20th Jul

FR EE

Max 48ยบ Min 34ยบ

NO: 15514- Friday, July 20, 2012

www.kuwaittimes.net

Old faces in new govt See Pages 8 & 9

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah

Rola Dashti Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

Sheikh Mohammad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

In my view

By Priyanka Saligram

Rajesh Khanna: Bogart of Bollywood priyankasaligram@kuwaittimes.net

W

ednesday was a sad day for romantics in India and for Indians all across the world. Rajesh Khanna, the famous Indian film actor, passed away amidst hordes of inconsolable fans and family members. Khanna wasn’t called ‘The Phenomenon’ for nothing. In fact, if you ask any fan of his, they’ll tell you that the title would be the understatement of the century. He was an icon; a dark knight on a white steed who rode into every woman’s fantasy in the seventies.

It was said that his female fans ranged from age 8 to 80; an unusual occurrence in the seventies when Indian women’s ideas of romance were just about coming of age.

During the seventies and eighties, there were pockets of fans of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Dev Anand, along with other romantic heroes such as Shammi and Shashi Kapoor. But, the Khanna magic, in movies like ‘Amar Prem’ (Eternal Love), ‘Anand’ (Happiness), and ‘Aradhana’ (Worship), took the Indian film industry by storm. His slow smile used to light up the screen at its own sweet pace and those warm brown eyes... a direct, searing gaze into a woman’s eyes, would make her feel like she was the only girl in the world - and then proceed to turn her knees into wobbly jelly. She could be a young schoolgirl, a college student, a married lady, or an old granny, but they were all united by a dreamy look in their eyes upon glimpsing their heartthrob.

He was their dream come true on two legs. Tall, strikingly handsome and yet totally unaware of his own good looks - there was little wonder why his female fans wrote him love letters in blood or went on to marry his photograph while using their own blood as ‘sindoor’ (vermillion). It was said that every time his car left his house, his female fans would attack it hoping to catch a peek of him, and by the time his car returned home it would be covered in different shades of lipstick colors. The fan following was a singeing sea of passion; a generation of estrogen stimulated by the likes of no one India had seen before. A woman could have been changing her child’s nappy, studying for her exams, tending to an ailing relative, sadly waiting for her boyfriend’s call or living a mundane life - but the minute ‘O Mere Dil Ke Chain’ (My Heart’s Peace) song played on the radio, life would become all rainbows and unicorns again.

Khanna was known for the songs that were picturized on him and each went on to become a classic, thanks to R D Burman and Kishore Kumar, without whose ‘voices’ he would perhaps not have tasted this kind of maniacal success. Those Cupid’s arrows, in the form of songs from ‘Sacha Jhoota’ (True Lies), ‘Mere Jeevan Saathi’ (My Life Partner), ‘Kati Patang’ (Broken Kite), and ‘Andaz’ (Style), made it easy to fall in love.

‘Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana’ (This Journey of Life is so Beautiful) was the anthem of the ‘daredevil’ boys of the seventies who imitated the ‘Guru shirt’ long hairedmotorbike look of Rajesh Khanna - a surefire hit with the ladies. You could find a procession of these specimens outside all ladies’ colleges in India, thanks to Khanna-wannabes.

Khanna’s impulsive marriage to Dimple Kapadia, a wide-eyed debutante, left a sea of heartbroken female fans who would throng outside his house in Mumbai for a ‘darshan’ (holy glimpse) of him. It was said that tourist buses stopped outside his house due to public demand.

Khanna was best known for awakening women’s passions and their dormant feelings, which could be projected without guilt. He was the man who women felt could understand and respect their deepest fears or saddest thoughts; the ‘icon’ who was always there for them. He could be their brother, their father, son, or friend (in accordance with their age group). He was rightly described as a ‘phenomenon’ by a popular

Indian magazine, as the fan following he enjoyed was something truly unprecedented.

“Pushpa, I hate tears” and “Babumoshai” are dialogues from his films that are quoted often. In his most memorable film, ‘Anand’ (Happiness), a dying Khanna says “I don’t want to die... He is very weak, he will not be able to bear my death!”, referring to doctor and friend, Amitabh

Fasting during Ramadan is from?

Morning - night Noon – 6pm dawn – sunset

Bachchan. In the film, Khanna dies of cancer and in real life, he also succumbed to the Big C at the ripe age of 69. Is it life imitating art or a case of art imitating life?

Rajesh Khanna taught an entire generation to laugh, love, serenade, woo and be larger than life. All his adoring fans and admirers out there, please don’t cry for him...

Because Pushpa, you know he hates tears.

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Local Spotlight

Ramadan and the heat!

Kuwait’s my business

Who are Kuwait’s ‘difference makers’?

By Muna Al-Fuzai

By John P Hayes muna@kuwaittimes.net local@kuwaittimes.net

R

amadan this year comes in July and August, the hottest months of the year. I sympathize with those who have to work under the scorching sun. I feel sorry for them because it is so hard to expose yourself under the sun, unless you are at the beach or near a pool...but when it means you will be working in the street and have to stay out for long hours, then that it surely a cruelty and a way to abuse fasting workers. It will make them hate the process of fasting, instead of enjoying it!

Now, I wonder why companies are not being forced by the power of the law in Kuwait to have workers perform their duties after iftar when the sun is down and they are rested and can drink and eat as they wish? If we truly call this month of Ramadan the month of mercy, then we have to be kind to others and not only care about ourselves and our own needs.

Those who work on the street are human too, and they are not less than we are, so how come our needs come first while their needs don’t?

Another thing is the penalty for those who are caught eating, which is one month in jail or KD 100 penalty, or both. A KD 100 fine for someone they arrest drinking or smoking or eating? Is this person even a Muslim? Was he drinking to upset Muslims or did he not know the culture and the nature of this country ?

So, not knowing the culture is a good excuse, because why we let those companies force their labourers to work under the sun in this heat while fasting and blame the poor workers and not them?

I guess we tend to punish those whom we can and avoid those powerful managers who sit in air-conditioned offices because we can’t punish them. I believe we the people must embrace this issue and pressure the ministry of social affairs to make the efforts’ to simply do a humane job, at least in this month.

O

ne of my neighbors is the kind of guy that any civilized society would claim for its own. He’s young, intelligent, hard working, a kind husband, a firm father, a good son, a caring citizen, and so he won’t have a problem finding another country when he leaves his native Kuwait. In fact, I’d vouch for him to get into the USA. He’s a man who can make a difference wherever he lives.

What’s that? You ask why he’s moving out of Kuwait? The first time I met him, two years ago, he told me, “Kuwait will never change. It is sad, but too many Kuwaitis care for themselves only and not for Kuwait...” Consequently, he and his brood of brothers have decided to seek a new homeland as soon as it’s economically feasible. At first I thought he was just being dramatic.

Even in America, arguably the world’s greatest country, we have citizens who claim they will move away because the country is doomed. But it’s just talk. In Kuwait, however, it appears to be more serious.

“Why are you here?” another Kuwaiti asked when I moved into my

office at Gulf University. We had never met, so why was he unhappy with me? Was he going to accuse me of taking a job from a Kuwaiti? Not at all. “You can live in America,” said the man, a licensed engineer. “I’m a Kuwaiti who can only dream about living in America. If I could, I’d go back tomorrow.” He had spent 7 years studying in the USA. Similarly, upon hearing that I moved to Kuwait from Dallas, many students tell me that’s where they plan to move.

Since I’m older (not wiser) than nearly everyone I know in Kuwait, I tend to freely share my advice (right or wrong), and usually my response to these questions and statements goes like this. “Years from now, Kuwait will look back on this generation as one of the most critical in its history. This is a make or break generation. You have an opportunity to change Kuwait. You can lead, inspire and reform one of the most important countries of the world. You can make history here! Don’t you feel an obligation to be a difference maker in Kuwait?”

The responses are varied and stunning: Students will say, “No, sir, because my family has no wasta and

without it you can’t survive in Kuwait.” Or “No, sir, my country lost its way and even my grandfather swears we can’t get it back.” My older friends echo similar sentiments, but add that Kuwait doesn’t want leaders or change.

What’s stunning about these responses is a lack of hope. It’s impossible to imagine America without George Washington, who defeated the British, or without the dream of Martin Luther King Jr, or without John F Kennedy, who challenged people to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. Where are the Kuwaitis who are willing to hope, to dream, to challenge, and triumph? Where are the Kuwaitis who will become difference makers? I want to meet them! But hurry. Catch some of them before they depart.

NOTE: Dr John P Hayes is a marketing professor at Gulf University for Science & Technology. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

Just kiddin’, seriously

Kim K in Kuwait

By Sahar Moussa

sahar@kuwaittimes.net

K

im Kardashian coming to Kuwait is what I call unacceptable hypocrisy. Kuwait’s billboards confirm that she will be here post Ramadan and some people will get a chance to meet, dine and travel with Kim by subscribing to a well-known magazine by paying KD 60. A draw is set to take place and if you’re the lucky winner, you get to dine with Kim. She is visiting Kuwait to inaugurate the opening of Millions of Milkshakes store in October.

Honestly speaking, I don’t have any problem with Millions of Milkshakes. In fact, I love milk shakes and I will probably be the first person to buy a milkshake when it opens but I have a

problem with a person like Kim Kardashian opening it in a country that is “forbidding” almost everything in the name of religion.

Let me be clear here; I really hate judging people, and I do respect everybody’s business when it comes to their private life, but when it is someone like Kim Kardashian who is only known for her obscene movie, voluptuous derriere and fake reality TV show that shows nothing but low morals and a lot of plastic surgeries, then I have a problem.

I still have not forgiven the Islamist party for banning a lot of educational books and music that they claim are against

tradition and culture in Kuwait. This also resulted in the closing of Virgin Megastore. I still cannot forgive them for banning so many talented musicians and artistes from entering Kuwait to spread awareness and genuine art. And definitely, I will not forgive them for letting a person who has nothing except low morals and fake attitude to come to Kuwait and spread what message? There are some rumors that Kim apart from opening the Milkshakes store and visiting the US troops in Arifjan will attend some private events. I wonder if she is invited to any Islamist party.

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Heba Al-Qabandi is seen diving in the Bahamas with reef sharks in the background.

Kuwaiti diver

takes the plunge with sharks Awareness is crucial for marine life conservation, safety at sea

By Velina Nacheva

S

cuba diving had a life-changing impact on Kuwaiti Heba Al-Qabandi - a chemical engineer and founder of Kuwait-based Finz Dive Center. “Scuba diving changed my personality totally. I used to be a very anxious person and I used to get frustrated quickly. There was a lot of anger in me. After getting involved with scuba diving I calmed

down. I am much quieter now and prefer to be under the water,” Al-Qabandi says, explaining that her hobby changed her temper. Sitting against the backdrop of a wall adorned with pictures from diving

trips around the world and Kuwait in her Finz Centre office in Jabriya, Al-Qabandi spells out what it takes to be a female diving instructor, a diving enthusiast and an environmental engineer who raises awareness about marine life conservation and diving safety.

Al-Qabandi made her first steps in diving in 2001. “With time I became addicted, moving from one level to another,” she said. In just one year she managed to reach the Instructor Level and later took the Instructor Trainer and Course Director Licenses. She was certified as a Course Director - the highest level in the diving

school hierarchy, in Malaysia in 2006. “It was a good chance for me to become introduced to a new way of teaching and new instructors. Previously, I had worked with colleagues in Kuwait,” she says, regarding her choice of training destinations.

Al-Qabandi’s hobby took her diving around the world. “Every place has its taste and magic,” she says, recalling a string of diving trips to the Red Sea, Sharm El Sheikh, Lebanon’s cold and hot water springs, Spain and the Bahamas.

The most memorable and adrenalinerushing experience for her, she admits, was diving in the Bahamas, surrounded by 50 wild reef sharks while they were being fed. “The sharks came around us in the sea, which was quite an adventure for me. Some of the sharks were touching my shoulders. I couldn’t believe that I was swimming between so many sharks. I was so happy. I love sharks,” she recalled.

Al-Qabandi, who has also fed the sharks in Kuwait’s Scientific Centre, says that diving with sharks ‘in the wild’ is totally different.

Awareness , bio-diversity preservation Al-Qabandi, who is also an environmental engineer, includes discussions on marine life conservation and the protection of reefs in her training. Awareness is the key, she says, adding that she requires student divers to be more cautious about the environment and to clean up after themselves. “I show them how the garbage thrown in the sea is affecting the corals and the fish. Today, the amount of fish in the Kuwait sea are not as rich as before,” she stressed.

According to her, the first problem that causes pollution and threatens the bio-diversity in Kuwaiti waters is rubbish thrown from boats. “Everyone is doing it.

Even cigarette butts are strictly forbidden from being thrown into the sea,” she says. The second problem with marine preservation are divers who touch corals, which kills some. “For a coral to grow just one centimeter it takes about a full year,” she says. In her own words, boats do not anchor at the buoys around the islands in Kuwait but instead sometimes drop anchor, breaking a square meter of coral.

Who can scuba dive?

Scuba diving is for everyone above the age of 10. “If you are physically fit you can scuba dive,” Al-Qabandi says, but emphasizes that knowledge is crucial for a good scuba diver. “A good scuba diver should know the basic rules for safety and what is happening under the water. I always say that if you know how to swim, you will know how to scuba dive.

Buoyancy is very important,” she said.

Open to everyone, scuba diving is now gaining popularity among the ranks of women. “Before they were afraid, because it was culturally unacceptable

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

for a woman to dive. Today things are different,” Al-Qabandi noted.

Having more women opt for recreational diving creates an advantage for a female diving instructor because of the body touch and communication involved. “Women do understand each other. I understand their needs if there is any fear from the water or the underwater fauna. We (women) do understand each other and it is much easier for us to communicate,” she said.

In Kuwait, Al-Qabandi’s favourite places to scuba dive are Garoh and Kubbar islands, Taylors Rock and reef sites near Arifjan.

Learning at Finz Center As many as 600 diving students from different levels have been trained at the Finz Center (www.finz-center.com) since it opened its doors in 2006. The center’s weeklong training includes classes, a theory exam, two swimming pool practices followed by four dive sessions in the sea. The theory classes include lessons about equipment, the physics of water and air, physiology and how under water pressure affects the human body. The lessons also include sessions on the environment, diving tables for the different levels, and how much time divers are allowed to stay under water and at what depth.

How important is it for a novice scuba diver to have solid knowledge prior to jumping off the boat at sea? Al-Qabandi explains that in order to be licensed as a scuba diver you must go through all the steps. Once you pass the lecture and the swimming pool training, you will be ready to dive in the sea under the supervision of an instructor.

Proper and complete training and supervision, a pivotal part of licensing scuba divers, has often taken a back seat to making money in Kuwait, she said.

The emphasis on complete training is what makes Finz Center stand out, even as

A group photo of Finz Center diving instructors and staff members.

scuba-diving training centers in Kuwait mushroom. The Finz Center follows all the details, standards and organization set by the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) - a non-profit association of scuba instructors. Finz Center trains divers to learn about safety and precautions, all diving rules, as well as the sport’s do’s and don’ts. She says, “We train them how to handle a problem if anything happens”.

In Al-Qabandi’s words, some dive centers in Kuwait skip parts of the training and do not follow the procedures thoroughly. “I am sure this will not affect the dive center, but will affect the diver himself. I have seen many licensed divers who I would not let dive,” Al-Qabandi says. “I get the feeling that the diving training in Kuwait is becoming bad. They are (more concerned) about getting the money than training the people,” she warns. For her, such an oversight creates dangers either because some instructors issue licenses without swimming pool training or, in cases when a diver is good at a swimming pool, he will be given a license without diving at sea under supervision.

“Some diving schools throw the students into the sea and do not supervise them or train them in certain skills. It is negligence,” she insists.

Students can correct such negligence by filing a complaint with the international organization that has licensed a diving center. Provided that there is a complaint, NAUI will investigate the trainer and the school and they can revoke the license. Many instructors in Kuwait, she says, have been stopped because of such complaints. “The problem is that students do not know that they have the right to complain about an instructor and seek proper training. The instructor does not convey this to students simply because it is not in his or her favor.”

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

The new Cabinet lineup

PRIME MINISTER: Sheikh Jaber AlMubarak Al-Sabah

FIRST DEPUTY PREMIER, INTERIOR MINISTER: Sheikh Ahmad AlHumoud Al-Sabah

DEPUTY PREMIER, FOREIGN MINISTER: Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled AlSabah

DEPUTY PREMIER, DEFENCE MINISTER: Sheikh Ahmad Al-Khaled AlSabah

MINISTER OF OIL AND ISLAMIC AFFAIRS: Hani Hussein

FINANCE AND EDUCATION: Nayef Al-Hajraf

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY AND HOUSING: Anas Al-Saleh

JUSTICE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS: Jamal Shehab

PUBLIC WORKS: Fadhel Safar

COMMUNICATIONS AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS AND LABOUR: Salem Al-Othaina

INFORMATION AND STATE MINISTER FOR CABINET AFFAIRS: Sheikh Mohammad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

HEALTH MINISTER: Ali AlObaidi

ELECTRICITY AND WATER AND MUNICIPALITIES: Abdulaziz Al-Ibraheem

PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT AND STATE MINISTER FOR NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AFFAIRS: Rola Dashti

Old faces retained in ‘temporary’ Cabinet Rola Dashti only female and MP in new govt

By B Izzak KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah issued a decree yesterday forming the new Cabinet, which is expected to last for only a few months until the upcoming parliamentary elections when the Cabinet is required to resign. The new 14-member Cabinet, headed by Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah, retained 13 members from the previous government and one newcomer, strengthening indications that the government will be temporary. At the same time, the ministers of defense, interior, foreign affairs, health, public works and electricity and water were returned

to their earlier posts. Additionally, Hani Hussein was retained as oil minister and also as acting minister of awqaf and Islamic affairs, while education minister Nayef Al-Hajraf was moved to finance, replacing Mustafa Al-Shamali who was forced to resign. Furthermore, commerce and industry minister Anas AlSaleh was retained and given the housing portfolio while communications minister Salem Al-Othaina was also made acting minister of social affairs and labour.

MP Rola Dashti was the only newcomer in the Cabinet, appointed state minister for planning and development and state minister for National Assembly

affairs. She is also the sole woman and only lawmaker in the Cabinet. Under the law, at least one MP must be included in the Cabinet. There were no women in the previous Cabinet. The new Cabinet is expected to recommend to the Amir to dissolve the 2009 Assembly, which was reinstated by the constitutional court last month and paves the way for holding new elections.

The June 20 constitutional court ruling nullified the Feb 2012 elections, scrapping the 2012 Assembly and reinstating the 2009 Assembly, which was dissolved in December last year. The court based its ruling on the grounds that a decree that dissolved the 2009

Assembly was found to be flawed. The previous government vowed that it would take all measures to implement the constitutional court ruling, which is expected to include dissolving the Assembly and calling for new elections.

The dates for the two actions have not been announced and the new election is likely to be held in early October or November. The opposition has demanded that the government quickly dissolve the 2009 Assembly and call for fresh elections, and warned against amending the electoral law and the voting system, with some parts of the opposition threatening they would boycott the election if changes take place.

Local FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

KAC insists highest safety standards maintained KUWAIT: Kuwait Airways regional manager Bader Al-Omairi said Kuwait Airways abides by the highest safety standards onboard its flights. During a press conference, Al-Omairi denied rumours of the stoppage of some KAC flights due to technical failures, saying that the problems that occurred on Jeddah and Frankfurt flights were easily resolved. He emphasized that the safety of Kuwaiti flights and their passengers is a red line for the organization, which has no technical problems to resolve.

He added that the concern of the Communications Minister Salem AlOthaina and top management of the airlines have also resolved all problems which face the organization’s work, explaining that privatization of the company remains in the hands of higher authorities. He noted that ending flights to some destinations in the company’s operational plan for the year 2012-2013 is based upon com-

mercial and operational demands.

Regarding the company’s plan for the umrah season, he said Kuwait Airways has achieved some 90 percent of its booking goals for this season.

The regional manager for marketing Abdullah Al-Qaisi said the number of operational hours for this year has been reduced by canceling some flights and reducing the number of flights to other destinations. Al-Qaisi added that operational plans for this year are based upon two phases, the first starts on 22nd July when the Abu Dhabi and Muscat route will end. Also, Kuwait Airways will stop providing service to Geneva on Sept 16 due to maintenance programs. Regarding the second phase, he said KAC flights to Sohag will be reduced from 4 to 2 flights and Alexandria flights from 6 to 2 flights, with the morning flight continuing. For Dubai, flights will be reduced from 21 to 14 flights weekly and the Damascus route has been can-

KUWAIT: Kuwait Airways officials are seen at a press conference yesterday.

— Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat celed due to the political situation in Syria. Regarding leasing new airplanes, Al-Qaisi said all studies and plans have

been delivered to authorities to lease four new aircraft and the organization is waiting for authorization. — KUNA

What to do when the mercury hits 52 C? Hotels, resorts and clubs attract water lovers

By Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad AlAbdullah Mubarak Al-Sabah inaugurates the operations center for disaster management at the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) yesterday. — KUNA

Info minister inaugurates KRCS operations center KUWAIT: Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Mubarak Al-Sabah inaugurated yesterday the operations center for disaster management in the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS). Sheikh Mohammed stressed to reporters after the opening the importance of using the latest technology to monitor all types of natural disasters around the world via an international network. He hailed the latest technology used by the KRCS in monitoring natural disasters, considering it a “major achievement” by using national caders. He also praised the society’s rapid response to all stricken areas around the world. For his part, KRCS’ Chairman Barjas Al-Barjas thanked the minister for his tour, saying that his visit would boost the society’s efforts in all arenas. — KUNA

The heat is soaring. Schools are off.

The roads are melting and we have seven days a week to fill. The summer is usually associated with sand and sun but in Kuwait itís all about water too.

Swimming is a favourite pastime. But where can we go to swim? Many people, especially expats, are not aware of all available locations in Kuwait where they can swim. If you are not aware of a clubís working hours then you are in for a surprise.

Messila Beach, for instance, is still welcoming visitors, although the beach is closed. People can sit on the beach, though they are not allowed to swim in the sea. There are also swimming pools available, which are not always open.

This could be annoying, especially for those who are coming only to swim in the sea. And in this extremely hot weather it is difficult to sit in the sun without going swimming.

Additionally, there are no clearly marked signs announcing that swimming in the sea is forbidden, so visitors will only know they cannot swim if they enter the club. According to Ahmad AlKandari, supervisor at Messila Beach, the beach was closed due to pollution in the water. ìThis rule was applied based on instructions from the Ministry of Health, as there are inspectors from the ministry

coming every week or month to take samples from the water, and they advised us to close the sea and not let visitors swim in it, as it may be dangerous due to pollution and bacteria,î he told Kuwait Times. Messila Beach is open from 9:00 amñ10:00 pm on weekdays, and swimming pools are available from 10 am-12 pm, 1 pm-3 pm, and 4 pm-6 pm. Messila Beach does not offer annual memberships, though visitors pay an entrance fee of 500 fils on weekdays, KD 1 on Friday, and KD 2 on Saturday, which is a special day for women.

Shaab Club is another option for swimming, and it also has a beach. Itís open daily from 8:00 am-12:00 am. The entrance fee is KD 3, or there is a membership that costs a family KD 260 per year, including parents and 3 children, and KD 60 for a maid. The cost is KD 160 for one person. Besides the beach, there are two swimming pools, one being covered and the other is open-air for children. There are also different facilities available, such as a gym, billiards, and a restaurant.

Membership at Al Shaab Club entitles members to use the Ras Al Ard Club, which applies the same fees. This club is open from 8:00 amñ1:00 am. There are also two open air swimming pools, one for adults and other for children. The club also organizes musical parties in the evening and there are billiards, foot-

ball, and karate lessons for children.

Egaila Beach does not offer membership and the entrance fee is 500 fils on weekdays and KD 1 on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They also provide a course of eight swimming lessons per month for KD 20 and is open from 8:00 amñ11:00 pm. The receptionist noted that the sea is accessible and not polluted, though there are some rocks near the shore.

Messila Beach is not the only beach closed, as the swimming ban has spread to Bidaía. The beach at the Movenpick Hotel and Resort Al-Bidaía is also closed because of the pollution, though they offer guests access to their swimming pool for KD 15. If the visitor is a guest of a hotel guest, then he will only pay KD 12.

Those seeking more luxury can enjoy swimming in the sea at the Seashell Julaia Hotel Resort for a fee of KD 15, and if the visitor books a chalet they can swim at no additional cost. Also, the resort has a special offer for the holy month of Ramadan with great discounts on chalets, as one-bedroom chalets only cost KD 45, including dinner.

Those looking to swim had access to the sea for KD 15 at the Marina Hotel, the Palm Beach Hotel and Spa, and others. But these hotels have now stopped accepting visitors who are not members of the health club or guests at the hotel.

Kuwait greets Ramadan with debut of dates SANAA: Yemeni men wait to collect food aid donated by a Kuwaiti charity laid out for internally displaced families living in a district of the Yemeni capital yesterday. Kuwait has sent food parcels for some 200 families just days before the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins across the Islamic world. — AFP

KUWAIT: Kuwaiti families will greet the holy month of Ramadan this year with the first of this season’s dates on the table as “Sa’maran” dates are on greengrocers’ stalls, with the dates season lasting through August till the end of summer.

Dates seller Sultan Al-Enizi told KUNA yesterday that choices early in the fasting season include “Birhi” and “Khlass”, while later choices include “Hlali”. Kuwaitis prefer semi-ripe “Birhi” while

they most often opt for “Khlass” and “Sukkari” for the fully ripened fruit. Dates distributor Amer AlNaji meanwhile said that the choices vary in sweetness of taste, fiber texture, dietary content, and storing suitability, he said. Some types are perfect for storage, while others are most suitable for extraction of syrup. Early season types are higher in price due to limitation in quantity, and the prices go down gradually into Ramadan

with the debut of more and more types. Seller Salem Al-Omani said the local market now offers locally-produced Birhi as well as produce from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All types go up in demand for the holy month, particularly produce from the Arabian Peninsula, he remarked. There are also some types that come into the market in August from Iran, Egypt, and the Maghreb. — KUNA

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Tunisia’s Ben Ali gets life ‘for complicity in murders’

12

31 dead, over 100 missing in Zanzibar ferry disaster

14

Mukherjee poised to win as new Indian president

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CAIRO: In this file photo, former Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman is escorted by police after he submitted his candidacy papers at the Higher Presidential Elections Commission. —AP

Egypt’s ex-spy chief dies Suleiman ‘left with big secrets’ CAIRO: Egypt’s former spy chief Omar Suleiman, deposed president Hosni Mubarak’s top lieutenant and keeper of secrets, died yesterday, the country’s official news agency reported. He was 76. Suleiman, who served as vice president during Mubarak’s final days in office, said little but had a finger in virtually every vital security issue confronting Egypt, was dubbed by the media as the “the black box.” Like Mubarak, he was a fierce enemy of Islamists in Egypt and throughout the region, and a friend to the United States and Israel. After the revolution, Suleiman disappeared from public view only to return earlier this year as a presidential candidate, sparking fears of a Mubarak regime comeback. He said he ran to try to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power, but he was disqualified and in the end an Islamist leader, Mohammed Morsi, won presidency for the first time in Egypt’s history. The official Middle East News Agency said that Suleiman had suffered from lung and heart

problems for months and his health condition had sharply deteriorated over the past three weeks. He died of a heart attack early yesterday while undergoing medical tests at a hospital in Cleveland, MENA reported, citing an unidentified Egyptian diplomat in Washington. His three daughters will accompany the body to be buried in Egypt, the agency said.

An intelligence official said Suleiman would receive a military funeral, a decision that was likely to anger pro-democracy activists who see it as a way to honor a man they despise as the main henchman in Mubarak’s repressive regime. Unlike many ex-regime figures who have been imprisoned or put on trial over a catalogue of corruption charges, Suleiman never faced legal action. But he was among the top military and security officials who testified in Mubarak’s trial. He denied that Mubarak issued direct orders to use violence against protesters but hinted that Mubarak learned

about killings when he ordered formation of a committee to investigate the killings and injuries. The ousted leader was convicted of failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising and sentenced to life in prison.

A leading member of the Brotherhood said Suleiman’s death means the loss of a wealth of information about Mubarak regime. “He left with big secrets,” Essam el-Erian said in a tweet. Hossam Sweilam, a former general who has known Suleiman since the 1950s when they both joined the military academy, said Suleiman’s lack of political ambition helped him keep his job during nearly two decades as the director of the intelligence agency in a paranoid regime. “There was no intelligence chief who survived that long but Suleiman,” he said. Mubarak was known to fear and get rid of politicians who rise in prominence.

Suleiman was appointed vice president on Jan. 29, 2011, at the peak of last year’s revolution, a last-

gasp attempt by Mubarak to save his political life as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets demanding his ouster. But the desperate measures, including talks between Suleiman and the formerly outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, were unable to stave off Mubarak’s overthrow. “He tried to rescue the regime from sinking at the very last stage because he is a man with strong loyalty to the political leadership,” Sweilam said.

It was Suleiman who grimly appeared on television on Feb. 11, 2011, to announce that Egypt’s leader of nearly three decades was stepping down and handing power to a military council. This marked the end of the 18-day uprising but opened up a new chapter of tumultuous transition under the rule of the generals. Suleiman’s sudden emergence as a presidential candidate and his disqualification along with the two Islamist front-runners raised suspicion that the bid was orchestrated by the military generals to get rid of Islamists. —AP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Egyptian lawyer could face death for drug smuggling JEDDAH: An Egyptian lawyer whose arrest in April led to a diplomatic spat between Egypt and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been charged with drug smuggling and could face the death penalty, his lawyer told Reuters yesterday. Ahmed el-Gezawi was arrested for drug possession as he was trying the enter the kingdom at the Jeddah airport in April. His arrest led to demonstrations outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo, where almost 1,000 people hurled insults at the kingdom’s rulers, leading it to recall its ambassador on April 28.

The case sparked protests in Cairo, prompting Riyadh to close its embassy there in a sign of its deepening anxiety about the future direction of a formerly close ally after last year’s revolution. The ambassador returned to

Cairo a week later after high-level Egyptian delegations visited Riyadh to assure the Saudi authorities they were committed to the relationship. Saudi Arabia is a major donor of aid to Egypt.

“Yesterday was the first session in his trial. We received the list of charges and requested some time to present our defence so the case was delayed until September 5,” Gezawi’s Saudi lawyer, Hesham Hanboli, told Reuters by phone yesterday.

Wednesday’s hearing was devoted to the formal declaration of charges and Gezawi’s response and presentation of a defence will take place in the subsequent court session, the lawyer said.

Gezawi was charged with smuggling around 21,000 pills of the antianxiety drug, Xanax. “The punishment

for smuggling drugs can be the death penalty... and that is what the general prosecutor is asking for,” Hanboli said.

Activists in Cairo say Gezawi helped Egyptians facing trial in the Saudi criminal justice system, which international human rights groups say conducts unfair trials, an accusation Riyadh denies.

His relatives and Egyptian activists have also said they believe he was earlier sentenced in absentia for insulting Saudi King Abdullah, and then arrested as he entered the kingdom to perform the Muslim pilgrimage. Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Egypt strenuously denied at the time of the protests that Gezawi had either been tried or sentenced in absentia. He added that an Egyptian living in Egypt could not legally be convicted in

Saudi Arabia of insulting King Abdullah.

“El Gezawi is known to have been supporting the case of imprisoned Egyptians in Saudi without fair trials,” said Yehia el-Gamal, a member of the Journalists Syndicate’s committee for the defence of prisoners of conscience, one of the most active groups in Egypt defending political detainees.

During the hearing Gezawi lifted his shirt to show scars from what he said was abuse during detention and questioning in Jeddah. The judge requested further investigation of the abuse claims, the result of which is to be announced in three weeks, Hanboli said. The spokesperson for the Bureau of Investigation and General Prosecution was not available for comment. — Reuters

Muslim cleric shot dead in Tatarstan MOSCOW: A top Muslim cleric in Russia’s Tatarstan province was shot dead yesterday and another was wounded by a car bomb, attacks that the province’s leader and local religious authorities said were probably related to the priests’ criticism of radical Islamists. Valiulla Yakupov, the deputy to the Muslim province’s chief mufti, was gunned down yesterday as he left his house in Tatarstan’s regional capital of Kazan, Russia’s Investigative Committee said. Minutes later, chief mufti Ildus Faizov was wounded in the leg after an explosive device ripped through his car in central Kazan, it said.

Both clerics were known as critics of radical Islamist groups that advocate a strict and puritan version of Islam known as Salafism. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Russian media his agency was looking into the clerics’ stances as a possible reason for the attacks. The rise of Salafism in this oil-rich Volga River province has been fueled by the influx of Muslim clerics from Chechnya and other predominantly Muslim provinces of Russia’s Caucasus region, where Islamic insurgency has been raging for years. Last year, Doku Umarov, leader of embattled Chechen separatists, issued a religious decree calling on radical Islamists from the Caucasus to move to the denselypopulated Volga River region that includes Tatarstan.

The 49-year-old Faizov became Tatarstan’s chief mufti in 2011 and began a crackdown on radical Islamists by dismissing ultraconservative preachers and banning textbooks from Saudi Arabia, where the government-approved religious doctrine is based on Salafism. He has also been criticized by media in Tatarstan for allegedly profiting on tours he organized for Muslim pilgrims and for trying to gain control of one of the oldest and largest mosques in Kazan, which receives hefty donations from thousands of believers. Tatarstan’s regional leader condemned the attack and called for tougher measures against radical Islamists. “What happened today is an obvious challenge,” Rustam Minnikhanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. “Our position must be much tougher. Traditional Islam has never allowed such things.” — AP

KAZAN: Police experts examine the remains of the car of the Islamic leader of Russia’s main Muslim region of Tatarstan, following a car blast in Kazan yesterday. — AFP

DOHA: Qatari Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali bin Fahd Al-Hajri (center) addresses the third meeting of the International Working Group on sanctions on the Syrian regime yesterday. — AFP

Syrian forces strike back after bombing Assad wishes new defense minister luck BEIRUT: Syrian forces struck back against rebels yesterday with attack helicopters and shelling in Damascus, one day after an audacious rebel attack in the capital killed three leaders of the regime and left President Bashar Assad’s hold on power increasingly tenuous. The whereabouts of President Bashar Assad, his wife and their three young children were not known.

Although Assad does not appear in public frequently, his absence was notable following such a serious blow his inner circle.

Thousands of Syrians streamed across the Syrian border into Lebanon, fleeing as fighting in the capital entered its fifth straight day, witnesses said. Residents near the Masnaa crossing point - about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Damascus - said hundreds of private cars as well as taxis and buses were ferrying people across. Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of nearly 300 unarmed UN observers in Syria, condemned the violence and encouraged a diplomatic solution, which appears increasingly out of reach. He spoke just hours before a planned UN Security council vote on whether to renew the mission’s mandate, which expires Friday, and impose new sanctions on the Damascus regime.

“It pains me to say, but we are not on the track for peace in Syria,” Mood said in Damascus. The UN vote had been sched-

uled for Wednesday, but was postponed after key Western nations and Russia failed to agree the text of a resolution aimed ending the escalating violence. Russia, a longtime ally of Syria, has stood by the Syrian regime and vowed to veto any measures that could lead to international military intervention. In Thursday’s fighting in Damascus, government forces fired heavy machine guns and mortars in battles with rebels in a number of neighborhood in the capital, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Adding to the confusion, Syria’s state-run TV warned citizens that gunmen were disguising themselves in military uniforms to carry out attacks. “Gunmen are wearing Republican Guard uniforms in the neighborhoods of Tadamon, Midan, Qaa and Nahr Aisha, proving that they are planning attacks and crimes,” SANA said.

Many residents were fleeing Damascus’ Mezzeh neighborhood after troops surrounded it and posted snipers on rooftops while exchanging gunfire with opposition forces. The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said rebels damaged one helicopter and disabled three military vehicles. Rebels fired rocketpropelled grenades at a police station in the Jdeidet Artouz area, killing at least five officers, the group said.

Activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government bars most media from working independently in the country. The unarmed observers were authorized for 90 days to monitor a cease-fire and implementation of Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan, but the truce never took hold and the monitors have found themselves largely locked down because of the persistent violence. Mood said the observers “will become relevant when the political process takes off.” Syria’s 16-month crisis began with protests inspired by the Arab Spring wave of revolutions, but it has evolved into a civil war, with rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Wednesday’s rebel bomb attack on highlevel crisis meeting struck the harshest blow yet at the heart of Assad’s regime.

The White House said the bombing showed Assad was “losing control” of Syria.

Syrian TV confirmed the deaths of Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general and the most senior government official to be killed in the rebels’ battle to oust Assad; Gen. Assef Shawkat, 62, the deputy defense minister who is married to Assad’s elder sister, Bushra, and is one of the most feared figures in the inner circle; and Hassan Turkmani, 77, a former defense minister who died of his wounds in the hospital. — Agencies

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

No rush to war in Israel over Bulgaria bus bomb Netanyahu govt blames Iran, Hezbollah for attack

Zine el Abidine Ben Ali

Ben Ali gets life ‘for complicity in murders’ TUNIS: Tunisia’s ex-strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for complicity in the murders of 43 protesters in the 2011 revolution that toppled him, a judge said yesterday. Hedi Ayari of the Tunis military court said Ben Ali was judged with around 40 of his former officials, including General Ali Seriati, exhead of presidential security, who was given a 20-year prison term. Former interior minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem was sentenced to 15 years, while the case against Ahmed Friaa, another former interior minister, was dismissed.

In total, 21 of those charged were acquitted, and Ben Ali was the only defendant to receive a life sentence, a court official said. The other sentences ran between five and 20 years. Families of the victims reacted angrily, saying the sentences for Seriati and Kacem were too lenient and criticising the dismissal of the case against Friaa. “All those convicted should have got life in prison,” came shouts from a handful of relatives who made it to the sentencing hearing, which was only announced earlier in the day.

“Our children are not insects so that some of those convicted should only be condemned to five years in prison,” said Saida Sifi, whose 19-year-old son was one of those killed. “We will have revenge. We won’t stand silent with our arms crossed.” After the hearing, Lamia Farhani, president of the Association of the Families of Martyrs, rushed at the sister of one of the defendants, an officer whose innocence she had proclaimed.

“There is no law; there is no justice,” Farhani shouted.

The defendants were accused in connection with the 43 deaths and the wounding of 97 other people. In all, more than 300 people died in the popular uprising that forced Ben Ali into exile in Saudi Arabia in January 2011. The ousted president had already been sentenced to more than 66 years in prison in three separate trials, including for embezzlement, illegal possession of weapons and narcotics, housing fraud and abuse of power.

The event that sent waves rippling throughout the Arab world occurred in December 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian who could find no other job than selling fruit, set fire to himself in frustration after harassment by the authorities. His death the following month set off revolts throughout the small north African country, which were soon picked up in Egypt and elsewhere. Since Ben Ali’s departure, Tunisia has adopted a new democratic constitution and held elections, which brought the Islamist Ennahda party to power in December 2011. —AFP

JERUSALEM: Israel signalled yesterday it would not rush into any open conflict with Iran or its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah despite blaming them for a deadly attack on its citizens in Bulgaria.

A suicide bomber killed himself, five Israelis and a Bulgarian driver on a tourist bus in Burgas airport on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly promised to “react powerfully” to what he called “Iranian terror”. Sofia officials have yet to say publicly who they think organised the attack and Iran dismissed as unfounded Israel’s accusations that it had played a role. The bomber was said to have been 36 years old and Bulgarian authorities were trying to identify him from DNA samples taken from his remains.

In a statement, the Iranian embassy in Bulgaria said Israel’s charges were “a familiar method of the Zionist regime, with a political aim, and is a sign of the weakness ... of the accusers”. Hezbollah has not commented on the bombing.

Israel’s allegation, based on suspicions that Iranian and Hezbollah agents have been trying for years to score a lethal strike on its interests abroad, triggered speculation in local media that the Netanyahu government might now hit back hard.

The Israelis have long threatened to resort to military force to curb Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Defence Minister Ehud Barak sounded

more restrained yesterday about a response to the Bulgaria attack.

Speaking on Israel Radio, he said the country would “do everything possible in order to find those responsible, and those who dispatched them, and punish them” - language that appeared to suggest covert action against individuals.

President Shimon Peres said on his Facebook page that Israel would “take action in every terror nest, worldwide. It has the means to do so, and we are determined to act in this spirit.” Israel may be reluctant to cross Western partners by rushing into a full-on confrontation which would stretch its military capabilities and possibly draw Iranian escalation against U.S. targets in the Gulf and disruptions of the global oil supply.

“Risk management” A clash with Hezbollah, which the Israeli military says has stockpiled as many as 80,000 rockets in south Lebanon, carries the risk of igniting that frontier at a time when the Netanyahu government is worried about turmoil in neighbouring Syria. Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli army general who served as national security adviser from 2003 to 2006, played down the prospects of the Bulgaria bombing spilling over into war.

“I think that any response, whatever it may be, will not be an immediate response,” Eiland told Israel Radio separately. “Any response, whatever it may be, will not be in the form of an air force

operation, or strike - certainly not in Iran over this matter, nor in Lebanon.” Barak, whose remarks focused on Hezbollah’s alleged role in the Bulgaria bombing, described it as the most devastating of a series of recent plots against Israelis, including diplomats.

Some analysts believe Iran is trying to avenge the assassination of scientists from its nuclear programme, which it blamed on Israel and Western allies. Iran says its atomic ambitions are peaceful, denying foreign charges of secret military designs. Hezbollah has its own scores to settle with Israel. Two years after their 2006 border war, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia lost its commander, Imad Moughniyeh, to a Damascus car bomb it said was the work of Israeli spies, and vowed revenge.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2009 to 2011, Uzi Arad, confirmed that Israel killed Moughniyeh - though the country has never formally claimed responsibility for his death nor those of the Iranian scientists. Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, Arad described the Bulgaria bombing as part of a “dynamic of escalation” but counselled the Netanyahu government to invest in better intelligence and security cooperation with foreign partners. He said “risk management” was required and that Wednesday’s bloodshed may be an “unavoidable price” of the internal and international pressure building on Iran and its allies.— Reuters

Unrecognised Karabakh votes as tensions rise STEPANAKERT: The self-declared state of Nagorny-Karabakh was voting yesterday in leadership elections as fears grow of a new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over its status. “All polling stations are open, elections are under way,” the secretary of Karabakh’s central elections commission Raia Nazarian told AFP. Nagorny-Karabakh, which is not recognised by any country in the world, was claimed by ethnic Armenians backed by Yerevan in a horrific war after the collapse of the Soviet Union that claimed some 30,000 lives.

The international community still considers it to be part of Azerbaijan. Now almost exclusively populated by Armenians, the region calls itself the Nagorny-Karabakh republic, but its independence is not even recognised by Armenia. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has repeatedly warned it intends to retake the territory.

International recognition, security and improving economic conditions in the lush but isolated region are the main issues in the elections, which pit incumbent leader Bako Sahakyan against retired army general Vitaliy Balasanian. Analysts say Sahakyan’s win is a foregone conclusion because he is backed by the three main political parties represented in the rebel parliament. “Bako Sahakyan will win in the first round, leaving his challenger far behind. There will be no second round,” said Aharon Adibekian, an analyst with the

STEPANAKERT: A man holds his daughter’s hand as he casts his ballot in Stepanakert yesterday. — AFP Yerevan-based Sociometre Centre.

With energy-rich Azerbaijan pouring money into its defence budget and international efforts to agree a final peace deal making no progress, analysts have warned the region is a powderkeg that could explode at any time. Capitalising on populist promises, Sahakyan, 51, has pledged

to pursue social and economic reforms as well as assuring voters his forces will repel any attempt by Baku to regain control.

Deadly exchanges of fire across the line of control that marks the 1994 ceasefire are still a frequent occurrence, while the forests of Karabakh are littered with landmines from the war. —AFP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Norway set to mark ’versary of massacre OSLO: One year after Anders Behring Breivik’s deadly attacks, Norway will on Sunday commemorate his 77 victims with ceremonies set to reassert a national ambition to not let the carnage change its open, democratic values. On July 22, 2011, the rightwing extremist first set off a bomb near the government building in Oslo, killing eight people, before going on a shooting rampage on the nearby Utoeya island, where the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing was hosting a summer camp. He killed 69 people on the island, most of them teens.

To mark the first anniversary of the massacre, religious ceremonies will be held across the usually peaceful Scandinavian country, wreaths will be laid at the sites of both attacks, and there will be a concert near the Oslo city hall. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is set to attend a service at the Oslo cathedral, alongside the royal family, and to give a speech to Labour Party youth on Utoeya.

Shortly after the worst attacks in Norway since World War II, the Labour Party leader made a deep impression with his vow-reiterat-

ed many times since then-that Norway’s response to the bloodbath would be “more democracy, more openness and more humanity, but never naivety”. “What Stoltenberg achieved with his well-chosen words was to set the tone for our national reaction after the catastrophe. He contributed to avoiding that the atmosphere became filled with hate and coloured by thirst for revenge,” a commentator with Norway’s paper of reference, Aftenposten, wrote Wednesday.

“We can ask ourselves whether the most important thing after July 22 was not the preservation of what we have. For we have for many years been able to enjoy living in an all in all well-functioning democracy, with more openness and freedom of speech than most other countries in the world,” he said.

Besides a few minor measures like legal amendment proposals and hiked protection for high-level politicians and seats of power, Norway has not noticeably increased security or limited public access since the attacks. One can for instance still sometimes spot

cars parked right outside the entrance to parliament. “Norway has not changed,” said Trond Henry Blattmann, who heads a support group for the victims’ families and who himself lost a son on Utoeya.

“We can in any case never build fences high enough to protect us completely,” he told AFP, but added that he nonetheless hoped a commission created by the government last year to draw lessons from the massacre would inspire some changes, “like improved online surveillance and better surveillance of the extreme right to prevent future attacks”. The July 22 commission is scheduled to present its conclusion on August 13. Among the survivors of the island massacre, opinions differ. “What has changed in Norway?

Not enough,” said Tore Sinding Bekkedal, expressing disgust at the virulence of some of the reactions to a group of Roma camped out in the heart of the Norwegian capital who have been the subject of heated debate in recent weeks. “These opinions should be met with a much harsher response,” he told AFP.—AFP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Murdoch tabloid journalist held in computer hack probe LONDON: British police yesterday arrested a journalist from Rupert Murdoch’s market-leading tabloid The Sun on suspicion of computer hacking, its publisher said. Police said one man was arrested in a dawn raid on his home in north London as part of Operation Tuleta, an investigation into computer hacking linked to Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. “Officers from Operation Tuleta arrested a man at his home in north

London at about 6:30 am (0530 GMT) this morning,” a Scotland Yard spokesman told AFP, saying that no further details were immediately available.

News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch’s US-based News Corporation media empire, confirmed that one of its employees had been detained. “A journalist from The Sun was arrested this morning,” a spokeswoman told AFP. The arrest is the seventh as part

of Operation Tuleta. Tuleta is one of three linked inquiries sparked by the phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World weekly tabloid. The operation is being run alongside Operation Weeting, an investigation into phone hacking at British newspapers, and Operation Elveden, into inappropriate payments by journalists to police and public officials. More than 60 people have been arrested

under the three investigations, including Rebekah Brooks, a former top aide to Murdoch and friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Cameron’s former media chief Andy Coulson.

Australian-born tycoon Murdoch closed the 168-year-old News of the World in July 2011 after revelations that it had accessed the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, as well as dozens of public figures. — AFP

UK police accuse three of Pakistan terror training LONDON: Three British Muslims - including a convert who was featured in a documentary about radical Islam and a former London police support officer - have been charged with traveling to Pakistan for terror training, police said early yesterday. Scotland Yard said in a statement that Richard Dart, 29, Imran Mahmood, 21, and Jahangir Alom, 26, had traveled to Pakistan between 2010 and 2012 “with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts.” The statement also alleges that the three provided others with advice and counseling about how to travel to Pakistan, find training, and how to stay safe while there.

A fourth person, 22-year-old Ruksana Begum, was charged with having material likely to be of use for terrorism. All four had been arrested earlier this month, and at least two of the accused had previously come to public attention. Dart was featured in a recent BBC documentary, “My Brother the Islamist,” which chronicled the efforts of his filmmaker stepbrother Robb Leech to understand why the former had rejected his family and embraced an uncompromising form of Islam. He was also featured in a YouTube video in which he criticized the British royal family, the marriage of Prince William to the then-Kate Middleton, and UK foreign policy.

Alom - a former police support officer who was arrested in an armed raid at his home - also made a YouTube appearance in which he described his time as an officer and expounded on his hardline beliefs.

Scotland Yard did not immediately release much information on Mahmood, whose address was given as Northolt in northwest London. The force said Begum was caught with a computer drive carrying issues of a publication it identified as “Inspire,” the name given to Al-Qaeda’s English-language magazine. Police said she had the documents “without reasonable excuse.”

Mahmood and Alom both live close to Olympic sites.

Alom’s home is only a mile (1.6 kilometers) from London’s Olympic Stadium, while Mahmood lives just down the street from the site of an air force base from where Typhoon jets and other military elements are due to provide security for the 2012 Games. Nevertheless police insisted the case has nothing to do with the games, which begin July 27. — AP

NEWBURY: Rosemary Shav, a chaperone from Nigeria (right) puts her arm on the back of Nafeesa Rahman Qazi, of Northern Pakistan, while attending the “Common Bond” summer camp. Teens from across the world who lost loved one due to terrorism gathered for the 10 day camp to share their feelings, insights and a chance to be the world’s next generation of international peacemakers. — AP

ZANZIBAR: Survivors of the Zanzibar ferry accident cover themselves with blankets at Zanzibar port yesterday. — AP

31 dead, over 100 missing in Zanzibar ferry disaster Residents vent anger at authorities ZANZIBAR: An official said yesterday there was no hope for more than a hundred people still missing a day after a ferry sank off the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar, with 38 bodies already recovered. The vessel, which was officially carrying at least 290 passengers and crew, including more than 30 children, went down in choppy waters off Zanzibar after leaving Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam around midday Wednesday. But there was now little hope of saving more people, Zanzibar police spokesman Mohamed Mhina said.

“Search operations continue but it is now almost impossible survivors will be found...,” he told reporters. “The ship has completely sunk. There were 290 people on board,” said Mhina. “This tragedy affects all of us, and the pain and suffering of those affected is the pain and suffering that we feel,” Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete said in a statement. “We pray that those injured have a speedy recovery,” he added.

Officials said emergency workers had rescued more than 140 people so far, recovering 38 bodies, including at least two Europeans. It was the second such tragedy in less than a year: last September, more than 200 people died

when a ferry sank. Mhina said that the conditions had hampered rescue operations, forcing a halt overnight.

“The weather was very bad, there were big waves and strong wind,” he added. Tanzania’s police chief meanwhile arrived in Zanzibar to coordinate operations and launch an investigation.

Mohamed Shein, president of the semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago has already declared three days of mourning. On Wednesday, weeping relatives gathered on the quaysides in both Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, where survivors emerged soaking wet from rescue boats. Foreign tourists were seen wrapped in blankets.

The archipelago is famed both for its white-sand beach resorts and for Stone Town, the old quarter of Zanzibar, which is a UNESCO heritage site and popular tourist destination. Officials said the ferry had been carrying 251 adults, 31 children and nine crew, according to the passenger list. At least 16 foreign tourists were on board, 14 of whom had been rescued.

But ferries in the region very often carry additional passengers who do not feature on the official manifest. More than 200 people perished in September when the ferry Spice Islander capsized

as it sailed between two of the three main islands that make up Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania. That was one of the worst maritime disasters in Africa in the past decade.

The September disaster is believed to have been caused by overloading, with some angry survivors accusing port and ferry officials of having ignored the protests of passengers that the boat was overcrowded. Over 600 people survived.

The boat had initially been reported by officials to be named MV Kalama, but officials said yesterday the stricken vesel was in fact her sister ship, MV Skagit.

According to a statement from Tanzania’s Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) the boat left Dar es Salaam around midday and had issued an alert signal after reaching waters off Chumbe Island.

However, an employee at the eco-lodge on Chumbe said the vessel appeared to have capsized off another small island close by, and that rescue teams had sailed past Chumbe. The Washington State Department of Transportation said it had sold the MV Skagit and the Kalama in 2011 to a Canadian company which operates routes between the African continent and Zanzibar. Both were built in 1989. — AFP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Nuclear fears galvanise usually sedate Japan TOKYO: Japan’s usually sedate society is angry and getting organised against nuclear power, with the kind of snowballing protest movement not seen for decades. Weekly demonstrations outside the prime minister’s residence attract tens of thousands of people and a rally in west Tokyo this week drew a crowd organisers claimed at 170,000, demanding an end to atomic power in post-Fukushima Japan. And as numbers swell there are indications the country’s usually inflexible politicians are getting worried and just might start paying attention.

“Before the disaster, I had never thought of taking part in rallies,” said 22-year-old Yusuke Hasunuma, referring to the tsunami-sparked meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011. “But now I find it very exciting. It’s great to take action with other people who feel the same,” said Hasunuma, who has become a regular at the Friday evening protests in Tokyo’s political district. “No one used to care before (the disaster),” said Masaki Yoshida, a mother-ofthree who was forced from her Fukushima home by the radiation-spewing plant.

“But people now think keeping their mouth shut means saying ‘yes’ to nuclear power.” Protesters’ demands are simple: Japan should abandon atomic power, a technology that industry, government and regulators had sworn was safe until a 9.0 magnitude earthquake sent a towering tsunami crashing into the Fukushima plant. One by one the country’s nuclear reactors were shuttered for safety checks and by May 5 this year, a technology that had provided a third of Japan’s electricity needs was idle.

But amid warnings the country’s industrial heartland could run perilously short of power over the hot summer, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in June ordered the restarting of two reactors. That galvanised businessmen, housewives, parents with young children and a large number of elderly people, who came to the conclusion that taking to the streets was not so radical. For Japan, analysts say, this marks a sea change in public attitudes where demonstrations are things that happen in other countries or belong to the past.

In the still-poor and war-battered 1950s a current of antiUS sentiment, particularly among radical students, sparked often violent rallies where clashes with police resulted in injuries and at least one death. Then the protests were over an agreement that permits American military bases in pacifist Japan.

“The current anti-nuclear rallies are different from the ones against the US-Japan security treaty,” which had an ideological and political agenda, said Yoshikazu Sakamoto, honorary professor of politics at the University of Tokyo. “Now, ordinary citizens are participating,” Sakamoto said. “Many of them just feel distrust of and frustration with the government.” Kiyoshi Abe, professor of media and communication studies at Kwansei Gakuin University, said the large number of elderly people was a key characteristic of the recent movement.

“I think many of those who experienced World War II and particularly the misery of atomic bombs are participating,” Abe said. “Elderly people worked hard and kept silent for the sake of the country’s recovery from the war, but they seem to have realised that what they dreamed of is different from what they are seeing now,” he said.

Abe said unlike sometimes bloody riots in other countries, the large presence of elderly appeared to have a calming effect on rallies in Japan. And they are very ordered: protesters stick to the anti-nuclear message and go home in an orderly fashion at the appointed time. But the demonstrations’ regularity and sheer size-even taking the police estimate of 75,000 people for Monday’s protest-is giving the government pause for thought in a country where for decades the political elite has largely ignored popular opinion.

As crowds gathered on Monday, Noda told a television programme he would “listen attentively” to voices raised in the debate. “Nuclear energy is becoming an issue that divides the nation,” he said in an unusually candid assessment.

However, the University of Tokyo’s Sakamoto said the political classes may be able to out-wait the protests. “People may abandon the current movement if nothing changes following recent efforts, and the country could return to its usual apathy,” Sakamoto said. “Citizens’ movements in Japan are still in a transitional phase.” — AFP

Kim eyes reform in purge of North Korea old guard Kim Jong-Un ‘firmly resolved’ to improve people’s livelihood SEOUL: North Korea’s young leader has been purging older generals in an attempt to curb the power of the 1.2-million-strong military and potentially open the way for economic reforms, analysts said yesterday. Kim Jong-Un this week sacked army chief Ri Yong-Ho, 69, and replaced him with a veteran but low-profile field commander, Hyon Yong-Chol, who is believed to be in his early 60s. Kim Jong-Un, in his late 20s, has also been made “marshal” of North Korea, a title previously held by his late father Kim Jong-Il and his grandfather, the communist country’s founding father Kim Il-Sung.

The young leader has been removing other aged powerful figures from his father’s era, including former armed forces minister Kim Yong-Chun and U Dong-Chuk who ran the secret police, analysts said. Ri was appointed chief of the general staff by Kim JongIl and played a key role in helping his son take over the reins of the communist dynasty. But the young Kim seems to have seen the hot-headed heavyweight as an obstacle to his plans to rein in the military, whose power had grown out of all proportion under the “Songun”, or military-first, policy of his father, analysts said.

The youthful leader also inherited an economy in ruins after decades of Stalinist mismanagement and a malnourished population dependent on foreign food aid. Educated in the West, Kim Jong-Un is seen as more receptive to undertaking sweeping reforms to open up the crumbling state-directed economy than was his late father.

Cheong Seong-Chang of the Sejong Institute said having tightened his grip on power over the past seven months, Kim Jong-Un was now in a better position “to take measures for economic reform and openness”. “The measures will be aimed at allowing private profit-seeking activities in commerce and trade

and introduce greater incentives to state-controlled businesses and collective farms to increase production,” Cheong said.

In his first public speech in April this year, Kim Jong-Un said the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea was “firmly resolved” to improve people’s livelihood so that “they don’t have to tighten their belt again”. China, the North’s main benefactor, has repeatedly urged it to open up and has reportedly started providing economic training for North Korean officials.

Kim Keun-Sik of Kyungnam University said Ri’s “symbolic” dismissal came as the leadership was paring down the massive military in favour of the private sector. “Jong-Un was cementing his control over the military and seeking to return the bloated military to a normal state,” he said.

Cho Han-Bum at the state Korea Institute for National Unification said the North may use Ri as a scapegoat for recent provocative acts as its seeks massive foreign aid to improve its people’s livelihood. Ri was army chief when the North allegedly sank a South Korean warship in 2010, shelled a South Korean island the same year and conducted a failed long-range missile test in April this year. Cho said his departure would set off a sweeping reshuffle within the military. “This is only the beginning. Jong-Un faces a formidable task to sweep aside scores of military generals and officials and fill their posts with young loyalists,” he said.

“Naturally, there will be moans and grumbles. For these veteran soldiers, Jong-Un is a young baron whose star rose too fast.

They don’t feel indebted to him, although they did toward Kim IlSung or Kim Jong-Il.” Cho said securing his grip on the military would be Kim Jong-Un’s priority before he can think about starting on the road to reform.—AFP

YANGON: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (center) salutes the tomb of her late father Gen. Aung San during a ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of his 1947 assassination, at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum yesterday. — AP

Myanmar TV broadcasts hero ceremony YANGON: Myanmar state television broadcast a memorial ceremony for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s revered independence hero father for the first time in decades yesterday, the latest sign of change in the former pariah nation. The day marks the 65th anniversary of the 1947 assassination of opposition leader Suu Kyi’s father, Gen. Aung San. Myanmar’s former military junta played down the event for more than 20 years as part of efforts to stem the popularity of Suu Kyi, who has led a prodemocracy movement since 1988 and was kept under house arrest for 15 years.

The junta ceded power last year to a civilian government dominated by retired

army officers, which has since embarked on a program of major political and financial reforms that have been lauded by the international community.

Yesterday, Martyr’s Day ceremonies were broadcast live on state television, and the government dispatched one of the nation’s two vice presidents to attend. Last year, the government’s top representative was the mayor of the largest city, Yangon.

With flags flying at half staff, Vice President Sai Mauk Hkam joined Suu Kyi as she laid three baskets of flowers in front of her father’s tomb in Yangon, near the foot of towering golden Shwedagon pagoda. Sai Mauk Hkam laid a wreath of white orchids and saluted the slain leader as a solemn

two-minute silence was observed.

Aung San was 32 years old when he was gunned down on July 19, 1947, along with six Cabinet ministers and two other officials. He is considered the architect of Myanmar’s independence from Britain, which it achieved several months after his death. Sao Kai Hpa, the son of Shan leader Mongpon Sawbwa Sao San Tun - who was gunned down in the same attack - welcomed the fact that the government had decided to send a high-level official to pay its respects. “It is a change in the right direction and it is a way of showing gratitude to those who gave up their lives for the country’s independence,” he said. — AP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Mukherjee poised to win as new Indian president Gandhi heir hints at larger role in government

LASHGAR GAH: Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has a drink and a chat with British soldiers (names not given) yesterday. — AP

British PM: Afghan and Pakistan in joint fight KABUL: British Prime Minister David Cameron called on Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday to make a joint effort against insurgents in the two countries’ border zone. He also expressed confidence that Afghan forces will be able to hold their own after the majority of foreign troops leave at the end of 2014.

Cross-border fighting and the stalled Afghan peace process were the main topics of discussion at a three-way meeting in Kabul between Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Cameron.

The British, US and Afghan governments have long criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to stop cross-border attacks. Many insurgents groups are based in safe havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Islamabad also charges that insurgents cross the border from the Afghan side and attack Pakistani security forces.

“The terrorists that are trying to wreck Afghanistan are by and large the same terrorists that are trying to wreck Pakistan,” Cameron said. “We should be together in one single fight.” Britain’s involvement could help America’s effort to push Pakistan to crack down on the safe havens and also to use its connections with some Taleban leaders to promote peace talks. Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been rocky at best, with their lowest point coming late last year after American airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the border.

Britain also sees the border areas as a main base for terrorists planning attacks against the West, although Cameron said that less than half of terrorist plots against Britain now originate from Pakistan’s border regions - down from two-thirds as recently as 2010. Three men were charged Wednesday in London with travelling to Pakistan for terrorist training.

“We are making progress, and this is our fight as much as your fight and the Pakistanis’ fight,” Cameron said.

Pakistan’s Ashraf, who took office last month, and Karzai were also holding separate talks together. His spokesman, Akram Shaheedi, said the prime minister also plans to push the Afghan government to stop militants from its country from infiltrating Pakistan.

Ahead of the visit, Shaheedi said Pakistan supports peace talks with the Afghan Taleban, but the outcome should not adversely affect the country.

The Taleban has refused peace talks with Karzai, calling him a puppet of the United States. Instead, they have held talks directly with American officials.

They broke off talks earlier this year, saying the US reneged on a promise to release Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. The talks have so far shown no signs of restarting. Pakistan is seen as key to breaking this impasse because of its historical ties with the Taleban. “The peace process is the most important of our pursuits for Afghanistan. It remains the highest priority,” Karzai said.

Karzai said having talks among the leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Britain was Cameron’s idea and that there had been minister-level meetings among representatives of the three countries. “Today is the first time that we are sitting at the high-level of the leaders,” Karzai said. “The purpose of the meeting is to find an effective way to battle against terrorism and what role Pakistan can play now in the security situation in the region and the peace process.”

The Kabul talks marked the end of Cameron’s two-day visit to Afghanistan, intended to guide decisions on how fast Britain will withdraw its 9,500 troops before international forces leave by the end of 2014. In separate talks with Karzai, Cameron discussed the drawdown. He also planned to stress the need for “credible, inclusive and nationwide” presidential elections in 2014, his spokeswoman said, on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy.

Cameron also met in Kabul with the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, who gave him a positive message on the country’s overall security picture as they discussed recent violence in northeastern Afghanistan. Allen said the process of handing security duties to local forces was progressing well, though the Afghan army still needs to improve its command and control capabilities, Cameron’s spokeswoman said. Cameron rejected claims Afghanistan could be mired in violence once foreign troops withdraw, insisting local forces are prepared to handle insurgents.

Taleban fighters should “be in no doubt that there is a very clear and strong plan to transfer lead security responsibility from very capable (NATOled) ISAF forces, including British forces, to very capable Afghan forces,” he said.

“I am content that they will be able to defeat an insurgency and that Afghanistan will have a secure future,” Cameron added. “Of course we would make even further progress if there were to be successful political talks and if the insurgency was to come to an end on that way.”—AP

NEW DELHI: Indian lawmakers voted for a new president yesterday, ending weeks of wrangling and opening a muchhyped political window billed as the best chance for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to launch a wave of reforms and reverse an economic slowdown. India’s markets are anticipating quick action to relax investment rules and cut subsidies once the voting for the ceremonial post is out of the way.

Stocks and the rupee outperformed other Asian markets this month after Singh suggested he will act after the election.

Analysts warn of a slump in investor confidence if anticipated measures do not materialise. “This is a make or break situation for the government,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist at the Bank of Baroda, Mumbai. “They have to come up with one or two really solid reforms first, otherwise they will be blamed for having been responsible for having triggered the lowering of India’s credit rating to junk grade.”

Singh assumed the additional role as acting finance minister in June, replacing Pranab Mukherjee, who resigned to run for president, a race he is almost certain to win after gaining support of allies. The president is elected by 4,896 lawmakers in state assemblies and the national parliament in Delhi and results will be announced on Sunday.

Mukherjee has only one opponent who does not have much support. Mukherjee’s strength signals a political victory for his Congress party after a string of reverses in state polls earlier this year, and could provide the bedrock for the ruling coalition to at least start its reform programme.

Launching reforms is becoming increasingly crucial.

Hampered by muddled policy and the global slowdown, India’s economy grew at its slowest rate in nine years in the March quarter. Inflation is high and the rupee has slid some 20 percent against the dollar since last year as the current account deficit widened.

The government has indicated the period between the election and the start of parliament’s monsoon session on Aug. 8 is a good time to implement rules allowing foreign investment in supermarkets-a policy Singh introduced last year but quickly abandoned after protests in parliament and on the street. Trade Minister Anand Sharma was due to travel to the farming states of Haryana and Punjab yesterday to rally support for the policy, which the government says will help restore investor confidence and fix food supply problems. Critics say it will hurt farmers and destroy small shopkeepers’ livelihoods.

Opposition from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the biggest partner in the Congress-led coalition, forced the U-turn on retail trade policy in December. But the government feels emboldened by the presidential vote and Singh may be less cowed this time round.

“The political environment right now is much more favourable,” said a senior government official who works on

economic policy. One of India’s leading businessmen, Ratan Tata, said in a Twitter message: “Now is the moment when our prime minister must break convention, restore government credibility, place the country on a growth path once again by implementing promised reforms.”

Opposition within the party The official said the new retail policy was likely to be adopted either before the parliamentary session, or in September, which is considered another political window before state elections in the western industrial hub of Gujarat at the end of the year. Singh is famed for opening up India’s socialist economy when he was finance minister 20 years ago and ushering in an era of growth, but to repeat the performance now he must overcome opposition from partners in the ruling coalition and from within his own Congress party.

Congress sources said some powerful leaders in the party, with an eye on upcoming state elections in Gujarat and the opposition-ruled northern state of Himachal Pradesh, do not back more liberalisation they fear will cost jobs and raise prices. A Congress party leader in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told Reuters he would resist the entry of retailers like Walmart and Carrefour because the foreign supermarkets would take away business from local traders.

“The Congress Party is doing its best to support the government’s reforms agenda,” said Rashid Alvi, a party spokesman. While retail reform would send a strong signal to investors, economists say the most urgent step is to lower subsidies for fuel because the government needs to cut the fiscal deficit. It is also the most unpopular, since Congress party support is largely drawn from farmers who rely on cheap diesel.

Government sources said this week the long-delayed cut might be pushed back further, despite the oil ministry suggesting last week it would happen soon. Global ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch both cut their outlook to negative for India’s sovereign debt this year-raising the spectre of Asia’s third largest economy being the first BRIC nation to lose its investment grade rating.

Singh has already taken steps to try to calm investor fears about new rules aimed at cracking down on tax evasion. He is expected to name a new permanent finance minister in the next two months. After casting his vote in the presidential vote yesterday, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty and the son of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, said he had decided to take a more prominent role in government, according to TV reports. He did not say when or give more details but is considered unlikely to get a crucial portfolio like finance. — Reuters

NEW DELHI: United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government Chairperson Sonia Gandhi (left) and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (fourth right) watch as UPA Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee (centre) casts his vote for India’s new president at Parliament House yesterday. — AFP

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

US first lady to lead new campaign WASHINGTON: Taking on a more prominent political role, first lady Michelle Obama is launching a nationwide effort to motivate every supporter of President Barack Obama to get more involved in his re-election campaign - and bring along somebody else, too.

The “It Takes One” program urges supporters to make a difference in this election, and to “start by taking one action that will help grow our campaign,” Mrs. Obama says. In a three-minute video message to supporters being released yesterday, the first lady tells supporters that with a tighter election than 2008 likely this fall, “in the end it could all come down to those last few thousand votes in a single state.”

“Every time you take action to move this country forward, we’re asking you to inspire one more person to join you as well,” she says. “That could be the difference between waking up on Nov. 7 and feeling the promise of four more years or asking yourself, ‘Could I could have done more?’” The video opens with Mrs. Obama recalling her husband’s first campaign for the Illinois legislature, when the newly married couple would take friends along when they went out to collect petition signatures to get Obama on the ballot.

“Help one new voter get registered

Zimmerman claims he was not after Trayvon Martin MIRAMAR: In his first lengthy interview, George Zimmerman said he wanted to apologize to Trayvon Martin’s parents for their son’s death and insisted he was not in pursuit on the rainy night that he fatally shot the teenager. When asked Wednesday by Fox News host Sean Hannity what he would tell the teen’s parents, he said “I’m sorry,” and that he would be open to talking to them about what happened the night of the shooting. The teenager’s father, Tracy Martin, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he rejected a comment Zimmerman made about the events of that night being part of “God’s plan.”

Zimmerman, 28, is charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 death of the 17-year-old Martin, who was unarmed when he was killed in Sanford, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Orlando. Zimmerman claims Martin attacked him. He has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense. When asked to explain what he meant when he told a police dispatcher he was following Martin, the neighborhood watch volunteer said he was trying to keep an eye on Martin to tell police. He said he was not following Martin but attempting to get a more precise address for the authorities.

Whether Zimmerman was the aggressor plays a major role in his self-defense claim. He said he wanted to see where the teen went so he could tell police where to go. “I hadn’t given them a correct address. I was going to give them the actual address,” he said.

Zimmerman said after he got out of his car, Martin was next to him. Zimmerman says he looked down, then looked up and Martin punched him and broke his nose. Then, he said, Martin straddled him and started slamming his head onto a concrete sidewalk.

“He started bashing my head into the concrete sidewalk. I was disoriented,” Zimmerman said, adding that it was at that point he began to fear for his life - another key element in his self-defense claim. He says as the two were struggling, Martin said “you’re going to die tonight.” Zimmerman also said racial profiling had nothing to do with the confrontation. “I’m not a racist and I’m not a murderer,” he said.— AP

through GottaVote.org, recruit one more volunteer, or bring a friend to the next phone bank you attend,” Mrs. Obama says. “If we all commit to finding at least one way to make an impact, we can ensure that we’ll keep

moving this country forward for another four years.” The Obama campaign said Mrs. Obama would lead the “It Takes One” effort, which will include digital, paid media and grassroots organizing. Campaign officials

PHILADELPHIA: First lady Michelle Obama accompanied by Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker (left) and other elected officials speaks during an event to discuss her Let’s Move! initiative to combat childhood obesity, at the Lenfest Police Athletic (PAL) Center. — AP

said Mrs. Obama would be the face of the effort and personally participate in many It Takes One events as she travels the country, recruiting neighborhood team leaders, speaking to groups of women to ask them to volunteer and stopping by voter registration events.

That represents a significant increase in the first lady’s role in the campaign. Already, she has been traveling the country to raise money for the campaign, and making appearances at rallies designed to energize volunteers and supporters. Mrs. Obama, whose high favorability ratings are a big asset to the campaign, was known during the 2008 presidential race as “the closer,” for her ability to persuade undecided voters to come on board and her success at motivating supporters to get more involved.

The first lady planned to formally launch the It Takes One program during campaign stops Friday in Virginia, a battleground state in this fall’s election. The first lady will speak at a campaign event for women in Charlottesville, and to grassroots supporters in Fredericksburg. Obama’s campaign also plans to launch local It Takes One efforts in battleground states to engage new volunteers. —AP

Colombian forces clash with indigenous group Santos blames rebel propaganda for stirring violence BOGOTA: Colombian security forces clashed on Wednesday with indigenous activists who stormed a hill-top military base in the volatile south as critics lambasted President Juan Manuel Santos for failing to protect troops. Riot police using tear gas and armored vehicles battled youths hurling stones, wounding at least 26 protesters and killing one, in the second day of violence in Cauca province, an indigenous group and local media said.

Bloodshed in Cauca - one of the most violent areas in conflict-wracked Colombia - has generated more criticism of Santos, whose once-commanding approval ratings have fallen in recent weeks over concerns security gains were being reversed. Indigenous leaders have called on both government troops and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to abandon the jungle-covered mountains so they can rebuild their lives after years of bloodshed killed dozens from their community.

Citing an email from a captured FARC computer, Santos blamed rebel propaganda for stoking tensions: “Without accusing, far from it, the indigenous people of being in cahoots with the FARC, but yes there are elements we know have direct links.” Machetewielding residents on Tuesday overtook a military position in the Toribio section of Cauca, jeering and waving sticks as they dragged soldiers from trenches. FARC rebels also shot at troops from the hills. “We profoundly regret having to use force to restore our constitutional rights. This could have been avoided if the army heeded our request in due form and the government had ordered them to leave,” the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca said in a statement.

An indigenous leader in a neighboring municipality told local media residents had surrounded at least 30 soldiers after one person was killed at a checkpoint. Residents also

POPAYAN: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (centre) delivers a press conference Colombia’s Army General Commander Alejandro Navas (left) and Colombian Air Force Commander Tito Pinilla (right) at the 3rd Army Division in Popayan, Cauca department, Colombia. — AFP reportedly captured four FARC rebels in the zone. Santos said the government would not remove soldiers from the area, but it was open to dialogue even though pulling troops out from the region was not negotiable. Last week, helicopter gunships strafed rebels in the hillside and removed explosive devices to secure Toribio before Santos arrived to talk about security and launch a drive to spur further investment in the region.

Mounting criticism Front page newspaper photographs on Wednesday of a soldier crying and another being chased by local residents gave fodder to political rivals of Santos who want to paint the former defense minister as out of touch with security on the ground. “Will this picture matter for Santos’ re-election?” the political news website La Silla Vacia bluntly asked

about a picture of a soldier being forcefully carried out of a trench.

Santos swept to office in 2010 promising to build on the security advances that began under former President Alvaro Uribe. A USbacked offensive weakened the FARC and drug gangs, making Colombia safer and fostering foreign investment. Santos has not said whether he will run again in 2014, but ally-turned-foe Uribe is already promoting potential rivals - a move that could split the ruling coalition. “How sad that Colombia’s going back to a lax ideological stance against violence,” Uribe said on Twitter.

“What’s the plan for security if our soldiers are allowed to be humiliated.” The FARC, which has battled the government for half a century, has holed up in the inhospitable jungle terrain of Cauca for decades as successive governments deployed thousands of troops to oust them. —Reuters

International FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

US drought wilts crops as officials pray for rain Vilsack warns of higher food costs

BOWLING GREEN: Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally. — AFP

Obama aims to keep pressure on Romney WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is trying to keep the pressure on rival Mitt Romney, opening two days of campaigning in Florida in search of military veterans, seniors and unaligned voters in the state’s crucial midsection. Obama was holding events Thursday in Jacksonville and West Palm Beach as his campaign urges Romney to release more years of his tax returns and keeps a sharp focus on the former Massachusetts governor’s tenure as the head of a private equity firm.

Florida is the largest and most coveted of the nation’s Election Day toss-up states, a place where Romney could severely damage Obama’s chances of winning re-election. Republicans are holding their national convention in Tampa in August in hopes of giving themselves an edge in the state. Yet, if Obama can lock down Florida’s 29 electoral votes, it would be difficult for Romney to mount enough support elsewhere to capture the White House.

Polls have shown Obama and Romney in a dead heat in the state, which has struggled with an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, above the national average, and a still-recovering housing market. Florida provided the deciding margin in George W. Bush’s victory in 2000 and has been closely contested ever since, with Obama carrying the state in 2008.

Obama aides noted that since 1992, Floridians have cast more than 32.5 million votes during the past five presidential elections and only 57,000 votes have separated the two parties in those campaigns. “Florida’s always a close state and we don’t expect that to change between now and November,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Both sides are jockeying for an advantage. Obama has repeatedly criticized Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, arguing that it promoted the outsourcing of jobs to countries like China and India. And Democrats want Romney to make public past tax returns, noting that the one year for which he has released returns showed investments and offshore accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Several Republicans have joined in the call for more transparency, including several GOP senators and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who challenged Romney for the GOP nomination earlier this year. In an interview aired Thursday on WTOL-TV in Toledo, Ohio, Romney said one reason not to release more of his returns was that “the Democratic party and the opposition has all these people that comb through and try and find anything they can to distract from the issues people care about, oftentimes in a dishonest way.” In recent days, Romney has pointed to Obama’s record on the economy and noted that the Democrat hasn’t met with his jobs council in more than six months. He told supporters in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Wednesday that Obama’s priority “is trying to keep his own job.

And that’s why he’s going to lose it.” —AP

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO: Oppressive heat and a worsening drought in the US Midwest pushed grain prices near or past records on Wednesday as crops wilted, cities baked and concerns grew about food and fuel price inflation in the world’s top food exporter. Soybean prices at the Chicago Board of Trade set a record high and corn closed near a record as millions of acres of crops seared in triple-digit heat in the Corn Belt. Corn fields have been plowed up in many locations for lack of rain. Now soybeans, which develop later than corn, are in the bull’s eye.

“I get on my knees everyday and I’m saying an extra prayer right now,” US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters after briefing President Barack Obama. “If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it.” Vilsack said the drought was getting worse for hard-hit farmers and the wilting crops will mean higher food prices.

“Part of the problem we’re facing is that weather conditions were so good at the beginning of the season that farmers got in the field early, and as a result this drought comes at a very difficult and painful time in their ability to have their crops have good yield,” Vilsack said. Drought conditions now extend over more than 60 percent of the lower 48 states, the government said. The Department of Agriculture on Wednesday extended drought aid to an additional 39 counties designated as primary natural disaster areas, bringing such aid to a total of 1,297 counties across 29 states.

Vilsack said rising grain prices would mean meat and poultry prices will be higher this year and next, although the inflation may be delayed as farmers start culling their herds due to high feed prices and meat supplies stay adequate.

But the outlook for higher food prices could add up to another headache for Obama as he faces a November election with high joblessness and slower eco-

BARLOW: A dead fish lies in Mitchell Lake in the Ballard Wildlife Management Area near Barlow, Ky., as lack a of rain and excessive heat deplete oxygen from the water Wednesday, July 18, 2012. — AP nomic growth.Hard-hit livestock producers and other groups want the Environmental Protection Agency to give oil refiners a waiver from the mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline, arguing demand for the corn-based fuel was driving up corn prices. About 40 percent of the US corn crop now is used to produce ethanol. But Vilsack said there was no need for such action as yet.

“There is no need to go to the EPA at this time based on the quantity of ethanol that is in storage,” he said. The US drought is expected to be felt worldwide as the world’s biggest grain exporter struggles with shortfalls. The United States exports more than half of all world corn shipments and is also the single top exporter of wheat and soy.

“The dramatic rise in grain prices in the past few weeks is shaping up to be a serious financial blow for wheat importing countries,” one German trader said on Monday. “African and Middle Eastern countries are now facing painful rises in import bills.”

Weather outlook still hot and dry Forecasters were calling for scattered showers on Wednesday evening in some parts of the east coast and Midwest. But relief was seen as too little and too late for many of the key areas of the central Plains and Corn Belt. “There are no soaking rains in sight, nothing to relieve the drought,” said World Weather Inc meteorologist Andy Karst. “There will be some light rains today through Friday in the eastern Midwest.”

Iowa and Illinois, which produce about a third of US corn and soybeans, continued to swelter on Wednesday in temperatures at or above 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) with little to no rain forecast. Corn prices have jumped more than 50 percent in the last month as the crop wilted in many locations during its key growth stage of pollination. Corn for September delivery at the Chicago Board of Trade closed at $7.95 a bushel, near last summer’s record high of $7.99-3/4.

Soybeans for August delivery closed at $16.85-1/2, a new record high. —Reuters

Judge grants Tennessee mosque’s petition to open NASHVILLE: Muslims in a Tennessee congregation prepared yesterday for the holy month of Ramadan a day after a federal judge ruled they have a right to occupy their newly built mosque, overruling a county judge’s order that was keeping them out. The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro sued Rutherford County on Wednesday and asked US District Judge Todd Campbell for an emergency order to let worshippers into the building before the holy month of Ramadan starts at sundown Thursday. Federal prosecutors also filed a similar lawsuit.

The future of the mosque had been in question since May, when a local judge overturned the county’s approval of the mosque construction. This month, he ordered the county not to issue an occupancy permit for the 12,000-square-foot (1,100-square-meter) building. Campbell

ordered the county to move ahead on approving the mosque for use, although it wasn’t immediately clear if that could happen by Thursday. Final inspection of the building is required.

The contentious fight over the mosque stems from a 2010 lawsuit filed by a group of residents who made repeated claims that Islam was not a real religion and that local Muslims intended to overthrow the US Constitution in favor of Islamic religious law. Those claims were dismissed, but opponents won with a ruling that overturned the approval to build the mosque on the grounds that county didn’t give adequate public notice of the meeting.

Citing acts of vandalism, arson and a bomb threat against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Martin said, “The Muslim community in Rutherford County has been under siege for the last two years. Now,

after doing everything right, they are told that they can’t move in.” Martin asked the federal judge to fulfill a promise made by the congregation’s religious leader, Imam Ossama Bahloul, to the children of the congregation that justice would be done and they would be allowed to worship in their new space.

Mosque leader Bahloul said he had been reluctant to involve the mosque in the lawsuit but felt he had no choice after the certificate of occupancy was refused.

He said Campbell’s ruling means a lot to Muslims in Tennessee and their supporters. “I think this is an opportunity for us all to celebrate the freedom and liberty that, in fact, exist in America and to teach our young people to believe even more in the US Constitution,” he said. An attorney for the mosque opponents did not return a call seeking comment. — AP

Business FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Nokia clings onto cash despite big loss in Q2

Asian economic powerhouses falter PAGE 20

PAGE 21

LOS ANGELES: A construction worker walks past a block of new homes under construction and for sale in Alhambra, east of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday. — AFP

Oil market well supplied: UAE Crude rises above $106 on Mideast tension DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates will continue to meet its customers’ crude demand and believes current prices are in a good range, the country’s oil minister told reporters yesterday. Gulf OPEC producers have shown no sign of trimming their output following the cartel’s meeting in mid-June when ministers agreed to adhere to a 30 million barrels per day (bpd) target. “As for the UAE, our customers keep coming to us and asking for more so we give it to them,” Mohammed bin Dhaen AlHamli said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Dubai. “We are happy with the price,” he added. The 12-member OPEC’s collective output remained close to its highest levels since early 2008 in June, driven by strong Saudi and Iraqi output, according to a Reuters survey.

The extra supply makes up for Iran’s drop in exports which halved in the four months from February to June because of US and European Union sanctions aimed at discouraging what the West fears is an Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons. Oil rose above $107 a barrel yesterday to hit a seven-week high as violence in Syria and an attack on Israeli tourists increased tension in the Middle East, bringing supply concerns back into focus.

The killing of top Syrian security chiefs on Wednesday, and the attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, which Israel accused Iran of carrying out,

worsened the crisis in the Middle East, the source of more than a quarter of the world’s oil.

Brent crude gained for a seventh straight day, rising $1.33 to $106.49 a barrel by 1017 GMT and hitting $106.63 earlier, the highest since May 30.

US oil gained 98 cents to $90.85.“Within just a

week, prices have climbed by more than 8 percent, primarily on the back of geopolitical risks,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.

“The increase in the price of crude oil is likely to continue in the short term.”

Analysts said the geopolitical concerns out-

US jobless claims surge WASHINGTON: The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits surged last week, although the figures may have been distorted by seasonal factors. The Labor Department says applications rose by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000. The increase reversed a big drop the previous week.

Economists view the recent numbers with skepticism. They note that the government struggles to adjust the data to reflect temporary summertime layoffs in the auto industry. And this year, many automakers are foregoing the shutdowns because stronger sales have kept plants busier. The less volatile four-week average fell by 1,500 to 375,500. Economists say the seasonal distortions may last a few weeks, making the figures difficult to analyze.

When applications fall below 375,000, it typically suggests hiring is strong enough to pull the

unemployment rate down. Applications had been trending near or above that level this spring. The economy appears to be suffering its third straight midyear slump. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this week offered a bleak assessment of the economy. And a survey from the Fed said hiring was “tepid” in most districts in June and early July and manufacturing weakened in most regions.

Job growth slowed to 75,000 a month from April through June, down from healthy 226,000 pace the first three months of the year.

Unemployment has been stuck at 8.2 percent for two straight months. Retail sales fell in June for the third straight month, prompting many economists to downgrade their estimates of economic growth in the April-June quarter. Many now think it will be even slower than the first quarter’s sluggish 1.9 percent annual pace. —AP

weighed the latest U.S. Department of Energy supply report on Wednesday, which showed crude inventories in the world’s top consumer fell less than expected last week. “Overall, we are more concerned about the latest bombings in Syria and Bulgaria than about the DOE statistics,” said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix, in a report. Prices are already being supported by tension between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear work. Sanctions on Iran have cut its exports and Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil transit route, unless sanctions are revoked.

In response, the US said on Wednesday it will hold Tehran responsible for any attempt to disrupt shipping in the Gulf and will be able to defeat any Iranian attempt to shut down seaborne commerce. Brent has gained 20 percent since falling to an 18-month low in late June. It had slumped since the year’s high of more than $128 in March, weighed by concern demand would slow due to Europe’s debt crisis and weaker growth in other regions. Some technical indicators also suggest the rally could continue. Brent is in a positive momentum, having posted a string of higher highs and higher closes, Jakob said. Its relative strength index, a closely watched technical signal, is at 64, below the 70 mark indicating the market is overbought. — Agencies

Business FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Asian economic powerhouses falter India to grow at 6.3%, China to recover modestly: Poll SINGAPORE: Optimism around Asia is fading with growth in its biggest economies slowing considerably this year, compelling central banks to keep policy accommodative for longer, though the worst of the downturn may be over, a Reuters poll showed yesterday. As Europe’s debt crisis drags on and the US economy slows, weighing on Asia’s exports, economists are cutting their growth forecasts for most of the economies in the region.

But they remain cautiously optimistic that Asia would start to recover by the end of this year, even if some are skeptical about the pace at which it would do so. “ It is going to be a long hard slog back up,” said Vishnu Varathan, economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank in Singapore, who feels that this time around Asia isn’t going to see the V-shaped rebound it experienced after the 2008/09 global crisis. When compared to previous Reuters quarterly surveys, analysts seem more pessimistic about Asia’s ability to shield itself from the headwinds from the Europe and the United States.

“The euro zone is not doing very well and one of the key things that have changed was that in Q1 there was quite a bit of optimism about the US economy. That has turned around quite abruptly this time around,” said Varathan. Though the US is largely expected

COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan laborer makes bricks by hand at a factory in Embilipitiya, some 190km south of Colombo yesterday. Sri Lanka recorded an impressive 8.3 percent growth rate last year, up from 8.0 percent in 2010, the first full year after troops defeated Tamil separatist rebels in May 2009 and declared an end to nearly 40 years of fighting. — AFP to avoid another recession, the meager average growth on around 2 percent economists have been forecasting for 2012 will not be enough to bring the unemployment rate below 8 percent until next year.

With external weakness likely to persist,

policymakers in much of Asia are looking to ramp up domestic demand with fresh fiscal or monetary stimulus. While growth in China’s economy is expected to weaken to 8.0 percent this year, a level many consider the borderline between a potentially severe

slowdown and a mild one, the growth outlook for India was slashed to 6.3 percent this fiscal year, which would be the slowest pace in a decade.

China’s economy will likely recover modestly as Beijing intensifies its policy fine-tuning to boost growth. Analysts predict it probably bottomed out last quarter, when growth cooled to 7.6 percent from a year earlier, the slowest pace in more than three years.

But the story looks much worse for India.

Even as growth falters, the rupee has been hitting all-time lows against the dollar, the government is struggling with bloated fiscal and current account deficits and inflation has remained stubbornly high, giving policymakers less room to manoeuvre.

Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, all heavily exposed to trade with the West, will take a hit this year as the situation worsens in Europe. Singapore’s trade-dependent economy showed a surprise contraction of 1.1 percent in the second quarter after a strong January-March in another sign that weakness in Western countries has begun to affect Asia.

The International Monetary Fund on Monday trimmed its forecast for economic growth in emerging countries and warned that the outlook could dim further if policymakers in Europe do not act with enough force. —Reuters

American Airlines shows signs of turnaround

SEOUL: A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters in Seoul yesterday. South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.56 percent, or 28.05 points, to close at 1,822.96. —AP

FTAs not cause of trade boom in Asia, says ADB SINGAPORE: Free trade agreements cannot be credited for the increase in intra-Asian trade as they are often restrictive in scope and difficult to implement, the Asian Development Bank said yesterday. Despite the fact that there were 190 FTAs involving at least one Asian country at the last count in January, only a small percentage of the region’s exporters and importers are using the agreements, the ADB said. “There is a misperception about FTAs,” Iwan Azis, head of the the ADB’s Office of Regional Economic Integration, told reporters in Singapore.

“Is this increased trend of intra-Asian trade because of the growing number of FTAs in the region? My short answer is definitely no,” he said at the launch of the bank’s latest report, Asian

Economic Integration Monitor.

Azis said the Manila-based ADB had carried out a survey of how many importers and exporters in Asia were using the FTAs and the percentages were “very small”. About 55 percent of Asia’s total trade was done within the region in 2011, up from 45 percent 10 years ago, he said, adding that the increase was mainly due to “unilateral liberalization” by economies. It was driven by market conditions as Asian countries traded more with each other as the euro-zone debt crisis and feeble US economic recovery curbed demand for the region’s exports. Azis, however, said that FTAs in the future can help boost intraAsian trade if their conflicting provisions are harmonized and implemented. —AFP

DALLAS: Eight months into a bankruptcy that was years in the making, American Airlines is showing signs of finally turning itself around and regaining its lost glory. American’s parent company, AMR Corp, reported on Wednesday that revenue set a record in the second quarter as fares rose and more passengers filled its planes. And it turned an operating profit, minus the millions it spent on bankruptcy lawyers and severance pay.

The airline is cutting costs and making progress in labor negotiations. It’s even losing fewer bags. But the nation’s third-biggest airline still faces huge challenges to succeed against United and Delta, which are similar to American in structure but much bigger. They’re also profitable. Analysts say American must expand and improve its route network to attract high-paying business travelers. It’s weak on both the East and West coasts. It ranks below average in government ratings for on-time flights and consumer complaints.

US Airways CEO Doug Parker says the best way for American to grow its network is by merging with his airline. Many Wall Street analysts agree. American’s unions support a potential US Airways takeover because they believe it will mean fewer layoffs and other concessions. AMR CEO Thomas Horton has preferred a go-it-alone strategy, although he said last week that AMR will examine merger possibilities. Bankruptcy creditors will decide between Parker’s proposal, Horton’s independent path and any other plans that pop up.

To control its own fate, AMR will have to prove to creditors that it can do better on its own than it would if paired with US Airways. Its report Wednesday on second-quarter financial results might bolster its case. AMR narrowed its secondquarter loss to $241 million from $286 million a year ago. But excluding bankruptcy-related costs ranging from employee severance obligations to

legal fees, AMR said it would have earned $95 million - its first operating profit for the earlysummer quarter since 2007.

Revenue rose 5.5 percent to an all-time high of $6.46 billion. The company credited an increase in corporate-travel accounts and its revenue-sharing ventures with British Airways, Iberia and Japan Airlines. Average fares increased 7 percent over last summer. But even while they charged more for tickets, American and regional affiliate American Eagle sold 85.1 percent of their seats, another company record. And by a closely watched measure of revenue per seat, American is improving faster than its rivals. Horton called the quarter “exceptional improvement.” He said the restructuring was just beginning to take hold, and that momentum would build until “American re-emerges as an industry leader.”

AMR’s case to creditors will also be stronger if it can show the ability to control costs. The company wants to cut annual spending by $2 billion a year - it was $25 billion last year - with more than half coming from labor. American employees are not the highest paid in the industry, but AMR argues that inefficiency and cumbersome work rules result in labor costs that are hundreds of millions too high. In late June, American was struggling to get its union on board with the cost-cutting plan. It had agreements only with a few groups of ground workers. Then it scored a breakthrough: Directors of the pilots’ union narrowly approved an American contract proposal and sent it to the airline’s 7,500 pilots for a ratification vote that will end Aug 8. American says the deal would cut spending on pilots by 17 percent or about $315 million a year even with pay raises. Union President David Bates said the union’s financial and legal advisers recommended the offer largely because the pilots would own 13.5 percent of the new AMR that emerges from bankruptcy. — AP

Business FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Nokia clings onto cash despite big loss in Q2 Mobile maker seeks to arrest profit plunge

SEOUL: Passengers wait to buy tickets at the Korean Air ticketing counter at Gimpo airport in Seoul yesterday. — AP

Korean Air posts loss on weak cargo, currency SEOUL: Korean Air Line Co reported a second quarter loss yesterday as the global economic slowdown hurt its cargo business and a decline in the local currency made servicing its foreign debt more expensive. South Korea’s largest airline said its April-June net loss totaled 159 billion won ($140 million) on revenue of 3.3 trillion won.

The flag carrier said the performance of its cargo business reflected South Korea’s sluggish exports. Cargo shipments decreased by around 12 percent from the same period a year earlier due to a sharp fall in cargos bound for Europe and America.

The fall in the South Korean won against the dollar increased Korean Air’s interest payments on its foreign-currency debt, raising overall expenses even as fuel costs stabilized, it said. The global airline industry is under pressure from the weak world economy. Air China Ltd, one of the three main Chinese government-owned airlines, warned Wednesday its first-half profit will be slashed by at least half from a year earlier. Korean Air said a recovery in cargo shipments will be modest in the coming months, although it hopes that London Olympics-related travel will boost the number of passengers.

Shares of Korean Air narrowed gains after the earnings release. Its shares closed 1 percent higher in Seoul, while the Kospi benchmark rose 1.6 percent. —AP

Morgan Stanley’s revenue plunges NEW YORK: Morgan Stanley said yesterday that its revenue fell sharply in the second quarter, dragged down by weak results from its investment banking unit. Its net income missed Wall Street expectations, and its stock dropped sharply.

The bank brought in 24 percent less revenue overall, but the decline was especially evident in investment banking, where revenue plunged 37 percent.

In that unit, revenue from advising businesses was down by half. Bond and commodities sales and trading was down by nearly 60 percent. Stock sales and trading fell nearly 40 percent.

In a statement, CEO James Gorman described the Aprilto-June period as “an environment marked by investor caution.” The bank earned $564 million for the quarter, a swing from a loss of $558 million in the same period last year. In last year’s second quarter, Morgan took big charges so it could cut down on expensive dividend payments to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a Japanese financial firm that gave the bank a life-sustaining cash infusion in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.

Earnings came to 29 cents per share, lower than the estimate of 32 cents from analysts surveyed by FactSet, a data provider. Morgan Stanley stock was down 68 cents, or 4.9 percent, to $13.99 in premarket trading. The stock was above $30 as recently as February 2011.

The revenue decline is an unwelcome trend for Morgan Stanley, but one it shares with most of its peers. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs all reported lower revenue. —AP

HELSINKI: Ailing mobile maker Nokia turned in another thumping loss yesterday, as it tries to arrest a decline towards irrelevance in a smartphone market dominated by Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models. The company, which has been burning through money at a rate that would clean it out in a couple of years, managed, however, to cling on to more of its cash reserves in the second quarter than the market had feared, giving its battered shares an 18 percent boost.

The shares had fallen around 80 percent since February 2011 when the company announced its shift to the largely untried Microsoft Windows phone operating system.

Sales of its new Lumia phones, which run the Microsoft software, doubled from a low base in the previous quarter, but have yet to grab share back from Apple and Samsung Electronics in the most profitable part of the mobile market. Nokia reported a second-quarter net loss of 1.53 billion euros, or 8 euro cents a share when adjusted for one-off items, compared with the market’s average forecast for a loss of 9 euro cents a share.

It held net cash of 4.2 billion euros ($5.2 billion), compared with the market estimate of 3.7 billion, but still down from 4.9 billion at the end of the first quarter.

The company’s shares were up 15 percent at 1.576 euros at 1157 GMT, having touched 1.621 euros. Details showed that advance royalty payments of 400 million euros accounted for most of the lower fall in its cash position.

“It’s partly the advanced royalties.

Nevertheless, it was a positive move

NEW DELHI: An Indian shopkeeper selling Nokia mobile phones awaits customers in New Delhi, India. Nokia’s net loss more than tripled in the second quarter the company reported yesterday. — AP

by management to calm down the market,” said Juha Varis, who holds Nokia shares as part of the Danske Invest Finnish Equity Fund. But Varis said he was worried Nokia had placed all its bets on Windows Phone, which wasn’t yet showing it could help reverse Nokia’s fortunes.

Nokia sold 4 million Windows phones in the second quarter, still only a fraction of Apple’s expected sales of 30 million iPhones or Samsung’s 50 million smartphones. “I think currently the company is too dependent on Microsoft,” Varis said.

“What happens if this marriage ends?

We would prefer to have a second option to Windows.” Nokia forecast its third-quarter loss in the phone business would be just as steep as the sec-

ond at minus 9.1 percent, an outlook that was worse than analysts had expected.

“The third quarter is going to be the most difficult quarter for Nokia,” said J.P. Morgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande. “I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally fixed, and a guide of minus 9 percent again in D&S (Devices and Services) came as a bit of a shock to us.

So I’m perplexed by the strength of the (market) reaction,” said Lee Simpson, analyst at Jefferies & Co. In the three months to June, all three major credit ratings agencies have cut Nokia bonds to “junk”, while the company warned twice on profits and said it planned to cut one in five jobs. — Reuters

Co-op buys Lloyds branches to face top four banks LONDON: Lloyds Banking Group has struck a deal to sell 632 branches to the Co-operative, transforming the group into a powerful new rival to Britain’s dominant high-street banks.

Mutually-owned Co-op said the sale would lift its share of Britain’s bank branch network to 10 percent from less than four percent, equipping it to take on the country’s “Big Four” lenders - HSBC, Barclays Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds itself. “People have lost trust in the financial services sector.

Now we can provide a big bank, a challenger bank, that people can really trust,” Co-op Group CEO Peter Marks told reporters on a conference call.

It is estimated around 4.8 million Lloyds customers will transfer to the Co-op along with up to 7,000 staff. The Co-op’s high street presence will expand to around 1,000 branches.

Lloyds, ordered by European regulators to offload the branches as payback for a state bailout it received in 2008, will transfer 24 billion pounds ($37.49 billion) of loans to Co-op under the deal, well below the original target of about 70 billion pounds.

Lloyds will likely make an overall loss of up to 700 million pounds on the sale, while the scaled-back loan disposal means it will need regulatory approval for the deal, a source familiar with the matter said. The bank said any loss would be counterbalanced by a lower capital requirement, and there would

be no lasting hit to group profits.

“Today’s agreement is an important step in meeting our obligations under the mandated sale of our branches,” Lloyds CEO Antonio Horta-Osorio said.

“We believe the cooperative will be a good owner for our business, customers and colleagues, and the combined banking business will be a significant competitor on the high street. Lloyds, which had been expected to raise as much as 1.5 billion pounds from the branch sale, will receive just 350 million pounds upfront.

It also stands to collect further payments spread out until 2027 with a present value of 400 million pounds, depending on how the newly-created business performs.

Lloyd’s opted to sell to Co-op even though it received a higher offer for rival bidder NBNK, an acquisition vehicle created in 2008 to create a new retail bank out of assets being sold off by distressed incumbents, an industry source said. NBNK offered about 800 million pounds in cash upfront for a comparable package of assets, plus slightly higher deferred payments spread over a shorter time period, the source said.

A Lloyd’s spokeswoman declined to comment on the size of NBNK’s offer, but said the bank had decided selling to Coop offered greater certainty to customers and employees and had a better chance of success. — Reuters

Business FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Shale oil bonanza to cost refiners billions LONDON: America’s shale oil boom is great news for US industry, jobs and consumers, but it could cost global refiners billions. Banking on rising demand for transport fuels, oil companies around the world have committed as much as $100 billion over the last decade on equipment to turn heavy oil into valuable refined products such as gasoline, jet fuel and petrochemicals.

But the investment has coincided with the discovery of vast reserves of high quality oil and gas held in tight rock formations beneath Texas, North Dakota and other US states, which has changed the market-probably forever. The world’s average crude oil barrel is becoming lighter as new hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” technology and deep horizontal drilling extracts very high quality hydrocarbons.

New US shale provinces are now pumping more than a million barrels per day (bpd) of some of the lightest oil available that is much “sweeter”-containing less of the

contaminant sulfur.

And the same technology is soon to be deployed elsewhere in the world, producing more and more light oil. As supplies increase, the value of light crude oil relative to heavy oil is collapsing and profits from equipment to upgrade heavy crude, such as expensive fluid catalytic crackers (FCCs) and coking units, are falling.

“Companies have invested for a world supplied with heavy and sour crude, but now they find crude is getting lighter and sweeter,” said Stephen George, principal consultant at KBC Process Technology Ltd in Walton on Thames, England.

“The market is going to be way over-supplied with deep upgrading capacity,” George said, adding, “Many FCC refineries are ... looking dubious.”

Petroleum economists forecast that average margins from the most expensive oil processing plants could fall by 30 to 40 percent over the next five years as new

plants come on stream. “We are talking about margins being a couple of dollars per barrel worse than we could have expected,” said Jonathan Leitch, senior energy research analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“If the assumption two or three years ago was for margins of $5 to $7 per barrel, then it would now be more like $3 to $5,” he said. “If you had been expecting a margin of perhaps $5, you could now be looking at perhaps $3.” This is bad news for oil companies who have invested a fortune over the last decade in advanced equipment to extract poisonous sulfur and transform viscous oil into liquid fuels. These plants are not cheap.

Typically $1.5 billion to $3 billion each, the top dozen oilprojects commissioned over the last six years cost almost $60 billion alone and there are dozens of other smaller projects. China’s Sinopec, Total SA, Chevron , BP and Marathon have all invested billions in the hope of adding extra value to oil. — Reuters

UK retailers feel pain of recession Cameron sees no end to British austerity

NARITA: Air Asia Japan President Kazuyuki Iwakata (front C) and his company’s cabin attendants wave during a photo session with newly designed Airbus A320 at the Narita International airport yesterday. Air Asia Japan will start its domestic operation from next month and international operation from October 2012. — AFP

Prices soar but Sudan poor yet to join protests KHARTOUM: Sudan’s millions of poor have yet to surge into the streets to back scattered Arab Spring-style protests as government austerity measures try to stem soaring prices and a falling currency.

Inflation reached 37 percent year-onyear in June and jumped almost 10 points in May but the demonstrations, sparked by high food prices, have been largely youth driven. “So far the movement is concentrated with students and protest activists,” one veteran activist said, adding it could take time for the “oppressed” poor to rise up. Sudanese history shows that “usually the poor join late”, following the professional classes, said University of Khartoum economist Mohammed Eljack Ahmed. But more than a month after protests began at the University of Khartoum there has been no mass support from professionals, although lawyers have demonstrated.

“So far they are so limited,” Ahmed said of the protests. Demonstrations spread to include a cross-section of people, but often only in groups of 100 or 200. Protests have lately focused on Fridays at a mosque linked to the opposition Umma party in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman.

Rallies have not attracted the tens of thousands of students, engineers, lawyers and trade unionists who toppled Sudanese military regimes in 1964 and 1985. Sudan, with more than 30 million people, has a poverty rate of 46.5 percent, the United Nations says. In its latest report on Sudan the World Bank described as “alarming” the 28.6 percent annual inflation rate reached in April, with prices having gone even higher since.

The bank said food prices were mainly behind the inflation, which was “partly due to the rising import cost of basic goods as a result of weakening local currency value”.

Sudan’s pound has tumbled on the black market from about four pounds per one dollar in September to around six now. Some say it could drop to 10 or more if inflation is not contained. The pound has been under pressure since South Sudan separated in July 2011, taking with it about 75 percent of Sudanese oil production that is worth billions of dollars and was the country’s largest source of hard currency. Loss of oil revenue has led to “serious external and internal deficits, inflation and economic hardship”, the World Bank said.—AFP

LONDON: The devastating economic impact of Britain’s sodden summer was laid bare yesterday as major retailers Kingfisher, Halfords, JJB Sports and Mothercare all said the exceptional wet weather had hit demand, fraying investors’ nerves.

Government data also showed that overall June retail sales were worse than expected. The wettest April to June period since records began has exacerbated an already tough situation for retailers in an economy mired in recession and austerity, hitting sales of goods ranging from barbecues to bicycles to football shirts.

Britain fell back into recession at the start of the year and consumers are holding back on spending.

Although inflation is easing and unemployment falling they are still being squeezed by meager wage increases and government austerity measures designed to cut record debt.A constant stream of negative headlines about the impact of the euro zone debt crisis is also weighing on confidence.

Prime Minister David Cameron will have done little to lift the move when he said on a newspaper report that Britain’s program of spending cuts could last until 2020.

“I can’t see any time soon when ... the pressure will be off,” he said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

Thursday’s raft of retail updates came as official retail sales data for June showed retail sales volumes fell by 0.7 percent, the sharpest fall since the first quarter of 2010.

“The unprecedented wet weather across Northern Europe has continued throughout our second quarter so far, clearly impacting footfall and consumer demand for outdoor and seasonal products,” said Ian Cheshire, chief executive of Kingfisher , Europe’s biggest home improvement retailer. Kingfisher said underlying sales fell 0.4 percent in the 10 weeks to July 7, the bulk of its fiscal second

quarter. That represented a pick-up from a first quarter fall of 4.8 percent, but reflected price cuts at its B&Q business in the UK and Ireland to clear horticultural stocks as well as other promotions. That will hit B&Q’s profit margins.

Shares in sporting goods retailer JJB Sports tumbled 27 percent after the firm warned it was running into funding problems again and was in talks with strategic partners. The firm, which issued a profit warning last week on the back of poor sales of Euro 2012 football shirts, also reported an 8.7 percent slump in first half underlying sales.

Halfords, the bicycles to car parts retailer, parted company with its chief executive of four years, David Wild, as it posted a 5.6 percent fall in underlying sales over its first quarter to June 29.

“The consumer environment remains difficult and the unseasonal weather conditions this quarter had a direct impact on sales of cycles and outdoor leisure products,” said chairman Dennis Millard, who will temporarily take on an executive role

while Wild’s successor is sought.

Halfords warned it expected negative like-for-like sales for the balance of the year and 2012-13 pretax profit of 62-70 million pounds ($97-$109 million). Its shares, down 45 percent over the past year, rose 8 percent on the back of Wild’s exit.

Mother and baby products retailer Mothercare reported a 6.7 percent fall in underlying UK sales over its first quarter to July 14, highlighting “challenging trading conditions”, offset in part by an 11 percent rise in international sales.

Sports Direct, Britain’s biggest sporting goods retailer, bucked the gloomy trend, posting a 17 percent rise in year profit. The unseasonably cold and wet weather has not been bad news for all retailers.

John Lewis, Britain’s biggest department store group, has enjoyed stellar trading this summer as the deluge of rain has driven footfall from the high street to the covered shopping malls where its stores are often located. Wet and cold weather is also favorable for its key household goods business. — Reuters

LONDON: Members of staff stand by the signage at the first branch of the Marks and Spencer bank on its opening day in Marble Arch, London yesterday. Marks and Spencer’s first bank branch opened its doors to the public. — AFP

THEY ARE THE 99!

99 Mystical Noor Stones carry all that is left of the wisdom and knowledge of the lost civilization of Baghdad. But the Noor Stones lie scattered across the globe - now little more than a legend. One man has made it his life’s mission to seek out what was lost. His name is Dr. Ramzi Razem and he has searched fruitlessly for the Noor Stones all his life. Now, his luck is about to change - the first of the stones have been rediscovered and with them a special type of human who can unlock the gem’s mystical power. Ramzi brings these gem - bearers together to form a new force for good in the world. A force known as ... the 99!

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

www.the99.org

The 99 ® and all related characters ® and © 2012, Teshkeel Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

young people, the world’s newest superheroes known as… The 99.

Opinion FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

PALESTINIAN DIASPORA DISCOVER THEIR ROOTS

By Felice Friedson and Linda Gradstein

T

he participants gather outside the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s old city for a group photo. They look like any group of college students visiting Jerusalem on a summer trip. The photographer counts to three. “Free Palestine!” they yell in unison, and laugh. The 41 delegates, half of them Christian and half of them Muslim, all between the ages of 18 and 25, are here on a two-week trip called “Know Thy Heritage,” sponsored by the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation. Most are from the US, but a few are from Australia, Canada, England and France. All but seven are women, says Rateb Rabie, president and founder of the sponsoring group. “This is good because they are the ones who are going to raise the children, and this will help them understand their roots,” he told The Media Line.

The participants pay for their airline tickets and the Foundation, with additional sponsorship from the Bank of Palestine and the Palestinian telephone company, Paltel, picks up the other costs. “They see how the Palestinians are living here,” Rabie said. “They see how Palestinians are building a state under occupation. An agreement is coming regardless of what we hear on the news and we will be ready to run this state.”

Many of the participants have visited relatives in the West Bank before, and speak at least some Arabic, but they say this trip is strengthening their Palestinian identity.

“I’m getting to know who my people are and what I want for the future,” Noor Diab, 23, a recent college graduate from San Diego told The Media Line. “It’s given me a sense of pride but I’m also saddened by the situation here and by the (Israeli) occupation and the separation between Israelis and Palestinians. Throughout the trip, you feel happy, frustrated and sad but at the same time you’re experiencing the reality of the holy land.” Diab is wearing a sky-blue head covering or hijab, which she put on when she went into the mosque, and decided to keep on for a subsequent visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

She said she found the visit to the mosque inspiring, but was angered by the Israeli security checks before she reached the site. “When I’m in the mosque, I feel like I’m home,” she said. “But the journey there was a little difficult because going through metal detectors and checkpoints really takes away from the spirituality of the land. I would like to come here one day without being asked my race or my religion.”

To reach the mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, visitors must pass through an Israeli-controlled security checkpoint. They then walk up a narrow bridge onto the large plaza where both the Al-Aqsa mosque and the gold-cupola Dome of the Rock stand. On the plaza, the independent Muslim Waqf Trust is in charge of security, although Israeli soldiers are allowed to patrol and conduct searches in the plaza. An uncomfortable moment for the group ensued when Muslim guards refused to let the Christian delegates inside the mosque, saying entry was restricted to Muslims. Western tourists were also excluded.

Several group members, including Rabie’s wife Rocio, who is an Ecuadorian citizen, went to the administration and complained. Most of them did eventually manage to enter. “It was very disappointing,” said Mohammed Iftaiha, a financial advisor and the group leader from Virginia. “This was the first time the issue of religion had ever come up. What made it worse was we saw Israeli security escorting a group of Israelis into the mosque. So the Christians thought, why are we being singled out?

The students stay in Bethlehem but they are

also warmly welcomed in Ramallah, the Palestinain financial capital. Hashim Shawa, the chairman and general manager of the Bank of Palestine, tells the young people that they should consider what they can do to help build a future Palestinian state. “The country should not just be built from American aid - what’s really needed is investment from our own people,” he said.

“Doing good is investing in bricks and mortar.

Consider working here for a year or two.” He also said that Visa and Master Card used to consider the West Bank part of Israel, but the Bank of Palestine convinced them to consider the West Bank as a “separate country” and now all processing of credit cards goes through the Bank of Palestine, the largest bank in the West Bank.

place to another.”

That means that many Palestinians have two cell phones, one with a Palestinian number and one with an Israeli number to cover the whole West Bank. He also said that the core equipment switches are located in Jordan and London while the company operates in the West Bank. The Know thy Heritage program is loosely modeled on the popular Birthright program, which has so far brought almost 300,000 Jews between the ages of 18 and 26 to Israel for free ten-day trips to strengthen their Jewish identity. The family of casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson has announced that they will donate an additional $13 million to Birthright to reduce the long waiting list.

Some of the students also say they would like an opportunity to hold discussions with Israelis. “I would like to meet the young generation of Israelis,” Wassam Rafidi, 21, from Houston, Texas, told The Media Line. “The older generation was involved in wars and fighting and there’s too much harsh sentiment on both sides. You always remember, you never forget, but we have to learn how to forgive. It’s the young generation that will make or break this thing.”

But for most of the participants, the focus of the trip is in strengthening their ties to the West Bank and to their Palestinian heritage. Hadeel Abnadi, from San Diego, is visiting for the first time. Her mother was born in Jordan, her father in Lod, which is today part of Israel. In 1948, he fled

A Palestinian woman is seen at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound with the golden Dome of the Rock Mosque in the background in Jerusalem’s Old City in this Feb 20, 2007 file photo. — AP Several students complained that the Israeli security forces detained them for seven hours as they crossed the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into Israel. The Christian Ecumenical Foundation’s Rabie seconded their frustration. “We all have Western passports and instead of helping us out, the Israelis hold us and question us,” he said.

Shawa urged the students not to let these kinds of incidents frustrate them. “You’re always going to be held up - is that going to stop you from visiting?” he asked them. “In Israel these days, you get stuck in a traffic jam. Let’s not use that as an excuse.” The delegates also visited Paltel, where Kamal Abu-Khadijeh, the Deputy CEO, described the difficulty his company faces. “We can’t service Area C,” he says, referring to the 60 percent of the West Bank that is under sole Israeli administrative and military control. “If we can’t install our own towers, we can’t provide service. You have to be part of an Israeli network to operate from one

Rateb Rabie says the Know thy Heritage trip is different than a Birthright trip. “The Jewish people offered some good things and we thank them for bringing this (idea) to us,” he said. “But we have a completely different agenda and we are not involved with politics or religion.” Rabie says that even the world “diaspora” is a Jewish term, which the Palestinians have now adopted to refer to the seven million Palestinians living abroad.

Just as the Birthright participants do not meet Palestinians from the West Bank, (although they do meet Arab citizens of Israel), the Know thy Heritage delegates do not meet Israelis. Rabie says he is open to the idea of holding a dialogue with either Israelis or Jewish Birthright participants. “Dialogue is the most important thing in anything you want to do,” he said. “When people sit face-to-face, they come to their senses. It would be a pleasure to do that, but we need that cooperation.”

and moved to Jordan. At age 14, he moved to the US and attended Michigan State University. After college he returned to Amman, where he met his wife. “I wanted to do this program because I kept hearing stories about our land,” she told The Media Line. “I would watch CNN and Al-Jazeera and see the land that was being fought over. I wanted to learn about the culture and my roots.

When you come and see it, it puts it all in perspective.”

Sarah Ikhnayes, 23, tells a similar story. Her father was born in Surif, and lived in the Deheishe refugee camp adjacent to Bethlehem. She was born in Kuwait and was raised in a refugee camp called Talibiye until she was 8 years of age and then headed to New York. “It was nice to come back to the land where my father, my grandfather and my great grandfather were born,” she said.

“This took us to a whole new level of knowing our heritage.” — Media Line

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012 www.kuwaittimes.net

Actress Kathryn McCormick attends the Premiere of Summit Entertainment's "Step Up Revolution" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on July 17, 2012 in Hollywood — AFP

Food FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Everyday cooking

Sweet potatoes

By Sawsan Kazak

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very time I eat sweet potatoes I am always surprised at just how sweet they can be. A weird combination of starchy and sugary, eating sweet potatoes feels like having dessert during dinner. These orange spuds are the perfect treat for anyone with a sweet tooth. The following recipes make your savory dishes sweet.

Send suggestions to: sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

Food FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Baked sweet potato wedges

1 tablespoon olive oil 1/2 teaspoon paprika 6 to 8 sweet potatoes, sliced lengthwise into quarters Preheat oven to 200 C / Gas mark 6. Lightly grease a baking tray, or line with baking parchment. In a large bowl, mix olive oil and paprika. Add sweet potato, and toss to coat. Place on the prepared baking tray. Bake 40 minutes in preheated oven. Best eaten at room temperature.

Sweet potato pie

1 (1 pound) sweet potato 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup milk 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40 to 50 minutes, or until done.

Run cold water over the sweet

potato, and remove the skin. Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then will sink down as it cools.

Mashed sweet potatoes

��6 medium sweet potatoes 1/2 stick butter 1/2 cup cream 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon ��Kosher salt, to taste ��Pinch of ground cloves or ground nutmeg (optional) Bring a large pot of salted water (the water should taste salty, almost like seawater) to a boil over medium heat. Peel the sweet potatoes, and cut them in half lengthwise, then cut each half into quarters. Each sweet potato should end

up cut into eight pieces. When the water boils, add the cut sweet potatoes to the water and lower heat to a simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes can easily be pierced with a knife. Drain the sweet potatoes and return to the pot. Add butter, cream and spices and mash lightly with a potato masher. Adjust seasoning with Kosher salt and serve right away.

Makes 6-8 portions.

Baked sweet potato soup

2 large sweet potatoes 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 3 cups 2% reduced fat milk 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 cup 2% Greek yogurt 1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans 1/4 cup dried cranberries Place potatoes directly on oven rack and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until very soft. Let rest until cool enough to handle. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, scoop out the

flesh, and coarsely mash in a bowl.

Place flour in a pot or Dutch oven and gradually add in the milk, whisking until blended. Cook over medium heat until thickened, (about 8 minutes), whisking often.

Add in the mashed sweet potato flesh, crumbled goat cheese, salt and pepper to taste, and cinnamon.

Stir until the goat cheese melts.

Reduce stove heat to low.

Stir in the Greek yogurt and cook over low heat until heated through, a few minutes. Serve topped with the pecans and dried cranberries.

Beauty FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

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kip the long, steamy showers and opt for shorter, cooler sprays.

Long, hot showers strip skin of its moisture and wash away protective oils.

So limit showers to 10 minutes and keep the water cool.

Check the dryness of your skin by scratching a small area on your arm or leg with your fingernail. If it leaves a white mark, your skin is indeed dry and needs both moisture and exfoliation (i.e., removal of the outermost layer of dead skin cells).

Treat your neck and chest like an extension of your face. Your neck and upper chest area is covered by very sensitive skin, making it a prime spot for telltale signs of aging such as dryness, sun spots and wrinkles. To keep this area youthful, use facial cleansing creams that hydrate and cleanse gently rather than deodorant soaps, which can be drying. Top it all off with a good facial moisturizing cream. If this area is extra dry, use a facial moisturizing mask twice a month.

Run a humidifier every night to moisturize the air in your bedroom. Not only will it ease itchy, dry skin, you’ll be able to breathe the moist air more easily.

Keep your beauty products clean and simple, particularly if you have sensitive skin. Stay away from products with colour, fragrance, or those that produce bubbles or have “antibacterial” on the label. These can all irritate skin.

For soft, young-looking hands and feet, slather on moisturizing cream and then slip on thin fabric socks and gloves while you sleep.

Tone your skin with a sage, peppermint and witch hazel combination. Sage helps to control oil, peppermint creates a cool tingle and witch hazel helps restore the skin’s protective layer.

Combine 4 ounces of witch hazel with 1 teaspoon each of sage and peppermint leaves and steep for one to three days before applying to your skin.

Use a loofah daily to keep ingrown hairs and scaly skin under control. While in the shower, gently scrub bumpy or scaly skin with a circular motion to remove dead cells. For extra-smooth skin, sprinkle a few drops of an alphahydroxy product on the loofah before scrubbing.

Use unscented baby powder to keep areas where skin meets skin-like the inner thighs, and underarms -clean and dry. This is important to prevent a common skin condition called intertrigo, which occurs when such areas remain moist, fostering the growth of bacteria or fungi.

If you’re gearing up for a day in the sun, steer clear of scented lotions and perfumes. Scented products can lead to blotchy skin when exposed to the sun.

Smooth aloe vera gel over extra-dry

skin. The acids in aloe eat away dead skin cells and speed up the healing process. Cut off an end of an aloe leaf, split open, and spread the gel on the dry area.

Plunk your rough, dry elbows into grapefruit halves. First exfoliate your elbows in your bath or shower, then cut a grapefruit in half and rest one elbow on each half, letting them soak for 15 minutes. The acid in the grapefruit provides extra smoothing power.

Go for a run, ride your bike, work out in the garden on a hot day-anything that gets you sweating. Sweating is nature’s way of eliminating toxic chemicals that can build up under skin. Plus, regular exercise maintains healthy circulation and blood flow throughout your body, including your skin. If you’re exercising outdoors, though, remember to wear a sunscreen on your face that protects against UVA and UVB rays, or a moisturizer with sunscreen protection.

Switch moisturizers every time the seasons change. Your skin needs more moisture in the winter than in the summer. So the same day you bring those sweaters down from the attic for the winter, buy a heavier moisturizer. When you trade in the sweaters for shorts, switch to a lighter one.

Avoid these three skin destroyers: Smoking, tanning salons and sunbathing. All three will age your skin prematurely.

For double skin protection, apply a cream containing vitamin C to your face over your sunblock. The cream helps prevent facial skin damage, dehydration and wrinkles. Also try skin creams containing vitamin E or beta-carotene.

Use a spritzer with rose, sandalwood or bergamot essential oils mixed with water. These oils are great for hydrating the skin. To create a herbal spritzer, mix a few drops of essential oil with water in a small spray bottle and spritz on your face whenever your skin needs a little boost. Your skin is more pliable when it’s hydrated, so a spray helps stave off frown lines and general movement wrinkles. The hydrator also keeps pollutants out and keeps your skin’s natural lubricants in. An added bonus: Your makeup will stay on longer and look more natural.

Clean your face and neck with a natural cold cream and follow with a rosewater and glycerin rinse twice a day to remove skin-damaging pollutants.

Keep your hands off your face!

Because your hands touch so many surfaces, they are a magnet for dirt and germs. Rub your eyes, stroke your chin, cup your cheek and you’ve transferred everything on your hands to your face.

Never rub your eyes-apply compresses instead. The skin on your face is extremely delicate, especially under

your eyes. So use a very light touch on your face at all times. If your eyes itch, apply a cold compress or washcloth to the area, or try a cotton pad moistened with toner or witch hazel.

— www.besthealthmag.ca

Books FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

The Diet Book to Keep You on a Diet 400 Calorie Fix: The Easy New Rule for Permanent Weight Loss!, by Liz Vaccariello, Mindy Hermann, and the Editors of Prevention

ou did it, didn’t you? You made your annual New Year’s resolution to lose weight, eat better, and get in shape.

Resolutions are so 2010. And 2009. And 2008. Stop making diet and health resolutions and do something instead. Our top five weight loss and wellness book picks will keep those new year, new you

resolutions from making a reappearance in 2012. Whether you want to try the new cookie diet or just need some healthy eating tips, this is not your mother’s Weight Watchers. From chocolate and French fries to three square meals daily, you’ll find a diet plan here that will work for you.

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re you a diet virgin? Welcome to the easiest way to slim down we’ve ever seen-2 weeks and one weightloss rule-eat a 400-calorie meal three times a day. There’s salad and grilled fish, but you junk foodies will love the picks from Starbucks, Chipotle, Dunkin’ Donuts . . . you can have it all! With restaurant-specific guides and mouth-watering recipes, 400 calories is the new 1,000!

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The Diet Book to Lose Weight Fast Cinch! Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds, and Lose Inches, by Cynthia Sass hat could be sweeter than eating chocolate on a diet?!

Cinch!, from the co-author of The Flat Belly Diet!, maps out a 30-day plan full of weight loss tips based on clean, nutrient-rich food that will put you on the fast track to shedding those unwanted pounds. With shopping and fashion tips and a month of recipes, say goodbye to caloriecounting and frozen diet meals.

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3 The Total Health & Wellness Book Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!, by Kris Carr

A Health Book Full of Great Food & Recipes

hannel your inner crazy sexy diva-self! Kris Carr, who’s living with a rare and incurable cancer, directed the autobiographical TLC documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer in 2007 and has since turned author. Her new diet book oozes inspiration to take control of your happiness and health. Get your workout routine in sync with healthy eating, and read lifestyle advice on everything from the painful truth about sugar to being a veggie vixen. This colorful romp of a read is splashed with anecdotes and packed with fun tidbits like how to create your own juicer.

You’ll be raring to tackle the 21-Day Adventure Cleansedon’t worry, Carr waits until the end of the book!

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Power Foods: 150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients, by the Editors of Whole Living eave it to Martha Stewart and her team to produce this spectacular and enticing power-food bible. Each page features a power food, such as avocado, berries, and wild Alaskan salmon, and lists the food’s health benefits along with tips on storing, cooking, and preparing. You’ll want to splurge on these ingredients and stock your fridge, especially after checking out the recipes. A bonus-the page-turning photography helps you master healthy cooking tips in no time.

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The Book That Will Get You to Eat Clean

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Clean Start: Inspiring You to Eat Clean and Live Well with 100 New Clean Food Recipes, by Terry Walters on’t care about gluten-free? Don’t do vegan? Don’t matter.

Everyone will love Clean Start because it promotes using fresh, seasonal ingredients in 100 yummy recipes, from winter pear cake to mango chutney to cocoa brownies. Healthy-eating expert and author Terry Walters shows that you don’t need to give up great taste to eat clean, whether your clean means gluten-free, vegan, or just plain healthy eating. The mouthwatering photography will motivate you to enter-and stay-in the kitchen!

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Health FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

OCD: When to seek help Obsessions are involuntary impulses that occur over and over again in your mind

OCD signs and symptoms: Obsessive thoughts Common obsessive thoughts in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) include: • Fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others • Fear of causing harm to yourself or others • Intrusive explicit or violent thoughts and images • Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas • Fear of losing or not having things you might need • Order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up “just right” • Superstitions; excessive attention to something considered lucky or unlucky OCD signs and symptoms: Compulsive behaviors Common compulsive behaviors in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) include: • Excessive double-checking of things, such as locks, appliances, and switches • Repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make sure they’re safe • Counting, tapping, repeating certain words, or doing other senseless things to reduce anxiety • Spending a lot of time washing or cleaning • Ordering or arranging things “just so” • Praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by fear • Accumulating “junk” such as old newspapers or empty food containers

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t’s normal, on occasion, to go back and double-check that the iron is unplugged or your car is locked. But if you suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors become so excessive they interfere with your daily life.

No matter what you do, you can’t seem to shake them. But help is available.

With treatment and self-help strategies, you can break free of the unwanted thoughts and irrational urges and take back control of your life.

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and repetitive, ritualized behaviors you feel compelled to perform. If you have OCD, you probably recognize that your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational - but even so, you feel unable to resist them and break free.

Like a needle getting stuck on an old record, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) causes the brain to get stuck on a particular thought or urge. For example, you may check the stove 20 times to make sure it’s really turned off, wash your hands until they’re scrubbed raw, or drive around for hours to make sure that the bump you heard while driving wasn’t a person you ran over.

Understanding OCD obsessions and compulsions Obsessions are involuntary, seemingly uncontrollable thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over again in your mind. You don’t want to have these ideas but you can’t stop them.

Unfortunately, these obsessive thoughts are often disturbing and distracting.

Compulsions are behaviors or rituals that you feel driven to act out again and again. Usually, compulsions are performed in an attempt to make obsessions go away. For example, if you’re afraid of contamination, you might develop elaborate cleaning rituals.

However, the relief never lasts. In fact, the obsessive thoughts usually come back stronger. And the compulsive behaviors often end up causing anxiety

themselves as they become more demanding and time-consuming.

Most people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) fall into one of the following categories: • Washers are afraid of contamination. They usually have cleaning or hand-washing compulsions.

• Checkers repeatedly check things (oven turned off, door locked, etc.) that they associate with harm or danger.

• Doubters and sinners are afraid that if everything isn’t perfect or done just right something terrible will happen or they will be punished.

• Counters and arrangers are obsessed with order and symmetry.

They may have superstitions about certain numbers, colors, or arrangements.

• Hoarders fear that something bad will happen if they throw anything away. They compulsively hoard things that they don’t need or use.

Just because you have obsessive thoughts or perform compulsive behaviors does NOT mean that you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. With OCD, these thoughts and behaviors cause tremendous distress, take up a lot of time, and interfere with your daily life and relationships.

Signs and symptoms of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) Most people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have both obsessions and compulsions, but some people experience just one or the other.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms in children While the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder usually occurs during adolescence or young adulthood, younger children sometimes have symptoms that look like OCD. However, the symptoms of other disorders, such as ADD, autism, and Tourette’s syndrome, can also look like obsessive-compulsive disorder, so a thorough medical and psychological exam is essential before any diagnosis is made.

Therapy as treatment for obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) The most effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder is often cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Antidepressants are sometimes used in conjunction with therapy, although medication alone is rarely effective in relieving the symptoms of OCD. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves two components: 1. Exposure and response prevention involves repeated exposure to the source of your obsession. Then you are asked to refrain from the compulsive behavior you’d usually perform to reduce your anxiety. For example, if you are a compulsive hand washer, you might be asked to touch the door handle in a public restroom and then be prevented from washing. As you sit with the anxiety, the urge to wash your hands will gradually begin to go away on its own. In this way, you learn that you don’t need the ritual to get rid of your anxiety-that you have some control over your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

3. Cognitive therapy focuses on the catastrophic thoughts and exaggerated sense of responsibility you feel. A big part of cognitive therapy for OCD is teaching you healthy and effective ways of responding to obsessive thoughts, without resorting to compulsive behavior. www.mentalhealth.org

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Ingredients 250g cashew nuts 100ml vegetable oil 2 onions, chopped, plus 2 onions, finely sliced 12 garlic cloves 2.5cm piece of root ginger, chopped 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 4 dried red chillies 6 cloves 8cm cinnamon stick 100g freshly grated coconut Salt 2 green chillies, finely chopped 1kg boneless chicken thighs and legs, cut into 5cm pieces 3 tbsp yogur Method Before you start, put 100g of the cashew nuts into a bowl and add just enough warm water to soak them. Leave for two hours. Drain and place them in a blender or food processor, adding a little warm water. Blitz to a thick, smooth paste. Set aside.

Place 25g more of the cashew nuts in a small frying pan and stir over a medium heat until toasted. Set aside.

Heat a small amount of the oil in the same pan and cook the Technique: Slicing Cutting a larger piece of food into even pieces or strips.

I know this Teach me, please sliced onion until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and set aside.

In a large frying pan, dry-roast the garlic, ginger, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, dried chillies, cloves and cinnamon over a low heat for five minutes, stirring. Add the coconut, 75g more of the cashew nuts and the chopped onions and roast for 10 minutes more, stirring all the time.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Grind the mixture either in a blender or food processor, adding 150-250ml water, to a very smooth consistency.

Heat the remaining oil in a wide cooking pot, add the blended spice mixture and fry for 10 minutes over a low heat. Add the ground cashew paste with some salt and fry for two minutes, adding the green chillies.

Increase the heat to medium-high, and add the chicken pieces. Fry for five minutes, then add the remaining un-toasted cashews. Stir-fry for a minute or so, then add 600ml of water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt, the reserved toasted cashew nuts and the crispy fried onions.

For more information regarding Reza Mahammad and his Food Network show Reza, Spice Prince of India visit www.foodnetworktv.com

Difficulty > Intermediate Prep time > 1/2 hour Cook Time > 25 mins Serves > 24 Ingredients 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, plus more to sprinkle 400g sweet potato, diced into small cubes 200g soft goat’s cheese, chopped 3 spring onions, chopped 2 tablespoons coriander leaves, finely chopped 1 whole red chilli, deseeded if you like, finely chopped 1 teaspoon chilli flakes Salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3 garlic cloves, crushed 25g unsalted butter 270g filo pastry Rock salt, to sprinkle Method Unlike most samosas, these aren’t fried. This both makes them healthier and somehow intensifies the flavour of the filling. Cinnamon is fabulous with sweet potato. I serve these with a peppery watercress dip - a kind of Indo-Italian pesto - with coriander and lemon (once, by accident, I used orange instead and it was great, so try it). If you grow nasturtiums, use the leaves instead of watercress; it tastes unbelievable. These are smart enough to serve with drinks.

Place the 1 teaspoon cumin seeds in a dry frying pan and toast until golden and fragrant. Remove to a mortar and crush with a pestle. Put the sweet potato in a pan, cover with water and add salt. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for six to eight minutes until tender. Drain and cool. Place in a bowl and mix with the cheese, spring onions, coriander, chilli, chilli flakes, crushed cumin, cinnamon and garlic. Preheat the oven to 200∞C/400∞F/gas mark 6.

Melt the butter. Lay a sheet of filo on a work surface and brush with butter. Place a second sheet on top to fit over the first. Brush this with butter too. Cut into strips about 5cm wide. Spoon 1 heaped teaspoon of filling into one corner. Fold the right corner of the strip over to the left side to create a triangle. Continue to fold the triangle along the strip to the end, cutting off surplus pastry. Repeat to use up all the pastry and filling. Brush liberally with butter and sprinkle with cumin seeds and rock salt. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

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he Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are taking “Quadrophenia” and other Who classics on the road for a US tour this fall, but first plan what Daltrey calls a great finale for the Olympic Games in London.

“We have recorded a piece of music that is a fabulous ending for the Olympics ... and just shows the great music that has come out of this country. This country has put some fabulous music out into the world,” Daltrey said Wednesday as he sat next to Townshend. Both are British.

The Who’s Olympic performance will be a tuneup of sorts for their American tour, which kicks off Nov. 1 in Sunrise, Fla., and will end in Providence, R.I., on Feb. 26.

The last time they toured the United States was in 2008.

During a wide-ranging video conference, during which they took questions that were sent in ahead of time, the surviving members of the legendary band were asked if they were planning to use holograms, like Dr. Dre did to lifelike effect with the image of Tupac Shakur at Coachella in April, for the late members Brian Moon and John Entwistle. “I thought about it but everybody is doing it now,” said Daltrey. “I don’t know whether we need it. And it’s only a gimmick. We were very good on gimmicks in the (19)70s but I think we can leave it alone now.” He also said the band did not plan to have guest singers as they did on their previous tour. The double

album “Quadrophenia,” released in 1973, was the Who’s second acclaimed rock opera (“Tommy” being the first). Written

by Townshend, Daltrey called it “Pete’s pinnacle.”

The band will play the album in its entirety. A documentary about the making of the album, “The Who: Quadrophenia - Can You See the Real Me?” will be shown July 24 in theaters across the country. The London Olympics start July 27 and run until Aug. 12. Their Olympic gig will put them on an even bigger stage than their halftime performance at the Super Bowl in 2010.

Daltrey said the closing performance “is not about The Who being on a TV show, it’s about making great music that is apropos to the end of that event. ... I’m extremely proud of it.” Townshend also said he is working on new music.

However, he added: “I don’t know whether you can rubber-stamp it as Who music.”— AP

Spanish tenor Jose Carreras performs during a concert at the Zouk Mikael Festival north of Beirut on July 18, 2012. — AFP

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ylvester Stallone denied Wednesday reports that he has hired a well-known private investigator to probe the death of his son Sage, according to the Hollywood actor’s spokeswoman. The TMZ celebrity news website said Stallone had brought in Scott Ross-who investigated molestation charges against Michael Jackson and the Chris Brown/Rihanna battery case-to look into his eldest son’s death last week. TMZ said Stallone had not ruled out foul play over the death, even though he has no evidence, and that he wants to know if his son was using drugs or alcohol in his final weeks. But the “Rocky” actor’s spokeswoman Michelle Bega told AFP: “I spoke with Sylvester Stallone. Mr. Stallone has not hired Scott Ross to investigate the death of his son Sage.” Sage Moonblood Stallone, 36, was found dead at his Hollywood home on Friday.

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he Rhinestone Cowboy will not be riding through Australia and New Zealand. Glen Campbell has canceled an upcoming Australian and New Zealand tour with Kenny Rogers, due to the strains of travel, the singer’s spokesman told TheWrap.”Glen is able to comfortably deal with the travel and the shows themselves,” the spokesman told TheWrap. “However, as August approaches Glen realizes that due to his Alzheimer’s condition, he cannot handle the extremely long plane trip from Los Angeles to New Zealand and Australia.”

The Australia and New Zealand jaunt would have been the last international run on Campbell’s Goodbye Tour. The Country Music Hall of Fame member, 76, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. According to the spokesman, Campbell was to have played eight dates in New Zealand and Australia from Aug. 10 to Aug. 24. The spokesman said that Campbell has “always been well

An autopsy was carried out on Sunday, but the A County Coroner’s Office said toxicology reports would take some 10 weeks. Some prescription pill bottles were taken from the apartment but authorities have said little about the cause of the death. There was no sign of foul play or trauma, nor a suicide note, said Ed Winter of the coroner’s office. The young actor appeared in the 1990 film “Rocky V” as Rocky Balboa Jr, the son of his father’s title character.

The pair also appeared together in the 1996 movie “Daylight.” He is credited with 13 big screen roles as an actor, while he was a producer on three films, including the 2006 short “Vic” which he also wrote and directed. — AFP

received” during his decades of touring New Zealand and Australia, and “is sorry that he cannot perform there one more time.” As part of the tour, Campbell played what was billed as his final Los Angeles concert at the Hollywood Bowl in June, accompanied by Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, Kris Kristofferson and other special guests. The singer, who released his final album, “Ghost on the Canvas,” last August, performed his signature song “Rhinestone Cowboy” at the Grammy Awards in February. Campbell is currently touring the United States, with dates through July. His spokesman said that the U.S. dates “are going well.” Following the string of July dates, the tour will pick up again in October. — Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Doherty kicked out of Thai rehab clinic

T

roubled British rock star Pete Doherty has been thrown out of an exclusive drug treatment centre in Thailand for failing to show he is ready to kick his heroin habit, the clinic said yesterday. The Libertines’ former front man, who once dated supermodel Kate Moss, was asked to leave The Cabin-a $12,000-a-month centre in northern Chiang Mai-after three weeks of treatment. British press reports said Doherty had been thrown out for disruptive behavior, claims denied by the centre which said he was simply not ready to complete the rehab course and was discharged on Tuesday.”It is important to maintain the integrity of the treatment program for the other clients to have a good chance of recovery,” said Alastair Mordey, part of The Cabin’s counseling team.

“Pete understands this and therefore the reasons behind why we have asked him to leave. “Although our parting with Pete is amicable, we are of course disappointed to see him leave. We hope some of the things he has learnt here will help him in the future and look forward to the day when Pete decides to consider recovery again.” Doherty cancelled several high-profile gigs to enter The Cabin’s renowned drug addiction courses, which include intensive therapy, meditation and outdoor activities such as white-water rafting. The famously disheveled songwriter, who has maintained a wide fan base despite being jailed several times in Britain for drug possession, has tried to kick his longstanding habit on numerous occasions. In May the hellraising 33-year-old appeared at the Cannes festival in his first film role-as a debauched young man in 19th-century France. — AFP

File photo shows British singer Pete Doherty taking part in the TV show ‘Le Grand Journal’. — AFP

This undated film image released by Warner Bros.

Pictures shows Christian Bale as Batman in a scene from the action thriller ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’—AP

‘Dark Knight Rises’: Lack of 3D will limit Batman’s box office

C

ould “The Dark Knight Rises” sell more tickets on its opening weekend than “The Avengers” but still wind up making less money at the box office? If it does, 3D - or the lack of it in the case of “The Dark Knight Rises” would be the culprit. “Dark Knight Rises” director Christopher Nolan has been among the loudest critics of Hollywood’s rush to 3D, claiming it degrades the creative and viewing experience. “It’s all about the money,” he told the PGA’s Produced By conference in May. Just how much it’s about the money could come into sharp focus starting last night. The last of three blockbuster Batman movies Nolan has made for Warner Bros., “Dark Knight Rises” is expected by analysts to open somewhere between $170 million and $195 million. That would make it the best US opening ever - for a non-3D movie.

If so, that “best debut ever” honor would still belong to Disney and Marvel’s “The Avengers,” which bowed to $207 million in the first week in May. About 52 percent of that total came from premium - aka more expensive - 3D tickets. That adds up to about an extra $20 million, and while “Dark Knight Rises” will be on 332 premiumpriced Imax screens, that could be the difference between the two films’ first weekends. “The Avengers” bowed on 4,349 screens in all, 3,364 of which were 3D, along with 275 Imax. “The Dark Knight Rises” will be in 4,404 theaters and 3,700 will offer midnight Thursday screenings.

Of course it isn’t all about the opening weekend.

Critics have been nearly rapturous over “Dark Knight Rises,” with Christian Bale reprising the title role, and the film has cast a giant shadow on the cultural landscape all summer. The most conservative observers foresee a long and lucrative run both in the U.S. and abroad.

But the smashing success of “The Avengers” and “Dark Knight Rises” will define the Hollywood’s summer of 2012. And while executives at Warner Bros. and Disney are loath to make any comparisons, it’s hard to imagine bragging rights aren’t on their minds. And even

with considerations surrounding 3D aside, most industry observers think “Dark Knight Rises” will have a tough time matching the opening and overall numbers put up by “The Avengers.” “It was a perfect storm,” Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations told TheWrap. “You had an audience primed for the summer’s first big event, (director) Joss Whedon was making his debut and all the heat of the previous Marvel movies sort of culminated. It just clicked with audiences, even whole families, and it seemed to have just the right tone for a summer popcorn movie.”

“Dark Knight Rises” has certainly built anticipation, evidenced by its huge presales. And the buzz surrounding Nolan’s final entry in his Batman trilogy - “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” were the first two - has been near feverpitch for weeks. But the relentlessly dark and gritty tone of the film, which is at the core of its appeal to many adults, might cut both ways at the box office. “I doubt it will keep anyone away the first weekend,” said Bock, “but it could cut into family and repeat business, both of which helped “The Avengers’ significantly.”

The last Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” was a huge financial success. With a production budget of around $185 million, it opened to $158 million in July, 2008 and went on to make $533 million domestically and more than $1 billion worldwide. That was a huge jump from the Nolan’s first Batman film, “Batman Begins,” which made $205 million after opening to $48 million. The death six months before the opening of actor Heath Ledger, who was playing The Joker, the most iconic of Batman villains, spiked media and public interest in “The Dark Knight.”

Tom Hardy, a newcomer to the cast along with Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has been front and center as fearsome bad guy Bane in trailers for “Dark Knight Rises.” But no matter how scary and fierce Hardy’s Bane might be, it’s hard to imagine he will capture the hearts and minds of

moviegoers - or send them to the box office - as did Ledger. The Australian actor was posthumously awarded the supporting actor Oscar for his role as the Clown Prince of Crime. Another hurdle facing “The Dark Knight” in its pursuit of “The Avengers” is its running time of 2 hours, 45 minutes, as compared to 2 hours, 22 minutes for the Marvel film. That will cut into the number of times the film can be shown in a theater.

“If you have it playing 24 hours a day to packed houses, and I’m sure many theaters will,” Bock said, “the numbers of times it can be screened could be at last one fewer per day. And that adds up.” Don’t shed any tears for Nolan, Warner Bros. or the film’s financier Legendary Entertainment, though. “The Dark Knight Rises” is expected to be among, if not the, most lucrative entry in the eight-film franchise, which has brought in more than $2.6 billion since it began with “Batman” in 1989. And if “The Dark Knight Rises” opens to anything over $169 million - the pre “Avengers” record set by WB’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” - no one at Warmers will be unhappy - even if they’re No. 2, with a 2D asterisk. — Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Jackie Siegel and her children from the documentary ‘The Queen of Versailles.’ — AP

‘Versailles’ an escape that turns somber T

he documentary “The Queen of Versailles” begins life as a juicy guilty pleasure, allowing us to gawk and cluck at the nouveau-riche ostentation of an elderly time-share mogul and his much- younger trophy wife as they build their dream home: a 90,000-square-foot palace that would be the biggest house in America.

And then the economy collapses. And

suddenly, in some ways, David and Jackie Siegel are just like us. Sure, they’re stuck in their 26,000-square-foot mansion in Orlando, Fla., which they’re bursting out of with their eight kids, various nannies, maids and animals and wall-to-wall tacky furniture and artwork. Jackie, a buxom and Botoxed former model and pageant queen who’s about 30 years younger than her husband, rides in the back of a limo to

A ballet dancer of the Rome Opera performs during the 48th edition of the Carthage International Festival at the Roman theatre in Carthage, on July 18, 2012, in Tunis. —AFP

pick up fries at McDonald’s.

But they’re forced to lay off thousands of employees at Westgate Resorts, the company David founded and which made him a billionaire after coming from nothing. They face foreclosure. They end up sending their kids to public school and shopping at Wal-Mart. Now, they actually have to watch what they spend; they have to adapt. Documentarian and photographer Lauren Greenfield just happened to be there to capture it all; having spent three years with this family, she found herself in the serendipitous position of having a dramatic, real-life story arc play out right in front of her. She never mocks them, never depicts them in cheesy reality-TV tones, and they trusted her enough to let her stick around once things went bad. (Although David Siegel since has sued Greenfield for defamation.) The Siegels’ lifestyle is still outrageous, but the sensation of panic they experience and the strain it puts on their marriage are relatable, turning “The Queen of Versailles” from a frothy escape into a sobering reality. At times, it’s actually rather sad. Jackie, all hair and boobs and ridiculously tight clothes, has a warm and welcoming personality but she’s clearly a hoarder. Even when she’s shopping at a behemoth discount store, she still buys eight of everything, and it’s all stuff no one needs. An illness is evident here. It’s a waste, yes, but it’s also a distressing compulsion. The fact that she’s so candid and no-nonsense, having come from humble beginnings herself, makes her that much more of a vivid, accessible figure. And then there’s David, who proudly admits in

high times that he’s constructing his own Versailles because he can, and who slyly boasts that he helped get George W. Bush re-elected through means that may not necessarily have been legal. By the end, he’s hiding in his study, eating dinner alone, working all hours of the day and night trying to find money to keep his business afloat and his people employed.

The crown jewel of his empire, a Las Vegas high-rise, features time shares bought by vacationers who couldn’t afford them in the first place through subprime mortgages. We all know how those turned out.

These are not horrible people, just ones who flung themselves enthusiastically toward the American dream as so many do. As for Versailles itself - which actually was modeled after the French palace, with some touches borrowed from the Paris hotel in Las Vegas - it’s unfinished but on the market. And the price has been reduced. So if you’re looking for a place with a grotto, bowling alley, ice skating rink and 10 kitchens - including one for sushi - you may just be in luck. ”The Queen of Versailles,” a Magnolia Pictures release, is rated PG for thematic elements and language. Running time: 100 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four. —AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Cruise

Ricky Martin is ‘having the time of life’

Tom Cruise

slams ‘grotesque’ report about daughter

T

om Cruise’s lawyer condemned as “grotesquely false” Wednesday a report that the Hollywood star had abandoned his six-year-old daughter amid the shock of his wife’s divorce bombshell. Attorney Bert Fields said a cover story in Life and Style magazine, with the strapline “Abandoned by Her Dad,” was clearly designed to make money on the back of falsehoods about the A list actor and his daughter Suri. “The tabloids are at it again, trying to make a buck by publishing more grotesquely false claims about Tom Cruise,” he said in a statement, noting that Cruise had been reunited with Suri after finishing work on his latest film.

“For example a sleazy magazine calling itself Life & Style has a bogus cover headline that Suri has been ‘ABANDONED BY HER DAD.’ That, as anyone knows who saw their photos together yesterday and today, is a disgusting, vicious lie. “Until this week, Tom was shooting a film on location, but he spoke to Suri every day. He’s with Suri right

R now; and he was with her the day before Life & Style trumpeted their cruelly false accusation. “Tom dearly loves Suri and the last thing he would ever do is abandon her.”Cruise’s wife Katie Holmes announced on June 28 that she was filing for divorce to end her five-year marriage to Cruise, who was reportedly taken completely by surprise by the bombshell.

Lawyers for the former fairytale couple, who married in November 2006 after a whirlwind romance and a proposal beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris, struck a divorce settlement less than two weeks later.

Holmes has set up home in New York and is understood to have primary custody of their daughter, while Cruise has been pictured spending time with the youngster in Manhattan in the last two days. Speculation about the reason for the split has centered on Holmes’ reported concerns about Cruise’s plans to draw Suri closer into the Church of Scientology, of which he is probably the most famous member. — AFP

Springsteen fires back at London authorities after show shut down

Y

ou don’t hustle the Boss. Bruce Springsteen may have been shut down during a key moment at his London concert last weekend, but at his show in Dublin on Tuesday, the veteran musician got in the last word. A few last words, actually. Springsteen started his set by picking up “Twist and Shout” at the exact point where local authorities pulled the plug on his duet with Paul McCartney at Hyde Park last Saturday, according to the BBC. As he launched into the song - this time without the ex-Beatle joining him - Springsteen cracked, “Before we were so rudely interrupted...” And the jokes didn’t end there. Springsteen followed “Twist and Shout” by playing a cover of “I Fought the Law,” hoisting a sign that read “Only the Boss says when to pull the plug” He then staged a fake “arrest” scene involving a man dressed as a London cop later in the show. Message sent. But despite his defiant stance, Springsteen was ultimately compliant when it came to sticking to the rules in the Irish capital, wrapping up the his performance before the preset cut-off time of 11 p.m. —Reuters

icky Martin says Broadway is a monster that requires discipline, concentration and dedication, but “Evita”“s “Che” is feeling so happy and so at home that he can’t imagine moving for a while.”I would love to do Broadway the rest of my life!” Martin told The Associated Press on Tuesday, breaking a months-long silence he subjected himself to in order to preserve a voice that he’s been using eight shows a week, since March and until January. In an interview at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, which houses the musical based on the life of Argentina’s first lady Eva Peron, Martin said he’s never been challenged as much as in the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacle and that this is, precisely, what has him “hooked” on Broadway, where he debuted in 1996 as Marius in “Les Miserables.”

Martin has already decided to stay in the Big Apple at least for a while, calling it a “fascinating” and multicultural city for his soon-tobe-4 twins, Matteo and Valentino.

AP: You were born for the stage and certainly for one on Broadway. Any immediate plans to work on other musicals or plays after “Evita”?

Martin: I love being onstage. I love what’s happening with “Evita.” The reaction that I get every night from the audience, the emotions, the feeling, what I’m feeling every night onstage is, is simply beautiful. It’s never the same, you never get bored, it’s very challenging. Do I want to come back to Broadway? I would love to do Broadway the rest of my life!

Because it’s challenging, because it makes me grow as an actor, as an entertainer, as an artist, and that’s what I need, that’s what I’m hooked on.

AP: Would you consider staying here in New York?

Martin: I AM staying here in New York!

Those are my plans. Anything can change in show business, you know how it goes, everything changes from one day to the other. But my idea is to stay here for a while.

Springsteen

AP: You have worked eight shows a week for months now and you still have until January to go. Has this taken a toll on you, physically, emotionally?

Martin: If you thought that you knew about discipline, well my level of discipline was very basic until I started doing this show specifically. The role of Che is very challenging every night, but I’m really enjoying this. I’m dealing with so many emotions, every day, in front of an audience. That vulnerability is ... addictive. I’m very happy to do this.

AP: Do you get any “me” time at all?

Martin: You have to. The thing is that with the show I have a really amazing schedule. I wake up in the morning, I take the kids to school, then I come back home and I spend time in silence, which is very important. I meditate. I read the newspaper or I just work out and come back but it is very important for me to be centered and focused to be able to pull out this show. It’s a lot of work. It’s two hours of intense adrenaline, physically and mentally.

AP: You just mentioned your kids and your plans to stay in New York. How is it to live with young children in New York?

Martin: New York City is an amazing place to raise children. I mean, there’s so much you can do with kids here: all kinds of museums, you have the park (Central Park), you have kids from all over the world! My kids are going to school literally with kids from all over the world so they’re exposed to so much at such a young age. It’s such a fascinating city, I love New York City. It really is amazing.

AP: Anything you can’t wait to do after “Evita”?

Martin: I’m not thinking about what’s happening after “Evita.” I don’t want to go there.

Not yet. Let’s see what happens. I’m having the time of my life right now. Just to be able to be back on Broadway and to be surrounded by such amazing actresses, actors, directors, choreographers.

It’s just an amazing group of people. I learn so much from them every night. I think I’m very lucky, so “Evita” for me is everything at the moment. And I want to keep it that way.

AP: Regarding your voice, how do you take care of it to be able to perform eight shows a week? You’ve performed all your life but...

Martin: Broadway is another monster. I’ve been touring since I was 12 years old and I love being on the road - one day you’re here, next day it’s snowing, and the next you are in a desert and it’s 110 degrees. So I guess I’m kind of used to the madness physically that you go to when you are an entertainer. But it’s been great.

AP: Any other shows you’ve seen that you’ve enjoyed since you’ve been here?

Martin: I haven’t been able to go to another show. Because that only day that I have off I go home and I spend it with my kids. I guess when I’m done with “Evita” I will.

AP: Have your kids seen “Evita”?

Martin: They come with me to the theater a lot, but it’s a long show and it’s deep... No, they haven’t been able to see “Evita” ... (But) They sing the songs! (laughs)— AP

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Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Awareness is protection

Keep cookies - and spies - off your computer N o sooner have you purchased a new pair of shoes online than you’re suddenly seeing them everywhere - primarily in banner ads across other sites gracing your computer screen. Are you being tracked? In a word: yes. But there are steps you can take to cover your Internet tracks. The fact of the matter is that there are entire lockers of data being gathered online by advertising agencies, from just about every web surfer, whether they consent or not.

This data tracking is a tool for creating a profile of a customer. The more these ad agencies know about potential customers, the more effectively they can advertise to them.

So long as it remains anonymous, it’s no more than annoying. But as soon as a user is identified, and his movements start getting tracked through the net, it’s no longer a laughing matter.

Blame it on cookies, these Internet trackers that hunker down in your computer and make sure you’re always recognizable. “The advertising networks gather up a user’s surfing behaviour and give him a globally unique identification number,” says Christian Krause of the independent data security centre of the German state of Schleswig Holstein.

“Users with that kind of number on their computer can always be recognized again.”

That’s how an online store knows which pages you’ve already looked at and what you did there. But personalized ads are the least of the worries floating out there. Things can get really problematic when you’re on a page where you have to log on with your name, like on a social network such as Facebook or Google+.

“The problem is, that this data gets assigned to your name,” says Thilo Weichert of the Schleswig Holstein centre.

That’s especially worrisome to privacy advocates, since this name-linked data isn’t just for use by the advertising industry, but also companies that want to know a customer’s background or more about his finances. Government agencies also track this data.

And the demand for more data is only growing, according to a study by Xamit, a consulting agency that specializes in data security. It showed that 29.9 percent of sites inspected during 2011 used a web statistics service that allowed user tracking. The year before, that figure was only 24.7 percent. About three-quarters of those sites examined used a service that did not adhere to data security standards, noted Xamit.

But there are strategies Internet users can adopt against attempts to suck up data. “Users should always try to delete stored cookies and the browser history after every Internet session,” says Ragni Serina Zlotos of German computer magazine c’t. “That’s possible with all contemporary browsers. With Firefox, you can even set it so that the cookies are automatically deleted after every session.”

But that strategy only works with normal cookies. Online advertisers have upped the ante, now using flash cookies that, according to data security experts, are saved on the computer, independently of the browser. These have to be deactivated in the settings manager of Flash Player, which can be found in the System Controls.

Firefox users should also consider the add-on Better Privacy, which can delete flash cookies and so-called DOM storage cookies. The browser add-on Ghostery, available for all browsers, also provides some protection from Internet snooping. It shows which tracking services and advertising networks are currently following you, and then blocks them.

“This has a real ‘A-ha’ effect for a lot of users,” says Krause.

Ghostery also tries to block the tracking. “But you shouldn’t count on that working. The programme performs differently depending on the browser employed,” according to Krause. A lot of browsers also come with do-not-track functions. “You can install the browser settings so that you’re not followed,” says Zlotos. Whether Internet trackers adhere to those rules is the question. So far, Twitter has required them to honour it.

Another tip: if you’re going to do a lot of surfing with Facebook or Google+, but don’t want to be recognized everywhere, use two browsers, says Krause. “You use the one for social networks, the other for all other Internet sites.” The little bit of comfort you sacrifice is made up for by the protection it provides for your personal data. — dpa

Stars

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Aries (March 21-April 19) You have been doing lots of work on your frame of mind—attitude. You have also worked hard at rising above the aspects that have been present these last few days. You have done a good job this week and today you will do another good job. Somehow you find flowers for your desk or station and pleasant conversations can be traded between previously difficult co-workers, clients or customers. Now is the time to build on, not only what you have accomplished in the business world, but in your relationships as well. An older person wants to discuss real estate after work today and you may want to become more familiar with the rules, benefits or laws surrounding this person’s rights.

A lover or child becomes a focal point in your life this afternoon.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Your acute sensitivity with others’ needs and feelings could make this a super day for leading groups or making presentations.

You may also be involved in planning some recreation or entertainment for a staff that is ready to celebrate a job well done. Choices in entertaining, teaching, speaking or singing are ways in which you will become involved in order to communicate to others or to help others celebrate.

You are a good organizer as well as a good joiner. Your expression of hope, acceptance and good insights shows off the magnitude of your perspective. Tonight is a wonderful night regarding romance and there are opportunities to draw close to loved ones. You will always find new ways to relate in a love relationship.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Your professional life is a breeze today. Personal energies are a bit stressed however. Ideas evolve and future activities pertaining to travel or vacations depend upon your own creative ideas. If you don’t mind traveling in groups and you love music or art or sports, begin to pull people together for a discovery tour and before you know it you will have a grand vacation at half the cost. Groups traveling together can achieve more benefits when it comes to getting a good deal on travel packages: tour, food, lodging, etc. You are able to use good common sense to help get whatever plans are necessary for today off the ground.

The responses you gain from the decisions now are positive . . . mostly because you listen very carefully to other’s needs.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You have a love of life that manifests itself in good cheer and generosity. This is a time when relationships are good—especially with women. This is a time of spectacular power and the explosive energy may flood into most any facet of your life. You will find it difficult to control or even mask your emotions. Constructive expression is the key today. This is a good time to work on an unfinished project. Positive things happen while working with a group of close associates. You and your associates are apt to enjoy considerable success with this unfinished project and may be able to leave work a little early this afternoon.

A positive change in an existing relationship could occur at this time.

This will have pleasant results.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You will have positive attention through your accomplishments this day. Being in the spotlight is common to you. Today would be a good day to just stay your humble self and see where you can best be of service. This is a time of tremendous psychological growth, which can lead to great personal success, particularly if you follow through with whatever you have begun at this time. You might also find that you will put on the pounds if you are not careful—people just keep bringing you goodies. This afternoon you may desire a little outdoor, physical activity and you will find a friend or family member will happily run or walk along side with you. Young people will continue to argue this evening; you, however, have a response that gains their attention.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) This is certainly not a day for routine activities—change is in the air and all is right with the world. Lets face it, change is a bother from time to time but we would not always move on to better things or learn about our abilities to succeed, if we did not have changes from time to tome. You are in-tune with your feelings and open to all sorts of communication. You look for ways to teach or guide and this may include the very young or the elderly and you are able to be helpful to the delight of your supervisors. You are able to do more in your place of business than at other times; careful that you do not try to overachieve and exhaust yourself. You are due for a pleasant surprise this afternoon.

A domestic adjustment could include some future vacation plans.

COUNTRY CODES Libra (September 23-October 22) This day could be quite useful. Reading the news or gathering information in a variety of ways leads you into new and successful directions. Your enthusiasm is high and you should be able to accomplish or experience whatever you set your mind or body to do—as long as you avoid the tendency to overreach yourself. You may receive some recognition or special attention regarding your particular skills and abilities. This afternoon is a good time to enjoy the company of family. If you have not taken the time to show your appreciate for the things that others do for you—now is a good time. You will most likely be feeling generous this evening, but it would be wise to keep it simple. Movie, dinner out or pizza and a game-playing evening might be fun.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Recognition is yours when it comes to a job well done.

Higher-ups are watching; there may soon be a new job offer. All of this is to encourage you to keep working on the current path.

New possibilities will open up to you. You enjoy moods and emotions, particularly in a group setting. You find it easy to work with others and you tend to pour a lot of eager enthusiasm into those around you.

Perhaps being a stage manager would be fun for you. When it comes to teaching or coaching young people, you are a natural, always able to motivate and inspire others. Whatever you do for a living, you do it with gusto! This evening you will have time to work with food, music and color—fabric and the arts; whatever is beautiful.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Your mind is full of practical ideas, especially related to your particular talents. This is a good day for crafty thinking and new inventions. There are complicated tasks that will work better with a better plan and you seem to find new ways to insert a new method or solutions here and there today. Management issues and storage issues come into play today and you tend to draw word pictures that help others to understand the adjustments that are necessary. Of course, there is always one person that doesn’t agree but all is soon remedied. Poetry, music and the arts interest you, as do psychology and the psyche. A trip to the bookstore or library this evening is the perfect thing to wind down a very busy day. A classic movie or a book holds your interest.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) This is a go-to-it day! You have the world on a string and that string is quite securely tied around your finger! A day like this comes only twice a year, so make the most of it. Successful outcomes are inevitable. Projects are completed and problems that don’t seem to ever go away have a solution. You may find yourself enjoying a long conversation, writing a letter, or making a special phone call after work this afternoon. There is that feeling that anything is possible. There are optimism, faith and a tendency to take chances at the deepest emotional levels. This coming weekend is good for some sort of traveling—perhaps to the country or a bicycling tour around town. Stability and permanence satisfy a deep emotional need.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Whatever you can imagine, you can create. This is one of those days when questions have easy answers and teamwork members have the spirit to accomplish whatever is put in front of them—anything is possible. You have a tiger in your tank and a green light for all group activities. Be sure to include some physical activity during the day.

Perhaps this could also be included within the team. After eating a light meal all the team members can join up and quick-walk around the building or around the block or up so many flights of stairs. In communicating with others, you will most likely find greater clarity because through your team, you support and praise each other. This evening you are in a mood of self-enjoyment and can appreciate your own better qualities.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Good news is in the works. You will feel like hugging everything in sight this morning: men, women and trees—even the bag lady. Your affectionate and easygoing nature is evident. If you must put forth any opinions or explain any motivations, be sure you have the facts in order . . . you could be challenged. Your energies run effectively toward making yourself felt in the material, tangible, outer world. You are an action person who gains the attention of others and produces quality results. The circumstances of your life suggest extroversion at this time. The secret to your success is to stay focused. A short trip could be part of today’s scenario. Enjoy the sounds of music while you meditate this evening.

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

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

Stars

C R O S S W O R D

7 4 2

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday始s Solution

ACROSS 1. An easy return of a tennis ball in a high arc.

4. Involving the medulla oblongata.

10. The seventh and last day of the week.

13. A period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event.

14. Streaming or flapping or spreading wide as if in a current of air.

15. Electronic equipment that provides visual images of varying electrical quantities.

16. A legal document codifying the result of deliberations of a committee or society or legislative body.

17. A midnight meeting of witches to practice witchcraft and sorcery.

18. The month following July and preceding September.

19. A river of southwestern Africa that rises in central Angola and flows east and then north (forming part of the border between Angola and Congo) and continuing northwest through Congo to empty into the Congo River on the border between Congo and Republic of the Congo.

21. Genus of herbs and subshrubs with milky juice and showy bluish flowers.

23. An extreme state of adversity.

26. Being nine more than forty.

27. Same in identity.

30. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

31. Greek mythology.

35. Having a claw or claws.

38. Relating to or characteristic of or occurring in the air.

39. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

40. Primitive chlorophyll-containing mainly aquatic eukaryotic organisms lacking true stems and roots and leaves.

42. A United Nations agency created to assist developing nations by loans guaranteed by member governments.

43. (informal) Exceptionally good.

45. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

47. An associate degree in applied science.

48. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

50. A pale rose-colored variety of the ruby spinel.

52. Large family of important mostly marine food fishes.

56. A river in southeastern Australia that flows generally northwest to join the Darling River.

60. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

61. A compact mass.

64. Plant with an elongated head of broad stalked leaves resembling celery.

65. Electronic warfare undertaken to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use of the electromagnetic spectrum.

67. On or toward the lee.

68. The upper side of the thighs of a seated person.

69. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia.

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

DOWN 1. An accidental hole that allows something (fluid or light etc.) to enter or escape.

2. Predatory black-and-white toothed whale with large dorsal fin.

3. Informal or slang terms for mentally irregular.

4. An oil port in southern Iraq.

5. A city in the European part of Russia.

6. A three-year law degree.

7. An imaginary elephant that appears in a series of French books for children.

8. The biblical name for ancient Syria.

9. Greek wine flavored with resin.

10. The act of scanning.

11. Wild sheep of northern Africa.

12. A one-piece cloak worn by men in ancient Rome.

20. Again but in a new or different way.

22. Leaf or strip from a leaf of the talipot palm used in India for writing paper.

24. An informal term for a father.

25. Being nine more than ninety.

28. (botany) Of or relating to the axil.

29. God of death.

32. A metabolic acid found in yeast and liver cells.

33. A genus of Mustelidae.

34. Acute lung injury characterized by coughing and rales.

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

37. Any of numerous local fertility and nature deities worshipped by ancient Semitic peoples.

41. Bearing or marked with a label or tag.

42. An imaginary elephant that appears in a series of French books for children.

44. Marked by lack of intellectual depth.

46. A decree that prohibits something.

49. A public promotion of some product or service.

51. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

52. An associate degree in nursing.

53. Type genus of the family Arcidae.

54. Slightly wet.

55. A city in northern India.

57. A public area set aside as a pedestrian walk.

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

59. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

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

63. The Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Dali region of Yunnan.

66. A state in northwestern North America.64. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

Yesterday始s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Hicks hits maiden homer to give A’s win over Texas Dodgers stun Phils 5-3 LOS ANGELES: Matt Kemp hit a two-run homer in the 12th inning to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday. Rookie left-hander Jake Diekman (2-0) walked Mark Ellis with one out and Kemp drove a 1-0 pitch the other way into the pavilion seats in right-center for his 13th home run and sixth career walkoff homer, capping the 4-hour, 25-minute marathon.

Jamey Wright (4-2), the sixth Dodgers pitcher, worked one inning for the victory as the Dodgers ended a four-game losing streak. Hunter Pence hit a two-run single in the 10th inning with the bases loaded to give Philadelphia a 3-1 lead. The Dodgers responded with two in the bottom half against closer Jonathan Papelbon, whose blown save was his third in 24 opportunities.

NATIONALS 4, METS 3 At Washington, Jordan Zimmermann pitched six shutout innings and Adam LaRoche hit a two-run homer to lead Washington to the win over New York. Steve Lombardozzi added a two-run double as Washington the Mets a sixth straight loss. Zimmermann (7-6) won his fourth straight, allowing just four hits in six innings, striking out four and walking none. Sean Burnett worked a scoreless eighth, but Tyler Clippard allowed two home runs in the ninth to David Wright and Jason Bay. Clippard struck out Jordany Valdespin for his 15th save.

DIAMONDBACKS 7, REDS 1 At Cincinnati, Jason Kubel returned from a sore hamstring and homered in his first two at-bats as Arizona dropped Cincinnati back into a first-place tie in the National League Central. Kubel was out of the lineup for four games because of the hamstring. He hit a two-run shot in the first inning and a solo homer in the fourth off Mat Latos (7-3), who lost for the first time since April 18. Latos also forced in a run with a bases-loaded walk. Ian Kennedy (7-8) gave up eight hits and a run in eight innings, striking out seven.

PIRATES 9, ROCKIES 6 At Denver, Garrett Jones had three hits, including one of Pittsburgh’s four home runs, and Pedro Alvarez also homered to lead the Pirates over Colorado. James McDonald (103) struggled through five tough innings for the win, and Rod Barajas and Casey McGehee also went deep for the Pirates, who took two of three in the series. Dexter Fowler and Carlos Gonzalez homered, and Andrew Brown had three hits for Colorado. One of Brown’s hits, an RBI single in the fourth, tied it 6-6 before the Pirates took control. Jones started the fifth with a single off reliever Matt Reynolds (3-1) and McGehee followed with his eighth homer of the season. One out later, Barajas homered to make it 9-6.

BREWERS 4, CARDINALS 3 At Milwaukee, the Brewers pounced on Adam Wainwright and a shaky St Louis infield early then held on through a nervous ninth inning for a win. Francisco Rodriguez walked in a run before getting Lance Berkman to fly out with the bases loaded, nailing down his second save since taking over as the team’s closer Tuesday night.

Wainwright (7-10) got off to a rough start and didn’t get much help from his infielders, who committed three errors in the Brewers’ four-run first inning - including a pair by shortstop Rafael Furcal.

PADRES 8, ASTROS 4 At San Diego, Yonder Alonso drove in three runs and San Diego used a five-run fourth inning to beat Houston for its fourth win in five games. Clayton Richard (7-10) allowed four runs in 8 1-3 innings to snap a two-game losing streak.

The left-hander gave up nine hits, including two home runs

by Matt Downs, and struck out two. Richard added an RBI double in the sixth. Huston Street came on in the ninth and earned his 15th save. Wandy Rodriguez (7-8) allowed five runs and four hits over four innings, snapping a streak of 48 games in which the left-hander had lasted at least five innings.— AP

KANSAS CITY: Brendan Ryan #26 of the Seattle Mariners is tagged out by Brayan Pena #27 of the Kansas City Royals as he tries to score on a fielders choice at Kauffman Stadium on July 18, 2012. —AFP

OAKLAND: Oakland’s Brandon Hicks led off the bottom of the ninth inning with his first major league home run to lift the Athletics to a 4-3 win over the Texas Rangers in the American League on Wednesday. Hicks connected off Michael Kirkman (0-1) for Oakland’s major league-leading ninth walkoff win. He became the fourth player in franchise history to hit a game-ending homer with his first career shot and the second this year - Derek Norris did it June 25 against San Francisco. Ryan Cook (3-2) worked the ninth inning for the win for the A’s, who split the series with the AL West-leading Rangers.

YANKEES 6, BLUE JAYS 0, 6 1/2 innings (equals) At New York, Hiroki Kuroda allowed just four hits in pitching New York past Toronto in a rain-shortened game.

Kuroda (9-7) allowed a single hit in each of four innings. Mark Teixeira hit a two-run homer in a four-run first inning for the Yankees, who have won eight straight at home against the Blue Jays. The game was called off after a 58-minute rain delay before the Yankees could come to bat in the seventh. The game was delayed 51 minutes at the start. Toronto starter Ricky Romero (8-6) suffered his career-worst fifth straight loss, giving up six runs in six innings.

TIGERS 7, ANGELS 2(equals) At Detroit, Doug Fister gave up just two hits over eight innings, steering Detroit past Los Angeles. Fister (4-6) allowed one run and struck out a season-high 10 for his third straight win.

Prince Fielder capped a four-run Tigers second inning with a two-run single.

Angels starter CJ Wilson (9-6) gave up a season-worst seven runs with five walks over six innings, extending his winless streak to three starts.

RED SOX 10, WHITE SOX 1 At Boston, Cody Ross hit three-run homers in consecutive innings to power Boston past Chicago. Red Sox starter Felix Doubront (10-4) pitched six solid innings, and joined Jon Lester (in 2008) as the only two Boston pitchers to

have reached double-digit wins in a season at age 24 or younger since Roger Clemens in 1987. Chicago’s Pedro Hernandez (0-1) took the loss in his major-league debut, giving up eight runs in four-plus innings.

INDIANS 10, RAYS 6 At St Petersburg, Florida, Carlos Santana hit a three-run homer during Cleveland’s five-run seventh inning, setting up the Indians’ win over Tampa Bay. The Indians twice scored with two outs in the seventh, chasing Kyle Farnsworth (0-2). Two more RBI singles put the visitors ahead and Santana extended the lead to 8-4 with his first homer since May 15. Esmil Rogers (1-0) struck out three over 1 2-3 scoreless innings to take the win for Cleveland.

ORIOLES 2, TWINS 1 At Minneapolis, Adam Jones hit a two-run homer in the first inning and

Baltimore hung on to edge Minnesota. against Francisco Liriano and Baltimore hung on for the win. Josh Willingham’s home run in the fourth was all Minnesota could manage against Tommy Hunter (4-4), who returned to Baltimore’s rotation with a solid performance that lasted one out into the eighth inning. Orioles closer Jim Johnson posted his 27th save in 29 attempts. Twins starter Francisco Liriano (3-9) recovered after giving up Jones’ homer, striking out 10 batters in six innings but still took the loss.

ROYALS 8, MARINERS 7 At Kansas City, Missouri, Billy Butler homered to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, giving Kansas City a tight win over Seattle. Butler hit a pitch from Josh Kinney (0-1) out to left center. He went 3-for-3 and walked twice in his five at-bats. Greg Holland (4-2) pitched a perfect ninth for the win.— AP

MLB results/standings NY Yankees 6, Toronto 0; Milwaukee 4, St. Louis 3; Pittsburgh 9, Colorado 6; LA Dodgers 5, Philadelphia 3 (12 innings); Oakland 4, Texas 3; San Diego 8, Houston 4; Detroit 7, LA Angels 2; Washington 4, NY Mets 3; Boston 10, Chicago White Sox 1; Cleveland 10, Tampa Bay 6; San Francisco 9, Atlanta 4 (11 innings); Arizona 7, Cincinnati 1; Chicago Cubs 5, Miami 1; Kansas City 8, Seattle 7; Baltimore 2, Minnesota 1.

NY Yankees Baltimore Tampa Bay Boston Toronto

American League Eastern Division W L PCT 57 34 .626 47 44 .516 47 45 .511 47 45 .511 45 47 .489

Central Division Chicago White Sox 50 41 Detroit 48 44 .522 Cleveland 47 44 .516 Kansas City 39 51 .433 Minnesota 38 53 .418

Texas LA Angels Oakland Seattle

Western Division 55 36 .604 50 42 .543 47 44 .516 39 54 .419

GB 10 10.5 10.5 12.5

.549 2.5 3 10.5 12

5.5 8 17

Washington Atlanta NY Mets Miami Philadelphia

National League Eastern Division 53 36 .596 49 41 .544 46 45 .505 44 47 .484 41 52 .441

4.5 8 10 14

Cincinnati Pittsburgh St. Louis Milwaukee Chicago Cubs Houston

Central Division 51 40 .560 51 40 .560 47 45 .511 44 47 .484 37 53 .411 34 58 .370

4.5 7 13.5 17.5

San Francisco LA Dodgers Arizona San Diego Colorado

Western Division 51 40 .560 49 44 .527 44 47 .484 38 55 .409 35 56 .385

3 7 14 16

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Voeckler wins tough 16th Tour stage BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON: Thomas Voeckler won the 16th stage of the Tour de France over four huge climbs in the Pyrenees, while defending champion Cadel Evans dropped out of title contention Wednesday. Evans started the day fourth overall but the Australian struggled on the last two climbs. Bradley Wiggins wore the yellow jersey a little more comfortably - gaining ground on some key pursuers. Voeckler dominated the 123mile course from Pau to Bagneres-deLuchon, the Frenchman leading a breakaway for his second stage victory of the Tour. He also won Stage 10 and has four in total.

“Every one of the mountain passes was a race for me,” said Voeckler, who captured the polka dot jersey for the best climber from Fredrik Kessiakoff of Sweden.

“I did what many young riders dream of doing - leading everyone over all four summits.” Chris Anker Sorensen of Denmark was second, 1 minute, 40 seconds back. The top title contenders Wiggins, Sky teammate and compatriot Christopher Froome of Britain and Vincenzo Nibali of Italy - finished more than 7 minutes back. The Tour was riding under a new doping cloud. RadioShack team leader Frank Schleck was expelled from the race Tuesday after testing positive for a banned diuretic.

Overall, Wiggins leads second-place Froome by 2:05 and third-place Nibali by 2:23. Jurgen Van Den Broeck of Belgium moved up to fourth, 5:46 back. Evans crossed nearly 5 minutes behind Wiggins to drop to seventh, 8:06 off the pace.

Teammate Tejay Van Garderen said the defending champion appeared to suffer from heat and stomach problems, and had “just a bad day.” Evans was about 40 seconds back of his teammates, but recovered and joined the pack by the foot of the day’s last climb after receiving an escort. But he struggled on the last climb, continuing to lose time.

“When you have it two hours before the race there’s not a lot you can do,” the 35-year-old Australian said about the stomach issues. “I did not think it would affect me in the race, but obviously that’s not my normal level. “It’s pretty much the Tour de France over for me.” With Evans fading in the Pyrenees, his young teammate Van Garderen is ready to take over.

The 23-year-old American rider, tipped by many as a future Grand Tour winner, is the best-placed BMC rider in the Tour. He holds a grip on the white jersey for the best young rider, and stands sixth overall, 7 minutes, 55 seconds behind leader Wiggins. “We are still going to race aggressively,” Van Garderen said. Two American veterans ran into mishaps. Chris Horner, riding in his sixth Tour, had just fixed a flat tire when he veered into some bushes, requiring a new bike to return to the race. On the downhill from the Tourmalet pass, 17-Tour veteran George Hincapie crashed and required treatment for his injured left shoulder and knee from team staff and the race doctor. A bunch of 38 riders broke away early, but the big climbs took their toll and the group divided. Cyclists first scaled the Aubisque and Tourmalet passes - two of the toughest climbs in cycling - followed by the category-1 Aspin and Peyresourde passes. The last peak was 9 miles from the finish, before a long descent. Voeckler grimaced, his jersey unzipped and his body rocking from side to side in rhythm with his pedal strokes as he climbed the ascents. —AP

Sprinters say goodbye to climbs, hello to stage 18

BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON: Best climber’s polka dot jersey, France’s Thomas Voeckler, rides past a fan sitting on the roof of his decorated car in the 1,435 km and seventeenth stage of the 2012 Tour de France cycling race yesterday. — AFP

PEYRAGUDES: Sprint specialists like Mark Cavendish, Andre Greipel and Matt Goss will not be alone in waving an enthusiastic goodbye to the tough climbs of the Tour de France. Especially with the chance to add to, or in the case of Goss, open their stage win tally on the race coming a day after the final day in the Pyrenees.

Stage 18 today is one of the longest of this year’s race but at the end of the 222.5 km trek from Blagnac to Brive-La-Gaillarde sits an enticing 600-metre home straight that should get the sprinters’ teams going.

Isle of Man sprinter Cavendish of Team Sky came into the 99th edition with an impressive tally of 20 stage wins and made it 21 with victory on stage two when he finished ahead of Greipel and Goss. German powerhouse Greipel, who won his maiden stage in 2011, has since added three to his growing collection winning stages four, five and 13 thanks in large part to his formidable Lotto sprint train. Tasmanian Goss, meanwhile, is still on the hunt. It is his OricaGreenEdge’s first participation on the world’s biggest bike race and the going so far has been tough.

But after a number of close calls his team sporting director Matt White is hoping today, or Sunday’s final stage ride into Paris, will help them break their duck.

“It’s either going to be a long breakaway or a bunch sprint today,” White said at the start of the 17th stage from Luchon to Peyragudes. “It would be nice to wrap up the three weeks with a win.” Orica-GreenEdge will be one of several teams making sure they have their bases covered for stage 18 by having at least one rider in any breakway, in case it goes all the way. Keeping men behind for Goss, however, is probably their best chance of opening their account.

Although two small category four climbs could shake up the sprinters’ plans, they have 10 km from the top of the Lissac-sur-Couze climb to get the chase in order. White believes the fact they have been taking it comparatively easy in the mountains-because they have no yellow jersey contender-could give them the edge. “We haven’t got a team of climbers, so whether we lose seven or 17 minutes in the mountains doesn’t matter to us,” added White. “So in that sense we’ve probably saved a bit of energy.” In the event Goss misses out in Brive, Sunday’s final stage to the Champs Elysees in Paris, where Cavendish has won the past three years consecutively, will be Orica-GreenEdge’s final chance. —AFP

Houston braces for Linsanity HOUSTON: Jeremy Lin is starting over in Houston. He will have to explain why he said he would have rather stayed in New York. The 23year-old undrafted point guard out of Harvard is scheduled to meet the Houston media on Thursday, two days after the Knicks opted not to match the Rockets’ bold three-year, $25 million offer sheet. Shortly after the deal became official on Tuesday night, SI.com reported that Lin had acknowledged in an interview, “Honestly, I preferred New York. But my main goal in free agency was to go to a team that had plans for me and wanted me.”

The Rockets certainly did. “They made a very compelling pitch in terms of what I could bring to the team and for the city,” Lin said in a statement released through the team on Wednesday. “I am also impressed with (Houston owner Leslie) Alexander and the management’s commitment to improving the team.” Houston had Lin in training camp in December, but waived him because the Rockets already had Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowry. He got to New York when the Knicks claimed him off waivers, was briefly dropped to the developmental league, was recalled, and then got his chance to play when coach Mike D’Antoni

put him in after the Knicks’ record dropped to 815. He scored 25 points in a 99-92 win over New Jersey Nets, and “Linsanity” was born. Soon, New York was in playoff contention, and Lin was having drinks named after him. Lin said Wednesday that he “loved this past year with the Knicks and truly appreciate the opportunity that New York gave me,” even though the team decided to let him go. “The way the fans fully embraced me and our team was something I’ll always cherish forever,” he said. “It was an extraordinary and unforgettable time that was easily the best year of my life.”

And now it’s on to Houston, which made its biggest move in years and got its man. The Rockets not only filled a position of need, but also snagged a player who might re-establish the franchise in Asia, where the team enjoyed massive popularity during Yao Ming’s career. Lin is American-born, but of Chinese and Taiwanese descent. His timing is perfect to capitalize on the NBA’s explosive growth in China. He will wear No. 7 for the Rockets, a change from the No 17 he donned with the Knicks. The team began taking pre-orders for Lin jerseys online on Wednesday.

Lin was the buzz of sports radio in Houston on

Wednesday and the topic exploded on social media. About 18 hours after the move became official, the Rockets’ Twitter page had picked up 3,000 new followers, and the Facebook page added 10,000 “likes.” Rockets forward Patrick Patterson is eager to work with Lin, and feels he is an ideal fit for coach Kevin McHale’s system.

“With the type of athletes that we have, we like to run up and down the court in transition. We like to do pick and rolls,” Patterson said before the Rockets’ summer league game Wednesday night in Las Vegas. “And that’s what he thrives well in: pick and rolls, getting to the basket, getting layups, creating opportunities for each player on the team on the floor.”

Rockets assistant coach Kelvin Sampson said in Las Vegas that the team hopes Lin brings stability to the point guard position for many seasons in Houston. “We expect Jeremy to come in and be our point guard,” Sampson said. “We’re not looking for anything other than that. He’s a high-character kid, plays hard, really good off pick and rolls. I think he’s good in transition. We’re going with a really young team next year and Jeremy, with his work ethic and his leadership, I think he’s going to be what we really need.” —AP

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Africa-based Brazilian contends at Open LYTHAM: Adilson Da Silva, a 40-year-old Brazilian who has spent his golfing career in South Africa and Zimbabwe, put himself into contention yesterday in the first round at the British Open. Da Silva, a nine-time winner on South Africa’s Sunshine Tour who lives in Durban and spent many years in Zimbabwe, hopes to play for his homeland when golf returns to the Olympic lineup in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro. But after firing a one-under par 69 in the second group out at Royal Lytham, he can dream of becoming only the second South American player to win the British Open after Argentina’s Roberto de Vicenzo in 1967 at Royal Liverpool.

“Can’t believe it. Yeah, I love it,” Da Silva

said. “I just managed to keep it together.” Da Silva overcame a double bogey at the third hole and a bogey at the fourth with a par save at the 10th, three birdies in a row starting at the par-5 11th and another birdie at 17.

“I was in trouble from the tee but I managed to make a par and then I made three birdies in a row-wow, I was back on my feet again,” Da Silva said. “I was just like, ‘Oh no, it feels like the whole thing is just falling apart.’ So I lost my confidence pretty hard there. And then my caddie kept on me-’Come on, let’s hit another good shot. Let’s start again.’

So that helps a lot mentally. I think, ‘Ease it up a little bit and keep it together.’” Da Silva missed the cut in 2000 and 2007 in

his only prior British Open starts. “Before it didn’t work out,” he said.

“Unfortunately I had a bit of a bummer.

I’m enjoying it a bit more now.”

Da Silva worked as caddie at a ninehole course in his Brazilian hometown of Santa Cruz when he became a bagman for Zimbabwean tobacco businessman Andy Edmundson, who invited him to come to Africa and learn golf. “The town where I come from, there was a lot of tobacco there, so all the companies used to come and buy tobacco,” Da Silva said.

“And I used to caddie for Andy, looking for golf balls, making some money. “We became good friends and a couple years later he invite me to give it a try. In Brazil, those days, golf really wasn’t

Woods off to a storming start LYTHAM: Tiger Woods made a storming start to the 141st British Open at Royal Lytham yesterday, taking a solo lead at one point with four early birdies as he reached the turn in 30.

Seeking a 15th major title four years after his last major win at the US Open, the 36-year-old American got off to a perfect start by sinking a 10footer for birdie at the par-three first.

He then moved into a share of the lead at two under with an 20-foot putt at the fourth and picked up two more shots at the sixth and seventh to stand a stroke clear off the field.

It could have been even better for him as birdie putts marginally missed the cup at the eighth and ninth.

Australia’s Adam Scott, still looking for a first major title at the age of 31, drew level with Woods with a birdie at the 12th and then took the lead at five under on the next hole. On three under were Masters Champion Bubba Watson (through 10 holes), 2010 US Open champion Graeme McDowell (10 holes) and 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson (11 holes).

Leading English hope Lee Westwood got off to the perfect start with birdies on the first two holes, but a skewed approach to the third resulted in a double bogey. Another dropped shot followed at the sixth as the World No.3’s usually solid iron play let him down, but he had birdies at the seventh and ninth to reach the turn in one-under 33. Defending champion Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland was at two over after 10 holes and English hope Justin Rose was a disappointing five over after eight holes. There were few early fireworks in keeping with a subdued atmosphere to start the 141st Open Championship with fans huddled up against the cold and sheltering under umbrellas from the patchy rain coming in off the Irish Sea. The course was lush and the greens soft and receptive, leaving Royal

LYTHAM: Tiger Woods of the US watches his shot from the 14th tee during his first round on the opening day of the 2012 British Open Golf Championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes yesterday. — AFP

Lytham’s 206 pot bunkers as the main obstacles to be overcome by a field of 156, US Open joint runner-up Michael Thompson getting in as a last-minute replacement for fellow American Russ Cochran. With skies clearing somewhat as the morning wore on and the birdie count accelerating, the early leaders in the clubhouse were on oneunder 69. They were 26-year-old English qualifier Matthew Baldwin and 40-year-old Adilson da Silva, a SouthAfrican based Brazilian who battled back from three over after four holes.

A win for Woods would leave him three shy of the majors milestone mark of 18 set by Jack Nicklaus in 1986 and it would complete a clean sweep of golf’s four top tournaments for Americans for the first time since 2004. That situation came about following wins for Keegan Bradley at last year’s US PGA Championship, Bubba Watson at the Masters and Webb Simpson at the US Open, a remarkable turnaround for US fortunes after going six majors without a win. The

competition for major glory at Royal Lytham was ferocious, however, with the top three ranking golfers in the world all being British. No1 Luke Donald and No 3 Westwood are both long overdue a win in the majors, having failed to do so a combined 93 times in the past.

Westwood, at 39, is seen as the better bet due mainly to his accuracy off the tee and his past near misses in the Open. World No 2 Rory McIlroy, in his fifth British Open at the age of 23, looks to rebound from his poor showing at Royal St George’s last year when he let his frustrations with the bad weather affect his play. Fellow Ulsterman Clarke was trying to rediscover the zen-like attitude that brought him a huge upset win last year, while other former winners looking to mount a challenge include Padraig Harrington and Louis Oosthuizen. Donald has an afternoon start at 2:43 pm with Phil Mickelson and Geoff Ogilvy with McIlroy setting off two groups ahead of them. — AFP

much there. I got a good opportunity.”

Da Silva made the most of his chance. He won more than 30 events in Zimbabwe from 1996 through 2003 and led the nation’s Order of Merit five times, playing out of Royal Harare Golf Club among others. Brazil will be assured a representative at the 2016 Olympics when golf rejoins the Olympic lineup and Da Silva hopes to have a chance to win that spot even though he has not returned to the land of his birth in four years. “I think they would take obviously from the World Rankings, which I think is fair,” he said. “You have to be first or second in the rankings. I think it’s between me and Alexandre Rocha.” — AFP

True South Classic a chance for the lesser lights to shine MADISON: The True South Classic, playing opposite the British Open at Annandale Golf Club this week, is a chance for some of the US PGA Tour’s lesser lights to shine. Chris Kirk fired four rounds in the 60s last year and won by one stroke over George McNeill and Tom Pernice. Since earning his first tour title, however, Kirk has endured an erratic season. He was 30th at the John Deere Classic last week after missing the cut in three previous events. He’s also had two top-10 finishes-including a tie for fifth at Colonial and will be hoping a return to the scene of his 2011 victory will kick-start his season. “I have a lot of good memories from last year, on a golf course that really suits my game,” Kirk said.

“These are some of the best greens we putt on all year. It’s hard not to like that. The speed is absolutely perfect and they roll so true. If you have a day where you’re rolling it well you can make a lot of putts and I certainly did that last year.” The field includes four former major winners-Canadian Mike Weir, Shaun Micheel, Mark Brooks and Lee Janzen. But with golf’s big guns taking aim at the British Open at Royal Lytham from Thursday, the highest-ranked player in the field is world number 89 D A Points.

Zimbabwe’s Brendon de Jonge brings some momentum into the event, having made 13 straight cuts. De Jonge has three top20 finishes in his last four starts. Luke Guthrie, a former university standout who finished tied for 19th in Memphis and tied for fifth at the John Deere in two starts since turning pro, will be trying to build on that beginning and move closer to earning his PGA Tour playing privileges without the benefit of qualifying school.

Guthrie closed out his John Deere campaign on Sunday with a 64, capping the round with a 10-foot birdie. “It was awesome,” said Guthrie, whose performance at the TPC Deere Run course earned him his spot in the True South Classic. — AFP

Tiger, Donald eye 2016 golf chance LYTHAM ST ANNES: The world’s top golfers are fully focused on this week’s British Open but just eight days before the start of the London Games they are relishing the chance to join the Olympic party in 2016. Golf will return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904 in Rio de Janeiro and Open favorite Tiger Woods would love to be a part of it.

“I hope I can qualify,” the American former world number one told reporters. “I’ll be 40 by then. It will be something that I’ve never experienced. “I would love to be able to have a chance to represent my country in the Olympic Games.” World number one Luke Donald, seeking his first major championship at Lytham, sampled some of the atmosphere in the build-up to the London Games. “I was in London the week before last, got to watch Wimbledon and got to walk around the town a little bit and there was already a good atmosphere with all the countries’ flags down Regent’s Street,” the Englishman said. “It’s very festive right now and hopefully the sun will break out and show London as the great place that it is. “It’s exciting for the country and hopefully it’s a very successful Olympics. Hopefully in four years maybe I’m a part of that in Rio.” World number three Lee Westwood is not planning to go and watch the London Games.—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Bartoli survives error-plagued opening match Team Geek to keep Games running LONDON: It’s the hidden face of the London Olympics: while the athletes compete, thousands of technicians will run the most connected Games in history while dealing with the threat of cyber attacks. The 2012 edition is expected to produce almost one third more data than the 2008 Beijing Olympics, all going to systems that will deliver results not just to Olympic venue scoreboards but to the rest of the world. “The London Games will be the most connected games in history,” said Patrick Adiba, executive vice president of Atos, the technology company leading a group of six firms dealing with the Olympics. “We have calculated there will be about eight billion devices connected to Internet by the time of the Games including smartphones and tablets: more than the number of human beings on earth,” he added. “So it means that we’ll have a huge amount of data to be processed and a huge amount of people accessing it and enjoying the Games. That will be what makes London very different from previous Games.”

The consortium will be responsible for around 9,500 computers, 1,000 network and security devices and 900 servers for the Games. They will have undergone 200,000 hours of testing in the run-up to the biggest challenge they will ever have to face. Looking after them is an army of 3,500 technicians making sure that the system transmits flawlessly, unhindered by possible cyber attacks, hacking incidents or merely technical breakdowns. According to US networking giant Cisco, which as one of Atos’s partners has among other tasks been responsible for installing 1,800 Wi-Fi stations for the Games, the information network must cope with 30 percent more data than Beijing.

The task is massive: to transmit in real time-or at least in the space of 300 milliseconds, which is the limit of human perceptioncompetition results from the “Olympic family” to Internet sites, the media and broadcasters.

They will also supply security passes for the Olympic site. All the systems have been duplicated to prevent a single breakdown jeopardizing the Games. Preparations started in 2008, in new offices at Canary Wharf, the financial district in east London near the Olympic stadium, where Atos set up its technological laboratory, equipped with hundreds of computers.

To guard against all eventualities, each sporting discipline has gone through 9,000 different scenarios from the most likely to the most implausible. “Some problems are technical, others much less so: for example we can simulate a power cut or a computer crash, but we also have to think about a traffic problem which stops our staff getting to work on time.

Our people have to expect the unexpected,” Adiba said. During the Games themselves, at the control centre there will be around 500 specialists watching the situation 24 hours a day. The Olympics are one of the most watched sporting events in the world with an expected audience of four billion people, out of a world population of seven billion people.

The British government warned that despite all the preparations the Games could not be made immune to cyber attacks. “This year’s Olympics in the United Kingdom will not be immune to cyber attacks by those who would seek to disrupt the Games,” said Francis Maude, a senior cabinet minister with responsibility for cyber security. —AFP

CARLSBAD: Marion Bartoli of France serves to Vania King during day five of the Mercury Insurance Open Presented at La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California. — AFP

CARLSBAD: Top seed Marion Bartoli survived a struggle lasting for more than three hours, with the Frenchwoman overcoming a massive 18 double-faults to advanced at the WTA hardcourt event here on Wednesday. Bartoli defeated American Vania King 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in an error-plagued marathon match to reach the quarter-finals after a bye in the first round. “It’s a very hard surface,” Bartoli said. “Playing three hours is not really helping, but I think it was a great fight from both of us and we tried our best.”

Bartoli, who will not play in the London Olympics due to a longstanding dispute with the French federation, won a battle in which both women took lengthy injury breaks, with Bartoli going off court for treatment in the third set. Bartoli said she felt her hip hurting since the first set. “I really tried to keep the pain away and tried to not think about it,” she said.

“Obviously it came to a point where I had really a lot of problems serving. I really needed some help from the trainer. “It was a gradual pain. At the end of the first set I started to feel it but was able to go through it. And then in the second set we had some tough rallies, and the more she was moving side to side, the more I was feeling it.” Bartoli advanced despite losing serve eight times against the world 59th-ranked King. The French player lost serve in the opening game of the final set but fought to get it back as she broke for four-all before closing out the match at La Costa on a concluding break.

US Olympian Varvara Lepchenko upset South African eighth seed Chanelle Scheepers 6-4, 6-2 to reach her third quarter-final of the season. The 44th-ranked Lepchenko, who will join Venus and Serena Williams plus fellow Carlsbad competitor Christina McHale on a flight to London next week for the July 28 start of the Olympic tennis event, never faced a break point in a victory that took less than 90 minutes. Lepchenko reached quarter-finals this season indoors in Memphis in February and on the blue clay of May’s Madrid Masters, where she lost to Agnieszka Radwanska.

The American broke Scheepers three times and advanced as the South African sailed a return long. “I’m still improving and still trying to prove to myself out there that I can play on all the surfaces,” said Lepchenko. “A lot of people put me into a certain category. But I fell I can play on all surfaces, and I’ve been showing it.” Lepchenko next takes on fourth seed Nadia Petrova, who beat American Alexa Glatch 6-4, 6-3. Petrova’s tournament participation dates back to 2001, with her best showings being a pair of quarter-finals in 2003 and 2007. The 30-year-old Russian with 11 WTA titles, who won her last event on grass in the Netherlands the week prior to Wimbledon, is Olympic-bound next week.

Taiwanese qualifier Chan Yung-Jan beat Britain’s Heather Watson 6-3, 7-6 (7/2).—AFP

Mongolians hunt for Olympic gold OYU TOLGOI: In the sand dunes and dirt tracks of the Gobi Desert, Mongolia is staking its place at the heart of the Olympics by providing metal for the medals that will be handed out in London. Copper and gold that was extracted in a remote corner of the fast-developing country has been transformed into medals-the heaviest ever made for the Olympics-that are currently being stored at the Tower of London.

And while they will become an individual symbol of achievement for the 4,700 athletes who make it to the podiums, sports officials in Mongolia see each and every medal as a source of national pride. “It is a great honor for the Mongolian people, and an example of our involvement with the Olympics and our commitment to the Olympic movement,” Mongolian National Olympic Committee president Demchigjav Zagdsuren said. Success in Beijing in 2008, when Mongolia won its first two gold medals, had already ramped up enthusiasm for the Olympics.

Steeped in the traditions of their conquering hero Genghis Khan, Mongolians have for centuries favored traditionally “manly” sports of archery, horse racing and wrestling displayed every year at the country’s sports festival, Naadam. The 800-year old event - which was originally held to test military skills continues to produce sporting heroes for Mongolians, so it was no surprise that the country’s first gold medals four years ago were

in judo and boxing. However, the traditional nomadic lifestyle from which Naadam developed is beginning to be eclipsed in Mongolia, as the country undergoes rapid change on the back of a spectacular mining boom.

Mining frenzy-Foreign investment, which mainly comes from the huge mining companies such as Rio Tinto, quadrupled last year to nearly $5 billion, according to government data. The boom is transforming parts of Mongolia, most visibly in the capital of Ulan Bator where a surge of construction is underway and the new rich showcase their wealth with the latest luxury cars and fashion accessories. However, many of the poorest of Mongolia’s 2.8 million people complain that little of that money has trickled down to them, and there are concerns among some that mining is having a damaging effect on the vast country’s environment.

The focal point of the mining frenzy is the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, located in South Gobi, Omnigovi Province, two hours’ drive from the Chinese border. The biggest economic undertaking in Mongolia’s history, the mine accounted for more than 30 percent of the nation’s total gross domestic product in 2011, a year when the country’s economy grew by 17.3 percent. Oyu Tolgoi, which is controlled by Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, will not become fully operational until next year, with about 15,000 construction workers currently on site.

Exploratory works carried out during the construction phase have provided gold and copper used for the Olympic medals. Rio Tinto supplied the metals for the medals from two of its mines - one in Mongolia and the other in the United States - as part of a sponsorship agreement with the Olympic organizers. The mining giant supplied eight tons of gold, silver and copper for the medals from both Oyu Tolgoi and the Kennecott Utah Copper Mine in Salt Lake City, Utah. The metal was transformed into flat discs - known as blanks - at a range of plants in Europe before they were delivered to the Royal Mint in Wales.

The blanks were then moulded to meet the designs specified by London 2012 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The medals are the heaviest ever made for the Olympics, weighing 375-400 grammes.

They are 85mm in diameter and 7mm thick.

Bringing the gold home-There are high hopes that some of the 29 Mongolia athletes going to London will return with metal originally dug out from their homeland, helping Mongolia make its mark on the international stage through sport as well as economics.

“We hope to win more medals in the four kinds of Olympic sports that Mongolia excels in, judo, shooting, wrestling and boxing. And we want to defend our two gold medals that we won in London,” said Zagdsuren. —AFP

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

Liverpool’s Lucas set to return from injury hell LONDON: Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva is ready to make his return from a serious knee injury two months ahead of schedule. Lucas has been sidelined since November, when he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury, and the Brazil international had been expected to miss the start of the new season. But Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers believes the 25year-old is already fit enough to feature on the club’s pre-season tour of North America. Liverpool will play friendlies against Toronto, Italian side Roma and Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, and Rodgers is hopeful Lucas could feature as early as the first game of the tour against the MLS outfit on Saturday.

“He’ll have some involvement. He’s still got some

way to go to get back to where he was before the injury, but he’s back two months early,” Rodgers told lfctour.com. “This is normally a nine-month injury. He’s been back in seven and that’s great credit to his work and the work of the medics here. “He’s done very well and is working very hard. We can feed him into some of the games and increase his mental capacity to improve, because obviously it was a serious injury.

“He’s a great guy, he loves his football, loves this club, and he’s making great progress.” Meanwhile, Rodgers has admitted he could make a move for Swansea City midfielder Joe Allen despite claims that he was not allowed to sign players from his former club for 12 months.

Rodgers left Swansea to take over at Anfield last month and it was initially suggested the south Wales side had insisted on a clause that stopped him returning to the Liberty Stadium to buy his old players. But Rodgers, asked about reports linking him with £10 million-rated ($15.7m) Allen, told SkySports.com: “I have a great relationship with Swansea but if there is a market for any of the players, I would like to be in that market.

“They respect that. He is a very talented player, which everyone knows, but there is nothing more at the moment. When players come to a club such as Liverpool, it’s never straightforward. “There are always other barriers and difficulties. At this moment, there are ongoing negotiations on a few targets.”— AFP

Ibrahimovic ‘indecent’ salary triggers uproar Record-breaking salary at time of hardship PARIS: Football superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s record-breaking salary at his new Paris club has sparked a fierce backlash from French politicians denouncing it as “indecent” at a time of financial hardship. The 30-year-old Swedish striker’s transfer to Paris Saint-Germain from AC Milan was hailed by fans with hundreds chanting “Ibra! Ibra!” as he was presented to them Wednesday at a ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower. He has been hired on a reported annual net salary of about 14 million euros ($17 million) - the most ever paid to a player in France. But with France struggling to avoid recession and unemployment on the rise, Socialist politicians have reacted angrily to the figure, denouncing it as a sign of rampant excess.

Even one former sports minister from the right-wing UMP party has denounced the salary. France’s new Socialist government is insisting that Ibrahimovic will have no choice but to pay the 75percent tax rate it intends to impose on annual salaries in excess of one million euros from next year. “These numbers are not impressive, they are indecent,” Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac told Europe 1 radio Thursday when asked about Ibrahimovic’s salary. “They are indecent at a time when everyone in the entire world is making efforts and knows the terrible consequences of a crisis,” he said.

Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron attacked the salary as “astronomical and unreasonable” while government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said the sum “shocked a lot of people”. Vallaud-Belkacem said there was no way Ibrahimovic would “escape” from paying the 75-percent tax rate. Some ministers even rejoiced that his salary would bring so much revenue to state coffers. “I am delighted that he will be paying taxes in France,” said Benoit Hamon, a junior economy minister. “This is a demonstration that this tax was not an argument to prevent great players from coming to play in France.”

Former sports minister Roselyne Bachelot of the right-wing UMP also expressed her “indignation, almost disgust” with the vast sums involved when asked about Ibrahimovic’s transfer.

Even President Francois Hollande joined the fray. Although he didn’t criticize Ibrahimovic’s salary itself, he pointed to the relatively modest salaries at French league champions Montpellier as an example. “There are teams that manage to win... without necessarily having very significant salaries,” Hollande said during a visit to France’s national sport institute.

PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi told reporters Wednesday that the club’s owners, Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), would follow French law when it came to paying Ibrahimovic’s taxes. “As we have already said, we respect French laws. We do it today and we will do it tomorrow. Ibrahimovic’s signing is very positive for PSG but also for French football,” he said. Tax experts said that to guarantee Ibrahimovic a 14-million-euro net salary the club will have to set aside enormous amounts. “If you want the part taxed at 75 percent a year paid entirely to the player, the club will have to pay four times that much,” said French tax lawyer Frederic Naim.

Experts said Ibrahimovic would be required to take French residency and pay French taxes, though he might benefit from a deduction for temporary residency allowing him to cut his taxable income in half. Hollande defeated right-wing incumbent

Nicolas Sarkozy in a presidential vote in May with vows to tackle France’s economic problems by boosting taxes on the wealthy and spending to promote growth. The 75-percent tax rate has been derided by the right, who say it will lead to an exodus of top earners from France while doing little to address the country’s fiscal problems. — AFP

PARIS: People walk past a giant poster featuring Paris SaintGermain (PSG) football club’s newly recruited Sweden striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic displayed at the PSG store on the Champs-Elysees avenue yesterday in Paris. — AFP

Crisis-hit countries fight to prepare for Olympics HELSINKI: With one hurdle left, something snapped. It wasn’t a bone or anything that serious, but Greek athlete Periklis Iakovakis somehow lost power and quickly dropped from first to last in the European Championship 400-meter hurdles final, unable to summon enough energy to keep going strong. It’s that kind of an Olympic year for athletes from crisis-hit European nations preparing for the London Games - always another obstacle. “Of course, the crisis affects you because the world of athletics, the world of sports, it is part of society,” Iakovakis told The Associated Press. “If you consider I have a family and I have two children, everything is inside my mind because I also have to think of the future.”

Greece is mired in a crisis likened to the Great Depression.

The country is in its fifth year of recession, unemployment tops 22 percent, and after the economy contracted by 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012, the government expects it to shrink a stunning 9.1 percent in the third quarter alone.

Europe has long been the cradle and the bedrock of the Olympic movement, a wealthy continent that staged games at will. But eight years after organizing the Athens Games, Greece is so cash-strapped and debt-ridden that it is struggling to send its athletes fully prepared.

“Now I have to search the Internet to find the best flight, the best fare option depending on the dates I want to travel,” said the 33-year-old Iakovakis, who won the 400-meter hurdles bronze medal at the 2003 world championships and gold at the 2006 European Championships. The financial crisis in Europe has specifically affected the Mediterranean rim, with only a few nations spared. Italy, which bitterly fought with Athens to bring the games to Rome in 2004, is in such dire straits that the capital city dropped its bid for the 2020 Olympics after Premier Mario Monti said the government could not back its estimated $12.5 billion cost.

For this year’s games, the Italian Olympic committee’s budget for 2012 has been cut by 20 percent compared to last year. Italian gymnastics coach Paolo Bucci, who used to string together jobs in ballet, acrobatics and at a gym to make money, knows what it takes to live on a shoestring budget as a top-level athlete. Still, he had one message for Monti, who is seeking to lead debt-laden Italy to a more sustainable future with often drastic cuts in programs, including sports. “Monti, the money is gone. Enough,” he shouted during the European gymnastics championships in Brussels in May, complaining about the cuts from the Italian Olympic committee.

Thumping his broad muscled chest, Bucci said only one thing can save the Italian team now. “We have a lot of heart and passion,” he said. “The Italian people are like that. A lot of passion.” Across many countries using the euro currency, government sports budgets have been undermined, several big banks have been crippled in their sponsorship capacity and other major companies are treading carefully before spending scarce resources. In Estonia, defending Olympic discus champion Gerd Kanter is worrying about sponsorship further dwindling and is seeking to survive on little money. In France, pole vaulter Vanessa Boslak is seeing early retirements among her fellow athletes because, after all, people have to find a job for the rest of their lives.—AP

Sports FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

CAS overturns Bin Hammam life ban Qatari still banned over AFC investigation

SEATTLE: Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Bryan Meredith leaps but is unable to stop Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku, who scored during the first half of an exhibition soccer match on Wednesday, July 18, 2012. — AP

Chelsea beat Sounders 4-2 SEATTLE: European champions Chelsea opened their tour of the United States on Wednesday with a 4-2 win over the Seattle Sounders as striker Romelu Lukaku led the way with two first half goals. The Belgian slotted home in the third and 45th minutes, while newcomers Marko Marin and Eden Hazard also scored for the Blues. “I feel the pressure, but you play for Chelsea, there’s pressure and we won, so that’s the most important thing,” Lukaku said. “The goals were good for me, but the most important thing is the team. I enjoyed it a lot.” It was the first match for Chelsea since they beat Bayern Munich two months ago to win their first Champions League and add to their FA Cup win. Lukaku bulled his way past Seattle defender Jeff Parke to score his first goal then added another just before the half.

Hazard, who joined the club from Lille, scored in the 11th minute off a deflection and Marin scored in the 40th minute when his shot hit Parke and past Sounder goalkeeper Bryan Meredith. “We were looking to (have) a good workout, good possession, some good combination play and slowly integrate new players and also see some of our younger talents that we have in the club that will hopefully be the future of the club,” said Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo. Fredy Montero scored twice in the first half for the Sounders but they were unable to muster enough attack in the second half in front of a crowd of 53,309 at Century Field.

However, they managed to keep the score closer than their match last year with British visitors Manchester United when they were routed 7-0. Chelsea were without five of their biggest names for the first stop on their four-game pre-season American tour. The trip also features the first football match at the new Yankee Stadium, against Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday, before the west London side face the Major League Soccer all-stars in Philadelphia and Italian giants AC Milan in Miami. Spanish star Fernando Torres-who helped Spain win Euro 2012 this month will join the tour later, as will Portugal’s Raul Meireles, French midfielder Florent Malouda and England defenders Ashley Cole and John Terry. — AFP

DOHA: Former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam has won his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against a life ban from all soccer-related activity over bribery allegations. However, CAS said the decision did not amount to an “affirmative finding of innocence” for Bin Hammam, saying that FIFA’s investigation had not been thorough enough, and that the case could be re-opened with new evidence.

FIFA said it noted the outcome “with concern”. Qatari Bin Hammam remained suspended from the game after the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which he previously headed, opened a disciplinary case against their former boss over alleged financial wrongdong earlier this week. He was banned for 30 days, which was extended to a worldwide ban by FIFA on Wednesday. “The CAS has upheld Bin Hammam’s appeal, annulled the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee and lifted the life ban imposed on Bin Hammam,” the CAS statement read. Bin Hammam, a former member of FIFA’s executive committee, challenged Sepp Blatter for the presidency of soccer’s world ruling body last year.

He withdrew his candidacy, and was then provisionally suspended, days before the June election over allegations that he had tried to buy the votes of Caribbean officials by handing them $40,000 each in brown envelopes at a meeting in Port of Spain. Blatter was subsequently re-elected unopposed for a fourth term as FIFA president, while Bin Hammam was found guilty of breaking seven articles of FIFA’s ethics code, including one on bribery. He was banned for life and subsequently lost an appeal at FIFA. Proceedings against former CONCACAF president Jack Warner, also present at the meeting in Trinidad & Tobago, were dropped after he resigned his post.

CAS said the three-man panel voted 2-1 in Bin Hammam’s favor but added that his behavior was “not of the highest ethical standard.” “It is more likely than not that Bin Hammam was the source of the monies that were brought into Trinidad and Tobago and eventually distributed at the meeting by Warner,” said CAS. “In this way, his conduct, in collaboration with and most likely induced by Warner, may not have complied with the highest ethical standards that should govern the world of football and other sports,” said CAS. “This is all the more so at the elevated levels of football governance at which individuals such as Mr. Bin Hammam and Warner have operated in the past.

“The Panel therefore wishes to make clear that in applying the law, as it is required to do under the CAS Code, it is not making any sort of affirmative finding of innocence in relation to Mr Bin Hammam. “It is a situation of ‘case not proven’, coupled with concern on the part of the Panel that the FIFA investigation was not complete or comprehensive enough to fill the gaps in the record.” CAS added: “In its conclusion, the Panel noted that FIFA was in the process of reforming its ethics committee and that, in the event new evidence relating

Mohammed bin Hammam to the present case was discovered, it would be possible to reopen the case, in order to complete the factual background and to establish if Mr Bin Hamman has committed any violation of the FIFA Code of Ethics.”

IMAGE PROBLEM The decision is a further blow to FIFA, which is struggling to clean up its image after years of corruption allegations. Last week, court documents were released which showed that former FIFA president Joao Havelange and former executive committee member Ricardo Teixeira took multi-million dollar bribes on World Cup deals in the 1990s. Earlier this week, FIFA named two renowned crime-fighters from the United States and Germany to head the two divisions of its recentlyreformed ethics committee. FIFA said in its statement: “At FIFA level, all relevant files will now be handed over to the new FIFA Ethics Committee, which will start operating on July 25.

“The FIFA Ethics Committee will then decide based on the reports and evidence presented to it if any action is required to be taken against Mohamed Bin Hammam.” — Reuters

Galaxy score 2 late goals in 2-2 draw at Whitecaps VANCOUVER: The Vancouver Whitecaps could not stop David Beckham when they needed to Wednesday night. Beckham scored a goal and assisted on another as the L.A. Galaxy roared back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the Whitecaps 2-2 before a disappointed sellout crowd of 21,000 at BC Place Stadium. “Anytime you’re 2-0 up and you tie 2-2, it feels like a defeat that’s obvious,” Whitecaps coach Martin Rennie said. “But it was an exciting game, an entertaining game, a fantastic crowd tonight and a great atmosphere.”

The defending-champion Galaxy (8-103) remain four points back of the fourthplace Whitecaps (8-6-7) in the Western Conference. “We can’t complain,” LA coach Bruce Arena said. “We’re getting

out of town real quick here (Thursday) and not looking back at all. We’re fortunate to get a point.”

Second-half substitute Jose Villarreal, 18, secured the tie as he netted his first career MLS goal in the 87th minute. Beckham launched the play as he lobbed a lead ball to Juninho, who flicked it on to Villarreal. The Inglewood, Calif, native, who was playing only his second game after missing most of the season following surgery on both shins, made no mistake as he turned and beat Vancouver goalkeeper Joe Cannon with a high shot. “They obviously had a lot of play in the first half, and they played well,” said Beckham. “But we were able to capitalize on the hard work that we put in towards the end of the game.”

Beckham and Villarreal scored six minutes apart to cap the successful comeback. Gershon Koffie and Barry Robson, with his first goal as a Whitecap and 100th of his professional career, scored for the Whitecaps in the first half. The tie spoiled a strong effort from Robson in his home debut after the Scottish international began his Vancouver tenure with four road games. Robson, one of Vancouver’s three designated players, sent four shots on goal while taking seven altogether. “I think after a two-month holiday and coming straight and travelling to four different cities in two different countries I did all right,” said Robson, who signed with the Whitecaps in February but had to complete his sea-

son with Middlesbrough in England first.

Robson and Beckham went toe-totoe at times and argued with each other, especially in the late going. But all was forgiven afterward, said Beckham.

“Obviously, we’re both passionate about the game and both passionate about winning,” said Beckham. “He’s Scottish, I’m English, so there’s always a little bit of fight there. We went at it a little bit. We spoke after and were fine.”

“He’s a terrific footballer and a great ambassador for the game,” said Robson.

“A lot of people look up to him, and he’s a nice guy, but on the pitch it doesn’t matter who anybody is. At the end of the day I’m trying to win for my team and he’s trying to win for his.” —AP

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

CAS overturns Bin Hammam life ban Page 47

www.kuwaittimes.net

Sprinters say goodbye to climbs, hello to stage 18 Page 43

PEYRAGUDES: The pack with Bradley Wiggins of Britain, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey climbs Col des Ares during the 17th stage of the Tour de France cycling race yesterday.(Inset) The pack speeds downhill during the 17th stage of the Tour de France cycling race. — AP