropriation

because members did not know the “real destination” of 40 million euros supposedly paid to Neymar family business N&N. Ruz subsequently demanded Barca hand over the contracts involved in the deal, as well as the club’s financial accounts for the past three years. And he said the contents of the complaint and documents received from Barcelona provided “sufficient elements” for the case to proceed.

He ordered a commission of inquiry to travel to Brazil to obtain a copy of the 21-year-old Neymar’s contract with former club Santos and for the contracts lodged with football’s governing body FIFA to be released. The judge also instructed Neymar to submit a contract he had signed with N&N ceding future financial rights.

Reports in Spain have estimated that the

total cost of the transfer could be well in excess of the figure claimed by the club.

Ruz also ordered the club to hand over the documentation on a 7.9 million euro deal agreed for the Catalans to have first-option to buy three Santos youth team players and an agreement for the two clubs to play two friendlies for which Barca would pay the Brazilians nine million euros.

At a press conference on Monday, Rosell reiterated that the total cost of the transfer was 57.1 million euros and said he would welcome the opportunity to be called to give evidence to clarify matters. However, the judge said there was no “urgency or necessity” to hear Rosell’s testimony until the preliminary inquiry was more advanced. — AFP

City through to League Cup final

NANTES: In this Dec. 24, 2013 file photo, Monaco’s forward Falcao falls as he tries to reach the ball during a challenge with Nantes’ defender Isaa Cissokho and goalkeeper Remy Riou during their French League One soccer match. — AP

Falcao injured in Monaco Cup win PARIS: An injury to star striker Radamel Falcao overshadowed Monaco’s win against minnows Chasselay in the round of 32 of the French Cup yesterday.

The Colombian crumbled to the ground following a challenge inside the Chasselay area-for which no penalty was given-just before the interval and needed lengthy treatment before being carried away on a stretcher underneath a blanket.

He had given the principality club the lead just before the half-hour mark, tapping into an empty net after Valere Germain had headed down a cross, his 11th goal in French football setting Monaco on their way to clinching a place in the last 16.

Emmanuel Riviere replaced the former Atletico Madrid striker after half-time and went on to score two more goals in a game that was played at Lyon’s Stade de Gerland.

The injury to Falcao and the fall-out from it somewhat marred what should have been a special occasion for fourth-tier

strugglers Chasselay and their star player, veteran former Monaco captain Ludovic Giuly. “It is not possible for the referee to forget to show a yellow card, it’s not possible,” complained Monaco coach Claudio Ranieri about the challenge on Falcao in a post-match interview with Eurosport television. “I hope that Falcao has nothing serious.” Later on, Monaco released a statement in which they said: “ The player Radamel Falcao was hit in the left knee.

Must await further tests in the coming days to clarify the exact nature of the injury.”

Later yesterday, Ligue 1 leaders Paris SaintGermain entertain Montpellier at the Parc des Princes, while holders Bordeaux are one of several top-flight sides in action away to lower-league opposition.

There was considerable drama on Tuesday as Marseille lost 5-4 at home to south-coast rivals Nice at the Stade Velodrome while three other Ligue 1 sides AC Ajaccio, Sochaux and SC Bastia-all lost to second-tier opponents. — AFP

LONDON: Manchester City showed no mercy on beleaguered West Ham by romping to a 3-0 victory in the second leg of their League Cup semifinal on Tuesday, completing a 9-0 aggregate thrashing.

Alvaro Negredo scored twice and Sergio Aguero added the other goal to ensure City will contest its first League Cup final since 1976, against either Sunderland or fierce rival Manchester United at Wembley Stadium on March 2. Having grabbed a hat trick in City’s 6-0 win in the first leg two weeks ago, Negredo ensured there would be no miracle turnaround by heading in the opening goal at Upton Park after less than three minutes. Aguero clipped home a deft finish in the 24th for his third goal in as many matches since returning from a calf injury and Negredo powered through some weak defending to wrap up the scoring in the 59th. It took City’s goal tally for the season in all competitions to 106 in 35 games.

Most neutrals will likely be hoping for an allManchester final, but Sunderland leads the other semifinal 2-1 after the first leg. The return match is at Old Trafford late yesterday.

British bookmakers were offering odds of 500-1 that West Ham would complete an inconceivable turnaround. Many in the media dubbed it “Mission Impossible.”

And even though City fielded a weakened lineup, the visitors maintained a professional, positive attitude to the second leg and had far too much class for West Ham, which has endured a miserable season and is marooned in the Premier League’s relegation zone.

It’s the biggest aggregate margin of victory in a League Cup semifinal. “It was important the way we reached the final, winning all our games,” Pellegrini said.

Pellegrini started with his first-choice strikeforce and Negredo opened the scoring after just three minutes, emphatically heading in a cross from 18-year-old Portuguese winger Marcos Lopes.

Aguero, who was making his first start since returning from injury, ran onto a pass from the impressive Lopes, beat his marker and chipped

the goalkeeper.

Negredo then moved onto 23 goals for the season - one more than the entire West Ham team has managed in 22 games in the league by muscling his way through the home defense and applying a deft finish on the slide.

“We didn’t want to lose,” City defender Joleon Lescott said. “We wanted to keep our winning streak going.” The 60-year-old Pellegrini is now the brink of winning his first piece of major

European silverware, having left Spanish football empty-handed after spells with Villarreal, Real Madrid and Malaga across nine years.

City is also in the running for three other trophies - it is second in the Premier League, through to the last 16 of the Champions League and in the fourth round of the FA Cup. To make matters worse for West Ham, midfielders Joe Cole and Mohamed Diame went off injured in the second half. — AP

LONDON: West Ham’s Alou Diarra (right) heads the ball with Manchester City’s Marcos Lopes during the second leg of the English League Cup semifinal soccer match. — AP

N Zealand beat India by 15 runs in 2nd ODI

Thunder roll over Blazers

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

After Kramer’s blunder, only gold counts in Sochi Page 16

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer of Switzerland plays a shot to Andy Murray of Britain during their quarterfinal at the Australian Open tennis championship. — AP

Federer sets up Nadal classic MELBOURNE: Roger Federer fought back from a midmatch stumble against Andy Murray yesterday to set up a classic Australian Open semi-final with Rafael Nadal, as women’s champion Victoria Azarenka became the latest star to fall.

After Nadal battled through an unexpectedly tough quarter-final with Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, Federer showed both his vintage best and his fallibility in beating Murray 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3. The Swiss great was electric in the first two sets but he tightened as he neared the finishing line, and was broken when serving for the win before passing up two match points in the third-set tiebreaker.

However, he extended Murray in a 19-minute hold at the start of the fourth set, then got the crucial break for 5-3 and, after setting up a third match point, he grabbed the opportunity with an ace.

“I thought Andy did well, he kept the ball in play and put the pressure on me and unfortunately I couldn’t get it done in the third set, with either the serve or the forehand

missing. So I am happy to get the win in four,” Federer said.

“I am much higher than I was last year and that’s very satisfying just because I have confidence in my movement.”

Federer, in his 11th consecutive Australian Open semifinal, will face the man who has become his Grand Slam nemesis, winning their last five encounters at major tournaments. But a day after Novak Djokovic’s three-year Melbourne reign was halted by Stanislas Wawrinka, Nadal also flirted with disaster before getting out of jail against rising Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.

The 13-time Grand Slam champion, troubled by a huge blister on his racquet hand, went a set down against the exciting young prospect and, facing set points in the third, he was tottering.

But Dimitrov, 22, went just long on the first set point and Nadal saved another before the Bulgarian gave him a one-set lead when, gifted an easy winner off a net cord, he ballooned his forehand out. “I was so lucky,” admitted the Spaniard, who ran out a 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (9/7), 6-2 winner to set up a meeting with Federer in his 22nd Grand Slam

semi-final.

Djokovic’s defeat by Wawrinka, who will play Tomas Berdych in the other semi, ensures that one of them will be able to challenge either Nadal or Federer for their maiden Grand Slam title.

“I’m a bit shattered,” said Dimitrov, after his title hopes slipped away. “It’s tough losing that match, my first (Grand Slam) quarter-final. I came out expecting nothing less than to win.”

The women’s contest has been even more up-ended and there was an air of resignation rather than shock when Azarenka tamely followed Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova out of the tournament.

The Belarusian world number two was unbeaten in two years at Melbourne Park but she was comprehensively dismantled by an inspired Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 5-7, 6-0.

“I’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll be working tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world. But I’m not happy with what I did today,” said Azarenka.

It ends a sometimes unhappy run of 18 wins at the tour-

Preview

Wawrinka ready to step out of Federer’s shadow MELBOURNE: Stanislas Wawrinka has the opportunity to truly step out of Roger Federer’s immense shadow if he can only overcome a stubborn Tomas Berdych in their Australian Open semi-final today. Wawrinka’s match against the Czech is the highlight of three semi-finals at Melbourne Park today with women’s title favorite Li Na facing exciting teenage prospect Eugenie Boucahrd in one of the women’s last four clashes.

Diminutive Slovak Dominika Cibulkova, who knocked out 2008 champion Maria Sharapova and destroyed 11th seed Simona Halep in the quarter-finals, will be seeking her second top-five victim when she faces fifth-seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the other women’s semi-final.

The eighth-seeded Wawrinka has spent his entire career as ‘the other guy from Switzerland’ as Federer chalked up 17 grand slam titles but he has cemented his credentials as a genuine top-10 player capable of anything over the last 12 months.

That was none more evident than on Wednesday with a thrilling five-set victory over four-time champion Novak Djokovic, the second successive year he and the Serb have battled into a marathon deciding set at Melbourne Park.

Unlike 2013, however, the 28-year-old Wawrinka advanced to the final four to reach his second successive semi-final appearance in grand slams and the quietly spoken Swiss has finally felt like he belongs in the game’s elite.

“I’m enjoying for sure because I’m playing great tennis. It’s a different level if I compare to last year,” he said.

“Now I’m number eight in the world. I’m making my second semi-final. “Beating Novak here for me, for sure it’s great ... but I’m still far from winning the tournament.”

Wawrinka is well aware of the challenge he faces from Berdych, the man who he beat in the fourth round at last year’s U.S. Open before the Swiss lost the semi-final to

Djokovic, again in five sets.

“He’s going to be a tough player to beat. He already made one final in one slam,” Wawrinka added of Berdych’s 2010 Wimbledon final loss to Rafa Nadal.

“So he’s there. He’s really close from the top, top guys.

It’s going to be a tough battle, you know.” Berdych has had a relatively comfortable run into the final four and, with Djokovic’s loss and Roger Federer and Andy Murray playing each other on Wednesday, the chance of a maiden grand slam has never been more open.

“I’m going to give 100 percent into that match and really not looking into the future,” Berdych said. “So really I will make everything what I have left. If it’s going to be the lucky one, the winning one, I’m going to try to prepare myself somehow and be ready for the final.”

Fourth seed Li’s title chances have also increased markedly and the 31-year-old Chinese’s recent record at Melbourne - she has made the semi-finals four times and the final twice since 2010 - has made her a title favorite.

That tag has been increased by the early exits of the top three seeds - Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Sharapova - though she will face a supremely confident teenager in Bouchard.

“It’s something I’ve been doing since I was five years old and working my whole life for and sacrificing a lot of things for,” said Bouhcard when asked if she could quite believe she had made her first grand slam semi-final. “So it’s not exactly a surprise. I always expect myself to do well.

“I’m just happy to have gone through this step. I’m not done. I have a match on Thursday. I’m just looking forward to that.”

Li’s biggest challenge could come from fifth seed Radwanksa, who clinically took apart twice defending champion Azarenka in the quarter-finals yesterday.

The Pole, however, must first beat the dynamic

MELBOURNE: Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland gestures between points in this file photo.— AP Cibulkova, who knocked out Sharapova then demolished Halep in the quarter-finals. “A couple (of ) seeded (players) are out,” Radwanska said of the unlikely semi-final makeup.

“Doesn’t mean it’s going to be easier and you have a title right away, it means that other players are playing great tennis this week. “That’s why they beat the top seed players.” — Reuters

nament for Azarenka, whose loud grunting and perceived gamesmanship has earned her critics as well as fans in Melbourne.

But it was a major scalp for Radwanska, who had lost all seven previous meetings with the Belarusian, and now goes into a semi-final with Slovak 20th seed Dominika Cibulkova. “It’s hard to play someone I lost (to) so many times before. I knew she’s a great player. Especially here, she was playing amazing tennis,” said Radwanska.

The upset also ensures the tournament will have a new women’s champion with none of the semi-finalistsRadwanska, Cibulkova, Li Na and Eugenie Bouchard having won before.

Cibulkova reached only her second Slam semi-final when she also won against a favoured opponent in fast-rising Romanian Simona Halep.

Halep is set to break the top 10 in next week’s new rankings, but she froze in her first Grand Slam quarter-final as the energetic Cibulkova dominated 6-3, 6-0 in one hour exactly. — AFP

IOC dismisses latest Sochi terror scare LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has dismissed the latest perceived terror scare to the Sochi Winter Olympics after several Olympic Associations said that they had received a suspicious e-mail yesterday.

Federations from the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia were among those that indicated they had received emails or letters with similar content, which were passed to the IOC security advisers for inspection.

In a swift reply, the IOC said: “We have been in close contact with Sochi 2014 on this matter and our line is as follows-the IOC takes security very seriously and passes on any credible information to the relevant security services.

“However, in this case it seems like the email sent to a number of NOCs contains no threat and appears to be a random message from a member of the public.”

US Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun said his group had received the message and forwarded it to law-enforcement agencies.

“The safety and security of Team USA is our top priority,” he said in a statement. “As is always the case, we are working with the US Department of State, the local organizers and the relevant law enforcement agencies in an effort to ensure that our delegation and other Americans traveling to Sochi are safe.” In Britain, the director of communications of the British Olympic Association, Darryl Seibel, confirmed that they had received a suspicious email but had been told by the IOC that there was “nothing of substance” to it.

“In addition we have had our own experts take a look at this and they have responded in exactly the same way by stating that this is nothing credible.

“Organisations like ours receive correspondence of every type and it is not uncommon to come across something like this that lacks credibility.”

The Sochi resort in Russia is at the foot of the Caucasus mountains. Islamist insurgents based in North Caucasus republics such as Dagestan are seeking their own independent state and have vowed to disrupt the Games in an effort to undermine Russia’s President Putin.

Doku Umarov, the chief of militants in the Caucasus, threatened in July to stage attacks to stop the Games from taking place as planned from February 7-23. — AFP

Business

China bullying economic diplomacy may backfire Page 22

US-EU free trade talks spark food safety fears

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Page 23 BoJ says winning deflation battle

Impact of Saudi labor crackdown spreads Page 22

Page 25

NBK reports a net profit of $844 million Total assets growth hits 12.8% YoY to $66 billion KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the largest Kuwaiti bank, reported net profits of $844 million (KD 238.1 million) for the year 2013 compared with $1,082 million (KD 305.1 million) in 2012. Adjusting for the $289 million (KD 81.5 million) exceptional gains recognized in 2012 on the consolidation of Boubyan Bank, net profits recorded a 6.5% year on year growth.

As of end of 2013, NBK Group’s total assets reached $ 66.0 billion (KD 18.6 billion) up 12.8% compared to year-end 2012, while total shareholders’ equity increased by 3.3% year on year to $ 8.4 billion (KD 2.37 billion). Loans and advances reached $ 37.9 billion (KD 10.7 billion) at year-end 2013 up 8.5% compared to year-end 2012 and customer deposits reached $ 37.1 billion (KD 10.5 billion), up 10.2% compared to last year. Asset quality ratios continued to improve with Non-performing loans (NPL) to gross loans ratio dropping to 1.96% in year-end 2013 from 2.75% in 2012 and NPL coverage ratio increasing to 200% at year-end 2013 from 157% last year.

NBK’s board of directors has recommended a cash dividend of 30 fils per share (30% of the par value) and 5% bonus shares. Ibrahim Dabdoub, NBK’s Group Chief Executive O fficer said “NBK’s profits for the year affirm the group’s strong financial position, market leadership and its conser vative strategy, all contributing to the high credit ratings ahead of regional and international financial institutions.”

Despite the challenges in the corporate domestic market and the political instability in some of the regional markets, the bank managed to deliver a strong set of results. “We continued to focus on core banking business across our locations. In the year 2013, excluding the exceptional gain recognized last year, NBK’s net operating income grew by 10.2% year on year to $ 2,220 million (KD 626.3 million),” Dabdoub added.

Dabdoub also confirmed that the domestic operating environment continued to improve and the overall out-

Mohammed Al Bahar

look is turning more positive. “We have started witnessing some acceleration in the tendering, award and execution of some of the large projects as the government proves determined to advance the execution of the development plan.”

Strategically, Dabdoub also highlighted that NBK is progressively implementing its income diversification strategy. “Our regional and international strategy remains on track. We are focusing our efforts on the GCC countries to leverage NBK’s strong franchise there and to benefit from the strong economic outlook and the growth opportunities available. In 2013 NBK Group’s international banking profits grew by 9.5% year on year confirming the strength of NBK’s international operations. Moreover, our expansion into Islamic bank ing through the acquisition of 58.4% of Boubyan Bank continues to pay off as Boubyan’s contribution to the group’s profitability and balance sheet increases over time,” Dabdoub added.

NBK continues to enjoy collectively the highest ratings among all banks in

Dow Jones CEO’s abrupt exit throws strategy into doubt NEW YORK: News Corp said Lex Fenwick was leaving as chief executive of Dow Jones, less than two years after taking the helm, an abrupt departure that calls into question the future of its news wires and other products aimed at financial institutions. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which owns Dow Jones, did not explain the departure but said it was reviewing the one-size-fits-all strategy Fenwick had put in place for its news wires and other products.

The bundled product offering that resulted, known as DJX, alienated some of the banks, hedge funds and retail brokers that were its main customers because of its rigid pricing structure.

“We’re reviewing the institutional strategy of Dow Jones with an eye towards changes that will deliver even more value to its customers,” News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said in a statement on Tuesday. News Corp said that William Lewis will take over as interim CEO. Lewis worked at News Corp’s British newspaper unit and the Financial Times.

Fenwick, 54, was appointed CEO of Dow Jones - publisher of The Wall Street Journal - in February 2012 after more than two decades at Bloomberg LP and did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment. He was seen by some as a controversial leader, known for his hard-charging style and expletivelaced outbursts, who was tasked with overhauling Dow Jones’ institutional business. Following his arrival, a significant number of senior executives left the company.

People familiar with Dow Jones said that Fenwick staked Dow Jones’ turnaround on a product that was supposed to challenge Bloomberg as one of the dominant suppliers of financial news and data. Known as DJX, it essentially pulled all of Dow Jones offerings like news database Factiva and the real-time news wires on a single platform for one price.

It was a risky move: customers were used to cherry-picking from Dow Jones’ lineup of products and negotiating on price - a matter where Fenwick was unbending, taking a page from his former employer, where refusing to discount has paid off.

Thomson was quoted in the statement as saying the media company was “planning improvements to DJX” and said greater flexibility in its product offerings was likely in the near term. DJX was launched last year and had yet to gain traction in the marketplace. During News Corp’s past earnings reports, the company had flagged weakness at Dow Jones’ institutional division. Several financial customers expressed concern last year over plans for DJX - especially its higher cost, according to people familiar with the matter.

Like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters competes with Dow Jones in providing news and financial data to banks and other financial institutions. Known for his purple suits and taste for modern art, Fenwick imposed his flashy style on the more button-down atmosphere of Dow Jones. He tore down office walls to create an open floor plan, installed a low-hanging crystal chandelier, and provided pricey espresso machines that one person familiar with the matter said cost about $30,000.

Rob Copeland, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal quipped on Twitter after the news was announced: “.@newscorp CEO confirms: @WSJsnackbar coffee machines sticking around.” Fenwick spent most of his career at Bloomberg, where he was known as a master salesman who rose to the top ranks to lead the financial news and data company. He was CEO of Bloomberg LP until 2008, when he was demoted to lead Bloomberg Ventures.

It is unclear if Lewis will eventually get the top job at Dow Jones where a search is underway. Some people familiar with the matter predict that Lewis will remain in the role. At a meeting where Thomson introduced Lewis to the newsroom, Thomson never used the word interim.

Lewis was recruited to lead News Corp’s management and standards committee in the wake of the phone hacking scandal from 2011 to 2012. He was named chief creative officer of News Corp last year when the company split from its cable T V and movie properties now under 21st Century Fox. — Reuters

Ibrahim Dabdoub

the Middle East from the three international rating agencies Moody’s, Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s. The Bank’s ratings are supported by its high capitalization, prudent lending policies, and its disciplined approach to risk management, in addition to its highly recognized and very stable

management team. NBK was also named among Global Finance’s list of the 50 safest banks in the world for the eighth consecutive time.

NBK enjoys the widest banking presence with an international network reaching 170 branches worldwide. NBK’s international

presence spans many of the world’s leading financial centers including London, Paris, Geneva, New York and Singapore, as well as China (Shanghai). Meanwhile, regional coverage extends to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

BUSINESS

Impact of Saudi labor crackdown spreads DUBAI: The impact of Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on illegal foreign workers is spreading through its economy, moving beyond the labor-intensive construction industry to sectors as far afield as banking and telecommunications.

Nearly 1 million foreign workers, out of a total of roughly 9 million, are estimated to have left Saudi Arabia between last March and November, as authorities enforce work permit rules and corporate quotas for employment of local citizens. It is the most far-reaching shake-up of the Saudi labor market in many years. In the long term it may well be good for the economy, cutting the number of marginally productive jobs, reducing the jobless rate among Saudis, and limiting the amount of money which flows out of the country in the form of foreign workers’ remittances. However, fourth-quarter earnings announcements by listed Saudi firms since last week suggest the crackdown is now having a broad and serious impact on corporate profits, as companies struggle with labor shortages and have to pay higher wages to hire local citizens.

While the Saudi stock market is still near five-year highs, it is up only 2.2 percent so far this year, the weakest

major Gulf Arab market. The labor issue is one reason. “It’s been a massive shock to the local economy,” said Rami Sidani, Middle East head of investment at financial firm Schroders, referring to the exodus of foreign workers. He predicted some companies’ earnings would remain under pressure for the next two quarters as domestic consumption was hit, though equilibrium would eventually return and the labor crackdown was essentially a short-term issue.

Economy The level of oil production, the price of oil and size of government spending remain the biggest factors for the overall Saudi economy, which is still growing solidly; HSBC predicts growth of 4.0 percent this year after an estimated 3.8 percent in 2013. The oil sector is believed to be largely insulated from the labor crackdown, as stateowned giants such as Saudi Aramco continue to obtain the workers they need. The private sector still looks healthy in many ways - December’s SABB HSBC Saudi Arabia purchasing managers’ survey, which excludes oil, showed output rising at its fastest pace since April.

Indian banks seeking refuge in home loans MUMBAI: Indian mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd (HDFC), loved by global investors for its steady profit growth, faces an intensifying battle for business and market share as banks aggressively push home loans. With India’s economic flu hitting corporate lending, banks have cranked up efforts to tap into the country’s housing loan demand, which has proven to be brick-hard by comparison.

Demand for homes, and loans, has been stoked by a persisting housing shortage as long-term demographic changes - urbanization, rising incomes, more nuclear families - transform how and where people live in Asia’s third-biggest economy. With their eyes on the prize, banks such as state-run Bank of India (BOI) and ICICI Bank, the biggest private sector lender, are swarming the market with discounts and special offers, willing to even live with narrower margins. They are also expanding into lower-tier cities, a market that HDFC is nurturing. “This is a very safe business. All our branches are working hard to grow home loans. We want to grow faster than the industry,” said Anil Verma, BOI’s chief financial officer. BOI is setting up branches that only sell auto and home loans, taking five days to process a mortgage. It often takes between two weeks and a month to get a home loan approved in India.

State Bank of India (SBI), which dethroned HDFC as India’s top mortgage lender about two years ago, was charging mortgage interest of up to 200 basis points above its base rate in 2011. SBI is now offering home loans at just 10-30 bps above the base rate, underscoring the intensifying competition. SBI’s home loans grew 20 percent in the September quarter from 13 percent a year earlier. ICICI doubled its mortgage growth to 23 percent, while HDFC was flat at 23 percent, according to a report

by Ambit Capital this month.

But the battle for mortgage borrowers is threatening to squeeze net interest margins (NIMs). Analysts expect a 10-20 basis point margin decline for Indian banks in the year ending March 2014 from an average of 3.1 percent in 2010/11. Brokerage Jefferies expects HDFC’s NIM to ease to 4.14 percent from 4.4 percent over the same period. So far, HDFC’s overall profitability has remained unscathed, thanks to demand for homes in smaller cities as well as income from other businesses.

For the December quarter, net profit grew 12 percent to 12.8 billion rupees ($206.92 million), in line with estimates. Net interest margin for the nine months ended December was at 4 percent, compared with 4.06 percent a year earlier. Chief Executive Keki Mistry said yesterday that the competitive pressure had not hurt HDFC’s market share. “We don’t believe that there has been

any change in market share numbers. One percent up, one percent down sometimes happens on a month-to-month basis, but we have not seen any change,” Mistry told reporters after HDFC announced its results.

More agents, more markets For its part, HDFC, which counts Blackrock Inc, the Singapore government and Aberdeen Asset Management among its investors, is spreading into smaller cities and towns and seeking more agents to find more mortgage borrowers. It pays a fee to partners IndusInd Bank and Ratnakar Bank to bring in customers, and its share of business from the two banks and other agents has more than doubled in three years to 17 percent of its total loans in the September quarter.

“We have to go out, we have to keep reaching out, we have to keep up the effort of finding more and more agents, more and more partners who will source loans for us,” Mistry said in an interview last month.

HDFC is also relying increasingly on other businesses including insurance, asset management and private equity to drive profit.

In the year ended March 2013, the share of profit from subsidiaries and associate companies more than doubled to 27 percent from 13 percent in 2008.

HDFC’s stock has risen more than five times over the last decade, compared with a 263 percent gain in the wider market. It also has the highest concentration of foreign institutional ownership of stocks in the Sensex, at more than 74 percent, according to data on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Investors have long held it for its relatively stable returns. Its shares fell 4 percent in 2013, but outperformed the bank index, which lost 9 percent.

Safe business?

SBI, which accounts for a quarter of all loans in India, expects to grow its mortgage loans by about 20 percent in the current fiscal year. Smaller rival LIC Housing Finance, which posted a 38 percent profit increase in the December quarter, also expects to grow at 20 percent during the year. HDFC has a similar projection. “With 60 percent of India’s population being below 30 years of age, all these people will in the next three, five or seven years need housing and therefore housing loans,” HDFC’s Mistry said. While industry players say there is enough business to go around, some analysts are not as hopeful. “We expect NIMs of both LIC Housing Finance and HDFC Ltd to remain under pressure over FY14-15, owing to continued pressure on incremental spreads from higher competitive intensity,” wrote Pankaj Agarwal, analyst at brokerage Ambit Capital, which has a sell rating on HDFC. — Reuters

This seems to support the contention of Saudi authorities that many of the foreign workers who have left were employed unproductively in the informal sector, and were not vital to the growth of the economy.

Nevertheless, the disruption felt by some individual companies is clearly considerable. The construction industry began reporting an impact early last year; it is the most exposed because Saudi citizens tend to shy away from taking strenuous blue-collar jobs.

“Some of the contractors are asking for extension on deliveries because of the labor shortage,” said Fayyaz Ahmad, assistant director of advisory services for Saudi real estate at consultants Jones Lang Lasalle. Ahmad said the construction industry’s labor shortage had eased somewhat since November as companies scrambled to obtain legal foreign workers by obtaining more visas, but this solution was expensive, and the problem could drag on until July. Quantifying the delays and financial costs in the construction industry is difficult, partly because few of the sector’s firms are listed on the stock market.

But the experience of one major firm, Abdullah A. M. AlKhodari Sons Co, may be indicative. The company said on

Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net profit tumbled 69 percent from a year earlier to 8.5 million riyals ($2.3 million), partly because of a 28 percent jump in manpower costs.

Banks As long as the impact remained limited to the construction sector, investors could shrug it off. Now, however, it has spread to banks, which account for about a third of the Saudi stock market’s capitalization. Last week Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi Arabia’s largest lender by assets and market value, posted a 19 percent slump in fourth-quarter earnings, citing higher costs and missing analysts’ forecasts. It cut its dividend for the second half of 2013. Another major bank, Banque Saudi Fransi, posted a 66 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit, blaming general provisioning for bad loans. In both cases, analysts believe the banks were preparing for the possibility that construction firms’ labor issues could delay loan repayments or make some loans non-performing. The stock market’s banking index has risen 4 percent since October, underperforming a 10 percent rise by the main index.—Reuters

China bullying economic diplomacy may backfire Norway punished for Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize BEIJING: Mountains of Norwegian salmon left rotting at port. A beachfront resort in Palau abandoned before completion. A sluggish response to a devastating Philippine typhoon: crossing China’s “red lines” can have painful economic consequences. Beijing is looking to build up its political and diplomatic status as a “major responsible country” commensurate with its global economic position, and improve its cultural reach worldwide.

As well as the world’s second-largest economy, China is its biggest trading nation in goods and Africa’s biggest trading partner, a fact highlighted last week by Japan’s attempt to present itself as a competitor on the continent. But experts say Beijing’s tactical moves towards smaller countries risk backfiring against its broader strategy.

Beijing has sought to punish Norway since the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to jailed dissident and pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo-despite Oslo having no control over the prize committee’s decisions. Strict new import controls left Norwegian salmon wasting away in Chinese warehouses, and its market share in the country, once 92 percent, plummeted to 29 percent last year. A musical starring Norwegian 2009 Eurovision winner Alexander Rybak had its tour cancelled, and Norwegians are excluded from China’s 72-hour transit visa schemes.

“The ‘bully boy’ tactics China has adopted, especially with regard to small nations such as Norway... are typical of a passive-aggressive kind of personality,” Phil Mead, a British businessman who helps small Chinese companies in the European market said. Such behavior makes Beijing “look petty and spiteful in the eyes of the world”, Mead said in a blog post.

Norway is far from the only country subjected to China’s wrath. Beijing is embroiled in a South China Sea territorial row with Manila, and after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck last Novemberthe most powerful recorded storm ever to make landfall-it initially offered the Philippines only $100,000.

After a storm of criticism China upped its contribution to $1.8 million and dispatched its Peace Ark hospital ship, but the response paled in comparison to Japan’s $30 million, the United States’ $20 million-and even some private companies. “China lags Ikea in aid to Philippines,” one newspaper wrote, comparing Beijing’s initial offer with $2.7 million from the Swedish furniture chain’s charitable foundation.

A year earlier, after a maritime stand-off, China suddenly imposed a raft of restrictions

on banana imports from the Philippines, claiming it had found pests in shipments. Tons of fruit were left to rot at Chinese and Philippine ports, with losses estimated at $23 million. And in 2009, after the Pacific island nation of Palau announced it would accept six Uighur detainees released from America’s Guantanamo Bay military prison and considered terrorists by Beijing, construction of a Chinese-backed, 100-room beachfront resort was abruptly halted.

‘The Dalai Lama effect’ Exper ts say the “red lines” that trigger Chinese threats and retribution are limited to a

pretty unique in that regard.” The pattern of retaliation with the Nobel laureate is so wellestablished that in 2010, German researchers found that countries whose leaders met him saw their exports to China fall by an average 12.5 percent over the next two years, a phenomenon they dubbed “the Dalai Lama effect”.

Qu Xing, president of the China Institute of International Studies, dismissed the possibility that Beijing’s actions could damage its global image, arguing that “many people in China believe that our diplomacy could have been more assertive”. Yet polling suggests its reputation has been hit: in a survey of 14,400 people in 14 countries, China’s own Global Times news-

BEIJING: China’s Vice President Li Yuanchao (right) talks with US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing yesterday. — AFP

tight set of very specific issues. They include relations with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama; criticism of China’s leadership or human rights record; territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas; Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province; and unrest in Xinjiang, the far western region home to the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.

“They have such a small, focused kind of interest, with the Dalai Lama visits in particular,” said James Reilly, professor of Northeast Asian politics at the University of Sydney, who has studied China’s unilateral sanction use. “China’s

paper found 29 percent of respondents described the country as “belligerent” in international affairs.

Harvard University professor Joseph Nye said the problem largely stems from Beijing’s limited view of the impact its measures have on its “soft power”, a term he coined to describe the ability to achieve outcomes through attraction rather than payment or coercion. It “does not pay enough attention” to contradictions between its aims and its actions, he said. “China tends to think of soft power in cultural rather than political terms.”— AFP

EXCHANGE RATES Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

UAE Exchange Centre WLL

ASIAN COUNTRIES Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal transfer Irani Riyal cash

2.718 4.591 2.688 2.167 2.888 222.600 36.576 3.643 6.276 8.648 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

75.684 77.982 737.270 753.820 77.292

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 253.57 262.97 315.94 387.44 283.25 469.23 2.78 3.644 4.611 2.170 2.890 2.693 77.19 753.89 40.68 403.13 736.63 78.22 75.66

SELL CASH 250.57 263.97 313.94 388.44 286.25 472.23 2.80 3.914 4.911 2.605 3.425 2.790 77.65 755.96 41.28 408.78 743.93 78.77 76.06

Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit Chinese Yuan Renminbi Thai Bhat Turkish Lira

2.985 3.880 86.870 47.290 9.625 127.300

39.700 40.347 1.324 173.300 400.790 1.040 2.022 35.463

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer Euro Sterling Pound Canadian dollar Turkish lira Swiss Franc Australian Dollar US Dollar Buying

283.700 385.830 468.810 259.560 126.140 312.620 252.350 282.500 GOLD

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

236.000 120.000 62.000

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

Selling Rate 283.600 261.685 466.275 386.095 311.250 748.845 77.190 78.745 76.495 399.680 40.678 2.168 4.607 2.687 3.643 6.276 696.580 3.715

0.008511 0.000069 0.219253 0.020230 0.001879 0.009418 0.008378

Bahrain Exchange Company CURRENCY Belgian Franc British Pound Czech Korune Danish Krone Euro Norwegian Krone Romanian Leu Slovakia Swedish Krona Swiss Franc Turkish Lira

BUY Europe 0.007379 0.458819 0.005977 0.047415 0.378102 0.041998 0.081904 0.008145 0.039845 0.305450 0.130434

SELL 0.008379 0.467819 0.017977 0.052415 0.385802 0.047198 0.81904 0.018145 0.044845 0.314740 0.137434

Australasia 0.240776 0.227712

0.252276 0.237212

America 0.254129 0.279750 0.280250

0.262629 0.284100 0.284100

Asia 0.003570 0.045692 0.034512 0.004273 0.000019 0.002647 0.003389 0.000257 0.083257 0.002984 0.002495

0.004170 0.049192 0.037262 0.004674 0.000025 0.002827 0.003389 0.000272 0.089257 0.003154 0.002775

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash Egyptian Pound - Transfer Yemen Riyal/for 1000 Tunisian Dinar Jordanian Dinar Lebanese Lira/for 1000 Syrian Lira Morocco Dirham

Philippine Peso Sierra Leone Singapore Dollar South African Rand Sri Lankan Rupee Taiwan Thai Baht

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

Arab 0.746461 0.037574 0.000078 0.000185 0.396139 1.0000000 0.000139 0.023842 0.001202 0.731241 0.077256 0.075057 0.002175 0.168180 0.130434 0.076300 0.001289

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

0.006791 0.000075 0.225253 0.028730 0.002459 0.009598 0.008928

0.754461 0.040674 0.000080 0.000245 0.403639 1.0000000 0.000239 0.047842 0.001837 0.736921 0.078469 0.075757 0.002395 0.176180 0.137434 0.077449 0.001369

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) 283.100 385.650 467.600 259.800 4.575 40.345 2.165 3.642 6.265 2.686 753.850 77.100 75.600

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

BUSINESS

Mega-city, mega-commute: Lagos and life on the road LAGOS: Ochuko Oghuvwu is surprisingly chirpy for a man who spends upwards of 30 hours a week in his car, commuting to and from his office in Nigeria’s financial hub, Lagos. Then again, he has just started the working week after two whole days without having to battle giant pot-holes, monster traffic jams, roadworks, irate drivers and police checkpoints. Oghuvwu’s stockbroking firm in the Ikoyi area of Lagos is only about 32 kilometers from his home in Ojo, due west towards the border with neighboring Benin.

The drive to the office should only take 45 minutes to one hour. But those days are as rare in Lagos as 24 hours of uninterrupted electricity from the national grid. Instead, the trip normally takes him three hours-even longer in the June to September rainy seasondespite him being behind the wheel from 5:30 am. “I wake up early to beat the major traffic,” he said. “Those that wake up later end up spending more time. On a day like a Monday, if you leave the house at 6:30 am, you spend more than four hours in the car.”

tries such as France. He could even be considered a late riser. Others who live nearby set off a full hour earlier to beat the infamous “go-slows”, as local call traffic jams. “We get exhausted. We’re always tired. For somebody in my position, I just lock the door of the office and have a little nap for 20 to 30 minutes,” he said.

The time spent crawling bumper to bumper with other cars, motorbikes and battered yellow taxis, packed buses and overloaded trucks has taken its toll on his Volvo S90. The constant stopstart means brake pads need checking every other month and the services of panel beaters to smooth out the inevitable dents and scrapes from the quest to keep moving. But the grueling commute has also affected his social life and the amount of time he spends with his family. Ughuvwu’s children, aged between six and 14, are usually asleep when he leaves the house and when he returns. “At the weekend I don’t go out,” he added. “I mainly stay at home. I don’t want to face the traffic. It’s ruined my social life.”

Sleeping on the job Oghuvwu, a marketing executive in his early 40s, is far from a rare breed in Nigeria’s biggest city. Hundreds of thousands of people like him also spend nearly as much time commuting as the statutory working week in coun-

Integrated transport plan Officially, Lagos is said to be home to some 12 million people. But many estimates put the figure at about 21 million, in a city spread over 350 square miles.

New arrivals hunting a slice of Nigeria’s economic growth heap pressure on the

already creaking infrastructure. Land shortages and a lack of housing has pushed up real estate and rental prices.

Fuel subsidies and cheap, second-hand cars often imported from Europe have put more vehicles on the road.

As a result, a long commute is a necessary evil for all but the wealthiest. The managing director of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), Dayo Mobereola, admits they need to act now to prevent total gridlock. “This problem has been going on for almost 40 years,” he said. “We’ve started addressing it over the last five years and we have a roadmap now to address the issues as they are today and also to plan for the future as well. “If we don’t do anything then in the next five years there’s almost going to be a stand-still.”

LAMATA’s $20 billion, 30-year master plan is based around integrated public transport. Its proposals for nine designated bus lanes and seven suburban train lines, built with Chinese money, are designed to get people out of their cars. Slum clearance is essential, although campaign groups claim that residents are given little or no warning that their homes are earmarked for demolition and no compensation afterwards. Work has slowed because of legal disputes, while some slum dwellers move on and set up home elsewhere, to be cleared another day.

Delays and jams More affordable accommodation within Lagos would help cut commuting times, suggested Oghuvwu, as prices where he lives are nearly twothirds cheaper than in the city. Water taxis along Nigeria’s southern, Atlantic coast and the lagoons that stretch around the city could also help tackle the gridlock. Failing that, businesses could relocate from the traditional trading hubs of Lagos Island, Ikoyi and Victoria Island to the

suburbs, he added.

For now, though, his life-and everyone else’s-is dictated by traffic. In the afternoons, many workers are out of the office door and on their way home as soon as the clock chimes four, car radios tuned to Lagos Traffic Radio 96.1 FM to hear about tailbacks and accidents. Oghuvwu himself usually leaves about 4:30 pm-and he’s all too aware of the consequences. “That extra 30 minutes costs me an additional one hour on the road,” he said. —AFP

LAGOS, Nigeria: Motorists queue in a long traffic jam in Lagos. —AFP

UK bankers push for closer ties with EU OECD chief economist sees deflation risk in Europe

BERLIN: Tractors make their way through the centre of Berlin during a protest titled “We’re fed up with agribusiness! Good food - good agriculture - for all!” in Berlin. Around 30,000 people demonstrated against the agricultural policy of the German government, against industrial livestock farming and genetically modified food. —AFP

US-EU free trade talks spark food safety fears BERLIN: Food industry professionals meeting in Berlin this week voiced concerns over a looming US-EU free trade pact, fearing a transatlantic onslaught of genetically modified foods, hormonetreated beef and chlorinated chicken.

Small farmers in particular worry about a softening of European food safety standards and a joint “race to the bottom” if liberalized trade rules pit them against American agro-industry giants and food multinationals.

“If the Americans have the right to sell their pork here, it won’t be easy for us,” Kathrin Seeger, a pig farmer from western Germany, said at Berlin’s “Green Week”, a leading food, agriculture and horticulture fair. Heino Dwinger, an organic dairy farmer from northern Germany, said “we are very critical of anything related to GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and mass food production”. His wife Sabrina Schaller added that the couple shares this fear as producers and “even more as consumers”.

The EU and United States-who between them make up 40 percent of global economic output-have held talks for the past year on creating what would be the world’s biggest free trade area, hoping to boost growth and jobs on both sides. Under an ambitious timetable, they aim to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) by the end of the year. Before then they will have to hammer out common rules and regulations on everything from auto safety to banking regulations.

Fears of ‘race to the bottom’ Many of the most sensitive disputes in the closed-door talks focus on food and agriculture, where the EU now bans, for example, American beef treated with artificial growth hormones and poultry that has been disinfected with chlorinated water. The EU also strictly controls GM foods, which have long been widely cultivated and consumed in the United States, amid European concerns about their ecological and health impacts and the corporate ownership of plant and animal DNA. Many farmers and consumers also fear a softening of environmental and animal welfare standards regulating the conditions for battery hens and livestock reared in industrial-scale feed lots. “At the moment it’s possible (in Europe) to encourage farmers to raise animals in

good conditions and to produce for the local market,” said Hubert Weiger of German environmental group Bund.

“But if the free trade agreement goes ahead, we will be subject to the rules of the global market, and the global market doesn’t care about protecting the environment and animals,” he said. “More competition in the meat market will lead to more investment in giant farms,” he predicted. As in other areas, such as data privacy protection, many Europeans fear a transatlantic trade pact will spark a regulatory “race to the bottom”, where both sides settle on the lowest common denominator, with the interests of corporations trumping those of consumers.

On the sidelines of the January 16-26 “Green Week”, 30,000 protesters marched in Berlin last weekend to demand a greener, cleaner kind of agriculture, and the TTIP was in the crosshairs for many demonstrators. “The vast majority of people do not want chlorinated chicken, beef with hormones and GMOs,” said Jochen Fritz, an organizer of the rally, which was sponsored by 100 environmental, farmers and consumer groups.

European agriculture is now subsidized to the tune of 60 billion euros ($80 billion) per year under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which is driven by a strong political will to protect farmers on the continent. Many producers know they would not be competitive in a fully open market, among them the dairy farmer Dwinger, who shrugged that “I am a regional producer” who is already struggling to make ends meet. EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero has promised that TTIP “will not be a deregulation agenda” or lead to lower consumer, environmental, health, labor or data protection standards in either the EU or US. However, concerns about the pact, including in the food industry, have been fuelled by the secrecy of the talks in Brussels and Washington, which have been held out of reach of TV cameras and journalists’ microphones. Not everyone shares the anxiety, and some European producers hope they will triumph in a liberalized market. “All this doesn’t worry me at all,” said Bernd Neumann, a dairy farmer from the eastern German state of Saxony. “I think that in Europe we have the highest standards, and that’s what will determine who wins in the end.” —AFP

LONDON: Britain should build closer ties with the European Union and devote more resources to Brussels to influence financial market reform and benefit the economy, the country’s leading banks said. The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) weighed into the debate over Britain’s role in Europe on yesterday, adding its voice to those of other businesses that favor Britain continuing its membership of the 28-member trading bloc.

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised voters he would renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership before holding an inout referendum by 2017 if his ruling Conservatives win elections due next year.

Finance minister George Osborne recently warned the EU it must reform if it wants Britain to remain a member.

“Given the significance of financial services to the UK and the degree to which legislation is set at an EU level, there is an overwhelming case for the UK to devote further resource and expertise in engaging in the European process to increase the level of influence in priority areas,” the BBA said in a submission to a UK Treasury review into the division of powers between London and Brussels. The BBA said membership of the EU enhanced Britain’s ability to influence international negotiations.

But the European Commission needed to ensure plans for a euro zone banking union did not mean the euro area became “a market within a market,” the BBA warned. It said the single EU market was a significant factor in London’s success as Europe’s financial hub and therefore of considerable value to the economy. US bank Citigroup, which has a big presence in London, also warned against Britain opting out of the EU and said such a move could hurt the economy and reduce investment from international companies.

Jim Cowles, Citi chief executive officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told the Financial Times there was “mounting concern” among clients about their ability to use Britain as a regional hub if the country exits the EU. “It is not that international companies will stop investing in Britain, but their investment just will not be at the scale we have become accustomed to,” Cowles told the newspaper. Citi confirmed the comments were accurate.

European aerospace group Airbus, one of Britain’s largest employers, on Tuesday voiced concerns over the possibility of the country leaving the EU, saying the benefits of an alternative economic model needed to be proven. The London-based Centre for European Reform (CER) predicted last week that Britain would struggle to maintain trade with other EU member states now 54 percent of goods trade - if it left the bloc.

paper in an interview published yesterday. The International Monetary Fund also warned of deflation risks in an update to its World Economic Report on Monday, saying its models showed a 10 to 20 percent chance that prices could start to fall in the euro currency bloc.

Inflation in the euro zone was just 0.8 percent year-on-year in December, well below the ECB’s target of close to but below 2 percent.

LONDON: Workers assemble Nissan cars on the production line at the Sunderland Nissan plant in northeast England yesterday. Britain’s unemployment dropped fasterthan-expected to a rate of 7.1 percent in the three months to the end of November, official data showed, further highlighting the nation’s economic recovery. —AFP Deflation risk in Europe In another development, the European Central Bank should be ready to take measures including quantitative easing to ward off the danger of deflation in Europe, the OECD’s chief economist said. “There is a deflation risk, but I don’t know how large it is,” Pier Carlo Padoan of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development told Austria’s Der Standard news-

BlackBerry shares lifted by big Pentagon contract NEW YORK: BlackBerry shares have leapt more than nine percent as the troubled Canadian smartphone maker got a boost from news of contract to supply the US military with 80,000 new handsets. The stock gained 9.36 percent to end at $9.93, capping a rally of some 30 percent so far in 2014 and more than 60 percent from its lows last month, when the company reported a quarterly loss of more than $4 billion.

The latest gains came after last week’s announcement from the Pentagon that it will include some 80,000 BlackBerry phones as part of a new “mobility” program for the Defense Department, which also includes devices made

by Apple, Samsung and Motorola. BlackBerry shares started a rebound last month after it announced plans to outsource its handset production to Taiwan-based Foxconn, which according to analysts could help the Canadian firm concentrate on software and services and avoid many of the risks of the volatile smartphone segment.

Last year, the company said it was considering a sale or other strategic move, but later scrapped those plans and told customers it was staying in the smartphone business.

BlackBerry helped create a culture of mobile users glued to smartphones, but lost its luster as many moved to iPhones or devices using Google’s Android software. It still has some 70 million subscribers worldwide, but most of these are using older handsets, with newer devices on the BlackBerry 10 platform unveiled a year ago failing to gain traction. —AFP

Padoan said the ECB should be prepared to cut deposit rates below zero, and added: “New measures should also be taken. These include a European form of quantitative easing. By this I mean massive interventions on secondary markets.” “One could also consider an extension of (the bank’s) mandate to intervene in primary markets, like the Fed and other central banks are doing.” —Agencies

UK unemployment rate slides to 7.1% LONDON: Britain’s unemployment dropped faster-than-expected to a rate of 7.1 percent in the three months to the end of November, official data showed yesterday, further highlighting the nation’s economic recovery. It fell from a rate of 7.4 percent in the quarter through to the end of October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement. That was the lowest level for nearly five years, or since it stood at 6.8 percent in February 2009. The Bank of England, under governor Mark Carney, has stated that it will consider raising its key interest rate from a record-low 0.50 percent once the unemployment rate falls to seven percent.

“The unemployment rate for September to November 2013 was 7.1 percent of the economically active population,” the ONS said in a statement. But wages growth remained muted at 0.9 percent in the three months to November, helping to keep a lid on inflation and in turn a need to raise interest rates. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund said it expected Britain’s economy to grow by 2.4 percent this year, up from an estimate of 1.9 percent given in October. The IMF now expects Britain to be among the fastest growing of the world’s

advanced economies during 2014, handing a major boost to British finance minister George Osborne’s deficit-slashing austerity policies.

Separately yesterday, the Bank of England said that its policymakers had voted unanimously two weeks ago to maintain its main interest rate at 0.50 percent and to keep the level of stimulus pumping around the economy at £375 billion ($620 billion, 458 billion euros). Minutes of its January policy meeting noted that “the unemployment rate was now likely to reach the seven percent threshold materially earlier than previously had been expected” by the bank.

But the BoE also cautioned that it saw “no immediate need to raise Bank Rate even if the seven percent unemployment threshold were to be reached in the near future”. Its policymakers noted that “it was likely that the headwinds to growth associated with the aftermath of the financial crisis would persist for some time yet and that inflationary pressures would remain contained. “Consequently when the time did come to raise Bank Rate, it would be appropriate to do so only gradually,” the minutes added. —AFP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

BUSINESS

Stocks edge back towards 5-1/2 year highs Sterling shines after UK data, China lending calm helps shares LONDON: World stocks edged back towards 5-1/2 year highs yesterday as moves to cool lending-market tensions in China gave an extra boost to the brightening global economic outlook. An upgrade of the International Monetary Fund’s world forecasts on Tuesday has lifted sentiment in equity markets and some encouraging company earnings meant European shares were quickly in their stride again as the rally in southern euro zone government bonds also resumed. With the US Federal Reserve expected to make a second small cut to its huge stimulus program next week, the dollar remained broadly supported near a two-month high against a basket of currencies.

Grabbing the spotlight was the UK, as another sharperthan-expected fall in unemployment, to 7.1 percent, provided fresh proof of a strengthening economy and bolstered speculation that a Bank of England rate rise may not be too

far off. Minutes from the Bank of England’s last meeting, released at the same time as the data, showed policymakers now acknowledged unemployment was likely to fall to the 7 percent threshold they have set for reviewing the bank’s policy, “materially earlier” than expected.

The news sent sterling surging to its highest in a year against the euro, up against the dollar while UK government bonds, or gilts, lost out as investors sought out higherrewarding alternatives. “It will certainly be the big challenge for Bank of England governor Mark Carney and the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) in managing the forward guidance,” said Michael Hewson, chief strategist at CMC Markets.

“What does he do when it does hit 7 percent? ... I think the only way is up for the pound.”

In Asian trading, Chinese shares jumped 2.6 percent as this week’s moves by the country’s central bank to cool rising

bank-to-bank borrowing costs continued to buoy their recovery from a six-month low. An upside inflation surprise also lifted the Aussie dollar as rate cut prospects faded, while the Canadian dollar sagged near a four-year low on bets the Bank of Canada could shift towards an easier policy stance later.

EMERGING TENSIONS Emerging markets were also in focus again as political unrest flared back up in both Thailand and Ukraine. Ukraine’s hryvnia currency hit its lowest level against the dollar since October 2009 and the country’s debt insurance costs spiked after two demonstrators were shot as a new wave of antigovernment protests spread in the capital Kiev.

In Thailand, the shooting of a pro-government activist hit that country’s stock market and initially the baht, although the currency recovered after the central bank resisted the

temptation to cut rates. “Thai financial markets are relatively calm for now. But if the political standoff drags on, then there will be delays in infrastructure investment and larger economic implications,” said Yukino Yamada, senior strategist at Daiwa Securities.

Markets in Turkey, meanwhile, steadied after what had been another day of drama on Tuesday. The lira was breathing easier having plunged to a new record low, while stocks were up 1.5 percent and on track for a third day of gains. Among commodities, oil prices rose on expectations that accelerating growth in industrialized economies would lift demand, with US crude futures rising 0.6 percent to $95.61 a barrel, its highest since Jan 3.

However, copper dropped and iron ore fell to its weakest level in more than six months as slow demand from top importer China hit sentiment. — Reuters

MANILA: People walk by homeless man, Edison Masili, 30, as he rests on a bridge in Manila yesterday. Masili earns 1 dollar a day by collecting recyclable materials among garbage. Optimism is soaring that the Philippines is finally becoming an Asian tiger economy, but critics caution a tiny elite that has long dominated is amassing most of the new wealth while the poor miss out. — AFP

Gold loses steam Market turns gaze to US Fed LONDON: Gold prices eased yesterday as the positive start to 2014 looked to be fading-leaving US growth prospects and expectations for further Federal Reserve stimulus reduction to dominate sentiment. Spot gold was 0.1 percent lower on the day at $1,240.10 per ounce by 1121 GMT, after falling nearly 1 percent on Tuesday - its biggest one-day decline this year. Investors have shied away from putting new money into gold as international economic recovery, led by the United States, is boosting stock markets and hurting the metal’s appeal.

Dealers and analysts said concerns about further trimming of US central bank stimulus, which weighed on prices last year, were back on the agenda. The Federal Reserve holds its next policy meeting on Jan. 28-29 when markets think the US central bank will announce a second cut to its $85 billion monthly bond purchases, which had burnished gold’s inflation-hedge appeal.

“There was already a lack of fresh buying after the recent peak above $1,260,” said Alexander Zumpfe, trader at Heraeus Metals Germany. “This together with the tapering “news” and expectations that Asian physical buying might slow after Lunar New Year was enough to trigger selling,” he added. The International Monetary Fund raised its global growth forecast for the first time in nearly two years, saying fading economic headwinds should permit advanced nations to pick up the mantle of growth from emerging markets.

World stocks edged back towards 51/2 year highs as moves to cool lendingmarket tensions in China gave an extra boost to the brightening global econom-

ic outlook. In other market news, sources said banks involved in the gold fix are reviewing the mechanics of its process to try to ensure that the benchmark complies with upcoming regulations. “With all the scrutiny on benchmarks, starting with Libor, it makes sense to make sure that the way the fixing is conducted doesn’t leave itself open to accusations of manipulation,” one source said.

China premiums ease Asia-based traders said prices could fall further as Chinese physical purchases were also slowing. Chinese premiums eased to $12 an ounce yesterday from $13 in the previous session. Premiums were higher earlier in the year on strong demand for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Platinum was steady at $1,444.40, consolidating after closing in on a threemonth peak, as strikes were set to begin from Thursday at the South African mines of top producers. The move could hit over half of global output of the precious metal and bosses of the world’s top three platinum producers accused South Africa’s AMCU union of making “unaffordable and unrealistic” demands.

Despite the metal’s recent gains, HSBC analysts said the reaction has been subdued. “A mining strike in South Africa would historically be bullish for the PGMs (platinum group metals) but the muted reaction more recently to the announcement for a possible strike may be due to investor awareness of producer stockpiling ahead of the wage negotiation period last year,” the analysts said in a note. Silver was flat at $19.85 per ounce, while palladium lost 0.4 percent to $740.60. — Reuters

Brent rises above $107 SINGAPORE: Brent futures rose above $107 a barrel yesterday as outlook reports indicated global oil demand will rise more quickly this year due to accelerating economic growth in industrialized countries.

Economic growth will absorb more supply even as US shale oil output reaches record highs, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday. The same day, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its global growth forecast for the first time in nearly two years, saying advanced nations could pick up the mantle of growth from emerging markets.

Brent crude added 58 cents to $107.30 a barrel by 0747 GMT. On Tuesday, Brent hit a nearly two-week high of $108.00 and ended 38 cents up. US oil was up 68 cents to $95.65 a barrel to touch its highest in more than two weeks. “Improvement in global industrial production will translate to higher energy demand,” Michael McCarthy, chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney said. “Technical factors and better demand outlook are likely to keep oil prices supported.”

Oil demand growth has been boosted by a robust economic rebound in the United States, where the IEA has revised up its 2013 demand estimate by 180,000 bpd to 18.9 million bpd. The IMF also pointed to the United States as one of the bright spots for the global economy. These forecasts and technicals will keep Brent

supported at around $105.50-$106 a barrel in the short term, and prices may bounce above those levels to about $108, McCarthy said. The US benchmark may rise to around $96.50.

Those levels may be the staging point for further gains in Brent to about $110 and $99.50 in US oil, McCarthy said.

Beyond the improving demand outlook, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East also continue to put a floor on oil prices.

While progress in talks between the West and Iran to end a decade-old nuclear dispute has removed some of the risk, investors remain worried about the crisis in Syria spilling across the region and disrupting supplies. “Supply disruption worries from the Middle East are still out there,” said a trader with a Western trading firm.

“They will continue to support oil prices.”

STOCKS DATA Investors are awaiting the latest oil inventory data from the United States. US commercial crude oil inventories likely rose last week for the first time in eight weeks, by an average of 1.6 million barrels, a preliminary Reuters poll showed. In the refined products sector, distillate stocks, including heating oil and diesel fuel, were forecast to have dropped 400,000 barrels on average. Gasoline stocks were seen to have increased by 1.6 million barrels last week. — Reuters

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

BUSINESS

Bank Asya says ‘weathering’ withdrawals in Turkey crisis 4 billion lira withdrawn in bid to sink bank ISTANBUL: Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya said it had weathered mass deposit withdrawals, which the media said were orchestrated by government supporters as part of a backlash against a corruption scandal blamed on an influential cleric.

Turkish media say state-owned companies and institutional depositors loyal to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have withdrawn 4 billion lira ($1.79 billion), some 20 percent of the bank’s total deposits, over the last month to try to sink the lender.

The government has declined to comment. Bank Asya’s chief executive Ahmet Beyaz said the bank’s founders included sympathizers of cleric Fethullah Gulen, who officials say is behind the corruption investigation posing one of the biggest challenges to Erdogan’s 11-year rule. But he said the bank was not at risk. “The deposit withdrawal was a significant sum, but new deposits worth more than half that amount

were placed in the bank, making it possible for us to manage our liquidity,” Beyaz told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday. He said the new deposits came from ordinary citizens, supportive of the bank and its ethos.

Despite being a sympathizer of the USbased cleric, Beyaz underlined that his bank did not belong to Gulen’s Cemaat religious community network: “This bank does not belong to the Cemaat. Its founders include people close to the Cemaat.”

Erdogan has reacted furiously to the corruption investigation, decrying an attempted “judicial coup” his supporters see as orchestrated by Cemaat. He has reassigned thousands of police officers, more than a hundred judges and prosecutors, and purged official bodies of executives he suspects of being close to the cleric.

Beyaz declined to say how much money had been withdrawn, but said the bank

had been “comfortably positioned” on liquidity due to expectations the US Federal Reserve would cut the stimulus that sent cheap cash flowing to markets such as Turkey. “Some big companies withdrew their deposits upon request, but they may change their minds in time and bring their deposits back. I don’t believe in animosities in business,” Beyaz said. Bank Asya’s deposits at the end of third quarter of 2013 were 19.5 billion lira.

SMEAR CAMPAIGNS Beyaz warned “smear campaigns” about lenders’ health would create systematic risks for the Turkish banking system after pro-government media speculated that his bank could be seized by Turkey’s Saving Deposit Insurance Fund because it was illiquid. “Bank Asya has a capital adequacy ratio of 14.8 percent, is constantly supervised and audited, and is without a single

negative report against it. Any action against such a bank would be impossible to explain to the world,” Beyaz said. The political turf war sparked by the corruption scandal has driven investors away from Turkish assets in recent weeks, sending the lira to record lows. The turmoil comes at a bad time for Turkey, when the reduction in US monetary stimulus is already hammering emerging market assets.

Erdogan has cast both the corruption probe and anti-government protests last summer as part of a foreign-backed plot to undermine Turkey’s international standing.

Beyaz said the bank expected little or no impact from the deposit withdrawal on its 2014 targets - Bank Asya expects loan growth of 20 percent in 2014, asset growth of 22 percent and deposit growth of 18 percent. The lender is also planning sukuk issues worth $500 million and 800 million lira this year. —Reuters

Turkish lira hovers near record lows ISTANBUL: The Turkish lira hovered near record lows yesterday as the central bank’s decision to avoid a rate rise and opt for stealth tightening was seen as a less effective support for the currency and a nod to political pressure. The bank kept its main interest rates on hold on Tuesday, including the overnight lending rate at 7.75 percent, but said it would fund the market at 9 percent on “additional tightening” days, when it cancels repos and sells dollars at auction.

A corruption scandal shaking the government and fears about the impact of cuts to US monetary stimulus have sent the lira down 10 percent against the dollar over the past month, and investors had been crying out for a rate hike to defend it. The bank’s decision did little to ease the pressure, with investors left wondering how frequently “additional tightening” days would be implemented and whether the bank would have the resolve to prevent a further lira slide.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling party is preparing for local elections in March and a presidential contest in August, has railed against high interest rates, which would pose a risk to already slow economic growth, and played down the recent market turbulence. His economy minister said the day before the interest rate decision that the lira’s volatility did not pose a threat and said the central bank should not hike.

“The central bank once again seems to have invented a way of hiking rates without calling them a “rate hike”,” BNP Paribas-TEB said in a research note. “The frequency and duration of additional tightening days will be important as to the effectiveness of the central bank’s move ... As the central bank makes its policy tightening in a convoluted way, it gets less bang for the buck.”

The bank said yesterday it would implement two days of additional monetary tightening on Jan 27 and 30, funding the market at an interest rate of 9 percent instead of the usual 7.75 percent and selling $100 million at auction on both days. That did not appear enough to reassure the market. The lira, which fell to a record low of 2.270 to the dollar immediately after Tuesday’s rate decision, was only slightly firmer at 2.267 by 1057 GMT. “Added complications to the policy framework only serve to turn off investors, who are already uneasy about low visibility - both on the political and monetary policy fronts,” said Finansbank economist Inan Demir.

“We do not expect this decision to provide any respite for the lira. On the contrary, we continue to see further depreciation until we see the central bank forcefully defending the currency.” The yield on the 10-year benchmark bond was at 10.12 percent after closing at 10.19 percent in thin trade on Tuesday. The main Istanbul stock index was up 1.39 percent at 67,230.35 points, outperforming the main global emerging market index, which gained 0.39 percent. —Reuters

Yahoo! users will be mostly mobile: CEO DAVOS: Struggling Internet giant Yahoo! will see more users accessing its services by mobile in 2014 than classic desktops, chief executive Marissa Mayer said yesterday at the Davos World Economic Forum.

“2014 will be the year of the crossover,” Mayer said while sitting on a panel regarding the world digital context. “By the end of this year we will have more mobile users than we have PC traffic. You have to be prepared for that,” she said.

In December Yahoo was the most popular online venue visited from US desktop computers and the firm has been under pressure to switch its core of the business to the increasingly crucial world of smartphones. Mayer has made improving Yahoo’s popularity on smartphones and tablets a priority as the faded Internet search pioneer is reMarissa Mayer invented. Mayer, who was poached from Internet rival Google in 2012, has run into road bumps in recent weeks with the surprise exit of two top executives including her second-in-command. Chief operating officer Henrique de Castro walked away with a $20 million dollar (14.7-billion-euro) stock award and other compensation after just 15 months on the job.

In Davos, Mayer said hiring was key to the next stage of the company’s development. “It is a matter of hiring the right people and making sure these people are really informed,” she said. The departure of Castro amid continued poor ad revenue left analysts wondering whether Yahoo! will disappoint in a quarterly earnings report due on January 28. Mayer said she arrived to Yahoo! when the company had just suffered five years of turbulence and the staff she discovered were eager to turn the company around. The employees “had all this pent-up energy” she said. —AFP

HONG KONG: In this file picture, an assistant (left) to the chairman of K Wah International Holdings Ltd, Lui Che Woo, bids for a plot of government land in Hong Kong. —AFP

Hong Kong tycoon still Asia’s ‘richest person’ HONG KONG: Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing has held on to his title as Asia’s richest person, staying ahead of Macau casino mogul Lui Che-woo, according to Bloomberg. Li-whose firms Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa control global assets in property, telecoms, utilities, ports and retail-had a net worth of $29.5 billion this month on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculated at the end of Thursday.

That was followed by Lui, the head of Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment, whose fortune amounted to $23.7 billion, according to the index, a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. Another rich list for 2014 released by

Forbes Magazine earlier this month, put Li’s net worth at $32 billion while 84-year-old Lui’s fortune came in at $21 billion.

The 85-year-old Li, who started out in business as a plastic-flower maker, became Asia’s richest man in April 2012 after he surpassed Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, according to the Bloomberg index. Lui’s family fled war-torn China for Hong Kong in 1934. He amassed his first fortune after World War II when he imported construction equipment left by US forces on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Lui’s Galaxy entered the Macau gambling market when it was opened up in 2002, ending a four-decade monopoly by Hong Kong businessman Stanley Ho. —AFP

BoJ says winning deflation battle TOKYO: The head of the Bank of Japan yesterday said its monetary easing blitz was winning the war on deflation as policymakers held off announcing any fresh measures to stimulate the economy. The decision after a two-day policy meeting was widely expected with analysts predicting the BoJ would launch an expansion of its asset-buying plan later this year to counter the effects of an April sales tax hike.

While the increase is seen as crucial to chopping Japan’s eye-watering national debt-proportionately the worst among rich nations-there are fears it will derail its economic recovery. The BoJ said the world’s third-largest economy “continued to recover moderately”, while it also stuck with a 2.0 percent inflation target seen as crucial to the bank’s policy blueprint.

BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda unveiled the vast asset-buying scheme in April as part of a broader plan by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinvigorate the economy and eradicate years of deflation with a policy blitz, dubbed Abenomics. Both men are attending the Davos summit where the world’s political and business elite are gathering this week.

Kuroda said yesterday that the bank would press on with its policy plan, and added that he was still confident the inflation target would be reached sometime next yeardespite growing scepticism among analysts and even some BoJ board members. “We believe our expectations are right,” Kuroda told reporters in Tokyo.

However, London-based Capital Economics said it expected the BoJ to ultimately push back its inflation target by about one year, as it unleashes further stimulus to counter any slowdown. “Barring some major economic or market shock, the Bank of Japan is likely to wait until the second half of this year before announcing any further monetary stimulus,” it said ahead of the BoJ’s meeting. “This would allow the board to gauge how the economy has weathered this April’s consumption tax hike.”

Yesterday, the bank slightly lowered its growth forecast to 1.4 percent from 1.5 per-

News

in brief

JetBlue, Etihad Airlines announce partnership DUBAI: JetBlue Air ways Corp. and the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, Etihad Airways, have formed a partnership to allow passengers to fly on routes operated by both carriers on a single ticket. A statement by the two airlines yesterday says that initially, Etihad will codeshare on 40 JetBlue routes within the United States. The airliners say more codeshare services are planned on JetBlue flights once Etihad commences daily flights to Los Angeles this June. The agreement is subject to government approval.

Etihad currently has non-stop daily flights from Abu Dhabi to New York, Washington DC and Chicago. In late 2012, JetBlue formed a codeshare deal with the Mideast’s biggest airline, Emirates, which flies daily from its hub in Dubai to Jet Blue’s home base at New York’s JFK. Iraq oil exports dip BAGHDAD: Iraq’s oil exports in 2013 declined compared with the previous year, new figures showed yesterday, despite the country’s efforts to dramatically ramp up crude sales to fund much-needed reconstruction. Exports in December recovered from multi-month lows earlier in the year, but were still below their peak, with overall exports and revenues for the year lower than similar figures for 2012, according to oil ministry data compiled by AFP. Overall, Iraq exported 72.6 million barrels of oil in December, an average of 2.34 million barrels per day (bpd), bringing in revenues of $7.47 billion (5.5 billion euros). Those figures were higher than in November, and also represented marked increases on September, when Iraq managed to export just 2.07 million bpd. “ The expor ts and income in December was an increase... even though there was bad weather and technical repairs in the southern ports,” oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said in a statement. Jihad also said efforts to remove remnants of decades of war from the Shatt Al-Arab waterway in south Iraq, through which the country ships the lion’s share of its exports, had held back overall sales.

Taiwan’s jobless rate falls to five-year low TAIPEI: Taiwan’s jobless rate slid to a five-year low in 2013, but the figure indicates that the slowly growing economy has yet to fully recover from the global financial crisis, officials said yesterday. The unemployment rate last year stood at 4.18 percent, down from 5.85 percent in 2009 when the export-reliant economy was battered by the crisis which began in the second half of 2008. The jobless rate fell to 4.39 percent in 2011 but since then has edged down marginally. “This indicates that the economy has yet to return to the precrisis levels,” an official with the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said. Hit hardest by the global sluggishness were employees aged between 15-24.

Statistics released by the budget agency showed that the unemployment rate for this age group remained at 13.17 percent, little improvement on the record high of 14.49 touched in 2009. “Just like many of their peers in other countries, local enterprises are reluctant to hire young employees without experience while the global economy still faces uncertainties ahead,” the official said.

SA inflation edges up JOHANNESBURG: South African consumer prices ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 5.4 percent in December, official data showed yesterday. Statistics South Africa reported a rise in petrol and home rental prices helped push inflation slightly higher, although broadly in line with expectations.

The average annual inflation rate for 2013 was 5.7 percent. That is just shy of the South African Reserve Bank’s upper target range of six percent, but will raise hopes that inflation has topped out.

TOKYO: Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda answers questions during a press conference after a policy board meeting at the BOJ headquarters in Tokyo yesterday. —AFP cent for the fiscal year ending in March 2015, which may suggest policymakers expect consumer demand to weaken after the tax rise. “We have...penciled in October for the timing of any official acknowledgement that the original two-year deadline will be missed...This would probably be accompanied by the announcement of additional monetary easing,” Capital Economics said. The yen got a boost after the announcement with the dollar weaker at 104.24 yen in afternoon trade, from 104.28 yen shortly before the BoJ announcement.

Despite Abe’s much-lauded start since sweeping national elections in late 2012, analysts have warned that Tokyo’s bold progrowth program-a mix of big government spending and central bank monetary easing-is not enough on its own without promised economic reforms. Japan’s growth slowed markedly in the July-September quarter-after leading G7 nations in the first half of the year-as exports weakened and consumer spending slowed.

More positively, a BoJ report last month said Japanese business confidence had soared to a six-year high, while November figures showed a key inflation indicator rising at its fastest pace since the late 1990s as Japan sank into years of deflation. But rising prices have largely been driven up by higher fuel bills after the Fukushima atomic crisis, not surging demand for everyday goods such as vacuum cleaners and clothes which power the economy as a whole.

Since the accident, Japan has been importing fossil fuels to plug the energy gap, a pricey option that has become even more expensive as the yen sharply weakened in the wake of the BoJ’s monetary easing drive. While deflation may sound like a good thing for shoppers, it can be bad for growth because falling prices encourage consumers to put off spending, knowing they will pay less for a product if they wait.

That makes it difficult for companies to invest and discourages them from raising wages, which, in turn, reduces consumer spending further. —AFP

Las Vegas casinos to accept Bitcoin LOS ANGELES: Two Las Vegas casinos will become the city’s first to accept the Bitcoin virtual currency from this week, their owners announced Tuesday. The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel and the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, which are owned by the same company, announced that as of Wednesday they would process transactions through BitPay, among other regular payment options. “I’m proud that the D and Golden Gate will be the first casino properties to accept Bitcoin,” said the two properties’ chief executive Derek Stevens, who said he decided to do so after several customers asked him about using Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will be accepted at five locations, including the two hotels’ front desks, a gift shop and Italian restaurant. The Golden Gate, built in 1906, is the oldest casino in Vegas-and has a history of pioneering new technology, being the city’s first to install a telephone in 1907, according to its owner. “We’re located in the growing high-tech sector of downtown Las Vegas, and like all things downtown, we’re quickly adaptive to new technology,” said Stevens. “The timing is right for us to launch this initiative, and I’m happy to be able to offer this to our customers.”

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

BUSINESS

ABB warns on Q4 amid weak power demand Shares down 4 percent ZURICH: Swiss engineering group ABB told investors yesterday it would miss fourth-quarter profit expectations due to weak orders at its power division and delays on wind projects in the North Sea. ABB said its power division would take $260 million in charges, bringing its fourth-quarter net profit expectations to $525 million, well short of analysts’ average forecast of $924 million, according to Thomson Reuters data. Most of the charges were due to storms delaying construction for offshore wind farms, which are among the most expensive renewable energy projects, while $50 million was due to past legal issues, losses from selling and discontinuing some activities.

Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer said ABB was still “seeing uncertainty in the market on the power side”, with stiffer regulation and project delays causing orders in the unit to soften last year. The power unit is also aiming to be more selective about the offshore wind power projects it takes on to increase returns. “The division’s new leadership is assessing the progress and targets of the realignment, and we expect to provide an update

when we announce the fourth-quarter and fullyear results (on Feb. 13),” Spiesshofer told investors.

ABB has appointed Claudio Facchin as unit head to replace Brice Koch, who began as boss of OC Oerlikon last week. “This is a setback for ABB in turning around the power systems division,” said Bank J Safra Sarasin analyst Michael Studer, who said the unit may be “kitchen-sinking” charges into its accounts following the management change.

ABB’s shares were down 4 percent at 23.22 Swiss francs at 0945 GMT, underperforming a 0.3 percent fall in the broader European industrial index.

ABB’s power rivals are having similar troubles.

On Tuesday, shares in French heavy engineering group Alstom, which is more active in large thermal power systems, tumbled when it cut its targets for profitability and cashflow after weak orders for power equipment. Wholesale power prices have plunged in recent years due to generation overcapacity as Europe’s weak economy has curbed energy demand. In addition, cheap US coal has been pouring into Europe, making gas-fired generation

uncompetitive.

European utilities have mothballed or closed more than 21 gigawatts (GW) of capacity over the past 18 months and focused on new sources of income, including renewables and energy efficiency. Like rivals Schneider Electric of France and Germany’s Siemens, ABB is also facing a dearth of big orders as industrial customers delay spending in a weak global economy. For the period 20112015, ABB aims to increase overall sales at a compound annual growth rate of 7-10 percent organically, aiming to outpace economic and market growth.

After spending more than $10 billion on acquisitions in recent years, the group is now focusing on integrating those purchases, which include US groups Baldor and Thomas & Betts as well as solar energy company Power One. The company, which makes products as varied as robots, power grids for utilities, and transformers used on electric trains, hopes that expanding services such as maintenance and technical support will help shield its business from economic cycles.—Reuters

Hall appointed as The Avenues’ Mall director

FASTtelco announces winner of Audi R8 GT KUWAIT: FASTtelco, the leading Internet and is always committed to meeting its Service Provider in Kuwait, announced the pledged responsibilities towards the internet name of the raffle draw winner of AUDI R8 GT and communication industries. Al-Babtain car in its latest campaign “The internet is on further added: “FASTtelco will continue to You ... The Audi is on us”. As part of this compe- provide the best offers, products and services to its valued customers by assemtition that lasted from September bling the most talented team of 30th, 2013 till December 31st, employees and human capital in 2013, customers were offered the the market and by adopting the chance to win the grand prize for largest and the most advanced every 10 KD spent for subscribing data communication infrastructo residential internet packages, or ture in Kuwait.” for upgrading, and renewing their As a result of its continuous current internet subscriptions. The efforts, FASTtelco has proven its lucky winner, Khaled Ebteehan Alleading position amongst local Duwaihes was awarded the Internet Service Providers thanks exceptional Audi R8 with its extremely elegant interior design AbdulAziz Al Babtain to its state-of-the-art infrastructure and commitment to providstyle, striking silhouette and cuting the latest communication solutions to its ting-edge technology.

Commenting on this campaign, Abdulaziz customers, catering both individuals and Yaqoub Al-Babtain, Vice President of companies. In the end, FASTtelco congratuCommercial Sales at FASTtelco said: “The key lated the lucky winner, and recalled its combehind FASTtelco’s success is that FASTtelco is mitment to creating and developing more continuously providing its new and existing exceptional offers and promotions aimed to customers with the best offers on the market, its loyal customers.

KUWAIT: The Avenues management announced the appointment of Robert Hall as the new Mall Director. Hall comes to The Avenues with more than 20 years of management experience in some of the largest malls in the United Kingdom. Hall was involved in the launch and operation of 13 shopping malls during his career, including three years in managerial Robert Hall posts in six different retails centers for Hammerson Properties. Most recently, Hall was Director at Milton Keynes for Hermes Property Management as well as Westfield London in the UK’s capital city.

Robert Hall expressed great happiness for joining The Avenues team, assuring that The Avenues has set new benchmark and standards throughout the industry for being one of the largest malls in the world, and continuously developed and enhanced the shopping experience in the region due to its world class architectural design as well as a home to both international and local brands ranging from mid end retail categories to trendy designers in a spacious leasable area.

IBM posts higher Q4 net income ARMONK: IBM’s fourth-quarter net income grew 6 percent, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations even though revenue declined. Its shares fell in extended trading after the results came out - and CEO Ginni Rometty said she’s recommending that senior executives, including herself, forgo personal bonuses for the year. IBM Corp said Tuesday that it earned $6.19 billion, or $5.73 per share, in the October-December period. That’s up from $5.83 billion, or $5.13 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Results benefited from tax audit settlements that lowered IBM’s tax rate to 11.2 percent in the quarter, from 25.5 percent a year earlier. IBM’s adjusted earnings were $6.13 per share in the latest quarter. Revenue fell 5.5 percent to $27.7 billion from $29.3 billion. Analysts, on average, had expected adjusted earnings of $5.99 per share on revenue of $28.27 billion, according to FactSet. IBM is the world’s largest technology-services company. Its results provide a gauge of businesses’ appetite for technology spending. The company’s business has been fairly stable because many of its customers sign long-term contracts that guarantee regular revenue, even when the economy is tough. It also helps that IBM no longer has a direct connection to the slumping PC industry. Hardware revenue plunged 26 percent to $4.26 billion in the fourth quarter. Revenue in the company’s biggest business - services - slipped 3.6 percent to $9.92 billion, while software revenue increased 2.8 percent to $8.14 billion.

The Armonk, NY, company is forecasting 2014 adjusted earnings of at least $18 per share. Analysts expect $18.02 per share. Rometty said IBM remains “on track” toward its adjusted earnings goal of at least $20 in 2015.

For the full year, IBM earned $16.5 billion, or $14.94 per share, compared with earnings of $16.6 billion, or $14.37 per share, in 2012. Adjusted earnings were $16.28 per share. Revenue fell 5 percent to $99.8 billion from $104.5 billion. IBM’s shares fell $5.68, or 3 percent, to $182.75 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed down $1.66 at $188.43 earlier.—AP

Al Mulla delivers Mitsubishi Lancer to Al Manar Financing & Leasing Company KUWAIT: Al Mulla Group, the official distributor of Mitsubishi vehicles in Kuwait, announced the delivery of 1000 Mitsubishi Lancer vehicles (Fortis and JT) to Al Manar Financing & Leasing Company in 2013 under a landmark agreement between the two sides which has been recently renewed, in which a similar number of cars will be resourced again in 2014. This unique agreement is considered to be one of the largest to be carried out in the local wholesale sector for cars of a single model and the biggest delivery of its kind in fleet services.

The renewal of the agreement took place during a special ceremony that was attended by members of senior management of both the companies in which Hisham Fakih, Division manager of Al Mulla Group signed the agreement on behalf of the Group and Abdullah Al Bader, CEO of Al Manar Financing & Leasing Company signed on behalf of the company. In addition, Mr. Ahmad Saade, Manager Vehicle Wholesale, and Wassim Makarem, Asst. Manager Vehicle Wholesale presented Al Mulla Group; whereas Dr Munir Afuni, Executive Vice President of Al Manar Group, Youssef Al Zamqan, manager of Financing Services Dept, and Ali Abdullah, head of Financing Division were also present at the occasion.

Al Mulla Group declared that this agreement reflects its underlying strategy to enhance its cooperation with its clients of which Al Manar Financing & Leasing Company is considered to be leading in the financing and leasing sector. Through this

Amplats swings back into profit South Africa strikes loom JOHANNESBURG: Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) swung back into profit in 2013 as it rebounded from a wave of wildcat strikes but its recovery is threatened by looming strikes across South Africa’s platinum belt. Maintaining profit margins will be tough if the hardline Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) goes ahead with its planned industrial action today at Amplats and rivals Impala Platinum and Lonmin. Around 100,000 workers or a fifth of South Africa’s mining labour force could down tools in a stoppage that would hit over half of global production of the metal used to make emissions-capping catalytic converters in automobiles.

Amplats, the world’s top producer, said yesterday its 2013 headline earnings per share were expected to be between 480 and 590 cents, compared with a loss of 562 cents for 2012, the first time the Anglo American unit fell into the red. Headline earnings per share are the main profit gauge in South Africa. Amplats said its return to profit stemmed from higher sales volumes and a favorable rand/dollar exchange rate. AMCU’s threatened strike could unravel its hard-fought return to profit, especially if it is protracted.

The chief executives of the three affected platinum producers said on Tuesday the industry could ill-afford further production and job losses, noting they had lost a combined 879,400 ounces of output to labor stoppages in 2012 and 2013. Companies have also dismissed AMCU’s demands to more than double the basic wage as “unaf-

Oman’s Bank Dhofar posts 3.6% profit hike

MoneyGram, Bank AlJazira sign deal RIYADH: MoneyGram (NASDAQ: MGI), a leading global money transfer and payment services company, announced an agreement with Bank AlJazira (BAJ) to offer its services at multiple bank and remittance centers. The alliance gives consumers access to over the counter global money transfers with the ability to send and receive money in 10 minutes and connect with friends and family around the globe. “Our customers in Saudi Arabia need quick access to places where they can send and receive funds,” said Grant Lines, senior vice president Asia Pacific, South Asia and Middle East at MoneyGram. “This alignment answers our

customers’ needs, not only in this region, but worldwide.”

Bank AlJazira offers personal, corporate, investment and private banking services and it is renowned for its customer-centric philosophy and out-of-thebox thinking. “We are very excited to join hands with MoneyGram,” says Nabil AlHoshan, CEO at Bank AlJazira. “We offer world-class customer service in our Fawri money remittance centers. MoneyGram will play a central role in helping to meet our goals in 2014.” Saudi Arabia is the second leading remittance-sending country in the world, with an estimated $27.6 billion of outward remittance in 2012.

DUBAI: Bank Dhofar, the Omani lender in talks to merge with smaller rival Bank Sohar, beat analysts’ estimates as it posted a 3.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit yesterday. Oman’s second-largest bank by market value made a net profit of 9.3 million rials ($24.2 million) in the three months to Dec 31 compared with a profit of 9.02 million rials in the prior-year period, Reuters calculated from previous financial statements. Two analysts polled

by Reuters had estimated a quarterly profit of 8.32 million rials and 8.76 million rials respectively.

Reuters calculated fourth-quarter profit from previous financial statements. Fullyear profit for 2013 was reported as 58.4 million rials, according to a statement to the bourse, much higher than the 37.7 million rials the bank made in 2012. The annual profit hike was fuelled by Oman’s Primary Court returning 26.1 million rials

agreement, both companies are aiming to provide excellent service to their clients through the ownership of Mitsubishi vehicles. According to Al Mulla Group, this deal is considered to be one of the largest in selling and delivery of fleet vehicles of the same type, and that buying of Mitsubishi Lancer came after many market studies and experiments where the Lancer proved to be superior to its competitors in terms of price, quality, specifications, safety and security.

Moreover, the fact of the increased demand for Mitsubishi Lancer from clients involved in both fields of taxi and car rental comes as evidence of the vehicle’s credibility and reliability which is required by clients in the competitive local market. On the other hand, as a leading company in Kuwait working in the financing and leasing industry in compliance with Islamic Sharia laws, Al Manar Financing & Leasing Co has built a strong relationship with Al Mulla Group based on trust and mutual understanding.

This encouraged Al Manar to invest in Al Mulla vehicles in order to provide its wide customer base with practical cars that cover their needs and offer them a distinctive package of high quality services and specifications which is the trademark of Al Mulla Mitsubishi vehicles. Choosing Mitsubishi Lancer comes as a result of its excellent reputation worldwide and also because of the superior quality of this global car in its category in terms of high quality and safety besides to Al Mulla Group’s commitment in providing the best after-sales service.

to Bank Dhofar in March after the country’s appeals court overturned a judgment relating to a 2011 case involving Oman International Bank and Ali Redha Trading and Muttrah Holding over the ownership of 1,925,000 Bank Dhofar shares.

Net loans and advances grew 13.7 percent to 1.9 billion rials from 1.67 billion rials at the end of 2012. Deposits were also up over the same period, rising 24.3 percent year-on-year to 2.03 billion rials.

In July, Bank Dhofar said it had approached Bank Sohar with a view to merging the two entities and creating Oman’s second-largest bank, with the latter saying it would consider the move. The new entity would have total assets worth 4.49 billion rials, based on fourth-quarter financial statements. Bank Sohar reported a 20.5 percent advance in fourth-quarter net profit on Tuesday. —Reuters

fordable and unrealistic”. The government has offered to mediate last-ditch talks to avert a strike. “The ministers of labor and of mineral resources are fully engaged both on the labor side and on the mining companies side,” South African Pravin Gordhan told local broadcaster Talk Radio 702 in an interview from Davos.

Implats spokesman Johan Theron said the company would be willing to take part in talks, although AMCU leader Joseph Mathunjwa was equivocal, saying its membership had to be consulted. “We will look at those options,” he told Talk Radio 702.

Fresh stoppages in the platinum and gold mines would hit key South African exports, putting more pressure a rand already near 5-year lows and dealing a fresh blow to investor confidence in Africa’s biggest economy. President Jacob Zuma and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) are also keen to avoid labor unrest ahead of general elections expected in around three months time.

AMCU emerged as the dominant union on the platinum belt after poaching tens of thousands of members from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in a vicious turf war in which dozens of people were killed. The union is also threatening to strike over wages today at several gold mines operated by AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Sibanye Gold. Bullion producers are seeking a court order to halt the strike on the grounds that a wage agreement signed with last year with NUM - still the majority union on the gold mines - applies to all workers in the sector. —Reuters

Sandberg a billionaire as Facebook hits new high SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook shares have climbed to a new high, catapulting chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg onto the roster of tech billionaires. Shares of the world’s leading social network closed the Nasdaq trading day at $58.51, shedding a few cents in afterhours trade. Sandberg owns about $750 million worth of Facebook stock and is said to have sold about $300 million worth of shares since the California-based company became a publicly traded company in May of 2012.

The 44-year-old former Google executive is also reported to have stock options for nearly five million shares that began vesting last year. The social media giant started by Mark Zuckerberg, which now has more than 1.1 billion users around the globe, had a rocky debut after it went public at $38 a share with a valuation of $16 billion. Facebook shares dropped below $20 during the ensuing months and only climbed back over their offer price in July of last year.

Zuckerberg, who will turn 30 in May, has a personal fortune estimated at about $19 billion. Facebook will release its quarterly earnings figures next week. —AFP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

technology

S Korea to launch 5G ‘movie-in-a-second’ service SEOUL: South Korea, already one of the most wired countries on earth, yesterday announced a 1.6 trillion won ($1.5 billion) plan to roll out a nextgeneration 5G wireless service quick enough to download full-length films in a second. The science ministry said it aims to implement the technologyabout 1,000 times faster than the 4G services currently available-within six years. “We helped fuel national growth with 2G services in the 1990s, 3G in the 2000s and 4G around 2010. Now it is time to take preemptive action to develop 5G,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Countries in Europe, China and the US are making aggressive efforts to develop 5G technology ... and we believe there will be fierce competition in this market in a few years,” it said. Under the roadmap, a trial 5G service will be rolled out in 2017 and a fully commercial service in December 2020. Priority will be given to developing key features for the new network, including Ultra-HD and hologram transmission as well as cutting-edge

social networking services. Related industries will be able to rack up sales of 5G-related devices and infrastructure equipment worth 331 trillion won from 2020 to 2026, the ministry estimated.

The government hopes to implement the plan with investment and cooperation from operators such as SK Telecom and Korea Telecom as well as handset makers like Samsung and LG. It also aims to expand the telecom infrastructure equipment industry, which is relatively weaker than the mighty mobile device sector. Led by Samsung-the world’s top handset maker-South Korea has a leading 30-percent stake in the global mobile device market. “But the (telecom) infrastructure equipment industry has only a 4.4 percent share in the global market, with exports very limited,” the ministry said.

Chinese equipment makers including Huawei have expanded their presence in the global market from 12 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2012.

Huawei announced in November that it was look-

ing at a 5G commercial rollout by 2020, with a minimum investment of $600 million to develop the technology. Seoul intends to take up to a 20 percent stake in the world’s telecom infrastructure equipment market by 2020, according to the ministry.

New opportunities South Korea is renowned for being at the forefront of internet technology with broadband speeds that consistently out-pace those in Europe or the United States. 5G technology will allow users to download a 800-megabyte movie file in one second, compared with 40 seconds using 4G, the science ministry said, adding that such speeds would help South Korean firms win overseas deals.

Officials said the new service would also mean people on bullet trains running faster than 500 kilometers (310 miles) an hour would even be able to access the Internet, compared with 300 kph currently.

“Bullet trains around the world keep getting faster, with some in China running as fast as 500 and 600 kilometers per hour,” said one ministry official who declined to be named. “If we have the technology to allow fast Internet access in these trains, it can open new opportunities for us globally,” he said.

Samsung Electronics announced back in May that it had successfully tested 5G technology, managing data transmission of more than one gigabyte per second over a distance of two kilometers.

Samsung said it had found a way to harness millimeter-wave bands which have proved to be a sticking point for the mobile industry to date. The test used 64 antenna elements, which the tech titan said overcame the issue of “unfavorable propagation characteristics” that have prevented data travelling across long distances using the bands.

However, it made clear that the technology would not be available commercially before the end of the decade. — AFP

Internet mishap sparks Great Firewall scrutiny Internet users redirected to anti-censorship website

SEOUL: A South Korean customer fills in an application form to cancel his credit card at a branch of Lotte Card in Seoul yesterday. Tens of thousands of South Koreans flooded banks and call centers to cancel credit cards following the unprecedented theft of the personal data of at least 20 million people. — AFP

South Korea vows harsh penalties for data leaks SEOUL: South Korean regulators yesterday vowed harsh corporate penalties for data theft, as angry customers swamped credit card offices for a third day after 20 million people had their financial information stolen. “If an incident like this happens again, the company in question will be shut and its executives will no longer be able to work in this industry,” Shin Je-Yoon, the head of the Financial Super visory Commission (FSC), told reporters. Shin was reacting to South Korea’s largest-ever leak of private financial data that involved three credit card companies and at least 20 million clients out of a national population of 50 million.

Credit card usage is particularly high in South Korea where the average adult has four or five cards. The data was stolen by an employee from personal credit ratings firm Korea Credit Bureau who once worked as a temporary consultant at the three firms. He was arrested earlier this month. The stolen data included names, social security numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, home addresses, credit card numbers and even personal credit ratings.

Angry customers Since Monday more than two million victims have cancelled their credit cards permanently or requested new ones.”Now all my personal data is out there, including my home and office addresses and phone numbers and even my annual income and how many times I was behind on credit card payments in the past,” said Grace Choi, a Seoul office worker. “I’m more than angry.

I’ll join a class action suit if there is one,” she said.

Choi was one of hundreds of Lotte Card customers who packed the company’s branch in downtown Seoul to cancel their cards and request new ones. Most waited for hours, berating harried staff who had been tasked with fielding complaints. “I came here because their call centres were constantly engaged yesterday,” said Won Jong-Hee, a Seoul housewife. “They say

there are some 500 people in line before me and I have to wait seven hours...this is ridiculous,” she said.

All special call centres run by the credit card firms were busy and some of their websites could not be accessed due to heavy traffic. All three announced extended operating hours and vowed to remain open on weekends to handle cancellations.

Shin said the FSC would devise harsher punishments and heavier financial penalties on companies and their executives for future security breaches. “For instance, we are thinking of about 5 billion won ($4.6 million) in fines, or even up to 1.0 percent of their total sales,” he said. The companies involved in the latest data leak-KB Kookmin Card, Lotte Card and NH Nonghyup Cardwill face “the highest level of punishment legally possible”, he said, suggesting a possible three-month business suspension.

The companies would be banned from accepting new customers and offering cash advance services to existing clients during the suspension. Shin sought to quell public concerns, saying the stolen data in the latest case had not been resold to a third party. He also promised that the credit card firms would be forced to make good on a commitment to fully compensate clients for any financial loss resulting from the theft. Many major South Korean companies have seen customers’ data leaked in recent years, either by hacking attacks or their own employees.

An employee of Citibank Korea was arrested last month for stealing the personal data of 34,000 customers. In 2012 two South Korean hackers were arrested for stealing the data of 8.7 million customers at the nation’s second-biggest mobile operator. In November 2011 Seoul’s top games developer Nexon saw the personal information on 13 million users of its popular online game MapleStory stolen by hackers.

In July the same year, personal data from 35 million users of Cyworld-the South’s social networking site-was stolen by hackers. — AFP

SHANGHAI: Customers looking at Apple iPhones in a China Mobile store in Shanghai.

—AFP

BEIJING: Human error likely caused a glitch in China’s Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a USbased company which helps people evade Beijing’s web censorship, sources said. Hundreds of millions of people attempting to visit China’s most popular websites on Tuesday afternoon found themselves redirected to Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), a company that sells anti-censorship web services tailored for Chinese users.

The official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday quoted experts as saying that the malfunction could have been the result of a hacking attack, and domestic media was full of speculation along those lines. DIT is tied to the Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in China which has been blamed for past hacking attacks. During a daily news briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said he had “noted” reports of Falun Gong involvement, but said he did not know who was responsible. “I don’t know who did this or where it came from, but what I want to point out is this reminds us once again that maintaining Internet security needs strengthened international cooperation.

This again shows that China is a victim of hacking.”

However, sources familiar with the Chinese government’s web management operations told Reuters that a hacking attack was not to blame for the malfunction. They declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

They said the incident may have been the result

of an engineering mistake made while making changes to the “Great Firewall” system the Communist Party uses to block websites it deems undesirable - such as the DIT site. The state-run China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said “the attack” on the country’s Internet is under investigation, the official CCTV broadcaster wrote on its microblog on Wednesday.

Mystery over how it happened CNNIC earlier said in a microblog post that the outage, which lasted for several hours, was due to a malfunction in China’s top-level domain name root servers. These servers administer the country’s Domain Name Service (DNS), which matches alphabetic domain names with a database of numeric IP addresses of computers hosting different websites, a sort of reference directory for the entire internet. Instead of matching the names of popular Chinese websites with their proper IP addresses, Chinese DNS servers instead redirected users trying to access websites not ending with the “.cn” suffix to the IP address associated with DIT’s homepage.

It was unclear why users were being directed to the DIT site specifically. Independent tests showed that the source of the malfunction originated from within China, and specifically from the Great Firewall servers themselves. “Our investigation shows very clearly that DNS exclusion happened at servers inside of China,” said Xiao Qiang, an adjunct

professor at UC Berkeley School of Information in the US and an expert on China’s Internet controls.

“It all points to the Great Firewall, because that’s where it can simultaneously influence DNS resolutions of all the different networks (in China). But how that happened or why that happened we’re not sure. It’s definitely not the Great Firewall’s normal behavior.” Checks by DIT suggested a similar root cause for the overwhelming amount of traffic trying to reach the site, said Bill Xia, DIT’s founder and a member of the Falun Gong. “For such a large scale attack just targeting users in China, it can only be done by the Great Firewall,” Xia said.

“It’s even clearer this is not an attack of all the Domain Name Servers in the world, but the same as the DNS hijacking technologies used by the Chinese government to block websites they don’t want.” The outage, which began around 3:15 pm local time, redirected roughly 1 million requests per second to the DIT site, said Xia. Chinese web service providers have struggled to overcome recurrent performance bottlenecks in the country’s massive but often rickety data network. The need to continuously censor domestic content and block foreign websites only complicates the matter. In addition to fending off hacking attacks, network providers face challenges finding experienced server administrators and dealing with government bureaucracies. Frequently, authorities have overlapping jurisdictions over different aspects of Internet services. — Reuters

Target hackers will be tough to find: Experts NEW YORK: It doesn’t surprise experts that some debit and credit card numbers stolen from Target’s computer systems may have surfaced among nearly 100 fake credit cards seized by police in Texas this week. Even so, they say the bust is unlikely to lead authorities directly to the hackers behind the breach, given the vast, labyrinthine nature of the global market for stolen data. According to police in McAllen, Texas, two Mexican citizens arrested at the border used account information stolen during the pre- Christmas Target breach to buy tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise.

But the US Secret Service said Tuesday its investigation into the possibility of a link between the Target data theft and the arrests remains ongoing. Target says hackers stole

about 40 million debit and credit card numbers from cards swiped at its stores between Nov 27 and Dec 15. The thieves also took personal information - including email addresses, phone numbers, names and home addresses - for another 70 million people.

In the aftermath of the breach, millions of Americans have been left to wonder what’s become of their precious personal information.

Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for the computer security firm Sophos, says in cases where such a massive amount of information is stolen, criminals generally divide the data into chunks and sell the parcels in online black markets. In many ways, those markets behave much like any legitimate marketplace ruled by the forces of supply and demand. Groups of higher-end cards are worth significantly more

than those with lower credit limits and so are cards tied to additional personal information, such as names, addresses and zip codes, which make them easier to use.

After thieves purchase the numbers, they can encode the data onto new, blank cards with an inexpensive, easy-to-use gadget. Or they can skip the card-writing process and simply use the card numbers online. Crooks often have the option to buy cards last used in their area. That way, Wisniewski says, the cards attract less attention from the banks that issued them. According to police, the pair arrested at the US-Mexican border used cards containing the account information of Target shoppers from South Texas. Police say the two used fraudulent cards to purchase numerous items at national retailers in the area. — AP

Apple gets reprieve from e-book monitor oversight NEW YORK: A US appeals court gave Apple Inc a reprieve from an external monitor appointed to oversee its compliance with antitrust laws after the company had been found liable last July for conspiring to raise ebook prices. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Tuesday granted Apple a hearing on whether to stop the monitor, Michael Bromwich, from doing his job while the company pursues a formal appeal, which could last several months. In granting an “administrative stay,” the 2nd Circuit said a three-judge panel would hear Apple’s motion for a stay pending appeal as soon as possible.

The US Department of Justice did not oppose the short stay but will fight Apple’s effort to get rid of the monitor or else disqualify Bromwich. It has until Jan. 24 to file opposition papers. Apple has complained that Bromwich has been too intrusive, including by seeking interviews with top executives and board members, and has been charging an inflated $1,100 per hour for his services to rack up high fees. The Cupertino, California-based maker of the iPad, iPod and iPhone has said Bromwich’s activities could interfere with its ability to develop new products.

Courts often appoint monitors in litigation to ensure that companies comply with the law. But Apple has said US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, who in a nonjury trial found the company liable for a price-fixing conspiracy with five major publishers, improperly granted Bromwich too much power. “The monitorship should never have been imposed in the first place, and the burden and intrusion the monitor is imposing on Apple cannot be remedied after the fact if the company prevails on appeal,” Apple said in a filing on Friday.

Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, denied in a Dec 30 court filing that he was conducting a “broad and amorphous inquisition.” He said Apple had given him only “limited” access and that a senior antitrust executive had told him he would “see ‘a lot of anger’ about the case that still existed within the company.” In a decision on Thursday, Cote defended appointing a monitor, writing: “If anything, Apple’s reaction to the existence of a monitorship underscores the wisdom of its imposition.” The cases are US v Apple Inc, 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, No 14-60; and US v Apple Inc, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No 12-02826. — Reuters

DARJEELING: Ten year-old snow leopard, Nita, mother of two fifty-five day old cubs prowls at the Conservation Breeding Centre in the Himalayan Padmaja Naidu Zoological Park in Darjeeling. — AFP

Endangered leopards to be tracked by GPS SHIMLA: Six snow leopards in the icy Indian state of Himachal Pradesh will be fitted with satellite-linked collars in a project aimed at deepening understanding of the endangered mountain cat, wildlife officials said yesterday. The $40,450 project will help the state wildlife department study the movement of the snow leopards in the Himalayas where climate change and human settlements are affecting their habitat. “Half a dozen snow leopards will be tagged by GPS collars and the behavior of these elusive cats will be observed,” said Vivek Mohan, a senior state wildlife department official. The Indian northern belt is home to as many as 700 of the world’s 7,000 snow leopards, whose natural mountain habitat is fast depleting, according to the conservationist group WWF. Snow leopards are found across 12 central and South Asian countries, including India, China and Pakistan. As a result, the wild cats are often left without prey,

poached by hunters for their luxuriant spotted coats and killed by livestock owners who see the leopards as a threat to their animals. Snow leopard bones and body parts are prized by smugglers who sell them for use in traditional Chinese medicine. A research centre will also be set up by the state near the Tibet-bordering Spiti Valley-considered an important habitat for the mountain cats.

It is estimated that there are less than 30 snow leopards left in Himachal Pradesh.

The WWF launched a fund-raising campaign earlier this month to build awareness through online media and improve conservation projects like camera traps and predator-safe pens for livestock. In rare sightings, two snow leopards were caught on cameras late last year in northern Uttarakhand state, springing hope in wildlife conservationists. Wildlife experts in Nepal have been tracking a rare snow leopard since last December using a similar col-

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Chinese come out against sexuality change therapy BEIJING: A wire connected to his genitals, a Chinese man says doctors administered repeated electric shocks as he watched a pornographic filmpart of treatment he hoped would eliminate his sexual attraction to men.

“I thought I’d try and see if there was a chance I could become a normal person,” said the 25-yearold, who asked to be identified only by his surname Zhang. “I didn’t want to cause my family trouble, or disappoint them.”

Zhang’s treatment shows the extreme end of a lucrative industry in China claiming to “correct” the sexualities of gay men and lesbians, who often face tremendous social pressures to live as heterosexuals. “If I had a reaction (to the films) I would receive a shock,” said Zhang, who said he paid for the initial treatments himself after deciding life as a gay man would be “too tough”.

“It wasn’t a massive shock, but it was painful.”

China officially classed homosexuality as a mental disorder as recently as 2001, although some attitudes-especially in larger cities-have become more tolerant in recent years.

Nonetheless gay men and lesbians in China, who are often only children, still have to deal with their parents’ expectations of marriage and children.

“Conversion therapy”, as it is sometimes known,

has more than a century of history around the world, but has fallen out of favour with medical authorities. It persists in countries from Singapore to Britain and the United States-where reports of electro-shock use have added to momentum for a ban. Zhang was treated three years ago, but five clinics contacted by AFP in the last month claimed to offer “sexuality adjustment” through various means, some of them including hypnosis, drugs and electric shock therapy.

The Haiming Psychological Consulting Centre in Beijing touts the use of electricity on its website, saying: “After each shock, the person will quickly interrupt their thought, and separate from their fantasies.” A member of staff at the hospital said that the shock treatment-in 30-minute sessions every few days-was used only “in extreme circumstances”.

‘Not an illness’ The American Psychological Association, which judges same-sex sexual and romantic attraction to be “normal and positive”, concluded in 2009 that “efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm”.

The Pan American Health Organization, the Americas office of the UN’s WHO, said in a 2012

report that conversion therapies “lack medical justification and are ethically unacceptable”.

California banned the practice-often linked to Christian groups who view homosexuality a sin-for minors last year, and other US states look set to follow its lead following an activist campaign.

Now Chinese groups are following their lead.

Beijing’s LGBT Center said in a statement last month that such methods “deeply damage homosexuals’ physical and mental health, and worse infringe on their self-respect”.

‘I wanted to die’ Two activists connected with the Center, which is partly funded by the US and British embassies, posed with a sign reading “Homosexuality is not an illness” outside a clinic they said offered conversion therapy, and hope to persuade health authorities to revoke such facilities’ licences.

Some clinics are moving towards counselling and prescribing anti-depressant drugs, said Wei Xiaogang, founder of the Beijing-based “Queer Comrades” group. “Now it’s more like therapy, like talking, because people want to make money, it’s all about business,” he said.

Several clinics said that they saw homosexuality as changeable in people for whom it was not

“innate”. But Liu Wei, 21, a salesman in the southern province of Guangdong, said: “I have a lot of friends who received the treatment, it has made some of them nervous wrecks”.

He visited a hospital last month to ask about treatment under pressure from his father, he said, and a doctor told him his sexuality could be changed “if I made a decision to break up with my partner, and dedicate myself to the method”.

The physician told Liu to “watch films and when I fantasised, use an elastic band wrapped around my hand to hurt myself”. Even the doctor admitted the success rate was low, he said, but he was still considering it because his family relationships were “very tense”.

For Zhang, the treatment first killed his sex drive but went on to exact a greater toll-he became depressed, resigned from his job, went into debt to pay his medical fees, and eventually considered suicide, he said.

“I was suffering from headaches, I couldn’t stand it, I wanted to die, I wanted to stop.”

But ultimately he accepted that his sexuality could not be changed, and came out to his father.

“Later I thought about my whole life, I was like this from a young age,” he said. “Being gay isn’t a terrible thing, I think.” — AFP

No relief for Earth warming trend Difference in analysis techniques

HOUSTON: Anna Williamson, right, looks on as her daughter Kim Pappas, center, checks her Aunt Irma Myers-Santana’s makeup before a video interview Tuesday in Houston. The two sisters shared an operating room as they each received a lung from the same donor earlier in the month. — AP

Two sisters get lung transplants from same donor HOUSTON: They quibble, joke and share knowing looks, finishing each other’s thoughts and making snide comments - like many sisters. But a recent heated argument was unlike any other they’ve had, and it ended in a most surprising way.

For months, 71-year-old Irma MyersSantana and her younger sister, Anna Williamson, 69, had been debating who more urgently needed a lung transplant, each wanting the other to go first. Earlier this month, though, the sisters ended up in the same operating room, each getting one lung from the same donor in what doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital say is a first for their facility.

“It’s never happened. ... We’ve transplanted siblings before, but years apart,” said Dr. Scott Scheinin, who did Myers-Santana’s transplant. “It’s a little bit of serendipity.”

The sisters both became ill about 10 years ago with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a little-understood scarring of the lungs that often requires a transplant and kills more people than breast cancer every year, said Scheinin.

Doctors, assisted by a computer program, look at blood type, height and severity of illness to match a donor and a transplant patient. The likelihood that Myers-Santana and Williamson would meet all three criteria at the same time was small, Scheinin said.

The sisters’ situation was further complicated because they insisted on a “bloodless transplant.” They are Jehovah’s Witnesses and do not believe in receiving blood transfusions. They live in California, but Houston Memorial is the only hospital in the country that does such transplants.

“The irony of this whole thing is that we’re sisters, we’re both Jehovah’s Witnesses, we have the same blood type and we got (the lungs) from the same donor,” Williamson said, her eyes tearing up as she sat next to her sister, able for the first time in years to complete a sentence without coughing.

“It’s a miracle to have all those things lined up like that,” Williamson said.

Hard to watch Until the transplant, Williamson coughed all day and had to be attached to an oxygen tank constantly. About a year ago, her doctor told her she needed a transplant. “I couldn’t talk; I couldn’t laugh,” Williamson recalled.

So, Williamson and her husband headed down to Houston 10 months ago. Within six months, Myers-Santana, who had a sudden, violent decline in her health and could barely breathe, joined Williamson, hoping she, too, would be a viable candidate for that type of transplant.

Then the waiting began, with the sisters housed just 10 doors apart in a Houston RV park. On a few occasions, each woman was offered a lung, but they bickered over who should take it. “If we hadn’t had the transplant when we did, she would be dead right now, dead,” Williamson said adamantly, her sister sitting beside her in the hospital room.

Myers-Santana agrees with that, yet believed Williamson needed to have the first transplant. “Her coughing just hurt to my core. You can’t help someone that coughs like that,” Myers-Santana said. “It’s so hard to watch, and so I felt she needed it more than I did. “I can live with a cough, but she can’t live without oxygen, so I win,” Myers-Santana shot back, smiling at her sister.In the end, though, the individual lungs weren’t a match.

Now, less than two weeks after the surgery, Williamson has the right lung and Myers-Santana has the left. They have on makeup, their hair is done, and they joke with their doctors - extending an invitation to Santa Barbara for free manicures and pedicures at Williamson’s salon. Their husbands and children linger in the background. Colorful balloons wishing them well float above. They can talk, joke and laugh without an oxygen tank. And they can breathe easy. — AP

NEW YORK: The average temperature of Earth maintained its warming trend in 2013, despite seasonal and regional variations that included a shrinking ice cap in the Arctic and a massively growing one in the southern hemisphere, US scientists said yesterday. NASA said the planet’s average temperature in 2013 was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 degrees Celsius), tying 2006 and 2009 for the seventh warmest year since 1880 when global climate record-keeping began.

Using the same data but different analysis processes, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said 2013’s average temperature was 58.12 degrees Fahrenheit, which tied what NOAA considers to be the fourth hottest year on record.

The agencies differ in their analysis techniques. NASA for example uses more temperatures from Antarctica, but said the overall trend remains what has been measured every year since 1976 when global temperatures first surpassed the 20th Century’s global average of 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13.9 degrees Celsius).

“The patterns of temperature change are very similar across the different analyses, but

rankings and the exact numerical value are a function of some of the small differences that we have in the processing,” Gavin Schmidt, deputy director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told reporters on a conference call.

Global temperatures began climbing in the late 1960s, a phenomena that has been tied to heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is higher now than at other time in the last 800,000 years.

Warmest temperature Carbon dioxide levels were about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the global temperature record. By 1960, levels reached 315 parts per million. In 2013, the amount of carbon dioxide peaked at more than 400 parts per million. The relationship between greenhouse gases and global temperatures is complicated. In 2013, for example, the continental United States experienced its 42nd warmest temperature on record while Australia had its hottest year ever, NASA and NOAA data shows.

EU sets out leaner 2030 climate, energy vision BRUSSELS: The European Union set out new climate and energy goals for 2030 yesteday, proposing less stringent targets than in the past in a reflection of tougher economic circumstances and a desire to limit rising energy costs.

The bloc’s executive - the European Commission - said EU governments should face a single binding target to cut their carbon emissions by 40 percent compared with 1990 levels.

That represents a doubling of ambition compared with an existing 2020 target to reduce emissions by a fifth, but is below what some scientists and environmentalists say is needed to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Current national targets designed to raise the share of renewable energy to 20 percent would not be renewed after 2020. Instead, the Commission is recommending a modest EU-wide goal of 27 percent renewables without hard and fast national targets.

That would allow Britain and others to meet their emissions targets for example by building more nuclear power plants, which are carbon-free but not renewable.

“What we are presenting today is

both ambitious and affordable,” Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

Government subsidies designed to promote renewables have been blamed for pushing up energy costs.

Current national targets had not proved the most cost effective option and ditching them would give governments more flexibility over how to meet main emission cutting goal, Barroso said.

The policy outline is not expected to be followed by formal legislative proposals until early next year, and would still require lengthy debate by EU governments and the European Parliament to become law.

The one firm legislative proposal included in Wednesday’s announcement was a scheme to prop up Europe’s faltering carbon emissions trading market, with the aim of removing carbon permits from circulation to support prices.

Under the proposal, the Commission would set aside up to 12 percent of carbon permits from 2021, as long as certain conditions are met.

Among the conditions is that the number of allowances to be set aside must exceed 100 million. — Reuters

Uganda activists fear AIDS setback amid gay clampdown KAMPALA: Branded as “abnormal” and with politicians baying for blood, Uganda’s gay community is being pushed further underground in what could be a setback for the fight against AIDS, medical and rights activists say.

Last week Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni refused to approve a controversial bill that would have seen homosexuals jailed for life even after lawmakers removed an extremely controversial death penalty clause. The president’s decision was greeted with measured relief among gays. But far from approving of homosexuality, the president merely conceded that they have a right to exist, and branded them “sick” genetic freaks. He also said lesbians were victims of “sexual starvation” because of their failure to find a man.

For Frank Mugisha, one of Uganda’s most prominent gay activists, homosexuals are being driven into leading dangerous double lives and therefore indulging in risky sexual practices. “The ones who wanted to come out will not dare to come out anymore,” Mugisha said.“African culture dictates that you have to marry in a heterosexual relationship and have children. And gay people are not going to stop having sex,” he said. “HIV is going to be on the increase (and) people will start dying.” Uganda was once heralded as a success story in the fight against HIV. Museveni, one of the first African leaders to

Ice in the polar regions presents another puzzle. The amount of Arctic sea ice in the northern hemisphere continued its ubiquitous and welldocumented decline, while sea ice in Antarctica in the southern hemisphere increased a record amount, scientists said.

“The situation in the southern hemisphere is more complicated,” Schmidt said, noting that wind patterns are impacted by the region’s ozone hole and other factors.

“There’s a lot of complicated physics going on,” he added. “It’s not a clean picture.”

Ocean temperatures, including El Nino and La Nina warming and cooling patterns in the equatorial Pacific, also disconnect regional, seasonal and yearly temperatures with overall global trends, the scientists said.

“The long term trends in climate are extremely robust,” Schmidt said. “There are times, such as today, when we can have snow, even in a globally warmed world. But the long-term trends are very clear. They are not going to disappear. It isn’t an error in our calculations.” A third study on 2013 global temperatures is due to be released later this month by the Met Office Hadley Center in the United Kingdom. — Reuters

speak openly about AIDS, mounted a highly successful public awareness campaign in the late 1980s and 1990s, slashing the HIV infection rate from more than 20 percent to single digits.

Gays are far from being the main vector for HIV transmission in the country, health workers say, adding that heterosexual contact, in particular sex workers, continue to be the main cause. But they say the ongoing debate in Uganda surrounding the anti-gay bill, which has had the backing of influential evangelical Christian and other religious groups, would damage their efforts to reach out to the gay community.

“We are going one step forward and then ten steps back,” said Milly Katana, a public health specialist and AIDS activist who is herself living with HIV. “As far as HIV prevention is concerned, we are heading for a total disaster.

It’s a crisis Even if the law has been blocked, for the time being at least, health workers were alarmed by parliament’s insistence that it be mandatory to denounce anyone known to be homosexual. The provision was a reflection of what is already a reality in Uganda, where tabloid newspapers frequently expose alleged gays. In 2011, prominent Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home after a

newspaper splashed photos, names and addresses of gays in Uganda on its front page along with a yellow banner reading “Hang Them”.

AIDS prevalence “We have communities that are at risk of contracting HIV and we put punitive measures in place against them and also against people who work with them. They will not be able to talk to people who are able to advise them on how to protect themselves,” Katana said. “We public health workers cannot do our job,” she added. Bildard Baguma, deputy secretary general at the Uganda Red Cross, agreed that there were consequences to the wave of homophobia. “The issue of access becomes a problem,” he said. “If these people go underground and can’t access services, then it is likely to have a negative effect on the epidemic.” At the AIDS Information Centre in Kampala, staff have also been deeply worried over the impact on access to public health facilities for those most at risknotably sex workers where HIV prevalence is 33 percent, and male homosexuals where prevalence is 12 percent. “When these communities blend with the population, they tend to cause transmission of HIV,” said Raymond Byaruhanga, a doctor who runs the centre.—AFP

CALDAS: A picture taken on Sept 15, 2012 shows a three-toed sloth (Bradypus) at the Aiunau Foundation in Caldas, some 25 km south of Medellin. Imagine a creature so slothful that it snacks off its own fur and budges only once a week for a bowel movement. — AFP

Sloth and moth are loth to part PARIS: Imagine a creature so slothful that it snacks off its own fur and budges only once a week for a bowel movement. Well, there is one, say scientists, and it is a type of sloth. Having carefully studied the full extent of the animal’s idleness, a team of biologists revealed yesterday that the sloth truly deserves its adjectival name.

The three-toed variety in particular has perfected the art of inertia through a carefully choreographed slowdance with a particular species of moth. The sloths dwell in the forest canopy, where they live mainly on tree leaves.

Once a week, however, the animal will descend from its tree to defecate on the ground-a risky endeavour that makes it vulnerable to predators, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Why does it bother?

When the sloth descends, the scientists found, the moths that live in its fur lay their eggs in its dung, where the larvae develop before emerging as adults and flying up into the tree to join the rest of the colony in the languid animal’s coat.

The moths act as a type of fertiliser and boost nitrogen levels in sloth fur, which in turn boosts algae growth. The source could be tiny amounts of dung that are brought up from by the ground by the insects.

The sloth’s individual hairs have cracks that fill with rainwater in which algae grow hydroponically. This creates algae-gardens that sloths consume to augment their limited, leaf-based diet, said the researchers. “This complex (symbiosis)... reinforces fundamental aspects of the sloth’s behaviour and life history, and may reinforce the slothfulness of sloths,” said a study summary. — AFP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Spate of bird flu cases in China BEIJING: A spate of bird flu cases since the beginning of the year in China has experts watching closely as millions of people and poultry are on the move ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the world’s largest annual human migration. China has reported more than 50 H7N9 infections in 2014 after the strain jumped from birds to people for the first time last year. The virus remains hard to catch and most cases have been linked to contact with poultry, but scientists worry that could change if it mutates into a form that allows it to spread easily among people.

For those who track influenza, the holiday, which begins Jan. 31, is always worrying because it comes during the winter months when flu typically rages. Add that to hundreds of millions of people - and often birds crammed together on buses and other forms of transportation going home, and it’s always a bit of a gamble.

China estimates 3.6 billion trips will be taken over the holiday season. “This is the first winter we’ve seen H7N9.

We are in uncharted territory,” said Gregory Hartl, World Health Organization spokesman in Geneva. “We have seen an upstart in cases, which we are attributing basically to the fact that it’s winter. That combined with a lot of movement of people in crowded trains with chickens could give rise to a lot more infections, but we’ve also seen in past years where it hasn’t.”

The first H7N9 cases were reported in late March near Shanghai, and more than 200 others have since been identified, including some 50 deaths. A 31-year-old doctor became one of the latest fatalities, raising fears he may have been infected at the hospital where he worked, but none of his patients or other close contacts

SHANGHAI: A vendor picks chickens at a wholesale poultry market in Shanghai. A spate of bird flu cases since the beginning of the year in China has experts watching closely as millions of people and poultry are on the move ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the world’s largest annual human migration. —-AP have reported flu symptoms, according to the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning.

There have been a handful of family clusters, but WHO says no sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred. However, scientists warn that the H7N9 virus contains genetic markers that could help it infect mammals easier than other avian flus. Infected birds also do not show symptoms, making it harder to track the

disease. Cases declined in China over the summer, which is typically slower for influenza viruses, after some local live poultry markets were temporarily closed.

Long battle In Hong Kong, which has logged three cases, officials will test all poultry for the virus beginning later this week. Taiwan has reported two cases.

In past years, it was the H5N1 bird flu virus that spiked during this time of year. That strain, which has killed at least 386 people since 2003, is still circulating widely in poultry stocks and kills about 60 percent of the people it infects. On Tuesday, Vietnam, which has long battled the virus, confirmed its first H5N1 death in nine months.

Earlier in January, the first human case was reported in North America after a person traveling back from a trip to Beijing became ill and died in Canada.

Both bird flus cause high fever and respiratory problems, including pneumonia and shortness of breath.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that the viruses cannot be ignored because of their potential to possibly spark a global pandemic. But after years of campaigning in countries where it’s common for chickens and pigs to live closely with people, sometimes in the same house, that message is often a hard sell.

“After almost a decade of sitting on the proverbial edge of the H5N1 pandemic cliff and not falling off, people are beginning to think that we never will fall,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said by email. “But the best scientific assessment of microbial genetics tells us we could still fall off of that cliff and if we do, the global consequences could be devastating.”

Poultry is a central part of many families’ dinner tables during the Lunar New Year festivities, and it’s often bought live and killed at home in China and elsewhere across the region. The WHO urges care when slaughtering and preparing birds, including frequent hand washing. However, well-cooked meat and eggs do not pose a threat. —- AP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

W H AT ’ S O N

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hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! Let other people see the way you see Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds. If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

Announcements TIES Center - Where cultures meet he TIES Center is glad to announce that its Winter 2 Arabic language courses continue till Wednesday March 5, 2014. We offer classes for all levels, from beginner to advanced. Our classes are specially tailored to meet the needs and requirements of expats living in Kuwait. You still have the chance to join if you are interested. The TIES Arabic classes are intended for all expats who wish to learn Arabic. Whether you want to Learn Arabic for business or basic communication or simply as a hobby, the TIES Center welcomes you. Throughout the course, the students will learn how to read, write and speak Arabic in a friendly, relaxed and welcoming environment.

TIES Arabic program highlights: Lessons are step by step - ranging from basic to advanced level; Lessons build confidence for speaking, reading, and writing Arabic; Lessons combine language learning with cultural insights; Lessons are specially tailored for expats living in Kuwait. It is an opportunity to interact with other Westerners, who are taking the courses. For more information, please e-mail: Hassan@tiescenter.net .”

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Indian Overseas Congress Fest competitions postponed ndian Overseas Congress, Kuwait to Arts CompetitionsIOC fest 2014 is postponed to April 10-11, 2014 at United Indian School. IOC, once again welcomea the growing buds of Indian expatriate community in Kuwait from various disciplines to test their talents and competency in the field of arts. The winners of this prestigious competition will be awarded with Trophies and Medals. Kalaprathiba and Kalathilakam prizes will be awarded for the top scorers in the fest.

Institutes at India Education Exhibition welcome students from Kuwait

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nstitutes at India Education Exhibition are open to welcoming students from region due to better language skills.

Students who are currently pursuing their education in Kuwait feel that studying in India will open up opportunities that they will ‘never experience here’. And it has become apparent that Indian expatriate students and parents still prefer India as a destination for higher education. “It is not like there is a dearth of opportunities here, but as far as we know, competition is way more cut-throat in India, which is sometimes a good thing,” stated an Indian parent. Several students and parents interviewed said they prefer going back to India to pursue their higher education, owing to affordable fee structure and better career opportunities.

Organized by Indus Exhibition and Response Events and Exhibitions, for the seventh successive year, the Indian Education Exhibition will open tomorrow at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Salmiya. Among the exhibitors are over 15 leading and highly reputed Indian educational establishments with more than 75 institutions under them, offering more than 200 programs. Some of the leading participants include Anna University, Manipal University, SRM University, Hindustan University, Datta Meghe Medical Science University, DY Patil University, KJ Somaiya Group of Institutions, Ramdeo Baba Engg College, Acharya Institutions, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Texila

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argotsav is a children’s art festival of various competitions and cultural programs. It is organized every year by Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kerala (MACE) Alumni Association, Kuwait Chapter, one of the constituents of Kuwait Engineers Forum (KEF) having membership of over 1,500 engineers working in Kuwait.

This year, Sargotsav will be held on January 23 and 24, 2014 at Carmel School, Khaitan.

On behalf of the Organizing committee, MACEAA Chairman Abdul Sageer and General Convener Georgi Mathai informed that Sargotsav, the Children’s Art Festival, provides an opportunity to bring out the talents of children of various Engineering college Alumni Associations coming under the Kuwait Engineers Forum (KEF) fraternity.

MACE Alumni Association, Kuwait chapter was formed in the year 1983 with the intention of cultural and social interaction among the families of MACEAA residing in Kuwait. Sargotsav has its inception since 1999 and has now turned out to be a Mega Cultural Festival which brings out the literary and artistic talents of children bubbling with so much of energy, enthusiasm and excitement.

Various individual and group items such as elocution, painting, essay writing, mono act, fancy dress, dance, music, drama etc are included in this inter KEF Alumni competition to enhance their creative and artistic talents and to include the values of team work, healthy spirit of competition and sense of culture and integrity. Above 400 children are expected to participate in various items.

All the events are judged by a panel of efficient judges and the prizes for the winners will be given during the valedictory function on 24th evening. Sargotsav 2014 souvenir will be released by Suresh Krishnan, General Convener, Kuwait Engineers Forum (KEF), during the Inaugural Function. Sargotsav is a culmination of hard work put in by the whole team of MACEAANS of Kuwait chapter. The Chairmen/Presidents and all members of constituent Alumni Associations of KEF have voluntarily extended their total support to this mega Event to make it a grand success.

AWL starts cooking classes for members

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he American Women’s League (AWL) in collaboration with one of the restaurants in Kuwait has started a cooking class for its members. The first class was held on January 11 with about 25 members attending. A very nice breakfast buffet was served before the session started.

After breakfast, members moved into a specially-designed kitchen classroom where the class was held. Chef Tony, showed the members how to make a variety of Mexican dishes. After each dish, a couple of members would come forward to practice making the same dish. When the dishes were completed, the members delighted in sampling the food. In addition, each AWL member was given an apron and a silver membership card providing special discounts each month at different restaurants. The cooking class will continue on a monthly basis featuring a different cuisine each time.

There is only about room for 25 people at each session, so the first 25 replying when an invitation is sent will be the ones who get to attend.

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

only made sense that we bring the fair to Kuwait. Indian education is on par with Western education standards. Education is a sector that is very strong in India, high standards have to be maintained in these colleges, otherwise they will not be given a deemed university status by the government.”

‘Pravasi Kalashri Award’ for theatre actor Babu Chakola

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MACEAA to hold ‘Sargotsav 2014’

American College, MVJ Institutions and others. All the participating institutes are recognized by the AICTE, UGC and respective government bodies in India.

Ram, the organizer from Indus said, “There is a huge Indian expatriate population that eventually wants to return home. It

KAMCO organizes blood donation drive

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s part of KAMCO’s (KIPCO Asset Management Company) active role in corporate social responsibility (CSR), the company organized a blood donation drive at its headquarters in coordination with the Central Blood Bank. Employees from KAMCO and sister companies took part in the effort. Sana Al-Hadlaq, Senior Vice President of KAMCO’s Client Relationship and Marketing Department said, “We at KAMCO are very keen to support social activities, especially those that have a humane side to them such as blood drives, which save lives and have various health

benefits for the donor. Our participation in donating blood came after receiving an emergency call from the Blood Bank to help save lives of citizens and residents, which was a main reason for us to host this drive that saw a large number of donors from our company as well as other companies.” AlHadlaq added, “We are delighted to have witnessed this large turnout of volunteers, reflecting the generosity and sense of giving in our employees. Such humane and caring behaviors are a vital part of KAMCO’s CSR agenda which focuses on matters of health, education and the environment.”

ndian expat and well-known Malayalam theater actor Babu Chakola has won the prestigious ‘Pravasi Kalashri’ award, instituted by Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi, a Kerala government organization. The award, instituted this year by the Akademi to recognize and honor artists from the Kerala Gulf Diaspora, is conferred on Chakola for his substantial contribution to the field of theatre over the last 21 years of life in Kuwait.

Announcing the name of Chakola as the recipient of the award at a press conference, Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Kuwait Chapter Chairman Vijay Karayil said yesterday (Jan 22) that the award will be presented to Chakola at an official function in Trivandrum on March 27 this year.

Welcoming Chakola to the dais, Karayil said the award consists of a memento, cash award and a certificate.

Others who received the Pravasi Kalashri Award from the Gulf region are V P Ramachandran (Oman), Jaya Menon (Bahrain) and Udayachandran (Qatar).

Chakola, who has acted in more than 14 dramas over the last two decades in Kuwait, has bagged best actor awards in theatre competitions and directed many plays. He

has also acted in more than 15 Malayalam films and many television serials.

‘Keli 2014’ KSNA Kuwait Chapter Coordinator Sajeev K Peter said the chapter will host ‘Keli 2014,’ a theatre festival for the Kerala Gulf Diaspora in Kuwait on February 25 and 26 at the Indian Community School, Khaitan. Five plays by amateur theatre groups in Kuwait-Thanima, Kalpak, KALA Kuwait, Nirbhaya and Future Eye Theatre-will participate in the two-day festival.

A judging panel comprising three theatre experts Dr P V Krishnan Nair (KSNA Secretary), T M Abraham and Santhosh Kumar and a KSNA Executive representative and theatre-film director Joshy Mathew from Kerala will be present during the festival, Peter added.

The three-week long GCC-wide theatre festival will kick off in Muscat (Feb 10-15) and continue in Bahrain (Feb 16-24), Kuwait (Feb 25-26) and wrap up in Qatar (Feb 2728). KSNA Kuwait Ad-Hoc committee members Babuji Bathery, Thomas Mathew Kadavil, B S Pillai, Sunil P Antony and Johney Kunnil were also present during the press conference.

ICSK Amman branch holds ‘Transcend 2014’

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mega-exhibition ‘Transcend 2014’ was held on January 9, 2014 at ICSK Amman Branch. The invited guests included Rajan Daniel Hon Vice Chairman, ICSK, Vijay Karayil, and Hon Secretary ICSK, PAC members, Principals, Vice Principals and parents.

The inaugural function began with the recital from the holy Quran followed by the National Anthems of Kuwait and India respec-

tively. Rajesh Nair C rendered the welcome speech. The Hon. Vice Chairman to the BOT, ICSK Rajan Daniel gave the Presidential address encouraging and motivating each one presented. The chief guest Vijay Karayil, Hon. Secretary, BOT, ICSK inaugurated the show by unveiling a wonderful tableau depicting the past, present and future of human progress and development in various aspects of growth. Vijay Karayil then enlight-

ened the audience with his encouraging words and declared the exhibition open. Vote of thanks was proposed by the academic supervisor Sumitra Nandakumar.

The exhibits were placed in the basement, ground floor and the first floor of the school.

Exhibits of various order in the form of working models, still models, charts, posters monuments were displayed explaining different concepts of science, social science, languages,

DMCP organizes last clean-up for 2013-14

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ow’s Marine Conservation Program (DMCP) will hold its last clean-up for year 2013-2014 on Friday January 31, 2014 at Sulaibikhat beach, fondly dubbed by volunteers as ‘Mangrove’ beach for its high ecological value as home to mangroves, flamingo, gerboa, several species of lizard and beetle, and many species of migratory bird. This fragile inter-tidal zone running down Sulaibikhat along the bay of Kuwait sees high tidal deposition of terrestrial marine waste, mostly plastic (PET, HDPE and PS/Styrofoam).

Dow’s Marine Conservation Program has worked relentlessly to protect the habitat at Sulaibikhat since April 2011, having conducted a total of 55 clean-ups at this site to date. In 2013-14, DMCP held eight clean-ups at Sulaibikhat, engaging total 325 volunteers from 12 different volunteer groups and educational institutions including American International School (AIS), Al-Bayan Bilingual School (BBS), Kuwait National English School (KNES), Universal American School (UAS), American University of Kuwait (AUK), Kuwait English School (KES), The I Am Challenge Group, representatives of the US Embassy, Kuwait’s Motorbikers Club, K’S PATH and en.v. One of DMCP’s noteworthy accomplishments is mangrove regrowth along a 20 meters by 5 meters stretch of formerly barren beach which was cleared of close to 2000 kgs topsoil plastic waste by a group of 20 volunteers from American International School and K’S PATH in 2011. By summer 2012, the once-barren stretch had given way to new plant growth which withstood seasons and still

flourishes.

To date DMCP has cleared over 14 tons of terrestrial marine waste from Sulaibikhat. In 2013-2014, DMCP cleared 4912 kgs (close to five tons) waste across 518 heavy duty garbage bags from the same stretch as well as Kubbar island across 8 clean-ups conducted over a total of 22 hours. The Friday, January 31 clean-up will be held from 8 am to 10 am and will see the participation of four student volunteer groups from: (1) The American International School, led by their Environmental Club head Prof Elsa Baptista: Total approx 15 students and teachers (2) The Bayan Bilingual School, led by Prof (to be confirmed): Total approx 30 students and teachers (3) The Universal American School, led by their Green Studies/Sustainability/Green Ambassadors head Natalie Moore: Total approx 15 students and teachers (4) The ARTronauts, a group of university students and graduates who create art with a social message, led by their mentor Prof Roma Soni of Box Hill University: Total 15 members, who will create a live art installation using samples of plastic waste found at the beach in Sulaibikhat Other groups lending their support to the cleanup include en.v and K’S PATH. The clean-up operation will be complemented by a photo-exhibit on the beach of before-after progress images from site as well as species of flora and fauna documented at this precious ecosystem over the years.

mathematics, sports and computer science.

An array of art work such as pencil shading, water color paintings, oil paintings, origami, crafted items etc were displayed in the auditorium. A wonderful turnout of parents and relatives and friends of students and staff kept the spirits high. An excellent opinion from different people from all walks of life helped in the successful conduction of Transcend 2014.

Adopt a pet

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isty is a 4-year-old female Shepherd mix. She is super sweet, friendly and loves to go for long walks! She would do best in a home with kids over 10. For more information about Misty call (+965) 67001622 or email info@kspath.org.

P

eanut is a 4 monthold female DSH kitten. She is super friendly, cuddly and just loves attention! She would be a fun-loving addition to a family with kids over 10.

For more information about Peanut call (+965) 67001622 or email info@kspath.org.

W H AT ’ S O N

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Embassy of Australia has announced that Kuwait citizens can apply for and receive visit visas in 10 working days through www.immi.gov.au. All other processing of visas and Immigration matters are handled by the Australian Visa Application Centre located in Al Banwan Building, 4B, 1st Floor, Al Qibla Area, Ali Al Salem Street, Kuwait City. Visit. www.vfs-augcc.com for more info. The Embassy of Australia does not have a visa or immigration department. All processing of visas and immigration matters is conducted by the Australian Consulate-General in Dubai.

Email: Info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com (VIS), immigration.dubai@ dfat.gov.au (Visa Office), Tel: +971 4 205 5900 (VFS), Fax: + 971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office).

Notary and passport services are available by appointment. Appointments can be made by calling the Embassy on 22322422. nnnnnnn

KNES excels in Islamic competitions

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uwait National English School (KNES) took advanced positions in the Islamic competitions held by Private Education Ministry. Kuwait National English School competed against more than

30 foreign schools in Kuwait.

Kuwait National English School took third position in both recitation and intonation of the Quranc competition, and recitation of the Hadith competition.

The School Director Chantal Al-Gharabally congratulated the students for fantastic results and thanked the Islamic Department for their excellent efforts.

AUK students represent Kuwait in environmental competition

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tudents from the American University of Kuwait (AUK) recently participated in the 13th Regional Inter College Environmental Public Speaking Competition in Dubai. The Competition, which was sponsored by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), was held in Knowledge City, where the AUK team comprising of Vincent Puyat, Jad Saab, and Hussain Al-Sayegh, with Emannoel Cabildo on technical support, earned the Second Runner Up title for their presentation “Global Challenges - Local Solutions”.

AUK was the only school to represent a university from Kuwait and the teams took great pride in representing their university, as well as the state of Kuwait. The students were accompanied to by their coach, Lisa Waite Trago, Speech and faculty member of AUK’s Intensive English Program (IEP). This year’s AUK team was honored to receive coaching at home with former competition coach Don Prades, Speech and IEP faculty.

The students were chosen from the first round elimination after spending their summer months researching their assigned environmental topics. The final teams spent many hours last fall compiling research, writing, designing visuals and memorizing their speeches, while also working on their stage presence and speaking skills.

“This was a learning year for our teams,” stated Waite Trago. “I couldn’t be more

proud of these four AUK students. They worked countless hours in perfecting their environmental messages and all of them were well received at the competition.”

Waite Trago pointed out that many of the schools had 5-8 member teams who

worked together on research, writing, visuals and stage presentations. In addition, other teams thanked the campus departments that assisted in the final presentation. In contrast, the AUK students were fully responsible for every single aspect of their speeches - a fact they

are proud of.

Puyat’s presentation included a heartfelt tribute to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Puyat and Cabildo, both Filipino nationals, dedicated their presentation to their country and the thousands of peo-

ple who died in the disaster. They urged listeners to be mindful of the effects of Global Warming and the devastation inaction can cause for future generations.

Al-Sayegh presented his topic, “Who Left the Tap Open” where he explored the responsibility of water waste in the GCC

region and solutions for reducing the waste. Meanwhile, Saab explored “Arts and Environments: How Art Can Help Our Environment.” The students enjoyed interacting and competing against teams from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the Emirates.

The students and their coaches feel indebted to many people at AUK who funded and supported the team throughout the seven month preparation. Special thanks go to Dr. Craig Loomis, English Department Head and Dr. Carol Ross, Vice President of Student Affairs.

“Hopefully, next year we will be able to go to the competition and be even better prepared to represent AUK and help carry forth their inspirational environmental messages,” stated Waite Trago.

“We were pleased to have the three teams from the American University of Kuwait at this year’s competition,” said Habiba Al-Marashi, Chairperson EEG and Board Member of the UN Global Compact.

She added, “I am sure it has raised the curtain effectively on the talents and capabilities of our youth and earned them a deserving place in the movement to protect and preserve our environment. We at EEG hope that the teams will keep up their pro-active involvement in environmental programs and continue to advocate for education for sustainable development in the region.”

Radisson Blu Hotel Kuwait receives International Environmental Award

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fter only three months of operation, Radisson Blu Hotel Kuwait has received the Green Key Certificate, becoming one of only two hotels in Kuwait holding it. The Green Key Certificate is a global eco-label awarded to around 2,300 tourism and leisure industry establishments in 44 countries worldwide. As a program of

Philippe Pellaud poses with the Green Key.

the Foundation for Environmental Education, Green Key aims to raise the awareness of leisure establishment staff and clients, increase the use of sustainable methods of operation and technology, run ecologically sound and responsible businesses, and reduce resource and energy usage.

Philippe Pellaud, the Radisson Blu Hotel’s General Manager was very pleased when the Green Key was approved, since responsible business is high on his list of priorities.

“Kuwait is going green and I’m glad we are one of the first who have jumped on that boat. We will continue with our efforts to make Radisson Blu as green as possible”, said Pellaud. Gaining Green Key certification is not an easy task, as hotels have to fulfill a detailed list of environmental requirements, covering a wide range of criteria, such as environmental demands, availability of action plans, team and client education on sustainable development and environmental awareness and communication.

Obtaining Green Key proves the responsibility of the establishment for its surroundings and society, and after its application, hotels are audited on their environmental performance.

Over 300 Grade One students from the English Playgroup, Salwa visited the Porsche Road and Traffic Safety Program at Qadsiya Sports Club recently.

Sponsored by Porsche Centre Kuwait, Behbehani Motors Company, the program provides a fun filled educational experience for children aged from 4 to 8 years. The ‘Golden Rules’ of Road Safety encourage the children to fasten seat belts, keep arms and heads inside the vehicle, look and listen whilst crossing the road and a reminder to the grownups not to use mobiles whilst driving. Pictured are the “Drivers of the Day” prize winners with the program instructors Najem, Aisha, Shahruk, Sam, Hussam and Mike.

EMBASSY OF INDIA India and Kuwait have enjoyed historically close, warm and friendly ties. The visit of His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, Prime Minister of Kuwait to India in November 2013 has imparted a new thrust to the strengthening further of the bilateral ties. To facilitate travel of Kuwaiti nationals to India for business, tourism, medical and study purposes, the Embassy has adopted the following visa structure for Kuwaiti nationals with immediate effect: S.No. Type of visa Duration No. of entries Revised Indian Visa fee in KD(*) w.e.f 01.01.2014 (i) Business 5 Years Multiple 63.500 (ii) Business 1 Year Multiple 38.500 (iii) Tourism 6 months Multiple 13.500 (iv) Medical 1 year Multiple 38.500 (v) Student Period As required 24.500 of study (*) In addition, a service charge of KD 3 will also apply for each visa service provided w.e.f 17.12.2013.

Please apply Indian visa online at www.bls-international.com and deposit visa application, with applicable visa fee and service charge, at either M/s. BLS International Services, Emad Commercial Centre, Basement floor Ahmed Al-Jaber Street, Sharq, Kuwait city (Telephone: 22986607 - Fax: 22470006) or M/s. BLS International Services, Mujamma Unood, 4th floor, Office No. 25-26 Makka Street, Entrance 5, Fahaheel, Kuwait (Telephone: 22986607 - Fax: 22470006)For additional information, please contact Second Secretary (Consular) in the Embassy at sscons@indembkwt.org. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF SOUTH AFRICA South African citizens, who are out of the country who are not already registered and wish to apply for registration to vote in the upcoming general elections, are hereby invited to apply for registration.

Registration is open daily during working hours from 08h30 to 15h30 at the SA Embassy at Villa No 3, House No 91, Street 1, Block 10, Salwa.

The last day for registration will be 7 February 2014.

In addition, special registration will take place on Friday, 24 January 2014, from 09h00 to 13h00, for those SA citizens who are not yet registered and cannot come to register during normal working hours.

To be eligible to register at the SA Embassy, a person must: l Be a SA citizen and be 16 years of age and older; l Submit a valid green bar-coded Identity Document, a valid Temporary Identity Certificate (valid for 2 months) or a Smart Card; l Submit a valid SA passport; and l Submit in person the application form, (available from the IEC website or at the Embassy), the identity document and a valid passport.

NOTE: If you are already registered to vote in SA but are now living abroad, you are NOT required to re-register - please check your registration status on www.elections.org.za. For any further enquiries, please phone Tel: 25617988 during working hours or visit the IEC Website at www.elections.org.za. Special Registration Officers at the Embassy are: First Secretary, L van der Walt and Third Secretary, MC Kekae. nnnnnnn

IES students to attend Republic Day Parade in New Delhi

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o help our children delve deep into the annals of India’s political heritage and its cultural diversity, a crew of 8 students of Indian Educational School, Kuwait is sent to enjoy the rare opportunity of being a part of the 65th Republic Day Parade to be held in New Delhi, the capital city of India. The team led by Murugaiyan, the Physical Education Director and his colleague Deepa Antony comprise Aibel Thomas, Arjun Sadanand, Keerthini Rajkumar, Sarah Koshi, and Shawn Abraham of class 11, and D R Prathyusha, Akshaya Srinivasan and Anirudha Ramesh of class 10. Members of the crew were chosen on an unbiased criterion of scholastic brilliance and nonscholastic excellence.

Apolitical attitude, lack of socialization, dearth of social conscience etc have become the benchmark of the new generation. Indian Educational School has gone an extra mile against this trend when they managed to procure permission from the Ministry of Defence, Government of India to arrange for this unique journey back to their home country, especially when she is in a festive mood of the Republic Day

Celebrations. Proud are the moments when our country proclaims to the world of all its cultural magnanimity and developmental magnitude. Of late, we have even reiterated before the international community our cryogenic technology.

Children in the gulf are not aware of the Republic Day parade and its significance.

Though it is telecast on the national channels, seldom do the kids of this generation watch the majestic marching contingents of the three armed forces. The air show, the tableau from the various states, the missiles and rockets, the colorful dances etc are a treat to watch live with dignitaries from all over the world. We consider this special occasion as something our kids would cherish for a very long time to come. Such trips will enhance the patriotic feelings, and the feeling of being a proud Indian gets instilled in the young minds.

In his briefing, principal, Premkumar wanted his students to get inspired by the amplitude of this pageant; especially by the disciplined and adventurous ways the proceedings and processions are going to be carried out.

EMBASSY OF US The US Embassy in Kuwait has new procedures for obtaining appointments and picking up passports after visa issuance. We now provide an online visa appointment system, live call center, and in-person pick-up facilities in Kuwait. Please monitor our website and social media for additional information. This new system offers more flexibility for travelers to the US and to meet the increase in demand for visa appointments.

The general application steps on the new visa appointment system are: 1. Go to www.ustraveldocs.com/kw (if this is the first time on ustraveldocs.com, you will need to create a profile to login).

2. Please complete your DS-160 Online Visa Application which is available at ceac.state.gov/genNIV. 3. Please print and take your deposit slip to any Burgan Bank location to pay your visa application fee.

4. Schedule an appointment for your visa interview online at www.ustraveldocs.com/kw or by phone through the Call Center (at +965-2227-1673).

5. If you need to change or cancel your appointment, please do so 24 hours beforehand, as a courtesy to other applicants. For more information, please visit the US Embassy website - kuwait.usembassy.gov - as it is the best source of information regarding these changes. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF VATICAN The Apostolic Nunciature Embassy of the Holy See, Vatican in Kuwait has moved to a new location in Kuwait City. Please find below the new address: Yarmouk, Block 1, Street 2, Villa No: 1. P.O.Box 29724, Safat 13158, Kuwait. Tel: 965 25337767, Fax: 965 25342066. Email: nuntiuskuwait@gmail.com.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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

Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Animal Cops Houston Mermaids: The Body Found Lions Of Crocodile River Bondi Vet Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Animal Cops Houston Gator Boys Swamp Brothers Monkey Life Bondi Vet Wild France Growing Up...

Lions Of Crocodile River Animal Cops Philadelphia Monkey Life Swamp Brothers Meet The Sloths Meet The Sloths Outback Rangers Outback Rangers Lions Of Crocodile River My Cat From Hell Wildest Arctic Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Pandamonium Bondi Vet Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Hippo: The Wild Feast North America Galapagos

00:00 Eastenders 00:30 Doctors 01:00 Abandoned At Birth 01:50 Life On Mars 02:40 Case Sensitive: The Point Of Rescue 04:15 The Weakest Link 05:00 Balamory 05:20 Charlie And Lola 05:35 The Green Balloon Club 06:00 3rd & Bird 06:10 Poetry Pie 06:15 Balamory 06:35 Charlie And Lola 06:50 The Green Balloon Club 07:15 3rd & Bird 07:25 Poetry Pie 07:30 The Weakest Link 08:15 Last Of The Summer Wine 08:45 Moone Boy 09:15 Eastenders 09:45 Doctors 10:15 Abandoned At Birth 11:05 Tess Of The D’urbervilles 12:00 The Weakest Link 12:45 Last Of The Summer Wine 13:15 Moone Boy 13:40 Eastenders 14:10 Doctors 14:40 Abandoned At Birth 15:30 Tess Of The D’urbervilles 16:25 The Weakest Link 17:10 Eastenders 17:40 Doctors 18:10 Prison, My Family & Me 19:00 One Foot In The Grave 19:30 Absolutely Fabulous 20:00 Stella 20:45 Alan Carr: Chatty Man 21:30 The Office 22:00 The Shadow Line 23:00 The Weakest Link 23:45 Eastenders

00:40 01:10 01:35 02:25 03:10 04:00 04:25 05:10 05:40 06:05 06:30

Cash In The Attic Cash In The Attic Come Dine With Me MasterChef Australia MasterChef Australia The Little Paris Kitchen Fantasy Homes By The Sea Cash In The Attic Cash In The Attic The Little Paris Kitchen Bargain Hunt

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

Fantasy Homes By The Sea Bargain Hunt Marbella Mansions Masterchef: The Professionals The Little Paris Kitchen Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Gok’s Fashion Fix Fantasy Homes By The Sea Antiques Roadshow Design Star Design Star Bargain Hunt Cash In The Attic Cash In The Attic Antiques Roadshow Marbella Mansions Food & Drink A Taste Of Greenland Come Dine With Me Antiques Roadshow Bargain Hunt

00:30 Bear Grylls: How To Stay Alive 01:20 Swimming With Monsters: Steve Backshall 02:10 River Monsters 03:00 Bush Pilots 03:50 Border Security 04:15 Auction Kings 04:40 American Digger 05:05 How Do They Do It? 05:30 How It’s Made 06:00 Sons Of Guns 07:00 Bush Pilots 07:50 Alaska: The Last Frontier 08:40 Fast N’ Loud 09:30 Border Security 09:55 Auction Kings 10:20 American Digger 10:45 How Do They Do It? 11:10 How It’s Made 11:35 Bear Grylls: How To Stay Alive 12:25 Swimming With Monsters: Steve Backshall 13:15 River Monsters 14:05 Border Security 14:30 Auction Kings 14:55 American Digger 15:20 Finding Bigfoot 16:10 Fast N’ Loud 17:00 Ultimate Survival 17:50 Dirty Jobs 18:40 Bush Pilots 19:30 Sons Of Guns 20:20 How Do They Do It? 20:45 How It’s Made 21:10 Auction Kings 21:35 American Digger 22:00 You Have Been Warned 22:50 Treehouse Masters 23:40 Mythbusters

00:00 00:20 00:45 01:05 01:30 01:50 02:15 02:35 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 09:35 11:05

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 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 Gravity Falls My Babysitter’s A Vampire Jessie Good Luck Charlie Dog With A Blog Disney Mickey Mouse Shorts Geek Charming Jessie

11:25 11:50 12:15 12:35 13:00 13:25 13:45 14:10 14:35 15:00 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

Wolfblood Suite Life On Deck A.N.T. Farm Austin And Ally Shake It Up That’s So Raven Jessie Good Luck Charlie Dog With A Blog Wolfblood Gravity Falls Jessie Violetta Mako Mermaids Austin And Ally Wolfblood Jessie Good Luck Charlie Dog With A Blog Violetta Jessie My Babysitter’s A Vampire Wolfblood Gravity Falls Shake It Up Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place

00:00 Chelsea Lately 00:30 The Dance Scene 00:55 The Dance Scene 01:25 Style Star 01:50 Style Star 02:20 E! Investigates 03:15 Extreme Close-Up 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 THS 05:05 E!ES 06:00 15 Remarkable Celebrity Body Bouncebacks 07:50 Style Star 08:20 Fashion Police 09:15 Scouted 10:15 Married To Jonas 10:40 Chasing The Saturdays 11:10 The Drama Queen 12:05 Fashion Police 13:05 Extreme Close-Up 13:35 E!ES 14:30 Style Star 15:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 16:00 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 17:00 The Wanted Life 18:00 E! News 19:00 Fashion Police 20:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:00 The Drama Queen 22:00 E!ES 22:30 E! News 23:30 Chelsea Lately

00:15 00:40 01:05 01:30 01:55 02:20 02:45 03:10 03:35 04:00 04:25 Feasts 04:50 05:40 06:30 06:50 07:10 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 10:05 10:30 11:20 11:45 Feasts

Unique Eats Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Tastiest Places To Chowdown Easy Chinese: San Francisco Charly’s Cake Angels Unwrapped Unwrapped Unwrapped Unique Eats Unique Eats Andy Bates American Street Iron Chef America Chopped Unwrapped Tastiest Places To Chowdown Food Network Challenge Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam Roadtrip With G. Garvin Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Iron Chef America Barefoot Contessa Amazing Wedding Cakes Easy Chinese: San Francisco Andy Bates American Street

THE BAY ON OSN MOVIES HD ACTION

Sundance reviews of ‘Skeleton Twins’, ‘Infinitely Polar Bear’

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A FEW BEST MEN ON OSN MOVIES COMEDY HD 12:10 Tastiest Places To Chowdown 12:35 Grill It! With Bobby Flay 13:00 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 13:25 Charly’s Cake Angels 13:50 Siba’s Table 14:15 Barefoot Contessa 14:40 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 15:05 Food Network Challenge 15:55 Roadtrip With G. Garvin 16:20 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 16:45 Chopped 17:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:25 Symon’s Suppers 18:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 19:15 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 19:40 Siba’s Table 20:05 Reza’s African Kitchen 20:30 Tastiest Places To Chowdown 20:55 Roadtrip With G. Garvin 21:20 Chopped 22:10 Food Network Challenge 23:00 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:50 Roadtrip With G. Garvin

00:00 Rebuilding Titanic 01:00 Convoy: War For The Atlantic 02:00 Battleground Brothers 03:00 Diggers 03:30 Diggers 04:00 What Would Happen If 04:30 What Would Happen If 05:00 Naked Science 06:00 Untamed Americas 07:00 World’s Toughest Fixes 08:00 Rebuilding Titanic 09:00 Convoy: War For The Atlantic 10:00 Battleground Brothers 11:00 Untamed Americas 12:00 What Would Happen If 12:30 What Would Happen If 13:00 Evolutions 14:00 Untamed Americas 15:00 World’s Toughest Fixes 16:00 Rebuilding Titanic 17:00 Apocalypse: The Second World War 18:00 Battleground Brothers 19:00 Ultimate Survival Alaska 20:00 One Ocean 21:00 Animal Autopsy 22:00 Wild Russia 23:00 Mystery Files 23:30 Mystery Files

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia 02:00 Family Guy 02:30 The League 03:00 Raising Hope 03:30 Melissa & Joey 04:00 Arrested Development 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Arrested Development 06:00 Two And A Half Men 06:30 Friends 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Arrested Development 08:30 Arrested Development 09:00 Raising Hope 09:30 The Crazy Ones 10:00 Trophy Wife 10:30 Friends 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Two And A Half Men 12:30 Arrested Development 13:00 Arrested Development 13:30 Friends 14:00 Melissa & Joey 14:30 The Crazy Ones 15:00 Trophy Wife 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report

16:30 Two And A Half Men 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Raising Hope 18:30 How To Live With Your Parents 19:00 Guys With Kids 19:30 Community 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia 22:30 Family Guy 23:00 The League 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

15:00 17:00 19:00 22:00 23:00

C.S.I. New York The Ellen DeGeneres Show Twisted Hannibal Sons Of Anarchy

00:00 House Of The Rising Sun-18 02:00 Backdraft-PG15 04:15 The Fog-PG15 06:00 Mission: Impossible III-PG15 08:15 The Adventures Of Tintin-PG 10:15 The Apparition-PG15 12:00 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol-PG15 14:15 The Adventures Of Tintin-PG 16:15 Nitro Circus: The Movie-PG15 18:00 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol-PG15 20:15 The Bay-18 22:00 Bunraku-18

00:00 A Few Best Men-18 02:00 Slums Of Beverly Hills-18 04:00 Celtic Pride-PG 06:00 Stop! Or My Mom Will ShootPG15 08:00 The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants-PG15 10:00 Asterix And Obelix-PG15 12:00 Celtic Pride-PG 14:00 Home Alone: The Holiday Heist-PG 16:00 Asterix And Obelix-PG15 18:00 Uptown Girls-PG15 20:00 What’s Your Number?-PG15 22:00 A Few Best Men-18

00:45 02:45 04:15 07:15 09:00 11:00 12:30 15:30 17:30 19:30 21:30

Beneath Hill 60-PG15 A Christmas Kiss-PG15 Treasure Island-PG15 A Woman-PG15 Beneath Hill 60-PG15 Beastly-PG15 Hindenburg-PG15 Love Takes Wing-PG15 The Wild Hunt-PG15 Summer Coda-PG15 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy-PG15

02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:15 12:00 13:30 15:30 17:30 19:00 PG15 21:00 23:00

Vampire-18 Year Of The Dog-PG15 Dying Young-PG15 The Rainmaker-PG15 Jack The Bear-PG15 StreetDance 2-PG15 Year Of The Dog-PG15 The Crucible-PG15 StreetDance 2-PG15 The Greatest Movie Ever SoldInternal Affairs-18 J. Edgar-18

01:45 03:45 05:45 07:15

50/50-PG15 Saving Grace B. Jones-PG15 Crisis Point-PG15 My Own Love Song-PG15

09:00 11:00 13:00 PG15 15:00 PG15 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

People Like Us-PG15 Dirty Teacher-PG15 When Love Is Not EnoughMadea’s Big Happy FamilyPeople Like Us-PG15 Rock Of Ages-PG15 The Sessions-R Total Recall-18

01:00 Cash-PG15 03:00 Anna Karenina-PG15 05:15 Hotel Transylvania-PG 07:00 Bernie-PG15 09:00 The Three Stooges-PG15 11:00 A Monster In Paris-PG 13:00 Remember Sunday-PG15 15:00 Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away-PG 17:00 The Three Stooges-PG15 19:00 The Descendants-PG15 21:00 Midnight In Paris-PG15 23:00 Prometheus-PG15

01:00 Hotel Transylvania-PG 02:45 A Christmas Story 2-PG 04:15 George Harrison: Living In The Material World-PG15 08:00 True Justice: One Shot, One Life-PG15 10:00 Mission: Impossible III-PG15 12:15 Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days-PG 14:00 Ice Road Terror-PG15 16:00 True Justice: One Shot, One Life-PG15 18:00 Oz The Great And Powerful-PG 20:15 Killing Them Softly-18 22:00 Paranormal Activity 4-18

02:00 02:30 03:00 06:00 07:00 11:30 15:30 16:00 21:30 22:00

Futbol Mundial Inside The PGA Tour Live PGA Tour Cricket ODI Series Highlights PGA European Tour PGA Tour Futbol Mundial Live Snooker Masters ICC Cricket 360 Live Snooker Masters

00:00 NFL Gameday 00:30 Live NFL 03:30 Live NHL 06:30 Futbol Mundial 07:00 NFL 09:30 NFL 12:00 NHL 14:00 Top 14 Highlights 14:30 Darts 17:30 Cricket ODI Series Highlights 18:30 Futbol Mundial 19:00 PGA Tour Highlights 20:00 PGA European Tour Highlights 21:00 NFL 23:30 NHL

01:30 Trans World Sport 02:30 FEI Equestrian World 03:00 HSBC Sevens World Series 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Snooker Masters 12:00 Futbol Mundial 12:30 ICC Cricket 360 13:00 Golfing World 14:00 Amlin Challenge Cup 16:00 FEI Equestrian World 16:30 FEI Equestrian World 17:00 Futbol Mundial 17:30 Golfing World 18:30 ICC Cricket 360 19:00 Amlin Challenge Cup 21:00 Golfing World 22:00 PGA Tour Highlights 23:00 PGA European Tour Highlights

undance has long been a place for artists to expand their repertoire, whether it’s music video directors wanting to show they can handle the rigors of feature filmmaking or Disney Channel starlets demonstrating their range by playing prostitutes with smudged eyeliner. And while Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig aren’t exactly doing Eugene O’Neill in “The Skeleton Twins,” the movie allows them to plumb some darker character facets without completely abandoning their gifts as comedians. Director and co-writer Craig Johnson gets the balance between the grim and the goofy just right in this sophomore effort, and his stars do as well.

Hader plays the suicidal Milo, who would be (in the character’s own words) “just another tragic gay cliche” were it not for the fact that his twin sister Maggie (Wiig) was on the verge of swallowing a bottle of pills herself when the hospital called her about having just unsuccessfully slashed his wrists. Reuniting after a decade-long estrangement, the siblings wind up being each other’s only hope in working out their life problems - he’s still hung up on a relationship from the past (with Ty Burrell’s character, who’s alternately excited and horrified to see Milo again), while she dodges entering parenthood with nice-guy husband Lance (Luke Wilson) with meaningless affairs and a hidden stash of birth control pills.

The heavier drama is leavened throughout with the twins’ odd sense of humor; the hilarious scene in which Milo cajoles Maggie into joining him in lip-synching “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” was one of the festival’s most talked-about moments. Johnson may go to ouchier places than previous Sundance crossover hits like “Little Miss Sunshine,” but “The Skeleton Twins” promises to be an audience-pleaser nonetheless.

More divisive, based on an admittedly random sampling of Sundance audience members, is “Infinitely Polar Bear,” which stars Mark Ruffalo as Cam, a manic-depressive dad in Boston taking care of his two young daughters while his wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) pursues her MBA in New York City. There are any number of movies that have played mental illness for comedy, from “The Ruling Class” to “Silver Linings Playbook,” but “Infinitely” (set in the late 1970s) tries to make bipolar disorder adorable - or, at least, Ruffalo does, taking off the brakes and playing each moment at or past its bearable extreme.

Thankfully, he’s got Saldana (and, as the daughters, Imogene Wolodarsky and Ashley Aurderheide) anchoring the film with performances that feel more down to earth. Just a prediction, but I suspect that audiences that love or hate “Infinitely Polar Bear” will be divided precisely by how they feel about Ruffalo; for me, this usually reliable actor goes too big, and it sucks the oxygen out of the rest of the movie.

Great collection of vintage Lacoste shir ts, though. Two very intense documentaries on the subject of pedophiles hiding behind their positions of power screened this year at Park City: “Happy Valley” at Sundance and “Who Took Johnny” at Slamdance. The former has the higher profile, dealing with the Penn State scandal that destroyed not only convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky but also his boss, beloved gridiron icon Joe Paterno, who knew what Sandusky was doing but reported it to university higherups rather than to the police.

“Johnny” examines a less well-known case, although it has its own place in history - Johnny Gosch, who disappeared in 1982, was one of the first missing children to be featured on a milk carton, and the film points out how different the treatment of such cases was in a world before Amber Alerts. “Happy Valley” director Amir BarLev (“The Tillman Story”) has the advantage of telling a story that’s been extensively researched and investigated, but he scores key interviews with Paterno’s family as well as Matt Sandusky, the adopted son who came forward as another of his father’s victims.

With Johnny Gosch still missing, directors Michael Galinsky, David Beilinson and Suki Hawley examine the impact that the boy’s disappearance had on his mother Noreen but also raise questions (without necessarily answering all of them) about the possibility of child molesters in positions of power who use their clout to discourage investigations or cover up their crimes entirely. It’s not a craz y asser tion Sandusky, after all, used his football fame to hide in plain sight, starting charitable programs for underprivileged children as a way to find vulnerable new victims.

One last thing: I saw about a dozen movies in five days at Sundance, a drop in the bucket given the scope of the festival, but I wanted to point out some strong performances by relatively little-known actors in a variety of films. “52 Tuesdays” star Tilda Cobham-Hervey has a fresh face and a mischievous glint; don’t be surprised if the Australian actress becomes an in-demand gamine in English-language cinema.

Jackie Monahan and Lisa Haas, reuniting with “Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same” director Madeleine Olnek, deliver wonderfully daffy performances in the absurdist sex-worker parody “The Foxy Merkins,” and Carmen Moore and Jeremiah Bitsui are unforgettable as Navajos looking for any way off the reser vation in “Drunktown’s Finest.” Finally, while I’ve been remiss in catching Cameron Monaghan’s work on the Showtime series “Shameless,” his empathetic and sensitive performance as a (literally) haunted teen in “Jamie Marks Is Dead” bodes well for his ongoing film career. (Monaghan will turn up next on the big screen in “Vampire Academy.”) — Reuters

Classifieds THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Kuwait SHARQIA-1 PHILOMENA (DIG) RAZE (DIG) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) RAZE (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:00 PM 6:00 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 PM 1:00 AM

SHARQIA-2 THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) FROZEN (DIG-3D) THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:15 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:30 AM

SHARQIA-3 HOMEFRONT (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

MUHALAB-1 PHILOMENA (DIG) HOMEFRONT (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) PHILOMENA (DIG) MUHALAB-2 JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) MUHALAB-3 THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THU+MON THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) FRI+SAT THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) RAZE (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) FANAR-1 THE NUT JOB (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE NUT JOB (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED FANAR-2 HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) FROZEN (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED FANAR-3 HOMEFRONT (DIG)

12:45 PM 2:45 PM 4:45 PM 6:45 PM 9:45 PM 1:00 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 1:45 PM 1:45 PM 3:45 PM 5:30 PM 7:30 PM 9:30 PM 1:30 PM 3:15 PM 5:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 PM 1:00 AM

1:15 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:05 AM

2:00 PM

FOR SALE

KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (23/01/2014 TO 29/01/2014) HOMEFRONT (DIG) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) HOMEFRONT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

4:15 PM 6:15 PM 9:15 PM 12:15 AM

FANAR-4 RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

FANAR-5 RAZE (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) RAZE (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) RAZE (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 3:45 PM 5:45 PM 7:45 PM 9:45 PM 11:45 PM

MARINA-1 THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) HOMEFRONT (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

MARINA-2 RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

MARINA-3 THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) FROZEN (DIG-3D) THE NUT JOB (DIG-3D) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 2:45 PM 4:45 PM 7:00 PM 8:45 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

AVENUES-1 JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) JAI HO (DIG) (HINDI) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

10:30 PM 12:45 AM

AVENUES-4 RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

360ยบ- 1 THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

360ยบ- 2 PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

360ยบ- 3 FROZEN (DIG-3D) FROZEN (DIG) FROZEN (DIG-3D) RAZE (DIG) RAZE (DIG) RAZE (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:30 AM

AL-KOUT.1 THE NUT JOB (DIG) THE NUT JOB (DIG) HOMEFRONT (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) PHILOMENA (DIG) THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:45 PM 7:45 PM 9:45 PM 11:45 PM

AL-KOUT.2 RAZE (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) RAZE (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (DIG) RAZE (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

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

1:45 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

GMC Acadia, 2012 model, golden color, full options, low mileage 10,000 km.

Phone: 67669382. (C 4623) 22-1-2014 ACCOMMODATION Furnished room with separate bathroom in C-A/C big flat available in Hawally Tunis street near Sadique roundabout behind Commercial Bank, for single executive or couple. Call: 69302121. (C 4624) 22-1-2014 TUITION Learn holy Quran in perfect way, private tuition available for elders & children by Hafiz-e-Quran. Contact: 66725950. (C 4625) 23-1-2014

Prayer timings

AVENUES-2 HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG)

2:15 PM 4:30 PM 6:45 PM 9:00 PM 11:15 PM

AL-KOUT.3 JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) FROZEN (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) RIDE ALONG (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

AVENUES-3 JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG) JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (DIG)

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

AL-KOUT.4 12 YEARS A SLAVE (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG) HOW I LIVE NOW (DIG)

Fajr: Shorook Duhr: Asr: Maghrib: Isha:

05:19 06:42 12:00 14:58 17:18 18:38

112

No: 16055

1:30 PM 4:15 PM 6:15 PM 8:15 PM

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

Airlines BBC JAI JZR JZR KLM THY JZR QTR SAI GFA THY UAE ETD JZR JZR JAI MSR QTR MSC FDB THY DHX QTR QTR FDB BAW KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC IRA QTR FDB SVA UAE ABY ETD IRA FDB QTR IZG GFA MSC MSC JZR MEA JZR JZR SYR TBZ UAE MSR MSR KAC FDB QTR KAC KAC

Arrival Flights on Thursday 23/1/2014 Flt Route 43 DHAKA 574 MUMBAI 539 CAIRO 267 BEIRUT 411 AMSTERDAM 772 ISTANBUL 555 ALEXANDRIA 1084 DOHA 441 LAHORE 211 BAHRAIN 764 SABIHA 85 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI-INTL 503 LUXOR 529 ASYUT 576 COCHIN 612 CAIRO 1076 DOHA 401 ALEXANDRIA 67 DUBAI 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 8524 DOHA 8650 DOHA 69 DUBAI 157 LONDON 206 ISLAMABAD 362 COLOMBO 352 COCHIN 412 MANILA 302 MUMBAI 332 TRIVANDRUM 617 AHWAZ 1086 DOHA 53 DUBAI 512 RIYADH 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 301 ABU DHABI-INTL 605 ISFAHAN 55 DUBAI 1070 DOHA 4161 MASHAD 213 BAHRAIN 403 ASYUT 405 SOHAG 165 DUBAI 404 BEIRUT 561 SOHAG 241 AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA 341 DAMASCUS 5483 MASHAD 871 DUBAI 610 CAIRO 579 SOHAG 382 DELHI 57 DUBAI 1078 DOHA 672 DUBAI 546 ALEXANDRIA

Time 00:05 00:10 00:40 00:40 00:30 00:45 02:25 00:55 01:30 02:10 02:15 02:35 02:45 05:50 06:20 02:50 03:10 03:45 03:45 04:20 05:35 05:40 05:45 05:45 05:50 06:40 07:40 08:45 08:10 06:45 07:55 08:15 07:50 07:50 07:50 08:15 08:40 09:00 09:20 09:30 09:40 09:55 10:35 10:40 11:15 11:20 11:30 11:55 12:55 12:45 12:30 12:35 12:50 13:00 13:05 13:05 13:50 13:55 14:00 14:05

SVA JZR KNE KAC GFA KNE KAC KNE NIA JZR OMA JZR KAC QTR UAE ETD RJA SVA JZR JZR ABY GFA UAL KAC JZR KAC JZR QTR FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC GFA OMA TAR FDB MSR JZR JAI AXB ABY KNE DLH ALK FDB MEA JZR ETD UAE GFA QTR KLM JZR AIC FDB UAL PIA JZR

500 257 472 562 221 460 788 470 251 535 645 779 118 1072 857 303 640 510 787 777 127 215 982 284 135 542 177 1080 63 786 104 614 674 618 774 176 217 647 328 61 618 189 572 393 129 480 634 229 71 402 181 307 859 219 1074 417 239 981 59 981 205 185

JEDDAH BEIRUT JEDDAH AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA CAIRO MUSCAT JEDDAH NEW YORK DOHA DUBAI ABU DHABI-INTL AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA RIYADH RIYADH JEDDAH SHARJAH BAHRAIN WASHINGTON DC DULLES DHAKA BAHRAIN CAIRO DUBAI DOHA DUBAI JEDDAH LONDON BAHRAIN DUBAI DOHA RIYADH GENEVA BAHRAIN MUSCAT DUBAI DUBAI ALEXANDRIA DUBAI MUMBAI KOZHIKODE SHARJAH TAIF FRANKFURT COLOMBO DUBAI BEIRUT AL MAKTOUM INTERNATI ABU DHABI-INTL DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA AMSTERDAM AMMAN-QUEEN ALIA CHENNAI DUBAI BAHRAIN LAHORE DUBAI

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

Airlines AIC AXB JAI KLM BBC DLH SAI THY KAC UAE ETD MSR QTR MSC FDB QTR KAC JZR FDB JAI JZR THY GFA QTR QTR KAC JZR THY FDB BAW IRA QTR JZR JZR SVA KAC KAC KAC ABY KAC UAE ETD IRA FDB JZR QTR GFA KAC KAC IZG KAC MSC MSC JZR MEA KAC SYR JZR JZR TBZ MSR

Departure Flights on Thursday 23/1/2014 Flt Route 976 GOA 490 MANGALORE 573 MUMBAI 411 AMSTERDAM 44 CHITTAGONG 635 FRANKFURT 442 LAHORE 773 ISTANBUL-ATATURK 381 DELHI 854 DUBAI 306 ABU DHABI 613 CAIRO 1085 DOHA 406 SOHAG 68 DUBAI 1077 DOHA 283 DHAKA 560 SOHAG 70 DUBAI 575 ABU DHABI 164 DUBAI 765 ISTANBUL-SABIHA 212 BAHRAIN 8525 DOHA 8650 DHAKA 545 ALEXANDRIA 240 AMMAN 771 ISTANBUL-ATATURK 54 DUBAI 156 LONDON 616 AHWAZ 1087 DOHA 256 BEIRUT 534 CAIRO 513 RIYADH 787 JEDDAH 561 AMMAN 671 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 101 LONDON 856 DUBAI 302 ABU DHABI 606 MASHHAD 56 DUBAI 778 JEDDAH 1071 DOHA 214 BAHRAIN 541 CAIRO 541 CAIRO 4162 MASHHAD 165 ROME 404 ASYUT 402 ALEXANDRIA 776 JEDDAH 405 BEIRUT 785 JEDDAH 342 DAMASCUS 786 RIYADH 176 DUBAI 5484 MASHHAD 580 SOHAG

DIAL161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Time 00:05 00:15 01:10 01:45 01:45 02:10 02:30 02:55 03:50 03:50 04:00 04:10 04:15 04:45 05:00 05:15 05:30 06:20 06:30 06:35 06:55 07:05 07:15 07:15 07:15 07:15 07:20 07:30 08:30 08:45 08:50 08:50 08:55 09:00 09:15 09:25 09:25 09:30 09:40 09:50 09:55 10:05 10:20 10:20 10:35 10:55 11:25 11:30 11:30 11:35 11:50 12:15 12:20 12:25 12:55 13:00 13:30 13:35 13:45 13:50 13:50

MSR UAE FDB QTR JZR KAC KAC KNE JZR GFA KNE SVA KAC KNE KAC KAC NIA OMA JZR JZR ETD QTR UAE JZR RJA ABY SVA GFA JZR JZR UAL JZR FDB QTR GFA FDB TAR KAC OMA ABY KAC MSR JAI KAC AXB KAC KNE KAC DHX FDB ALK MEA ETD GFA KAC UAE KAC KLM FDB QTR JZR KAC KAC

611 872 58 1079 134 673 617 473 188 222 481 505 773 471 501 613 252 646 180 238 304 1073 858 538 641 128 511 216 184 266 982 554 64 1081 218 62 328 331 648 120 1801 619 571 351 394 343 461 543 171 72 230 403 308 220 301 860 205 417 60 1075 528 411 415

CAIRO DUBAI DUBAI DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI DOHA JEDDAH DUBAI BAHRAIN TAIF JEDDAH RIYADH JEDDAH BEIRUT BAHRAIN ALEXANDRIA MUSCAT AL MAKTOUM INTERNATIONAL AMMAN ABU DHABI DOHA DUBAI CAIRO AMMAN SHARJAH RIYADH BAHRAIN DUBAI BEIRUT BAHRAIN ALEXANDRIA DUBAI DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI TUNIS TRIVANDRUM MUSCAT SHARJAH CAIRO, EGYPT ALEXANDRIA MUMBAI KOCHI KOZHIKODE CHENNAI RIYADH CAIRO BAHRAIN DUBAI COLOMBO BEIRUT ABU DHABI BAHRAIN MUMBAI DUBAI ISLAMABAD DAMMAM DUBAI DOHA ASYUT BANGKOK KUALA LUMPUR

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

34

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

s ta rs CROSSWORD 437

STAR TRACK Aries (March 21-April 19) ARIES This is a good time to consolidate and organize your affairs or rearrange your living situation. You could be seen by others as just the person to be put in charge of some project requiring a conservative mind. You are able to see through to the truth of most situations and can ignore some difficulties that would upset or disturb most. You happily go about your own business and complete whatever you set out to accomplish.

Marriage and other close relationships give rise to great expectations now. This is a time to enjoy and appreciate your ties to others and to seek and promote harmony in the interaction between people. You may be able to enjoy and value your own life situation today or feel especially kind toward a friend or loved one. Good luck follows.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Clear decisions affecting others could be made in the workplace now. Ideas and thoughts will take on greater meaning and form. You may be very articulate or forceful in communicating. People will understand just what you mean. Think about it; you could run your own radio show about the subject matter that is your expertise. This may mean a radio show helping people with computers, home care, health care, job issues, finance, etc. Community issues are in the air and a round table discussion can become heated but fun. Perhaps the kids in the neighborhood want a community park and exercise or play equipment. This may take several meetings before everyone can agree or money issues can be tackled. This evening is good for a romantic book.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

ACROSS 1. Being one hundred more than two hundred.

4. A river in northeastern Brazil that flows generally northward to the Atlantic Ocean.

12. An antiviral drug used in the treatment of AIDS. 15. The syllable naming the sixth (submediant) note of a major or minor scale in solmization.

16. Leader of Black Muslims who campaigned for independence for Black Americans (18971975).

17. Mature female of mammals of which the male is called `buck'.

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

20. The craniometric point that is the most prominent point at the back of the head (at the occipital protuberance).

22. Dearly loved.

24. Bug of temperate regions that infests especially beds and feeds on human blood.

26. (plate tectonic theory) A hypothetical continent including all the landmass of the earth prior to the Triassic period when it split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland.

29. A radioactive transuranic element produced by bombarding plutonium with neutrons.

31. The cry made by sheep.

32. Of or relating to the stomach and intestines.

33. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

36. Informal or slang terms for mentally irregular.

38. A master's degree in fine arts.

40. A stiff protective garment worn by hockey players or a catcher in baseball to protect the shins.

43. To make a mistake or be incorrect.

45. Offensively discourteous.

46. An ancient upright stone slab bearing markings.

48. The Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Dali region of Yunnan.

50. An actor's line that immediately precedes and serves as a reminder for some action or speech.

51. Cud-chewing mammal used as a draft or saddle animal in desert regions.

52. A fraudulent business scheme.

56. Genus of tropical trees.

59. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

60. Exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health.

61. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural).

62. Freedom from difficulty or hardship or effort.

64. Of or relating to or supporting Islamism.

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

73. Marked by simplicity.

76. Greek mythology.

77. A three-year law degree.

78. Oldest known reptiles.

80. Someone who engages in arbitrage (who purchases securities in one market for immediate resale in another in the hope of profiting from the price differential).

81. Brief episode in which the brain gets insufficient blood supply.

82. A great raja.

83. Type genus of the family Myacidae.

DOWN 1. A compact mass.

2. A strip of land projecting into a body of water.

3. Relatively low in price or charging low prices.

4. After noon.

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

6. United States parapsychologist (1895-1980).

7. Wife of Balder.

8. Type genus of the Amiidae.

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

10. (law) The seat for judges in a courtroom.

11. A public promotion of some product or service.

12. A city in southern Turkey on the Seyhan River.

13. Pertaining to animals or animal life or action.

14. A school teaching mechanical and industrial arts and the applied sciences.

19. Infestation of the pubic hair by crab lice.

21. An atom or molecule or radical or ion that forms a complex around a central atom.

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

25. A salt of any halogen acid.

27. A silvery soft waxy metallic element of the alkali metal group.

28. (computer science) A kind of computer architecture that has a large number of instructions hard coded into the cpu chip.

30. An additional tax on certain kinds of income that has already been taxed.

34. Marked by blithe unconcern.

35. Be compatible or in accordance with.

37. An evergreen tree of the family Ulmaceae that grows in tropical America and Africa and Asia.

39. By bad luck.

41. (astronomy) The angular distance of a celestial point measured westward along the celestial equator from the zenith crossing.

42. A genus of temperate and arctic evergreen trees (see spruce).

44. With no effort to conceal.

47. United States tennis player (born in Czechoslovakia) who won several singles championships.

49. A hospital unit staffed and equipped to provide intensive care.

53. Extreme mental retardation.

54. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

55. (Greek mythology) The Titaness who was mother of Helios and Selene and Eos in ancient mythology.

57. Shrubby plant with aromatic grayish-green leaves used as a cooking herb.

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

63. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

65. Large sweet juicy hybrid between tangerine and grapefruit having a thick wrinkled skin.

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

67. (Islam) The man who leads prayers in a mosque.

68. A former communist country in eastern Europe and northern Asia.

69. (trademark) A tinned luncheon meat made largely from pork.

70. Suggestive of the supernatural.

71. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

74. The longer of the two telegraphic signals used in Morse code.

75. A federal agency established to coordinate programs aimed at reducing pollution and protecting the environment.

79. A person who announces and plays popular recorded music.

Make sure your expectations are realistic. Any area of improvement or change can take place now through some form of discipline. Discipline for you may mean the opportunity to stay focused with few interruptions—your thoughts or someone else’s. This may prove to be a good mind-training session, particularly if you can keep your own mind focused. As for others, you cannot control their interruptions except to tell them you are heavily into your work and you will get back to them soon. This afternoon is a good time to have your car checked with, perhaps, an oil change. A happy home life and a successful career are the goals you hold dear. Fun times are ahead this evening with friends—big plans are in the makings for a big get-together soon.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Today is one of your best days this month. You may find yourself in a remembering type of mood—thinking about old relationships, past vacations, past reunions, etc. You may be easily persuaded to skip school, work or some other obligation.

If you can insert some creative license into your daily routine, you will find that your tasks become more exciting. An outside event could shed light on some issues now—in a good way. A boost of encouragement will come your way this evening and harmony will prevail.

Family and home are in a flux for the positive. New habits, new friends and a new you will find you looking forward to the goals of the future. This could mean some great ideas on profession or travel or yearned for education.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Through challenges, blocks and obstacles, you learn how to manage and overcome most situations. Most of all, you learn acceptance of the people around you, along with the desire to guide others through example—which is truly, the only way. You are a hero to many people as you go gently through your day. You are learning to ease up on the feelings of disappointment, realizing you are part of the whole. These things have only served to slow you down from moving forward. There is a feeling today of having less fear and more confidence in your own choices. Understanding how the past fits in to your growth and feeling at one with the universe are the things that give you a sense of satisfaction and completeness. Enjoy the evening.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Business is underway as usual today but forewarned is important and you may want to be more attentive to the possibilities of change. Pure technological knowledge is no longer appreciated as it once was. Learning about new things and not being afraid to take on new challenges will be the open door for new opportunities in the work field for you. Opportunities prevail and you may find yourself wanting and able to do almost anything. Today and tomorrow, you may be successful in getting a loan, getting an extension on a payment or having travel opportunities, and then enjoying quiet evenings at home. The universe points to your taking the lead in whatever you decide to do. Set clear priorities to help eliminate the clutter in your mind and on your desk.

Word Search

Libra (September 23-October 22) You will earn a good living and you will slowly build up a sound base for financial security as you go along your steady pace. Review your options for investments and get guidance on which way to go with this endeavor. Your talents and capabilities are many. Did you know it only you can deprive yourself of anything. Do not fight this understanding, for it is truly the beginning of many bright sunshiny days. You are inventive, original and high tech. Power becomes a compelling idea, perhaps even an aphrodisiac—and you have a stronger than usual supply of it now. Use it, do not abuse it—or you might find that it is a two-edged sword! It is easy for you to attract love and money this evening. You could inherit something of great value.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) If you need to seek professional advice, today and the next day are excellent times to seek help. Business seems to be affected by absolutely nothing for the next few days. This is a time for ideas and thinking. After you put some final changes on a business plan, you may see an increase in business, but generally, the flow of money stays about the same. At least the tendency is not a downward spiral! Be careful of your own expenses—something you thought you wanted today may hold no interest for you tomorrow. Any ongoing problem with a member of the family or a loved one will be solved today. A good book or movie is appreciated this evening. A busy day in the work world calls for a little fantasy to help you relax later this evening.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Work gets underway with productive results. You are inventive and original.

Learning and communicating are what it takes to move forward. On a personal level, you may find that the finances will start to get a bit sluggish—but not impossible. Plan for budgets and when something attractive comes to your attention, you will be able to purchase it. Good humor wins out over anything confusing today. You may want to plan a get-together with some of your friends and stop by the gym on the way home for a little physical workout. This workout would benefit you best if it could be regular. If you are with a partner, get out and go to a fun play or movie this evening. Stay abreast of the happenings in your city through your internet connection.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You should find this a time of good fortune. Many opportunities are available for you to create a little good fortune. It is easy to see which path is the one to take. Opportunities proliferate and you may find yourself ready to expand your knowledge or help others to do the same. Taking on added risks can bring big rewards. The close personal ties that you have with others could be very important to you at this time, particularly marriage and other partnerships. These are all associations that could contribute to your success and happiness and could teach you some very significant lessons in the process.

Nostalgia and domesticity will be strong now and could help you in some new understandings about how much you need security and a feeling of attachment.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You will need to act quickly and decisively to capture all the good opportunities that flow your way today. Growth, happiness and prosperity are yours.

You will soon find that money will no longer be the sole yardstick you use with which to measure your success. Your sense of responsibility is so well developed that you end up managing most situations that you become involved with now. You are disciplined, work hard and are good at getting others to work with and for you. Essentials are what count.

Others may think you are more educated than you are, for you tend to assume an authoritarian stance. You may even enjoy the thought of having authority and probably treat authority, the elderly and your teachers with great respect.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) The work that you do or the job that you perform may be more meaningful to you at this time. You feel a love of law and order and have a sense of appreciation for responsibility and duty. Things that may have once been viewed as problems or obstacles are merely used for the valuable lessons that they represent. Your viewpoint may be maturing in many ways. Certainly those around you could notice a remarkable change in your attitude about many things. The good life, and all that is fine and luxurious, may be what you value for now. You could enjoy making your own way and finding solutions to whatever problems you have. Things just seem to be working together for your benefit. The competition of late is no longer a problem; relax.

Yesterday’s Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

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Yesterday’s Solution

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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

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22545171

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24810598

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22545171

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24742838

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22434853

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22545051

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24711433

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24316983

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23927002

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24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

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23262845

Kaizen center

25716707

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22517733

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22517144

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25610011

Khaldiya

24848075

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25616368

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24849807

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24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salem

22549134

Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

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22515088

Dasmah

22532265

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22531908

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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

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

lifestyle G O S S I P

Lady Gaga’s portrait makes her cry

T

he singer visited the Louvre art gallery in Paris - home to the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci - and became emotional when she saw portraits by US artist Bob Wilson. She Tweeted: “Me & @BrandonVMaxwell crying w BOB WILSON’s portraits. That’s me on the wall!” Gaga later added on LittleMonsters.com: “I went to the Louvre today and saw the portraits Bob Wilson made of me. It was such a special moment. “I wore archive Gianni [Versace] and wore my hair in metallic braids. It was a day I’ll never forget.” The 27-year-old singer looked particularly striking in the outfit she wore for the visit, which included a long silver braided wig, metallic chequered catsuit and huge black platform shoes. Robert’s exhibition at the Louvre is titled ‘Living Rooms’ and features a fifty minute video of Gaga posing as different works of art, including ‘The Death of Marat’ by Jacques-Louis David and ‘Head of St. John the Baptist’ by Andrea Solario. Speaking of working with the ‘Born This Way’ star to create the portraits, Bob has said: “She’s sort of serious. Not your ordinary pop star. “She would look at the image and after a while she would look at her face in a mirror and something happened, and I would shoot her... There’s a nobility to her. She’s a real princess.”

Anne Hathaway is fine after her

holiday injury

Kerry Washington

feels ‘blessed’ to be expecting

first child

T

he ‘Les Miserables’ actress was pictured apparently getting into difficulty in a strong rip current close to the beach on the Hawaiian island of Oahu earlier this month but she insists her accident wasn’t as bad as it looked. The 31year-old beauty - who is married to Adam Shulman - said: “I’m fine. I really do appreciated everybody’s concern but that was a picture that had a false story attached to it. The real story is not as interesting.” Anne’s next movie, ‘Song One’, sees her play a woman estranged from her family who returns home after her brother has a serious accident. As she deals with the changes in her life, she explores the Brooklyn music scene. Though the role required her to sing, she didn’t feel any “pressure” to please the audience with her vocal performance. Speaking to reporters at the Sundance Film Festival, she said: “It wasn’t as much pressure because my character is not a singer, a musician anything.

“There’s no pressure to, I don’t know, to please the fans of the music I guess.”

T

he seven-months pregnant ‘Scandal’ star is eager to keep her cravings under-wraps but admits she is feeling really good. Kerry, who married NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha in an intimate ceremony in Hailey, Idaho last June, told E! News: “You know, it’s sort of like the rest of my private life, I’m not talking about it that much, but I feel really really blessed it just feels like a

really good time.” But the 36-year-old actress, who called her baby bump “the best date” at the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday is struggling to find things to wear to red carpet events. She said: “I look for things that fit.

That’s the first rule - what fits.” She added: “Of course, yeah! I mean, Louboutins are great but this is the best accessory, I think this year.”

Oprah Winfrey has a hard time filming Lohan’s docu series

Katherine Jenkins wants to appear on ‘Glee’

T

he Welsh songbird made her acting debut in 2010 on cult sci-fi show ‘Doctor Who’s Christmas special, and says the experience opened up the possibility of future acting work on musical movies or TV programmes. Speaking at the announcement of her new three-album deal with Decca Records held at London’s Ritz hotel, Katherine said: “ ‘Doctor Who’ took me out of my comfort zone massively, but I did really enjoy it. I still think it needs to be something that combines acting and music.

That’s what was lovely about that role, she was a singing character. “If it was a musical film... Maybe something like ‘Glee’! I feel at the moment I have so many singing things and I don’t get them all. It would have to be something I really cared about to

take me away from that because singing would always come first.” The 33-year-old mezzo-soprano insists she isn’t intimidated by scantily-clad pop acts like Miley Cyrus and Rihanna and has no plans to change her “glamorous” classical music singer image.

Quizzed whether she felt any pressure to sex up her image, Katherine said: “What I do is so different. It’s a niche thing. I appreciate pop music, I’ve never felt any pressure to do that. “I certainly have always appreciated the glamour side of music. Classical music can sometimes be glamorous. I’ve always been a girly girl, so the record company has never had to make that up, that was always [part of my image].”

Katherine will be releasing her next album with Universal-owned Decca Records in autumn 2014.

Lindsay Lohan offers reward for missing computer

T

he ‘Mean Girls’ actress claims her laptop was stolen from an airport in China and has issued an appeal for its safe return. The 27-year-old actress, who was honoured with a Sohu Fashion Achievement Award wrote on Twitter: “It was great to be in China and I want to thank everyone for their hospitality, however someone has stolen my computer at the airport...”...offering a reward for anyone who can retrieve and rtn it, bummer to go home w/o it. xo L (sic)” The actress flew to China after ringing in the New Year in New York City. She was spotted partying in clubs in Shanghai in recent days before attending the second annual awards ceremony. It was recently revealed that Lindsay is working on her third studio album and is also writing her memoir. Although the book is in its early stages, Lindsay started it as a series of journal entries while in rehab last year. The book is expected to see Lindsay open up about every aspect of her life including becoming a child star, allegations of drug use, relationships with famous people - including her relationship with DJ Samantha Ronson - legal troubles and rehab stints.

O

prah Winfrey admits filming Lindsay Lohan’s documentary series has been “bumpy”. The media mogul says working with the troubled actress on the show which will air on her OWN network in March hasn’t always gone smoothly, but insists there has been nothing out of the ordinary with making the programmes. Asked if ‘Lindsay’ is still filming, she told E! News: “As far as I know we are - what do you know? There have been bumps, that’s life. It’s been bumpy, but as far as I know we are still filming.” Despite reports the ‘Mean Girls’ actress has caused problems for the series’ shooting schedule, Oprah said she spoke with the 27-year-old star earlier this week after she initially received a text from Lindsay - though the talk show host didn’t realise she was in London when she called her.

And asked where the actress is at the moment, Oprah joked: “You would know more.” In clips from the eight-part series which were recently screened for critics, Oprah could be seen fuming with Lindsay after she refused to take part in scheduled filming. In the footage, Oprah says: “This is just what everyone warned me would happen. And it is.” In August, Oprah sat down with Lindsay for her first TV interview since leaving a 90-day court-ordered stint in rehab, and it has been claimed the troubled star received $2 million and the eight-episode series - which chronicles her attempts to relaunch her career and battle to stay sober - in return for the televised chat.

Kelly Osbourne in Forbes ‘30 Under 30’

Hollywood list

K

elly Osbourne is delighted to have been named in Forbes magazine’s ‘30 Under 30’ Hollywood list. The ‘Fashion Police’ host - who is the daughter of rocker Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne - thinks her inclusion in the respected publication’s list of the most influential young people in showbiz will make her family proud and proves she is a success in her own right. She tweeted: “Yeah I made the @Forbes 30 under 30 list this year! Dadda I told you I would make you proud! @OfficialOzzy!!!! #HardWorkPaysOff “No coat tails for me I did it!!!!!! (sic)” The exciting news for Kelly - who is engaged to chef Matthew Mosshart - came just a few days after she revealed how excited she was about the potential 2014 holds for her.

She wrote: “I am so happy today it feels amazing! #FreshYearFreshStart!” Meanwhile, actress Olivia Wilde - who turns 30 in March - was also pleased to have made the list for the final time she was eligible. She tweeted: “So close to being too old for this.

Thanks! @Forbes (sic)” — Bangshowbiz

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

lifestyle G O S S I P

‘Fast and Furious 7’ ending changed after Paul Walker’s death K urt Russell says the whole ending of ‘Fast and Furious 7’ is being changed in the wake of Paul Walker’s death.

The film franchise’s star was killed in a horrific accident on November 30 when the car Paul was traveling in careered off the road and smashed, which has led to his final film - which was incomplete at the time - being significantly altered. Kurt - who is joining the franchise playing a father figure to Vin Diesel’s character, and had one day left of filming at the time of the tragic accident told ETonline.com: “ They ’re having to rewrite, they’re having to do whatever they’re having to do to deal with the situation. “Listen, it’s catastrophic. It’s the worst

thing that could happen to a movie, but it’s not as bad as what happened to Paul. So everything is in perspective. He was a terrific guy. And life is full of curveballs.” The 62year-old star added the fate of his own character may now change in the new ending. He added: “Whether or not this guy dies off in the movie, we don’t know, and that may have changed now significantly, too.” It has previously been claimed Paul’s character - undercover police officer Brian O’Connor - will not be killed off in the movie and will instead be written out of the script using existing footage of Paul in a bid to keep fans satisfied and allow for the franchise to continue in future.

Zac Efron Jonah Hill takes is ‘in a great place’ after rehab

T

Jennifer Connelly refuses to

chase Hollywood

ideals J

ennifer Connelly would never “torture” herself to be considered beautiful. The ‘Requiem for a Dream’ star refuses to chase Hollywood ideals of what is considered good looking, as she thinks they would make her go crazy.

She told Allure magazine: “The thing that really matters to me is well-being and happiness. Maybe it comes from knowing people who have tortured themselves trying to meet these strangely narrow and rigorous definition of what our culture thinks is beautiful.” The 43year-old actress, who is married to fellow movie star Paul Bettany, also talked

about her on-screen chemistry with Russell Crowe, who she appeared alongside in ‘A Beautiful Mind’ - for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and has reunited with for two forthcoming projects, ‘Noah’ and ‘Winter’s Tale’.

She said: “We have an easy intimacy. We act together like the best kisses. We both bring equal passion.” Jennifer - who has Agnes, two and Stellan, ten, with Paul, as well as 16-year-old Kai from a previous relationship - also recently worked with her husband, who directed the film ‘Shelter’, in which she plays a homeless woman. She joked how being so close to the filmmaker has certain advantages, saying: “One couldn’t feel more safe as an actor knowing that the director’s your husband. It’s like, if I really make a fool of myself, I can just say, ‘Honey, can you please not put that in the movie?’ That was a great perk.”

he ‘That Awkward Moment’ star finished a stint in rehab last year for alleged cocaine and alcohol abuse, and says he’s never felt better since beating his demons. Zac - who was recently seen wearing a blue Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) chip, marking six months of sobriety - told a press conference in New York: “I’m so happy.

I feel like I’m in a great place and I’m glad that I’m really here to share this moment with everybody and be present for all of it.

“It was an interesting year. I learned so many things. So much. The best part of it was being able to reflect upon that experience and realize how much I have learned about myself and the kind of man I want to be.” Zac, 26 added he felt great about reuniting with his friends, Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller, who star alongside him in the romantic comedy to promote the film. He said: “This movie, these guys and coming back to it and to New York - just being here in this moment, it just kind of exemplifies it. I couldn’t be happier. I’m in a great place.” As well as completing rehab, Zac, also had to take time to heal after suffering a broken jaw - which resulted in him having to have his mouth wired shut - after he accidentally slipped and fell on his face outside his home in Los Angeles last November.

a pay cut for ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’

T

he actor was so desperate to play debauched stockbroker Jordan Belfort’s sidekick, Donnie Azoff, in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar nominated movie that he accepted a pay cheque of just $60,000. He made the admission on radio programme ‘The Stern Show’, which aired in the US, with the show’s official Twitter account posting: “Now on H100 @jonahhill tells @howardstern that he did the 7 month ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ shoot for $60,000 because he wanted the role so bad (sic)”.

Jonah’s gamble has more than paid off since the funnyman was nominated for both a Golden Globe and Academy Award for his stellar performance alongside Hollywood heavyweight Leonardo DiCaprio. The 30-year-old star also discussed his infamous 2013 interview with Rolling Stone magazine in which he refused to answer the reporter ’s jokey queries. The ‘Stern Show’account added on Twitter: “#H100 @JonahHill discusses the 1 interview where he came off like a jerk - in Rolling Stone explaining he was going through a bad time.../...in his personal life. @JonahHill also feels the reporter was not nice to him. But he regrets how he came off #H100”. Jonah’s eyes “jumped out of their sockets” last summer when asked what kind of farter he was by the publication, to which he scathingly replied: “I’m not answering that dumb question! I’m not that kind of person! Being in a funny movie doesn’t make me have to answer dumb questions. It has nothing to do with who I am.”

Katy Perry

Vanessa Hudgens had self-esteem issues

believes in aliens

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anessa Hudgens was a “complete disaster” after filming ‘Gimme Shelter ’. The 25-year-old actress’ friends were left “concerned” for her when she wrapped the movie because she had immersed herself so much into the role of homeless pregnant teenager Apple, she had lost her sense of self and was in “a bit of a mess”. She said: “I didn’t really know who I was - Vanessa was gone. I came home and I was a complete disaster. “My best friend is still so concerned about me when she thinks about that day because I was just a bit of a mess. I wasn’t really comfortable in social situations and my self-esteem was super low ‘cause I had no hair and I had put on all this weight, so physically I didn’t feel attractive. And I was single.” However, Vanessa had an easy way to feel herself again. Asked what she did to return to herself, she told Flare magazine: “Extensions! Instant confidence boost!” Vanessa - who gained 15lbs for the movie - cut her hair off on camera during filming and enjoyed the challenge of transforming herself to feel “grimy and ugly”. She said: “The grimier and uglier I got, the more I was like, ‘Hell yeah!.’ “ And the actress got so into the role, she burst blood vessels trying to portray giving birth convincingly. She admitted: “I popped a bunch of blood vessels in my neck and face from pushing so hard.”

Taylor Swift named ‘Most Charitable’ celebrity

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he ‘E.T.’ hitmaker is convinced there are other lifeforms in the galaxy and would love to ask US President Barack Obama what he believes on the subject. She said: “I see everything through a spiritual lens. I believe in a lot of astrology. I believe in aliens. I look up into the stars and I imagine: How self-important are we to think that we are the only life-form? I mean, if my relationship with Obama gets any better, I’m going to ask him that question. It just hasn’t been appropriate yet.” The brunette beauty’s parents Keith and Mary Hudson are Christian pastors but Katy admits her idea of faith has changed over the years.

She told the new issue of America’s GQ magazine: “I believe in a cosmic energy that is bigger than me. I don’t believe in heaven and hell as a destination.” The ‘Prism’ singer is proud of her natural look and thinks she is a good role model because she hasn’t undergone cosmetic surgery. She said: “I’ve never had any plastic surgery. Not a nose, not a chin, not a cheek, nothing. So my messages of self-empowerment are truly coming from an au naturel product.”

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he ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ hitmaker topped DoSomething.org’s annual list thanks to good deeds including a $100,000 donation to the Nashville Symphony and headlining the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s fundraising event for homeless charity Centrepoint. In second place were One Direction, whose Comic Relief single ‘One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)’ raised over £2 million to help those living in poverty, and bringing in $784,345 in donations for cancer research. Headlining the Chime for Change concert in London saw Beyonce awarded third place on the list, while fourth place went to late actor Paul Walker, thanks to his Reach Out WorldWide (ROWW) charity, a network of professionals with first responder skills - doctors, nurses, firefighters, paramedics, and other disaster-survival specialists - who help out when natural disasters strike, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis took fifth place thanks to award-winning track ‘Same Love’, which “challenged the hip-hop community to adopt a culture of acceptance”. ‘The Heat’ actress Sandra Bullock was placed sixth due to her ongoing work in education and disaster relief, while Kerry Washington a member of President Obama’s President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which advocates nationally for arts education in low-income areas - was seventh. In eighth place, ‘The Vampire Diaries’ actor Ian Somerhalder was praised for his animal rights and conservation efforts through his Somerhalder Foundation. Completing the top 10, Ryan Seacrest came in at ninth place for the work his foundation does for children in hospitals, and Carrie Underwood - who donated $1 million of tour profits to the Red Cross to help with tornado relief in her home state of Oklahoma - was tenth.

Matthew McConaughey

underwent a ‘crazy’ transformation

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atthew McConaughey found it harder re-gaining the weight he lost for ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ than he did losing it. The 44-year-old actor underwent a crazy transformation for the physically demanding role as aids sufferer Ron Woodroof, shrinking from his ripped beach physique to a gaunt frail frame by losing around 50 pounds.

Surprisingly, the ‘Failure to Launch’ star admitted that he found returning to his original weight more difficult than dropping it. The Hollywood star - who is married to Camila Alves - told Hollyscoop: “I gained 45 [pounds] of them back. The gaining was trickier than the losing. “It’s more fun, but it’s also trickier.

The first big meal that you eat, your body remembers that it lived at 182 pounds and it wants to sprint back and you have to pull the reigns and go, ‘Woah! We gotta take it easy.’ It’s a marathon.”

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

lifestyle

Chanel models in sorbet pink skip down stairs at Paris fashion show

Models present creations for Maison Martin Margiela.

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hile most other fashion designers may settle for the usual trappings of their business - a dark room, straight runway and phalanx of bored-looking models - Karl Lagerfeld likes to have fun. For Chanel’s haute couture collection in Paris on Tuesday, creative director Lagerfeld presented no less than an orchestra, a revolving stage, two curving staircases and over 60 suits and dresses in sorbet shades for Spring/Summer 2014. Under the soaring ceiling of the Grand Palais, the rapt audience was treated to a frothy and oh-so-chic spectacle as models in sparkly sneakers skipped down the stairs to musical accompaniment.

“To give to very expensive, handmade, beautiful crafted clothes ... an attitude of something everybody wears in daily life, that brings couture, in a way, to reality,” said Lagerfeld after the show, explaining the choice of footwear. Silhouettes were cinched at the waist - no overeating for Chanel wearers this season - with corset skirts under cropped jackets in creamy pale ivories, lavenders and even a shocking Pepto Bismol pink. A tight waist of black sparkles dramatically separated four tiers of pleated ruffles in metallic dove grey silk on the bodice of a dress from another ruffled cascade at the hem.

In pairing sneakers with the highly embellished haute couture looks, Lagerfeld gave a nod to the prevalence of sportswear and displayed his trademark sense of humour.

Models emerged from an entrance at the crest of the double staircase wearing silver elbow- and knee-pads - presumably to fend off the hoards of women willing to kill for such an outfit.

The Paris shows, which run until tomorrow, are a prestigious showcase for a select group of couture houses whose garments are meticulously hand-sewn by highly skilled artisans. Haute couture - which due to its prohibitive cost is worn by only a few hundred of the richest women around the world - has a minimal effect on a luxury brand’s sales, but it is a major marketing driver for the $275 billion global luxury industry.

Privately owned Chanel does not disclose financial results.

Models present creations for Chanel during the Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2014 collection show at the Grand Palais in Paris. — AFP/AP photos

Glam hedgehogs The tried and true design motifs from the House of Chanel such as Peter Pan collars, black bows at the neck, crisp white cuffs and knubby fabrics all made an appearance this season, but there was not a pearl in sight.

Lagerfeld interrupted his decidedly pretty collection of elegant looks for Spring/Summer with a dose of show-stopping dresses that managed to be both avant-garde and beautiful.

Combining turquoise, purple and black plumes with glittery tulle and thickly embellished fabric, the spiky, sparkly dresses turned their wearers into psychodelic punk hedgehogs - very glam ones, of course. Another featured an iridescent sheer man-made fabric that resembled chic Saran Wrap. Hair was spiky and worn in a tuft above the crown. “I like the idea of something wild,” said Lagerfeld. “There’s a kind of fantasy up there.” Lagerfeld played with lengths and fabrics, offering a long narrow pink jacket with tiered bands of sequins worn with skinny trousers, mid-thigh hotpants paired with a gamine and modest long sleeved top and a series of sheer dresses. “ There is a second dress, all embroidered and sequined, under the first dress. They look completely naked. But they’re not,” Lagerfeld said. Paris fashion week has already seen a crisp, clean and elegant Dior show, punctuated by oversized eyelet silk, while Atelier Versace gave a nod to 1980s singer Grace Jones with hoods and draped silk jersey dresses in chartreuse and purple. But the most eagerly awaited ticket was Monday’s debut collection of Marco Zanini at the head of the resuscitated Schiaparelli, the couture house of the 1930’s doyenne of Paris fashion, Elsa Schiaparelli. — Reuters

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

lifestyle

Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani acknowledges the public at the end of the Giorgio Armani Prive Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2014 collection show in Paris.

Models present the Giorgio Armani collection.

Tardy

Kim Kardashian causes media fight

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ashion has its fair share of personalities as seen in Tuesday’s high-octane Paris haute couture shows. Kim Kardashian nearly caused cars to crash when she arrived late to one show, while Chanel’s front man Karl Lagerfeld proved that he doesn’t just design couture dreams, he also speaks politics. Here are some key moments: She’s been around Paris in recent days, snapped with her partner rapper Kanye West at Versailles Palace, once the seat of French monarchy. Now Kim Kardashian has hit Paris couture week, holding court herself in the front row of the Stephane Rolland show. The reality star wore a flowing ivory cashmere couture coat and satin pearl-gray pants by the French designer and sported blond highlights. Although she arrived without West, who was seen last week at Givenchy, and refused to speak to the press, her arrival triggered a media storm, with photographers pushing each other and shouting angrily to get a clear shot.

Lagerfeld: Hollande “cruel” for alleged affair Pithy-tongued Lagerfeld often likes to pontificate on politics. On Tuesday he called French President Francois Hollande “cruel and heartless” over the allegations by a French magazine that Hollande had an affair with French actress Julie Gayet. Hollande’s live-in partner and first lady, Valerie Trierweiler, was hospitalized for several days after the revelations due to stress. “When we talk about violence against women, the way (Trierweiler) was treated I am very much against,” Lagerfeld told The Associated Press. “You cannot do

Models present creations by Bouchra Jarrar.

that to a woman you’ve spent so many years with. This I think is cruel and heartless.” Trierweiler, who attended Chanel’s last haute couture show in July, did not appear at Tuesday’s show.

Still, Lagerfeld said he liked Gayet, calling her “a nice person” with “a nice face.”

Giorgio Armani’s soothing couture Iconic Italian actress Claudia Cardinale was among the old faithful at the Giorgio Armani Prive couture show. The exhaustive 54-look-strong collection had a vintage feel with head silk wraps that sometimes glistened with embroidered jewels.

They endowed the slow walking models with a nostalgic, Hollywood glamour. But Armani, who has been going ethnic of late, chose to go East this spring-summer with the rest of his collection. Flat Asian necklines defined silken jackets, as twisted Thai-style check belts and scarves and long pleated pants filed by. While deep indigos colors glistened in the - signature - thick sumptuous jacquards. The show was set to soothing, jazz music. The slow pace got the better of two older gentlemen on the front row who slept through the entire show.

Stephane Rolland in search of sunshine Rolland’s spring-summer couture show went in search of sunshine. The designer, whose signature style venerates the natural beauty of fabrics like fine silk gazars and organzas, channeled vivid cadmium and canary yellows in his show, set off by a dash of white and black. But what defined this partic-

ular Rolland show was that it moved in a delicate direction, uncluttering the silhouette by doing away with the aggressive spiked appliques of previous seasons. Sweeps of silk flowed away from the body, providing a beautiful architectural look.

And the final bridal gown had a great, organic fabric flourish in the back that really it made it feel like couture week.

Bouchra Jarrar goes for asymmetry, texture Moroccan-born designer Bouchra Jarrar played with asymmetry and texture with varying success. One cross grainwoven coat had appealing thick asymmetrical lapels that flapped in front. But metallic pants were an odd choice to pair with looks that featured several textures and styles, like one black, sleeveless fur coat with big red lines on the side. Still, the show featured some luxurious items like a long, plunging silk gown in royal blue. — AP

Kim Kardashian leaves after attending the Stephane Rolland SpringSummer 2014 Haute Couture fashion collection. — AP

Tardy Kim Kardashian causes media fight

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

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In this photo, Jim Club performs with a tiger during the Award Gala evening of the 38th International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo in Monaco. — AP photos

All the world’s a stage

Joy Gartner performs with an elephant.

Russian artists of Desire of Flight, Valery Sychev and Malfina Abakarova, who received a Golden Clown, perform.

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A St Petersburg firm will auction a collection of art and memorabilia from pop star Madonna’s old roommate, including an album titled “Burning Up” (pictured) in St Petersburg, Fla. — AP

Dog trainer Rosi Hochegger, performs.

ong before Newsweek called her a “tarted-up floozy,” way before she married and had babies and adopted babies, and a lifetime before she opened an Instagram account, Madonna was a young woman in New York trying to make it big. That ambition - and a good bit of innocence - can be seen in a collection of photos, art and drawings that are on the auction block Feb 9 in St Petersburg, Florida. The collection is owned by the parents of Martin Burgoyne, an artist, Studio 54 bartender and Madonna’s best friend during that time.

Burgoyne and Madonna befriended each other before she became famous. They were roommates and he played a huge role in Madonna’s early career. He managed her first tour and drew the cover image of Madonna for her 1983 ‘Burning Up’ EP album cover. They partied with artists Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and others. He was raised in England and went to New York to study art at the Pratt Institute.

Madonna and Burgoyne also supported each other emotionally and financially during hard times - after she was raped and when Burgoyne contracted AIDS. Burgoyne died in 1986 after battling that disease. He was 23.

Madonna wrote a song about him called “In This Life” that was on her 1992 album ‘Erotica.’

For decades, his parents have kept their son’s memorabilia from that era private - until now. Mary Dowd, the coowner of Myers Fine Art, said Burgoyne’s parents live in the Tampa Bay area and are in their 80s. They are selling the collection at an auction. “I think they came to a point in their lives where they figured that it was time to do something with the collection,” Dowd said. “And so they phoned us up and asked us if we would come take a look at it, which we did, and so we saw the breadth of the collection, it was really pretty incredible.”

There’s an original hand-drawn portrait of Burgoyne by Andy Warhol. There’s an original invitation to a fundraiser for Burgoyne by Keith Haring - a party written about in the New York Times in September 1986 as AIDS was devastating a generation of mostly young gay men, including Burgoyne. The story is heartbreakingly sad, not only because of its foreshadowing of Burgoyne’s death, but of prevalent attitudes in that era toward those with HIV and AIDS.

Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell noted in the story that “people could be in the same room with someone infected with the AIDS virus without contracting it.” Madonna was at that party, the Times noted. But in Burgoyne’s collection in Florida, there are no photos from that party, only from the earlier, happier years. And then there are the Madonna photos. Some are candid Polaroids of her making goofy faces with Burgoyne. Others are black and whites, intended for an album cover, of Madonna looking poised and fragile.

There are also numerous photos of Burgoyne, a handsome young man in a white shirt and suspenders.

Some of the photos were taken by Burgoyne, said Dowd, while it’s unclear who took others. She said it’s possible that Andy Warhol took some of the Polaroids, because they date to same years that he experimented with Polaroid portraits. Dowd said one of the more remarkable items in the collection is Burgoyne’s sketchbook, in which he inked photo booth sessions of Madonna, and a full-color sketch for her ‘Burning Up’ EP album cover. The image is totally ‘80s, all bright block colors. Madonna sports short hair and thick eyebrows.

“If you’re an enthusiast of entertainment back in the early ‘80s - and that was a heyday and pivotal time I think this is kind of a real step back in time to that period,” Dowd said. Dowd isn’t sure how much each piece will go for - the original Warhol portrait of Burgoyne should fetch a good price, she thinks - but she’s secretly hoping Madonna herself will hear about the auction and bid on some items. “It seems like it’s something she should have for her historical archives,” said Dowd. “It’s a big part of her life, from the beginning.” —AP