20 Oct

CR IP TI ON BS SU

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

PKK kills 24 Turkish troops, Ankara hits back

40 PAGES

NO: 15245

150 FILS

7

THULQADA 22, 1432 AH

Massive hunt for escaped lions, tigers in Ohio

9

Tintin in Peril?

Boy hero back in bother in Belgium

37

www.kuwaittimes.net

Torres at the double as Chelsea rout Genk

20

MPs, activists call on Amir to sack PM, govt

Barrak, Mislem make secret revelations at huge rally

By B Izzak and Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: (From left) Opposition MPs Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, Faisal Al-Mislem, Falah AlSawwagh, Musallam Al-Barrak, Khaled Al-Tahous and Ahmad Al-Saadoun attend a massive rally outside the National Assembly yesterday. (Inset) Classified documents are projected on a giant screen at the rally. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: In the largest rally to date, MPs and activists directly appealed to HH the Amir to dismiss the government and Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah as two leading opposition figures made public new revelations they charged were corruption cases committed by the government. MP Musallam Al-Barrak fulfilled his promise and showed the huge crowd that the office of the prime minister ordered 485 “suspicious money transfers” mostly to Geneva, London and New York between April 2006 and August 2011 estimated at dozens of millions of dinars.

Al-Barrak said the transfers were made by the Central Bank through the foreign ministry to Kuwaiti embassies in those countries, alleging that the transfers were illegal. Speaking before a crowd of over 12,000 people according to organizers, Al-Barrak urged the Amir to take action against “this government that has stolen people’s funds” and used it to “bribe some MPs”. The lawmaker vowed that the opposition will not sit with the prime minister and the government, adding that “even if he departs, we still want him to be tried by the ministers’ tribunal”.

Max 35º Min 19º Low Tide 10:55 & 23:16 High Tide 03:22 & 18:42

Al-Barrak’s speech was loudly applauded by the enthusiastic crowd who cheered whenever he announced figures about the transfers. After AlBarrak finished his speech, the crowds marched on the nearby Cabinet offices in Seif Palace but were stopped by hundreds of policemen. Tension rose high between the demonstrators and police but a major clash was avoided as demonstrators ended the procession just outiside the National Assembly building.

Addressing the Amir, Al-Barrak cautioned that the continuity of Sheikh Nasser as prime minister is negatively impacting the ruling Al-Sabah family, which has been in power for almost 300 years without any challenge to its rule.

Islamist opposition MP Faisal AlMislem on his part showed the crowds the photocopies of two cheques he claimed were issued by the prime minister in favour of two MPs he did not name.

The first cheque was worth KD 250,000 and the second KD 240,000. Last year, it was Al-Mislem who grilled the prime minister over allegations he issued a KD 200,000 cheque in favour of a former MP. Al-Mislem made a passionate appeal to the Amir to dismiss the prime minister, saying the country has badly Continued on Page 13

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

LOCAL

Years

Cuban-Kuwaiti ties strengthening Draft resolution needs implementation: Ambassador

By Sawsan Kazak

KUWAIT: Cuban Ambassador to Kuwait, Manuel Pardinas Ajeno at his residence yesterday.

KUWAIT: Cuba is set to submit a draft resolution to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday October 25 concerning the ongoing American embargo on the country. The draft, entitled ‘The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,’ hopes to do just as its title suggests concerning the 49year embargo.

The blockade was enacted by the US on February 7, 1962 as a result of Cuba’s nationalization of properties and corporations previously owned by US citizens. Tuesday will be the twentieth occasion to date that such a draft has been discussed.

The Cuban Ambassador to Kuwait, Manuel Pardinas Ajeno, talked candidly to the Kuwait Times about the upcoming UN vote on the draft, the expected outcome and the future of Kuwaiti-Cuban relations.

“I’m sure it will be approved,” said Ambassador Ajeno when asked for his opinion on the outcome of the Tuesday vote. “But it needs implementation. We are convinced it

will be approved, but we are also sure that nothing will change.” Referring to last year’s vote on the same issue, the Cuban ambassador noted that two countries voted against the draft: “We received 187 votes in favor of the draft, only the States and Israel voted against us,” he said.

“The problem is not with the people of America, the problem lies with the governments that have passed through the White House, both Republican or Democrats.

The policy is the problem; their arrogance is what is causing such long-lasting issues. They cannot believe that we say no to them on certain aspects,” explained the ambassador, adding, “ With Cuba, it’s a matter of sovereignty and dignity when it comes to the issue with the US. These two aspects are very important to the Cuban people.”

Asked what number of countries he expected to vote in favor of the resolution, Ambassador Ajeno found it hard to make an exact prediction. “It is very complicated to have 187 again. I say this because the Americans are very clever.

To have an exercise like this every year is a waste of time and resources.” He explained that the problem doesn’t lie in getting sufficient numbers of supporters, but simply in getting the bill approved. “I can’t guarantee that we will

have another 187, but we are convinced the draft will get approved,” he asserted.

Kuwait support “I have been in the Foreign Ministry of Kuwait and they said they will be acting as they did last time,” the ambassador explained. “The government of Kuwait has assured us that it will support the resolution and will stay in a supportive position.”

He continued, “Kuwait has always been transparent in their position with us. I am very glad to be working in such a lovely country. Firstly the country has shown great solidarity with our position but not only concerning the blockade. There are a lot of resolutions that were discussed at the United Nations and in Geneva at the Human Rights Council where we also got Kuwait’s unwavering support,” recalls Ajeno .

The Cuban Ambassador has spent a few years in Kuwait now and is delighted with the experience. “It’s not only the government that supports us, but the Kuwaiti people are very welcoming and, like Cuba, you find a high level of safety here. This is an aspect of the country that needs to be acknowledged. Safety is a major issue for me. I have been in many other countries and the security situation is usually complicated. I am able to fly my flag here in Kuwait, not something I was able to do in the other countries I was ambassador in,” he reveals.

Cultural, social, economic ties The strengthening of ties between Kuwait and Cuba is important to Ambassador Ajeno and he sees this process taking place. In the near future, he predicts many more high level delegations from both sides. He is also working hard to promote cultural ties in the country as he is working on bringing a Cuban cultural dance group to perform here in Kuwait. “Inshallah they will be here by March to perform and celebrate Cigar Night,” the ambassador added.

“Bilateral relations between Kuwait and Cuba have been improving tremendously. Last year, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser, visited Cuba and opened for the first time [the Kuwaiti] embassy in Cuba. The Kuwaiti Ambassador to Cuba and I are working together to increase the relations,” says Ajeno .

In the economic sphere, Ambassador Ajeno sees a very promising future for bilateral relations. “A perfect example of strengthening relations is the two hydrological projects we are working on at present. We have received funding in the form of loans to build the projects in Santiago de Cuba and Holguin. The first loan totals about $14 million and the other about $13 million,” he explained.

The ambassador was impressed with Kuwait’s attention to detail and the hands-on mentality of the country’s leadership, recalling that during a previous visit to Cuba, Kuwait’s then-Foreign Minister went directly with the PM to Santiago de Cuba to witness a joint project first hand.

“It’s a pity that he resigned as he used to follow things up in detail,” said the Cuban ambassador of the former Kuwait Foreign Minister.

Improved ties in the medical field are also in the works with a medical delegation visiting the country recently and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health.

“The agreements that we are working on between the two countries are very sophisticated and take time; sometimes even years. These complicated and hopefully longlasting ties take time to get right. The most import aspect is to do it right and go through with the agreement so it benefits both sides; there is no point to rush any decisions, we must move slow and steady,” says Ajeno.

Effects of the embargo Due to the blockade Cuba is unable to gain access to credit from US banks, their subsidiaries in third-party countries or international institutions such as World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which has had a negative impact on them financially. “When we want to buy something, materials, or medical equipment for instance, we will go to Germany to get the item, and pay with cash.

That is not the problem, the problem is that because its Cuba we either have to pay more or we are not able to get it at all,” the ambassador explained.

The embargo has not only affected Cuba in terms of the international economy but also in tourism; a sector which is a large part of their economy. “An American citizen who wants to go to Havana as a tourist is unable to come directly. They have to travel to a second location before they can make it to Cuba even though there are 16 flights daily from different US states,” the ambassador reveals. Direct flights from the US are reserved for CubanAmericans, but an average American citizen would be unable to take a direct flight.

“What about China? They are still a socialist country.

But the only difference is that they are a powerful one.

They have a large population and a very strong economy,” says Ambassador Ajeno.

Asked about Fidel Castro’s health, Ajeno insists the Cuban leader is still in great health. “I went to Havana on July 8 to start the ambassadorial meetings, at the end of the week and suddenly Mr. Castro appeared in the hall and he was talking to us for over three hours - not just talking but debating with us. He was in very good health,” the ambassador asserted.

KUWAIT: JW Marriott Hotel’s Director of Sales Mohammed visited Kuwait Times this week to congratulate it on its 50th anniversary. He was received by Kuwait Times Marketing Director Adnan Saad.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

local

Ministry to improve education quality KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education has outlined a clear strategy to improve the level and quality of education in Kuwait, Ahmad Al-Mulaifi Minister of Education and M inister of Higher Education affirmed, warning that delays in the implementation of education programs and the introduction of advanced e-learning system is not in the interest of future generations.

During the inauguration of the Second Conference and Exhibition for Education Technology, Al-Mulaifi said in his speech, that the ministry has to work more in order to catch up with the developed world where the educational process is very rapid. Minister Al-Mulaifi said that the Ministry of Education launched a program several years ago to develop education through the introduction of a number of technologically advanced tools that will allow students to use technology in the education process. He stressed that as a result students that graduate turn out to be proficient with technology in various aspects of his life.

The e-learning program of the ministry, which consists of several different projects, is one of the most developed programs in the Gulf region, with the testimony of major companies and interna-

tional bodies, he said. He also stressed that the ministry works to implement several various stages: some of which have been completed, others are under construction and some will be put up soon.

Dr K haled Al-R ashed Assistant Undersecretar y for Planning and Information in the Ministry of Education and head of the conference said that it coincided with the launch of an ambitious development plan adopted by the government, where the ministry implements different educational policies.

Al-Rashed renewed the ministry’s call to all leading companies specialized in the construction and equipping of educational facilities participating in the conference, to recognize the importance of involving the private sector and give them the opportunity to highlight their abilities and capacities to contribute to the implementation of future projects.

During the conference, Al-Mulaifi launched a national projec t to raise awareness, information and education of e-learning, which aims to raise awareness in societ y and enlightened the impor tance of the introduc tion of I n fo rmation and Communication Technology in the development of the educational process. —KUNA

2 dead, 8 hurt in crashes

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: One traffic policeman was killed and another critically injured when their vehicle overturned yesterday. The injured man was rushed to Jahra Hospital, whilst the dead man’s body was removed for autopsy. In a separate incident, a 45-yearold Kuwaiti man was killed in a car crash in Kabad. His body was removed for autopsy.

In another crash, this time on the Fifth Ring Road, a 26-year-old Kuwaiti man sustained heavy bruising whilst a 19-year-old compatriot suffered from shock. Both were taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

Meanwhile, an 31-year-old Filipino man was taken to Farwaniya Hospital after suf-

fering a fractured bone in his right foot, while a 38-year-old Bangladeshi man who sustained a fracture to his right thighbone was also taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

In other accidents, an 18-year- old Kuwaiti man who suffered a suspected broken right kneebone in a car crash near the Awqaf Complex was taken to Amiri Hospital, as was a 20-year-old female compatriot who sustained a suspected broken nose in a vehicular collision on Gulf Road near the National Assembly building. Finally, a 31-year-old Egyptian man was taken to Mubarak Hospital after complaining of ex treme pain in his abdomen and right k nee following a crash on Miqwa Road.

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, at a ceremony held at Bayan Palace yesterday, received credentials of newly-appointed ambassadors of Canada, Switzerland, Romania and Italy. The ceremony was attended by Deputy Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Acting Foreign Minister Ali Al-Rashed, Amiri Diwan Advisor Mohammad Abul-Hassan and a number of top officials.

Bangladeshi stranded in Kuwait over labor dispute with employer Denied 27 months salary, 14 years indemnity

By Ben Garcia

KUWAIT: An Egyptian construction worker died yesterday when he was crushed after the building he was working on collapsed.

Firefighters from Sabhan and the Technical Rescue Center rushed to the scene, but were unable to rescue the man. Preliminary investigations show that the building collapsed due to a sand cave-in.

— Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: A Bangladeshi electrician who worked for his Kuwaiti employer for 14 years has been stranded in Kuwait for the last 27 months without work or pay.

During this time, he has repeatedly attempted to solve his labor dispute with his former employer, enlisting the help of his embassy, Kuwait’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor and even his own country’s labor ministry, but there have been no positive developments and he remains stuck in limbo.

“I really want to go back home, but I cannot leave because my residency has expired and I don’t want to leave without taking my rightful dues,” the worker, 45-year old Khokan Syed Ahmed, told the Kuwait Times yesterday.

Ahmed explained that his predicament began when he asked to be released from his

contract in mid-2009; the company employing him not only refused his request, however, but deliberately stopped paying his wages.

“My boss told me to submit a resignation letter instead. At that time, I thought that if I submitted my resignation, I’d be waiving my 14 years indemnity so I didn’t submit any letter, but that was the start of my suffering.” Ever since then, he said, despite his continuing to work, the company has “stopped depositing any salary in my account.”

Ahmed revealed that after seven months of waiting patiently [for the release form] and without being paid any salary, Khokan finally decided to lodged a complaint at the MSAL’s Labor Dispute Department, known as the ‘Shuon.’ When he did so, however, his employers “got even more mad at me and harassed me every day for doing that. I

went to Ahmadi’s Ministr y of Social Affairs and Labor, but they haven’t done anything either.”

The cheated worker further claimed that the owner of the company he works for had been using ‘wasta’ (influence/nepotism) with officials at the MSAL office to keep Ahmed in this miserable limbo and ensure that his complaints are disregarded.

“The Shuon informed me that my case has no probable reason to proceed so they abandoned it and left me hanging just like that,” he lamented. Ahmed further explained that his employer’s intractability has left him staying in the country illegally for the past 14 months, while working for no pay.

“I’m afraid they’ll put me in jail if the immigration police found about me [being illegal] here,” Ahmed told the Kuwait Times.

The ill-treated worker also went to the Bangladeshi Embassy in

Khaifan, but received no help there either, “Our embassy here seems not to care about us; they offered no solution,” he said.

“They just told me to give them my papers, but they have done nothing.”

The dejected worker said that a family member in Bangladesh had submitted a complaint on his behalf at the labor ministry in his country, but this had been greeted with similar indifference.

Ahmed, whose wife and children are back home in Bangladesh, wishes simply to get the money he is owed and return home: “I want to go home and be reunited with my family,” he said.

“For the last year, I managed to survive with the help of friends, but I cannot be this way for the rest of my life. I want my case to be resolved. I want my 27 months’ salary, my 14 years’ indemnity and I want to leave Kuwait,” he concluded.

MPs support lecturers’, teachers’ rights

KUWAIT: A mock evacuation drill was carried out at the headquarters of the Gulf Investment Authority yesterday. As soon as the sirens were sounded, firefighters from the Hilali and Medina fire centers rushed to the building, reaching it within three minutes and successfully completely evacuating it within 20 minutes.

— Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: Kuwait University lecturers are threatening to stage strike action, asserting that this is the only option left open to them since the government has continued to ignore their demands.

The announcement came during a seminar held by the KU Lecturing Staff Society attended by a number of MPs, which saw lecturers accusing the government of not being serious about educational reforms at the university.

“University lecturers deserve to enjoy suitable pay and privileges appropriate to their great profession and experience, which in some cases covers more than 30

years,” said MP Musallam Al-Barrak at the event, adding that additional benefits such as health insurance are “necessities” for lecturing staff. “Should lecturers have to go on strike in order to see their demands fulfilled?” asked the veteran lawmaker.

Fellow MP Dr. Hassan Jouhar, meanwhile, accused the university administration of causing the problems currently facing the university, specifically citing its inability to accept all Kuwait’s high school graduates earlier this year, while failing to suggest how it might have done so given the number of lecturing staff available.

Al-Barrak and Jouhar were also amongst the MPs who attended a seminar held the same day by the Kuwait Teachers Society (KTS) in support of a general pay increase for Kuwaiti teachers at state schools. The lawmakers who participated in the event, who also included Khalid AlSultan, Nadji Al-Abdulhadi, Mohammed Al-Huwaila, Falah Al-Sawagh, Salem AlNamlan and Khalid Al-Tahous, vowed to ensure that a draft law which would compel the government to approve a further wage rise for Kuwaiti teachers would be passed on October 25 when it comes before parliament for voting. — Al-Qabas

y

A

4

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

LOCAL

kuwait digest

Local Spotlight

No need to panic

The precarious position of the NAB

By Basel Al-Jaser he position that the National Action Bloc (NAB) has taken regarding the grilling motion that both the Popular Action Bloc (PAB) and NAB intend to submit against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser over payments in MPs’ accounts is a sensible one. And this is despite incurring attacks by its delayed announcement of its position. The NAB has stated that it supports the grilling motion and some of its members have said they will support it only after reading the draft and agreeing with its contents.

Other observers have said that if the government is proven to be involved in the bribing scandal then it should step down. The important factor is that until now, no evidence has emerged that proves the existence of a bribe, a bribe receiver and a bribe payer. I have not heard, to this minute, that person X paid and person Y received a bribe.

What has been said so far are repeated stories concerning ‘payments’ and persons who received such payments. No one has dared to name a single person who has paid or received a bribe.

Accordingly, no one, including myself, can side with the government if it is proven that the government paid bribes and no one can side with a bribe taker or defend him after his guilt is proven.

Two weeks ago I gave an interview to the Scope TV Channel in which I expressed my expectation that the NAB would not support the grilling motion despite the participation of some of its members in two protests. I said then that the NAB has in it wide people who will not pursue such games.

Therefore, I firmly believe that NAB has made the right decision. I f both the PAB and Development and Reform Bloc (DRB) were able to prove that a bribe payer exists in government, then the government should fall and with it anyone who defends such a government. If it is proven that there exists a bribe taker, even if he was a single person, he should fall, along with his defender. All this should take place within the framework of law and justice.

Were such to happen we shall all thank the PAB and DRB and bow to their members as recognition of a job well done. Until that time, however, there is no cause for excitement or to manipulate the facts so as to distract HH the Prime Minister’s attention from the national interests and the future of Kuwaitis.

The NAB should prepare itself for a severe battle, as any explanation, however logical, will be counted as a crime against the nation if it is not in line with the PAB and DRB. The NAB should therefore not be counted as one of Kuwait’s national groups but will be working against the country. So, NAB, get ready for what is approaching. —Al-Anba

T

Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net he Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed AlSabah has decided to resign. This was the main headline on nearly all local papers in Kuwait yesterday. Should we panic? Could this be an indication that something worse is on its way for us?

No, not at all. We should not be so naive as to assume that the resignation of one minister, or even the whole government, is something unusual and worrying. We have seen many governments come and go as well as many elections that have brought old and new figures to power, with no subsequent changes.

So, I believe this decision of the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah to leave his position is not the end of the world. At least not ours.

These days everything, be it a statement, a call by any official, is interpreted negatively and triggers speculation. I believe there are some powers that want to keep Kuwaitis distracted and confused so that they lose focus on the main issues concerning their future.

When Kuwaitis are preoccupied with who is leaving and who is staying and who is corrupt and headed for prosecution and who is not, they will naturally follow such news rather than consider solving the problems this country faces.

So, when an official decides to leave his position, we should not think this is the collapse of the country as it is certainly not. I don’t see any reason for this panic. I also think that the speculations made by many news organizations is unjustified and unnecessary.

What could be the worst thing to happen next, aside from the usual expectations of the government or National Assembly being dissolved? That is not the worst that could happen.

In fact, we have seen enough to have learned our lesson; what is important is not who comes and who goes. Rather, it is who makes the change and whose fingerprints are left behind.

T kuwait digest

A retroactive order on the draft law

By Ibrahim Al-Awadhi arlier this month, the government submitted a draft law on anti-corruption to the parliamentary legislative committee, of which the financial disclosure law was also a part. Six chapters of the draft bill identifies corruption and explains the penalties to be levied against each case. Since then, all eyes have been on the legislative committee to complete discussions on the draft law which is a necessity to improve Kuwait’s democratic life. It was shaken following the cash deposits scandal.

The financial disclosure regulation is essential for reform to be achieved. It will lay a cornerstone for efforts to fight widespread corruption. In my opinion, this regulation is more important than demands to oust the prime minister or dissolve the Parliament. This is because we cannot present a lean chit to the Cabinet and parliament members.

However, the draft law presented by the Cabinet does not include provisions to convict those that failed to adhere to the law before it was passed. Article number 179 states that “laws are applicable to that which takes place after the date of their coming into force, and thus have no effect in respect of what has taken place before such date.”

I’m not claiming that I’m a legal or constitutional expert, but there are some things that caught my attention which I felt needed clarification. First of all, an MP is

E

required by Article 108 of the Constitution, to protect the general interest of the state. According to Article 91, it should protect people’s interests, resources and funds.

Therefore, a stipulation laid down by the financial disclosure law would only be a procedural practice that explains how a state official discloses wealth. As per Articles 108 and 91 they are committed to protect public interest.

The draft law’s stipulation doesn’t meet Article 179’s conditions as any violation committed by a state official or Parliament member during their time in office is tantamount to clear violation of the Constitution. They must be held accountable.

I can’t find any logical justification to the government’s insistence on claiming that a retroactive order should be made unconstitutional. It arouses suspicions that they are trying to protect some previous or current officials from accountability. Meanwhile, the proposed anti-corruption draft law states that the anti-corruption authority should be affiliated with the Ministry of Justice and that its head will be appointed to a ministerial rank. If that’s the case, then how can a government officer serving on the same level as a minister be working under another minister?

Besides, how can an authority that is affiliated with the government be assigned to monitor MPs, ministers and state employees? —Al-Rai

Op-ed

A solution on par with the severity of the crisis n politics, crucial crises are not addressed by 2002 anti-money laundering legislation. This overlooking them, much in the same way that serves as evidence to confirm that the scandal is real. painkillers cannot cure a serious ailment.

As result, people have become convinced that Th e m u l t i m i l l i o n - d i n a r d e p o s i t s s c a n d a l, which has dominated the headlines and people’s there are Parliament members whose hands are attention for nearly 60 days, has eventually led dir ty from illegal financial transactions. This to the resignation of the now-former Deputy prospect has since eclipsed the source of the Pr i m e M i n i s t e r a n d Fo re i g n M i n i s t e r D r unexplained funds in terms of the attention it has Mohammed Al-Sabah. This is despite the fact garnered.

It is therefore only fitting to say that the current that he was never suspected to be involved in the case and was among the first in the Cabinet Parliament must not remain, given that some of its to condemn the crime and call for prompt anti- members-almost equal in numbers to the entire Cabinet and constituting 28 per cent of MPscorruption measures.

His resignation comes as a stark warning as to obtained large amounts of money from undispotential repercussions of the continued growth closed sources and in a suspicious manner that of this crisis with no solution in sight. The gravity had led many to suspect political bribery.

Parliament has one and a half years left in its of this new development stems from the fact that current term, yet the curthe minister in question is rent predicament renders a prominent figure in the Parliament has one and a half it impossible for us to ruling family and the govaccept being represented ernment, who has years left in its current term, yet by people whose bank remained committed to the current predicament renders accounts have grown sustransparency and credibilit impossible for us to accept piciously and within a ity throughout his politibeing represented by people short period since assumcal career. whose bank accounts have ing office. Even if the On Aug 20, 2011, Alcourts eventually rule the Qabas published a leadgrown suspiciously and within a entire Parliament not ing stor y regarding the shor t period since assuming guilty of receiving bribes, suspicious deposits of office. Even if the courts eventucitizens cannot accept millions of dinars into sevally rule the entire Parliament MPs who cannot justify eral MPs’ bank accounts. not guilty of receiving bribes, cittheir unexplained The news garnered wideizens cannot accept MPs who income. spread attention from These MPs are like a Kuwaiti citizens, political cannot justify their unexplained cancer spreading through activists and, of course, income. the legislative system that members of Parliament cannot be removed and the Cabinet. Most citizens were shocked by the news, which, since except by voters, when Parliament is dissolved. then, has become a central topic of conversation Were this to happen, citizens would face a historic in the local press and media outlets and the epi- mission to cleanse Parliament from suspicion.

The cour ts are investigating the criminal center of Kuwait’s political scene. The severity of this scandal has made it imperative that we find a aspects of this scandal, but the political aspects solution to the phenomenon that has harmed the are for the Kuwaiti people to handle. They must reputation of the legislative authority and of the instill accountabilit y via elec tions. Unless Parliament is dissolved, the Cabinet could eventupeople.

Initially, there was no official statement made ally find itself the subject of accusations that by either the government or local banks to deny would lead the country into further turmoil, espethe breaking news. That, however, did not cause cially if some MPs resort to extreme measures to the greatest shock to observers, as there later defend themselves against accusations.

What has transpired is not a normal act or even emerged news that indicated that local banks had previously approached the Public Prosecution one that can easily be stomached. Therefore, let regarding the suspicious growth of several MPs’ the solution be on par with the seriousness of this bank accounts. On the minds of the banks was the crime. —Al-Qabas

I

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

5

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

Local

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid ‘a possible successor’ Speculation continues over the reasons for FM’s resignation KUWAIT: One day after the resignation of Sheikh Dr Mohammed Al-Sabah, the name of Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah has emerged as a possible successor for Kuwaiti deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.

Meanwhile, numerous different accounts for Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah’s resignation continue to circulate. Sheikh Sabah AlKhalid has previously held the post of Minister of Social Affairs and Labor multiple times and served in the Cabinet until May 2009, when he simultaneously held the posts of Minister of Information and Justice and also handled the Awqaf and Islamic Affairs portfolio. In 2010 he was appointed to the Supreme Council of Petroleum.

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid began his political career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1978 a year after he graduated with a BA in political science. He remained at the ministry until 1995, when he was selected as Kuwaiti ambassador to Saudi Arabia. In 2006 he first entered the Cabinet as Minister of Social Affairs and

Kuwait dispatches 650 tons of relief supplies to Somalia MOGADISHU: A ship carrying 650 tons of relief supplies sent by Kuwait for victims of famine and drought in Somalia docked yesterday in the harbor of the Somali capital Mogadishu, said the chairman of the Kuwait Red Crescent Society.

KRCS head Barjas Humoud Al-Barjas said in a statement released to announce the shipment’s arrival that the relief supplies were dispatched to the African country in compliance with the instructions of Kuwait’s leadership, namely His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah who he said personally monitors the national humanitarian missions aimed at ending this tragedy.

The cargo includes 28,000 boxes filled with food, said Al-Barjas, adding that the supplies would be distributed to Somalis suffering from the horrendous drought and famine that has afflicted the country.

The KRCS head further indicated that the society had also “established an airline for relieving victims of famine in Somalia.” Nine flights from Kuwait have already carried hundreds of tons of supplies to the Somalis.

A team of KRCS volunteers based in the Somali capital will oversee the distribution of the supplies to the refugees in camps in and around the city and in several outlying areas. —KUNA

Labor following his eight-year tenure as chairman of the National Security Service from 1998.

In the meantime, speculation has continued over the reasons for Sheikh Dr Mohammed’s resignation. Several MPs believe he left after he believed he would not receive support from the Cabinet if he faced a grilling motion relating to MP Musallam Al-Barrak’s threatened disclosures. Another account purports that he may have resigned due to displeasure with the Cabinet’s handling of the multimilliondinar deposits scandal, which he believed damaged the reputation of the Cabinet and of ruling family ministers. A third theory is that Sheikh Dr Mohammed wished to avoid becoming the subject of questioning by MP Al-Barrak and also sought to sidestep a potential grilling motion that the oppositionist lawmaker had threatened to file. Still others speculate that he resigned in objection to the multimillion-dinar transactions made through MoFA that benefited overseas individuals

and which are suspected to have been performed by senior MoFA officials whom he was unable to hold accountable.

Meanwhile, the subject of the foreign transactions is reportedly to be added to the subjects covered in the grilling motion due to be filed against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammed Al-Sabah by the Popular Action Bloc (PAB) and the Development and Reform Bloc (DRB); oppositionist lawmakers have to date accused the premier of administering such transactions. According to sources familiar with a meeting held between DRB spokesman MP Dr Faisal Al-Mislem, PAB head MP Ahmed Al-Saadoun and independent MP Naji Al-Abdulhadi on Tuesday, the oppositionists have agreed to delay the submission of the motion from Thursday to early next week. This decision was apparently taken to allow oppositionists to assess reactions to Al-Barrak’s threatened disclosures, made at a rally yesterday.

The same sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,

indicated that Al-Saadoun presented a set of amendments to the draft grilling motion at the meeting, which included provision of constitutional articles to support their accusations against the premier. The sources further indicated that Al-Abdulhadi, AlMislem and Al-Barrak had been selected to present the grilling motion.

The National Action Bloc (NAB) is meanwhile thought to be planning a meeting in the coming days to discuss the upcoming Parliament session dedicated for debate of anti-corruption laws.

Also planned for discussion is the NAB proposal of a parliamentary committee to investigate the multimillion-dinar deposits case.

NAB insiders have criticized the negative reaction of some MPs to the proposal, clarifying that the committee would only investigate the role of the Central Bank of Kuwait in applying anti-money laundering regulations and the Public Prosecution would assume responsibility for criminal investigations.

—Al-Rai and Al-Qabas

GLEG calls for more accurate data-gathering system KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Green Line Environmental Group (GLEG) yesterday issued a call for better and more regular updating of statistical information by the country’s authorities, and more detailed and exact use of statistical data in compiling information.

In its statement, the group called for the introduction of a uniform statistical datagathering system, whose results should be made available to all interested members of society such as researchers and others, rather than using the current inaccurate and outmoded system, which in turn provides incorrect data. The environmental group

pointed out that many official state statistics are simply repeated year after year despite the information they are based on obviously undergoing massive changes.

The GLEG indicated that while accurate data collection and evaluation is extremely important for the state to enable the correct assessment of statistics and ensure the success of the state’s development plan, the state’s environmental bodies are not serious about conducting statistical reviews resulting in a scarcity of accurate environmental data. The group said that this has led to repeated problems in all the developmentrelated projects, including recurring prob-

lems in Umm Al-Hayman, which has long been affected by pollution and related problems. It added that the residential district of Umm Al-Hayman had been constructed without taking into consideration data which showed high levels of pollution from nearby oil facilities, increasing the incidence of associated diseases amongst local residents.

The GLEG called on the government to conduct an urgent review of the structure of the state’s data-gathering bodies in order to ensure that these flaws are corrected and that future statistical findings are based on scientific information gathered in an accu-

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

local

Inmates attack warden at military jail in Zahra Hajj visa hoaxer in police net

KUWAIT: The Saad Al-Abdullah Police Academy welcomed new students who will undergo training for the Lance Corporal rank (batch number 24) and police officer rank (batch number 77). An event was held under the patronage of Gen Khalid Al-Janahi, the director of the Ministry of Interior’s non-commissioned officers rehabilitation department. The new students will study more about Kuwait’s legal system.

Kuwait opens annual book fair KUWAIT: Minister of State for Planning and Development Abdulwahab Al-Haroun yesterday inaugurated the 36th Kuwait International Book Fair at the International Pavilion, an event sponsored by HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed AlSabah.

Al-Haroun noted in a statement the significance of the participation of several Arab publishing houses and expressed particular pleasure and the children’s books pavilion. Touring sections of the exhibition, Al-Haroun praised the participation of the National Council of Culture, Arts and Letters and the Kuwait Heritage Center. “We in the State of Kuwait are

proud to hold this fair, one of the major exhibitions in the Arab world,” he said, adding that many Arabs travel to Kuwait to attend the annual affair. Up to 63 per cent of the Kuwaiti state development plan tackles human development schemes, which includes cultural plans, Al-Haroun also explained. He noted that Kuwait plans to establish cultural centers in several districts of the country, including Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Center in Al-Shaab and Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Cultural Center in Slogan Square. The latter is set to include an opera theater. Authorities have already set aside plots of land for the construction of the centers, Al-Haroun concluded. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Police are investigating an attack on a prison warder at the military jail in Zahra, who was set upon after he entered a cell to break up a fight.

According to a security insider, the incident began when a recently incarcerated Lance Corporal became involved in a fight with another inmate shortly after his imprisonment. When the guard entered the cell to break up the fight, the Lance Corporal used a hidden phone to call for back up, with five other inmates arriving seconds later, launching a brutal assault on the officer, which left him with multiple injuries including stab wounds, before fleeing. The victim went to Rumaithiya police station to report the attack but passed out due to his injuries and was rushed to Mubarak Hospital.

After receiving medical treatment the victim went to Al-Salaam police station, where he has brought charges of attempted murder against those involved in the attack.

Cop trouble Police have launched an investigation into allegations that police patrol officers verbally abused and harassed a Ministry of Defense (MoD) official, arresting him for no reason. The MoD official claimed that he was pulled over by the officers whilst driving down a street in Fintas and kept waiting at the roadside for ten minutes for no reason.

When he enquired as to the reason for the delay, he said, he was immediately verbally assaulted and arrested by the officers. When he was taken to the local police station, he continued, the two officers’

superior was reluctant to allow him to press charges against them. A detective at the station later released a report supporting the MOD official’s account of events, with the official subsequently approaching the General Department of Monitoring Inspection to file complaints against the two patrol officers and their superior.

KFSD office ransacked Investigations are underway to identify those behind a break-in at the office of the Director of Hawally Governorate’s Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) division, Brigadier General Fahad Al-Saqr one night this week. Police and crime scene officers were quickly at the scene after Al-Saqr arrived at work the next day to discover the break-in.

There has been some speculation that the culprits could be disgruntled firefighters who have expressed anger at the fire service’s refusal to meet their demands to cancel the fingerprint attendance recording system.

Residency violators Forty-one residency violators were arrested during a six-hour police operation in Al-Farwaniya. The violators face deportation.

Hajj visa hoaxer Farwaniya detectives have arrested a man who conned would-be Hajj pilgrims out of money, promising to obtain visas for them so that they could perform the annual pilgrimage. Police launched an

investigation after 20 people complained that they had been conned out of money by the hoaxer. The victims explained that they had visited the man at his ‘office,’ a rented flat in Farwaniya, where they had handed over money for visas. When they returned to his temporary headquarters after their visas failed to appear, however, they found that he had disappeared along with their cash. On being apprehended, the conman admitted his actions, explaining that he wanted to make a lot of money quickly as he intended to leave Kuwait. He will now have his wish to do so fulfilled, but not until he has completed a lengthy prison sentence.

Murder threat A Kuwaiti man filed charges at Qairawan police against a male acquaintance who he said had threatened to kill him in a phone call during an argument over a business deal. A warrant has been arrested for the hot-headed caller’s arrest.

Odd auto theft Police are searching for a car thief who made off with a Kuwaiti’s car after he left it running outside a shop in Kabad with his six-year-old son inside the vehicle. In his statement to local police, the man explained that he had left his son in the car and popped into the shop to buy something. When he returned, he found his son sitting on the kerb and the child told him that a stranger had pushed him out of the car before leaping into the driver’s seat and driving away. — Al-Rai, Al-Qabas, Al-Watan

‘Poetry for peace’ event concludes DUBAI: The ‘Poetry Towards a Peaceful Co-existence Forum’ organized by Kuwait’s Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Foundation’s Prize for poetic creativity concluded Tuesday night with a call to spread peace and love.

The final communique, read out by poet Dr Khalifah AlWqayyan, noted that participants all agree humanity could only move forward with peace, justice, interaction, dialogue, and love of all mankind.

The statement hailed the efforts of leaders and youth and youth activists seeking such path, and noted that with the great challenges facing our world at present, and particularly our own region, it is imperative the voice of conscience be raised, heard and heeded.

The founder of the Babtain Foundation expressed appreciation to UAE Vice President and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum for his sponsorship.

Attending the opening ceremony, he sent out a strong message of support and appreciation to participants from all over the world.

The event began Sunday and the sessions were held in the morning and evening respectively. Participants included politicians and Arab intellectuals, men of letters and culture.

The activities included poetry evenings from poets belonging to all five continents. —KUNA

Stage set for major HSSE conference KUWAIT: The American Society of Safety Engineers Kuwait Chapter (ASSE-KC) is set to hold the Sixth International Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Loss Prevention Conference and Exhibition in Kuwait between Nov 29 and Dec 1, with this year’s event being held under the theme, ‘HSSE - Sharing Excellence.’

Several authoritative national and international experts in the field of Occupational and Environmental Health, Safety, Security and other environmental disciplines have agreed to appear at the prestigious event, where they will be speaking about the latest issues and advances in the Health, Safety Security and Environment (HSSE) field. The conference is to be held under the auspices of the Minister of Oil Dr Mohammed Mohsen AlMutairi, who is also the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and the chairman of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s (KPC) board of directors.

In a statement issued yesterday, the ASSE-KC explained that it was greatly encouraged in organizing the conference by the success of previous similar largescale events, adding that this annual conference has grown within a few years to become one of the highestranked regional HSSE events, acquiring a respected status internationally. The main objective of the conference is to promote HSSE protection to both the workforce and the wider public by providing a forum for those involved in these fields from industry, institutions and government bodies to share their experiences, and catch up with the latest technological advances and innovations.

The ASSE-KC stated that a prestigious advisory panel of experts in the HSSE field had been appointed to organize the event, including senior officials from KPC, KNPC, the Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD), the Kuwait Society of Engineers (KSE), the Ministry of Health and the ASSE’s US branch. In the statement, conference chairman Fadhil Al-Ali voiced satisfaction at the high number and quality of the technical papers received for the event, revealing, “We’ve received more than 200 technical abstracts from over 15 countries, which is a remarkable figure compared to our previous conferences.”

The conference, which is endorsed by various prestigious local and international bodies, including the ASSE. KPC, KNPC, the KFSD, the health ministry and Saudi Arabian Chevron, will feature a number of innovative technical sessions, exciting keynote speakers, groundbreaking pre- and post-event workshops, interactive symposia on key HSSE issues and a trade show on the sidelines, said the ASSE-KC’s statement. A special committee of HSSE professionals from the society is already working hard on the preparations and its members are confident that this conference will be as great a success as the previous events.

Over 500 delegates are already expected to attend, whilst the exhibition on the conference sidelines will feature displays by some of the biggest names in the HSSE field of their products and services. The ASSE-KC has called on all experts in the field to participate in the conference, stressing that it is one of the region’s leading HSSE events. The organizers also indicated that the support of state bodies and corporations would add tremendous value to the development of professionals in this field, and in furthering Kuwait’s objectives to protect its people, property and environment.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

Front runners under attack in Republican debate

First French soldiers leave Afghanistan Page 11

Page 9

PKK inflicts heavy losses on Turkish army At least 24 soldiers kiled ISTANBUL: Kurdish rebels killed at least 24 soldiers yesterday in simultaneous attacks in southeast Turkey, marking one of the deadliest days for the army in its 27-year battle against the separatists. Turkey hit back with cross-border air strikes on rebel bases and sent troops into neighbouring Iraq as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a foreign trip and called an emergency meeting of top security officials.

The attacks by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels on the Turkish troops occurred in eight locations in Cukurca and Yuksekova in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border in the early hours of yesterday, local security sources said.

“According to the latest confirmed information from Cukurca, the conflict region, 24 of our soldiers fell martyr and 18 of them were wounded,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.

“Currently, large-scale operations including hot pursuit (of rebels in Iraq) go on in accordance with international law,” said Erdogan, who cancelled an official visit to Kazakhstan in order to tackle the crisis. The toll-earlier put at 26 by health officials in Turkey’s southeast- is the heaviest for the army since 1993, when the PKK killed 33 unarmed soldiers in Bingol province, in southeast Turkey.

The latest attacks drew reaction from the United States and Germany. US President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous terrorist attack.” “The United States will continue our strong cooperation with the Turkish government as it works to defeat the terrorist threat from the PKK and to bring peace, stability and prosperity to all the people of southeast Turkey,” Obama said. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged all sides to refrain from further violence. He also said that he was “alarmed and shaken” by the high number of victims.

The Kurdish separatist group threatened Turkey with worse if the army follows through with a ground incursion into Iraq’s autonomous north. “The Turkish army will take a bigger hit if they try to carry out any military operation outside of the Turkish border,” rebel spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP. PKK said in a statement yesterday that it launched the attacks in Hakkari in retaliation for earlier Turkish air strikes against its bases in northern Iraq and the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish politicians around Turkey, Kurdish news agency Firatnews said. —AFP

ANKARA: A group of protesting Turkish millitary veterans gather outside the Prime Ministers residence in Ankara yesterday, hours after Kurdish rebels killed 24 Turkish soldiers and wounded 22 others at the border with Iraq. —AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

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

Tension mounts in Tunisia ahead of first Arab Spring vote TUNIS: Tunisia’s front running Islamists warned yesterday that the country’s post-revolution elections risked being rigged, as tension rose with the Arab Spring’s first polls four days away. The Islamist Ennahda party, widely tipped to win Sunday’s historic elections, warned any fraud would spark a fresh uprising, nine months after a surprise wave of street protests toppled longtime dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Another party, the leftist Democratic Modernist Pole, complained it had been harassed by Islamists in recent weeks, amid widespread fears unrest could spoil Tunisia’s democratic revolution.

“There is a risk of the election results being manipulated,” Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi told a press conference in Tunis. “If there is manipulation, we will rejoin the forces and the guardians of the revolution which ousted Ben Ali and the first (interim) government. We are ready to oust up to ten governments if needed,” he said. In a first taste of democracy for most, Tunisians will on Sunday elect a 217-seat con-

stituent assembly which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution and charting the country’s future.

Pollsters expect Ennahda, which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, to win the most votes on October 23, stoking fears among some players that Tunisia might have swapped a secular dictatorship for a religious one. Ghannouchi, who has repeatedly assured he would play the democratic game, accused his rivals of ganging up against Ennahda. “It is their aim to destroy us,” he said. “If the small movements enter into a coalition against Ennahda if we win the elections I can say that it will be a blow for democracy.”

On a more conciliatory note, Ghannouchi added: “We are ready to lead a government of national unity if the Tunisian people place their trust in us.” There have been sporadic anti-secular outbursts by the ultra-conservative Salafists during the electoral campaign, including a petrol bomb attack on the home of a television director’s house after the broadcast of a film deemed offensive to Muslims. Ennahda (Renaissance

in Arabic) has distanced itself from such acts.

The Democratic Modernist Pole said its supporters had been targeted in several towns across the city “We condemn these acts of violence which come against a backdrop of systematic slander on the Internet and coincides with our coalition’s surge over the past few weeks,” PDM chairman Riadh Ben Fadhel told reporters. He cited one latest example in which some of his movement’s workers were attacked and intimidated by supporters of rival political groups, including Ennahda.

Two other parties dismissed suspicions that a rigged election was in the making and urged other movements to send messages of appeasement, rather than seek to stir up tempers. “We will be as vigilant as they (Ennahda) are over any manipulation of the results but I believe that at this stage what is needed is a sign of appeasement,” said Mustapha Ben Jaafar, chairman of the centre-left Ettakatol.

Ben Ali, once backed by the West for his supposed role as a rampart against Islamisation, fled to Saudi

Arabia a month into the leaderless uprising by Tunisians driven to the streets by social injustice, poverty and corruption. The short transition period was marked by protests against the pace of change and sporadic violence across the country, which is under intense global scrutiny as the spearhead of the fast-spreading Arab Spring.

Despite the high stakes, however, voter interest is low in a complex electoral landscape: some 7.3 million potential balloters will elect 217 assembly members from more than 10,000 candidates. In an attempt to scare the population into voting, one civil society organization put together a video clip in which Ben Ali’s giant portrait ahs returned to its old place on Tunis’ port of La Goulette. In the short film, which has been circulating widely on the Internet, passers-by first react with disbelief at the all-too-familiar sight. They tear down the offending poster to reveal another underneath with a message in Arabic: “Wake up, the dictatorship can return! Go vote.” — AFP

Libya forces re-launch Sirte assault after setback Clinton visits, urges creation of unified military

ALEPPO: A handout picture released by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows hundreds of supporters of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad as they take part in a pro-regime rally in Aleppo, north of the capital Damascus yesterday.—AFP

Death toll rises in Syria, clashes on Lebanon border DAMASCUS: Activists said at least 15 civilians and seven soldiers were killed yesterday in the latest violence sweeping protest-hit Syria, including deadly clashes near the Lebanese border. Syria’s leading opposition grouping, the Syrian National Council, meanwhile, threatened to seek foreign intervention to stop the regime’s deadly crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.

Speaking in the Libyan capital, SNC member Najib Ghadbian said they were determined to “bring down” the regime of embattled President Bashar Al-Assad, accusing it of seeking to “militarise” the protest movement.

“If the regime continues to be so irresponsible... our main objective is to call for the protection of civilians,” along the lines of a UN nofly zone set up in Libya that cleared the way to NATO air strikes, he said. On the home front, 15 civilians were killed in Syria, including three teenage girls and a woman, while at least seven soldiers died in clashes with suspected army defectors, a watchdog group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said eight people were killed in Homs, central Syria, including four shot dead by pro-regime “shabiha” militiamen. The other seven civilians were killed in and around the town of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, where clashes raged between troops and suspected army deserters, the watchdog said.

One woman was hit by a stray bullet while the teenage girls were killed when their home was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as troops battled the suspected defectors near Qusayr.

Syrian forces raked homes with heavy machine-guns as they raided neighborhoods searching for suspects wanted by the authorities, the Observer said, adding that around

200 people were arrested in the raids. The Observatory also reported that at least seven Syrian soldiers were killed and others wounded in clashes with suspected army defectors in a village near Qusayr. The United Nations estimates more than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in a fierce crackdown on dissent in Syria since antiregime protests erupted in mid-March.

Arab League efforts to help defuse the deadly violence-specifically a call for a dialogue between the government and the opposition-were met with harsh criticism in the official Al-Thawra newspaper yesterday. “It is no longer surprising to see the Arab League, which is supposed to be concerned with joint Arab action, turn into an instrument of injustice aimed at destabilising Syria,” the newspaper said.

The daily said the 22-member Arab League was “hostage to powers following the agenda of aggressors like the United States, Israel and their European allies.” “Following years of inaction, the Arab League has now become a tool of destabilisation, and is acting against Arab interests,” the paper said. Last week the Arab League called for the launch in Cairo of a “national dialogue” between Syria’s government and the opposition by the end of the month to help end the violence.

Syrian state television yesterday aired a broadcast of what it said was a pro-Assad rally in the second city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, claiming it was attended by a million supporters of the president. And the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that authorities arrested several “armed terrorists” including two members of the so-called Abu Sham group in Homs while weapons and army uniforms were seized. — AFP

Egypt’s Moussa fears anarchy if transition drags CAIRO: Presidential candidate Amr Moussa said yesterday he feared a prolonged transition to civilian rule could plunge Egypt into anarchy caused by spiralling violence and economic hardship. An uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February has hammered the economy and has sparked a wave of sectarian and other violence that the ruling army and its interim cabinet has struggled to control.

Investors and tourists have fled.

Egyptians vote for a new parliament starting on Nov 28 but no date has been set to pick a new president although the existing framework means it may not happen till the end of 2012 or later, leaving presidential powers with the army till then. “My biggest fear is anarchy,” Moussa, 75, a frontrunner to become the next president of the Arab world’s most populous nation, told Reuters at his campaign headquarters in Cairo, adding that he wanted a presidential election by mid-2012.

“A long transitional period is not in the interest of Egyptians nor Egypt,” he said, adding it would slow action to support the economy “and also will create an opportunity for all those who want to play havoc with the Egyptian society.” Moussa, Egypt’s foreign minister in the 1990s and head of the Arab League for a decade until this year, said investors, tourists and institutions ready to offer soft loans would hesitate unless the nation’s political direction was clearer.

Consultancy firm Geopolicity said in a report that Egypt’s uprising had cost the economy $9.97 billion up to September. Egyptians have also been rattled by a surge in tension between Egypt’s Christian minority and Muslims. Christians say churches have been attacked by Islamist groups Mubarak had

repressed. Clashes with the army during a Christian protest in Cairo over one such attack left 25 dead this month. “So economy and security, lack of them, would lead to anarchy,” said Moussa, who has said he would only serve one term if he wins the presidency.

Moussa said the parliamentary poll would not resolve the political uncertainty as it was unlikely to hand a majority to any single group, not even Islamists who are viewed as among the strongest contenders in the poll. “We will have a fragile system under the next parliament, a fragile system with fragmented political groups,” he said.

Diplomats say Moussa is, for now, probably the leading contender for the top job because he is the most high-profile candidate and was popular in office for his criticism of Israel and the US -led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Moussa’s rivals include Mohamed ElBaradei, a former top UN diplomat who many say spent too much time abroad to have broad public support, and Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, viewed as a moderate Islamist who some say is Moussa’s strongest competitor. Detractors say Moussa, a skilled diplomat who played a mediation role in Palestinian and Israeli peace talks in the 1990s, is tainted because he served in Mubarak’s cabinet. Moussa dismisses this, saying he was never a member of Mubarak’s now defunct ruling party and should be judged on how well he served in office. The army has faced increasing public anger over its handling of the transition. Many Egyptians suspect the military is using delaying tactics to secure its privileges, safeguard its broad economic interests and prepare to keep hold of key levers of power even after handing over day-to-day government. —Reuters

SIRTE: Libyan interim government fighters relaunched their offensive on the besieged town of Sirte yesterday after being pushed back by die-hard Muammar Gaddafi loyalists holed up in the deposed leader’s home town. Hundreds of National Transitional Council (NTC) troops have surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle to snuff out the last pocket of resistance against the revolution that ended Gaddafi’s 42-year rule. Grad rockets, artillery and tank fire rained down on Gaddafi positions in the centre of the town.

Asked about the government force’s slow progress in taking Sirte, one NTC fighter at the front said: “All we can think of is catching the rat Gaddafi. We are taking it slowly, step by step. We have been patient for 42 years.” NTC fighters have deployed an arsenal of homemade weapons. Yesterday a bulldozer arrived at the front fitted with armour and resembling a small ship, with a pointed prow and port holes. On its front was mounted a tank turret and the sides were made from concrete sandwiched between steel plate.

A man wearing a black ship’s captain’s hat with gold braid sat atop the contraption as it manoeuvred into place, ploughing into a lamppost in the process. Government fighters shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) as it made its lumbering progress towards make-shift barricades of vehicles and shipping containers put up by Gaddafi loyalists. The NTC’s failure to seize Sirte, nearly two months since capturing Tripoli, has raised questions about its ability to exert its authority over the entire country and has postponed the launch of its promised democracy program.

On Monday NTC forces captured the other main Gaddafi stronghold, the desert town of Bani Walid, where the ousted leader’s loyalists had put up resistance for two months. NTC forces were poised a few days ago to declare victory in Sirte, but on Tuesday they were forced to retreat in some places under intense fire. But a day later, NTC fighters had taken back the lost ground and made further gains so that for the first time government forces attacking from the east and west could see each other’s positions through Gaddafi-held enclave.

Fighters reported Gaddafi soldiers had been firing at them wearing civilian clothes so had stepped up security and were closely checking the identities of everyone at the front, including reporters. But faced with a disciplined and determined force, many NTC fighters theorized

the defenders may be guarding a high-value target, perhaps even Gaddafi himself. “Why else would a sniper try to take on a tank?” asked Jafar Al Sharif who commands some eight tanks positioned in the streets of Sirte pounding the lowrise apartment blocks housing Gaddafi remaining loyalists.

The NTC offensive, by mostly amateur fighters, has been hampered by a lack of coordination. Units which converged on Sirte from Benghazi in eastern Libya and Misrata to the west have lost men when they fired at each other by mistake. Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, is in hiding, possibly deep in Libya’s Sahara desert.

Even so, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed “Libya’s victory” during a visit to Tripoli on Tuesday. Clinton was the most senior US official to come to Tripoli since Gaddafi’s ended in August. Her visit was marked by tight security, reflecting worries that Libya’s new rulers have yet to establish full control over the country. The United States took part in the NATO bombing campaign that helped Libya’s rebels take power, although its aircraft largely played a secondary role to those of Britain and France.

“I am proud to stand here on the soil of a free Tripoli and on behalf of the American peo-

ple I congratulate Libya,” Clinton said. “This is Libya’s moment, this is Libya’s victory, the future belongs to you.” Inspired by protests in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt that ended in the overthrow of long-standing autocratic leaders, Libyans rose up against Gaddafi in February, but it took six months of civil war to end his oneman rule.

The NTC lent its backing to another regional revolt yesterday, officially recognizing as Syria’s legitimate authority an umbrella opposition council struggling to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. While Gaddafi himself is still at large, his wife, two sons and a daughter fled to neighboring Algeria shortly after Tripoli was captured by the NTC in August. Algeria’s foreign minister said his country let them in for “humanitarian reasons”. The NTC at the time called it an “act of aggression”, but has since moved to patch up ties with Algeria. “Algeria has systematically honored all its obligations as a member of the international community,” Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told a news conference in Algiers alongside British Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday. Hague, on a tour of the region, said he respected Algeria’s position but had requested all countries in the region honour obligations to turn over any indicted war crimes suspects. — Reuters

SIRTE: Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters gather around a makeshift armoured vehicle as they launch their final assault on loyalist troops in Sirte yesterday.—AFP

Clinton in Oman for talks on Iran MUSCAT: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a brief visit to Oman yesterday for talks with Sultan Qaboos on rising tensions with Iran over its alleged plot to kill a Saudi envoy, officials said. A key Gulf ally, Oman helped secure since September 2010 the release of three US hikers jailed in Iran, two of them last month, earning gratitude from the United States. Now Washington is hoping to tap into Oman’s influence with the Islamic republic of Iran and share US concerns about Iran’s behaviour, particularly an alleged Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

“We would expect that Omanis would use their relationship with Iran, as they have in the past, to help the Iranians understand the implications of what they’re doing,” a US

State Department official said. He told reporters on the flight to Muscat that Clinton would also discuss with Sultan Qaboos the brutal violence in Syria and Yemen, where authoritarian regimes are using deadly force against pro-democracy protesters.

She will also formally thank the ruler of the tiny Gulf sultanate for helping secure the release last month of US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who were jailed in Iran after being arrested near the Iraq border. Bauer and Fattal were arrested along with a third hiker, Bauer’s fiancee Sarah Shourd, near the mountainous border with Iraq on July 31, 2009. All three have consistently maintained they innocently strayed into Iran while hiking in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

MUSCAT: Omani Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yussef bin Alawi bin Abdullah meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Muscat yesterday.—AFP

Oman helped secure the release of all three US hikers, and paid their bail $500,000 for Shourd and $400,000 for each of the other two-according to their Iranian lawyer.

President Barack Obama on Friday thanked Oman’s Sultan Qaboos for his role in pushing Iran to free the US hikers. Iranian officials and leaders have fiercely denied any involvement in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, calling it an attempt by Washington to divert attention from domestic economic woes and foreign policy failures in the Middle East. On Monday the US State Department said Iran should extradite or prosecute the highranking Revolutionary Guard official accused of plotting to murder the Saudi envoy.

Oman, which maintains close ties with Shiite Iran, is member of the Sunni-majority six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council which includes oil kingpin Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile Omani state news agency reported that Clinton and Qaboos met to discuss “regional developments... and mutual cooperation,” but gave no further details. The State Department official speaking to reporters on Clinton’s plane said the secretary of state was expected to follow up on talks she had with Qaboos in January about reforms as well as development and education. Omanis voted on Saturday to elect their purely consultative Majlis Al-Shura council, which Sultan Qaboos has pledged to vest with new authorities in response to unprecedented social unrest. —AFP

Three Saudi YouTube social activists arrested RIYADH: Three young Saudis who posted online a video on poverty in the oil-rich kingdom have been detained after an opposition television aired part of their documentary, activists said yesterday. Firas Baqna, Khalid Al-Rasheed and Hussam AlDarwish were arrested on Sunday by police in Al-Sahaba district, north Riyadh, after London-based Al-Islah television aired part of their YouTube series entitled “Malub Aleina” (“We are being cheated”), activists said, requesting anonymity.

Al-Islah channel is the mouthpiece of the banned Movement for Islamic Reform in Saudi Arabia, led by Saad AlFaqih. One rights activist said authorities suspected the three young men “were receiving finance from the channel and were taken into custody for interrogation.” But “they were not charged and are awaiting administrative measures to be released.” The fourth part of the YouTube series, aired on television, was filmed in poor Riyadh neighborhoods, and featured an interview with a mosque imam claiming vice and drugs were becoming popular in his area due to poverty.

“The aim of the series is to draw attention to social problems, nothing more,” said the activist. The Saudi kingdom, where protests are banned, has a burgeoning young population.— AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

i n t e r n at i o n a l

Front runners under attack in Republican debate LAS VEGAS: Republican presidential contenders ganged up on the two front runners in a feisty debate less than three months before the first nominating contests, attacking businessman Herman Cain’s centerpiece economic plan as a tax increase and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s positions on health care and illegal immigration.

Cain, a former pizza company CEO is the latest and unlikeliest phenomenon in the race to pick a Republican rival for President Barack Obama. A black man in a party that draws few votes from Africans Americans, he had bumped along with little notice as Romney sought to fend off one fast-rising rival

While polls chart a series of rises and falls for various contenders, Romney has consistently remained at or near the top but with fairly static numbers.

The other contenders are jockeying to be the conservative alternative to Romney who is viewed warily by many in the party’s base for his past support of abortion and gay rights and his championing of a health care reform plan in Massachusetts that served as a model in part for Obama’s health care overhaul that Republicans loathe.

Democrats have taken note of Republican unease over the health care plan. Yesterday, Obama’s top political adviser, David Axelrod, emphasized that the Obama health plan was mod-

LAS VEGAS: Republican presidential candidates former Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney, left, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry speak during a Republican presidential debate Tuesday in Las Vegas. —AP

after another from the party’s right flank. That all changed in the past few weeks, after Texas Gov. Rick Perry burst into the race and then fell back in the polls after a series of weak debate performances. However unlikely Cain’s rise, Tuesday night’s debate marked the first time his rivals treated him as a serious threat.

The candidates’ debate - the fifth in six weeks - ranged over familiar and contentious territory from immigration and health care reform to the economy and energy, often in antagonistic terms. The candidates engaged each other more directly and sometimes more heatedly than in previous debates. But Cain’s surprising rise from the bottom of the pack in the polls to top-tier contender was clearly on the minds of his rivals on stage in a hotel along the Las Vegas Strip.

eled largely on the system Romney shepherded into place in Massachusetts. He told the CBS “Early Show” that Romney’s effort to disassociate himself from the plan suggests Romney “has no core to him.” Much of the focus was on Cain’s catchy “9-9-9” tax overhaul plan which he’s made the centerpiece of his campaign. The plan would scrap the current tax code and replace it with a 9 percent levy on personal and corporate income as well as a new 9 percent national sales tax.

The other candidates tore into Cain, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum citing an analysis published Tuesday that found taxes would go up for 84 percent of American households under the “9-9-9”plan. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann who also enjoyed a quick rise - after a strong debate performance in New Hampshire - and a

quick fall when national support didn’t develop, went on the attack in an attempt to stay in the race, calling Cain’s plan a value added tax that would cause prices to snowball as products moved up the production line.

Undeterred, Cain insisted the charges were untrue and blamed the criticism on lobbyists, accountants and others who “want to continue to be able to manipulate the American people with a 10 million- word mess,” the current tax code. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was embraced by many Republicans when he announced his bid in August, but has faded after a series of missteps, used the debate to set his sites on Romney. He accused Romney of being dishonest about his record on the health care law that he instituted as governor of Massachusetts. Perry sought to play on conservative suspicions that Romney was too moderate and inconsistent, declaring early on: “I’m an authentic conservative not a conservative of convenience.”

Romney’s Mormon faith also came up, and Perry said he disagreed with a pastor and political supporter who described the religion as a cult. “I can’t apologize any more than that,” the Texan said. “That’s fine,” responded Romney. Perry also sought to attack Romney over immigration, saying that he had no credentials on the issue because he had once hired “illegals,” the “height of hypocrisy.” Romney denied the charge, saying he had hired a company to mow his lawn and did not know that it had illegal immigrants on its payroll. On a more substantive level, Perry said he opposed repealing the portion of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that says anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen. In previous debates, Perry had come under criticism for being soft on immigration for supporting a Texas law that granted lower in-state college tuition rates to illegal immigrants.

Foreign policy took a secondary role in the debate. Libertarian-leaning Texas Rep. Ron Paul said US troops should be withdrawn from Korea - where they have been stationed for more than 50 years - and foreign aid to Israel cut.

Perry said it was “time to have a very serious discussion about defunding the United Nations.” Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt in Las Vegas and Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report. — AP

OHIO: A sign warning motorists that exotic animals are on the loose rests on I-70 yesterday near Zanesville, Ohio.—AP

Hunt on for escaped lions, tigers in Ohio Schools closed, highway secured COLUMBUS: Dozens of large exotic animals including tigers, lions and bears were hunted down and shot after their owner opened their cages at his Ohio farm and then killed himself, officials said yesterday. The animals roamed off the property and one went as far as an interstate highway after being let loose shortly before dark on Tuesday near Zanesville in eastern Ohio.

Authorities shut down schools and warned residents to stay indoors as they rounded up the wild beasts.

“We are not talking about your normal every day house cat or dog.

These are 300-pound Bengal tigers that we had to put down,” said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz. “I gave the order ... that if animals looked like they were on their way out, they were put down.” Lutz said 48 to 51 animals had been kept on the farm and that only three-a grizzly bear, a mountain lion and a monkey — remained unaccounted for by midmorning. The farm was owned by Terry Thompson and authorities said they had received about 35 calls in the past seven

years about the menagerie.

Complaints ranged from animals running loose to not being treated properly, Lutz said.

“We’ve handled numerous complaints here, we’ve done numerous inspections here,” he said at a news conference. “So this has been a huge problem for us for a number of years.” Thompson was found dead from a self-inflicted wound when authorities went to the farm Tuesday following reports of animals running free, Lutz said. They found gates and animal pens open when they arrived. “There were animals running loose outside the fenced area,” he said. Some, including primates, were secured on the farm. Lutz said the animals kept at the farm included wolves, grizzly and black bears and many types of “big cats” such as cheetahs, mountain lions and leopards, in addition to lions and tigers.

The sheriff said they tried to shoot some of the animals with tranquilizer guns but encountered problems. “We just had a huge tiger, an adult tiger that must’ve weighed

300 pounds that was very aggressive,” Lutz said. “We got a tranquilizer in it and this thing just went crazy.”

The tiger then had to be killed. One bear attacked a law enforcement officer, Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, told ABC News earlier. Another one-some type of big cat-wandered onto an interstate highway and was hit by a vehicle, Lutz said.

Lutz said he issued a shoot-to-kill order Tuesday evening and stationed officers on Interstate 70 about a mile west of the Zanesville city limits to prevent animals from crossing. “We were not going to have animals running loose off this farm at night,” he told reporters. Jack Hanna, Columbus Zoo director emeritus, told the news conference Lutz and his deputies did the right thing. “These are dangerous animals,” Hanna said. “He and other people there are doing everything they can to capture the animals humanely but these are dangerous animals.” Earlier, Lutz described the animals found as “mature, very big and aggressive.”— Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

i n t e r n at i o n a l

Kenyan jets pound Shebab positions in Somalia Abducted French woman dies in captivity NAIROBI: Kenyan jets struck in Somalia yesterday in a bid to rid the border area of Islamist rebels blamed for a spate of abductions, including that of a French woman who died in captivity, officials said. Kenyan ground troops guided by pro-government Somali forces prepared for a fresh assault against the Shebab insurgents with the blessing of the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and its Ugandan protectors.

Nairobi’s unprecedented military incursion into Somalia, which it said had already killed dozens of Shebab fighters, triggered dire warnings by a top Shebab leader of bloody retaliation. The foreign ministry in Paris announced the death of Marie Dedieu, a 66-year-old wheelchairbound woman snatched from her beach house in the Kenyan resort of Lamu earlier this month and taken to Somalia by her kidnappers.

“Our aircraft are involved in the operations,” army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir said, on the fourth day since Kenya declared war on the Shebab militia. Heavy air strikes are reported to have been hitting Shebab positions in efforts to dislodge the militants, before Kenyan-backed Somali government ground troops move in to drive out rebels, according to witnesses. Analysts say Kenya wants to carve out a buffer zone along the border, but Shebab forces said yesterday they were preparing a counter-attack. “We have been gathering information on the Kenyan army’s strength, in terms of weapons and manpower,” Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Musab, a Shebab

spokesman, said on the group’s radio AlAndalus.

The main forward base of Kenyan operations is at Qoqani, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the border, as they prepare to push forward to seize Afmadow, which Somali government forces are already fighting to secure. “In terms of injuries, the first attack saw the death of 73 Shebab,” Chirchir said, adding that the only Kenyan deaths were five killed in a helicopter crash. A Kenyan police source however told AFP there were casualties. Kenya’s shock assault against the hardline Shebab has sparked a fierce reaction with the militants warning of reprisals on “all fronts.” Security forces are planning a “major operation in Nairobi to get rid of AlShebab,” Assistant Security Minister Orwa Ojode said yesterday, a rare admission from the government the Shebab threat exists even in the capital.

The Shebab deny any involvement in the recent kidnapping of foreigners, which have raised questions about Kenya’s ability to host the million tourists who visit each year and one of the world’s largest aid communities. On Tuesday, a suicide car bomb blast killed five civilians even as two top Kenyan ministers met nearby.

Yesterday, a roadside bomb in Mogadishu injured two. Kenya’s decision to invade came after a British tourist was snatched from a Kenyan resort last month, the French woman from her beachfront home in Lamu and two

Spanish aid workers from Dadaab refugee camp last week.

A French government statement said “the conditions of her detention and the fact that the kidnappers probably refused to give her the medication that we sent her” likely led to her death. The Kenyan government sent “heartfelt condolences” to Dedieu’s family and friends, saying it was determined to “fight terrorism and to encourage a stable and secure region.” Insecurity in southern Somalia is making it “almost impossible to establish significant cross border humanitarian operations,” the UN humanitarian affairs agency OCHA warned yesterday. The UN describes the food crisis in drought-hit Somalia as the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian disaster. Uganda, which provides the bulk of the 9,000-strong African Union force protecting the Western-backed Somali government in Mogadishu, welcomed the operation and said Kenya had the right to defend itself.

Ethiopia, the last country to invade Somalia when it toppled an Islamist leadership in 2006, also voiced approval for Kenya’s operations, saying the two countries had a “common front in the fight against terrorism.” Analysts say Kenya has sent at least 2,000 troops into Somalia, but the military would not comment on operational figures. Ethiopia had tens of thousands of troops in Somalia for two years but failed to root out the Shebab and establish a robust central government.—AFP

DALE FARM: A woman holds aloft a crucifix as a caravan burns in a Travellers site on Dale Farm, near Basildon, east of London yesterday.—AFP

UK riot police clear illegal Traveler camp CRAYS HILL: British police used sledgehammers, crowbars and a cherry picker yesterday to clear the way for the eviction of Irish Travelers from a site where they have lived illegally for a decade. By the afternoon police said they were in control of the site, and that bailiffs were beginning to move onto the disputed property.

Essex Police said two protesters were Tasered and seven people arrested after police officers were attacked with rocks, other missiles and liquids including urine.

Residents and supporters, however, said police had used excessive force.

Evictions of Travelers, a traditionally nomadic group similar to, but ethnically distinct from, Gypsy or Roma people, are relatively common across Britain. But few are as large, or as high-profile, as yesterday’s at Dale Farm. The police and bailiffs faced resistance from several dozen protesters who threw bricks and struggled with officers at the site, set in fields 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of London. One mobile home was set on fire as police moved in at dawn, and several protesters chained themselves to barricades with bicycle locks to slow down the evictions.

Others scaled a 40-foot (12-meter) scaffolding tower. Police moved protesters away and later used a cherry picker, or mechanized lifting platform, to reach the scaffolding platform and remove protesters who had chained themselves to the structure. The conflict over Dale Farm has simmered since 2001, when Travelers bought and settled on a former scrap yard next to a legal Travelers’ site. The legal battle dragged on for years until the Travelers lost a final appeal last week.

The local authority says it’s a simple planning issue - the 86 families lack permission to pitch homes on the land. The Travelers call it ethnic cleansing - the lat-

est chapter in a centuries-old story of mistrust between nomads and British society.

“I’ve been through a lot of evictions, but I’ve never seen anything like this ... they have come in and started a riot that we never wanted,” said resident Kathleen McCarthy, who accused police of roughing up Travelers at the site, injuring three women. “We are being dragged out of the only homes we have in this world.”

Lily Hayes, who identified herself as a human rights observer, also accused the police of using unnecessary force. The ambulance service said one woman was taken to a hospital with minor back injuries. Five other people were treated for smoke inhalation, breathing difficulties and a nosebleed. Authorities said the violence was coming not from residents but from their supporters - anarchists, environmentalists and anti-capitalists who came to the site from across Europe. “ The premeditated and organized scenes of violence that we have already seen with protesters throwing rocks and bricks, threatening police with iron bars and setting fire to a caravan are shocking,” said Tony Ball, leader of Basildon Council, the local authority. He said while “no one takes any satisfaction” in the police operation, he was confident that “after 10 years of negotiations to try and find a peaceful solution to this, that what we are doing is the right thing.” There are an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 Irish Travelers in Britain, where they are recognized as a distinct ethnic minority.

Oscar-winning actress and political activist Vanessa Redgrave came to the Dale Farm Travelers’ support, and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged authorities to find “a peaceful and appropriate solution” to the crisis.—AP

Kosovo Serbs refuse to lift roadblocks ZUBIN POTOK: Defying a NATO warning, Kosovo Serb leaders refused yesterday to unconditionally lift their roadblocks in the north of the country. For nearly three months, Serbs have been blocking main roads in northern Kosovo to stop the country’s ethnic Albanian leadership from extending its control over the part of Kosovo populated mostly by ethnic Serbs. The Serbs reject Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. The 5,500-strong NATO-led force in Kosovo, known as KFOR, said Tuesday it will take unspecified “resolute” action if the Serbs fail to lift the blockade. The peacekeepers say they want to establish freedom of movement in the region and reopen supply routes for their troops.

At their meeting yesterday, Kosovo Serb leaders remained defiant, saying they will not allow free travel in the region. They said they could only offer “controlled” lifting of the blockade for peacekeepers’ “humanitarian” supplies. “The barricades will not be removed because that is our legitimate means of reaching our legitimate goals,” said Stevan Bozovic, a Kosovo Serb official. A later

meeting between Kosovo Serb officials and deputy KFOR commander Gen. Johan Luif ended without agreement.

“KFOR confronted us with an ultimatum to completely remove the barricades, which we could not accept,” local Serb leader Slavisa Ristic said. “We think that KFOR is ready to carry out the action (to remove the barricades) already tonight.” He appealed to Serbia to come to the rescue of Kosovo Serbs.

NATO chased Serb troops out of Kosovo in 1999 after their brutal crackdown against majority separatist ethnic Albanians. In July, ethnic Albanian authorities deployed their security forces to two border checkpoints in northern Kosovo to enforce a trade ban with Serbia. Serbs reacted by blocking roads and triggering clashes with Kosovo police that left one police officer dead. The Serbs said after the meeting they would lift the blockade only if the ethnic Albanian customs officers are removed from the two border posts with Serbia and KFOR guarantees they would not be transported to the checkpoints in its convoys.— AP

Second plane crashes in Botswana’s Okavango Delta MAUN: A second light aircraft crashed on takeoff yesterday in Botswana’s Ok avango Delta but all six people onboard survived unscathed, the air charter company said. Another failed takeoff in the same area five days ago killed eight foreigners. Delta Air manager Kagiso Senwedi told The Associated Press that the passengers - a Namibian and four French tourists with a South African pilot - are being transported by boat from Delta Camp in Botswana’s remote north to Maun town.

“They are all a bit shaken, which is understandable, and did not want to fly back,” he said, adding some suffered only minor injuries. He said the company’s Cessna 206 single-engine turbocharged aircraft crashed in a failed takeoff from Delta Camp’s dirt airstrip

yesterday morning. He had no further details: “We’re communicating by radio and should know more later in the day.”

A Cessna 208B operated by Moremi Air crashed shortly after takeoff Friday from Xakanaxa bush airfield and burst into a conflagration that apparently k illed the British pilot and seven tourists from France, Switzerland and the UK .

Rescuers who arrived quickly at the scene had to ferry buckets of water from a nearby swamp to try to douse the blaze. Four people survived last week’s crash, including a badly burned Frenchwoman who was medically evacuated for treatment to Johannesburg in neighboring South Africa. The Ministry of Transport is investigating both crashes.—AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

i n t e r n at i o n a l

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

First French soldiers leave Afghanistan Quarter of current troop scheduled to withdraw

CHAMAN: Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik (L) chats with Afghan nationals during a visit to the Pakistani-Afghanistan border gate in Chaman yesterday.—AFP

Pakistan says will revive biometrics on Afghan border CHAMAN: Pakistan will next month reactivate a biometric computerized system to screen all travelers crossing a key Afghan border terminal, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said yesterday. Pakistan installed the system on a trial basis in January 2007 to try and control illegal cross-border traffic at Chaman, 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Quetta, the main town in insurgency-wracked Baluchistan province.

But on the second day, thousands of Afghan tribesmen attacked the border gates, forcing authorities to close the crossing. The protest was against the biometric system, and a Pakistani plan to fence and mine parts of the border. Further protests saw Pakistan to shelve the system. “We have decided to reactivate the biometric system. I will inaugurate it on November 30, next month,” Malik told reporters in Chaman.

“Both Pakistan and Afghanistan need this system. It is necessary to keep an eye on everyone crossing the border and to stop illegal immigrants,” he added. The system is designed to replace the previous permit system, by issuing border passes to people after recording their fingerprints, retinas or facial patterns for identification. The porous Afghan-Pakistani border separates families and tribesmen, but also allows Taliban and AlQaeda-linked militants to move with ease in their fight against US soldiers in Afghanistan and government forces in Pakistan.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have for months traded accusations of responsibility for deadly cross border attacks further north than Chaman. Baluchistan also suffers a regional separatist insurgency and sectarian violence involving Sunni and Shiite Muslim extremists.— AFP

Roadside bombs kill 2 NATO, 5 Afghan troops KABUL: A roadside bomb killed two NATO service members yesterday in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said, in a day of violence that left a total of seven Afghan army and NATO personnel dead. The US -led coalition did not provide additional details, but the deaths raise to 471 the number of NATO troops killed so far this year in the country.

The deaths come as Afghan and international forces are stepping up their fight against Taleban and Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in the east of the country, with a focus along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

That area is rife with insurgent activity and the top NATO commander in the country said

the alliance had recently launched an operation in the east targeting the feared Haqqani network, a group that operates from within Pakistan. Earlier in the day, a roadside mine exploded as four Afghan army soldiers and an officer were passing by on the way back to their base in the Pashtun Zarghun district of the western Afghan province of Herat, said Mohyaddin Noori, the spokesman for the province’s governor. Noori said the five were ferrying food back to the base at about 10 a.m. when the mine exploded. He said it was unclear whether or not the mine had been detonated by remote control or if the vehicle had driven over it.— AP

KABUL: The first 200 French soldiers left Afghanistan yesterday, kickstarting troop withdrawals announced three months ago by Paris as part of NATO plans to wind down its combat mission by 2014. In total, a quarter of France’s current troop deployment is scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan before the end of 2012, ahead of a full drawdown of NATO’s combat mission scheduled for 2014.

France has some 4,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in the district of Surobi and in the neighboring province of Kapisa, part of the NATO-led force of 130,000 foreign troops, two-thirds of whom are Americans.

The departures are in line with a national transition process that began in seven areas of the country in July, meant to hand responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

“The United States, the leaders of this coalition, proceeded with a withdrawal, we are proceeding with a proportionate withdrawal,” said French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet in Paris.

The United States, Britain and Belgium have also announced partial withdrawals, with some US troops already heading home this summer as Western voters tire of more than a decade at war against a strong Taleban insurgency.

The contingent took off in a French military A340 jet from Kabul airport at around 5:00 pm (1230 GMT), an AFP reporter said. The speed of the French withdrawal surprised some military officials, but comes as French President Nicolas Sarkozy gears up for a presidential election next year and after a particularly deadly summer for the troops. There are also general concerns within Afghanistan over the ability of Afghan security forces to protect the country, given complaints that they are overreliant on NATO, fail to take initiative and suffer retention problems.

France lost 17 soldiers between June 1 and September 7, bringing to 75 the number killed as part of military operations in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion drove the Taleban from power. On July 13, the day after Sarkozy visited Afghanistan to announce the troop withdrawals, five French soldiers died in a suicide strike, the deadliest attack for France in Afghanistan since an ambush killed 10 soldiers in 2008.

Another French soldier died the following day, leading Paris to announce a safety review.

6 dead in Nepal army plane crash KATHMANDU: Rescue teams in Nepal scouring the wreckage of a military plane that crashed in a remote hunting reserve have recovered the bodies of all six people on board, police said yesterday. The Britten-Norman Islander plane was returning to the capital Kathmandu from a medical rescue mission near the Indian border on Tuesday evening when it lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather.

The bodies were found at the site of the crash in the Dhorpatan hunting reserve, a five-day trek from the central city of Pokhara, senior police officer Uma Prasad Chaturbedi said. “All six bodies have been recovered. The rescuers will carry them to a helicopter which is three hours’ walk. From there, they will be airlifted to Kathmandu,” he added. “One badly burned body has

been identified as male. The bodies were scattered within 50-60 metres (165-200 feet) from the crash site.”

Chaturbedi said heavy fog, snow and extreme cold had hampered the rescue efforts. “The place is very remote,” he said. Witnesses reported hearing an explosion before seeing the aircraft crash into dense jungle on the side of a hill and burst into a fireball. Debris was found up to 100 metres from the site of the impact.

The army lost contact with the plane at 7:05 pm (1320 GMT) after it had taken off from the city of Nepalgunj in southwestern Nepal. Locals said they saw the aircraft descending in the dark without any lights, The Kathmandu Post reported. “There was a loud bang and there was a fire on the hill,” witness Lal Kumari Thapa told the newspaper. The crew on

the flight-which was transporting a critically ill soldier back to Kathmanduincluded a doctor, a medical assistant, the patient, his brother and two army pilots. The Nepal Army announced it had set up a seven-member panel headed by one of its pilots to investigate the cause of the crash. Nepal has no air force, but flies several aircraft within the Nepalese Army Service, also known as the Nepal Army Air Wing. The Islander aircraft, normally used for surveillance missions, was donated to Nepal by Britain during the Maoist rebellion in 2005. Aviation accidents are relatively common in the landlocked Himalayan country, which has only a limited road network, with many communities in the mountains and hills accessible only on foot or by air. Many previous crashes have also occurred in bad weather.— AFP

New offensive hits Haqqanis: US Gen KABUL: The US-led coalition has unleashed a new offensive against one of Afghanistan’s most lethal militant networks and plans to ramp up operations next year along the border with Pakistan before the American drawdown gathers steam, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan said yesterday.

Marine Gen John Allen told The Associated Press that the “high-intensity, sensitive” operation that began in recent days was focused on the Haqqani group, a Pakistan-based militant network with ties to the Taleban and Al-Qaeda. The US has been urging the Pakistanis to clamp down on Haqqani fighters who are attacking Afghan and coalition forces and have been blamed for most of the high-profile attacks in the heart of Kabul.

Allen would not discuss details of the operation, which began just days ago, saying only: “Every now and again, one of these organizations that has been able to manifest itself on this side of the border is going to have to get some special attention and that’s what’s happening now.” In the wideranging interview, Allen also told The AP that the process of handing off security to Afghan forces was going to move faster than initially planned.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the Afghan army and police to be in the lead in protecting and defending the nation by the end of 2014. Asked about Mullah Mohammad Omar, Allen said the Taleban ‘s one-eyed, reclusive leader should see this moment as his chance to become a part of the future of Afghanistan. The Taleban have said publicly that they are not interested in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the 10-year-old war although Afghan

and international officials have opened informal dialogue with some insurgents.

“There are elements that work for him that want to be part of the future of Afghanistan,” he said. Allen said that while most of the first 10,000 American troops that President Barack Obama ordered withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year will be from support units, roughly onethird will be from combat forces although not from hotspot areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

“Some of the combat forces are going to come out of the north and west,” Allen said in his office at the heavily fortified coalition headquarters in Kabul. Allen said the US would be leaving medical units, mine-clearance troops and special operations and control personnel in the north and west to support German and Italian forces stationed there. The 10,000 troops in the first drawdown include two National Guard reserve units; one Army infantry battalion from an area of Afghanistan yet to be determined; one Marine infantry battalion deployed in the south; and military personnel working in headquarters operations and support units.

“We are thinning so one person will now do the job of two people or we’ll decide that we’re not going to do that job anymore,” he said, adding that some of the work can be done from the United States. He acknowledged that some civilian contractors would be hired to pick up the slack, but that “it’s not going to be a wholesale replacement.” To satisfy Obama’s mandate to withdraw another 23,000 US forces by Sept. 30 of next year, many more combat units will be tapped to

leave, he said.

The international military coalition plans to end its combat mission at the end of 2014. Foreign forces still in Afghanistan after that date are to be in training or support roles.

In July, Afghan forces began taking charge of security in seven areas of the country, the first in a six-step transition process. Allen said the plan is now for the transition to be achieved in five steps - the last starting as early as the fall of 2013 instead of late 2013 or early 2014 as had been discussed. Initially, the logic was to have Afghan security forces take charge in the most peaceful areas first, he said. Afghan and coalition officials and others, however, recently decided that it would be unwise to transfer the most volatile provinces in 2014, especially when the international force’s footprint will be shrinking.

US Ambassador Ryan Crocker echoed Allen’s comment on Sunday during a trip to the western city of Herat - a provincial capital in the first group of areas to start transition. “The original logic was you go from easy to hard,” he told the AP. “But since you’re going from a lot of troops to fewer troops, there is also a pretty good case to be made for transitioning the hard areas while you’ve got the heavy, ready reserve” on the ground.

Karzai is expected to announce the second list of transition sites in coming weeks. Allen said areas being recommended are: parts of Herat province; all of Nimroz and additional parts of Helmand provinces in the south; all or parts of Ghor and Daykundi provinces in central Afghanistan; and some municipalities in the east. —AP

As a result, the number of operations on the ground has slowed, say soldiers in Afghanistan. “The losses of the French army in July and August caused a slowdown of operations. We’re less prominent, less aggressive, take less risks,” said Lieutenant Christopher, who could not give his last name in line with policy.

“We just do what we’re told. If they say you go out less, we go out less,” he said, struggling

about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Kabul, into a second phase of the transition process.

A total of 194 soldiers, including 172 legionnaires from the 2nd Company of the 2nd Foreign Airborne Regiment, based on the island of Corsica southeast of France, flew out of Kabul airport late yesterday afternoon. The departure of the men “will not have an impact on operations at the (Torah) base and the pace of operations,” Jeand’heurs told AFP

KABUL: French soldiers walk with their kitbags at Kabul International Airport in Kabul yesterday. The first 200 French soldiers left Afghanistan yesterday, kickstarting troop withdrawals announced three months ago by Paris.—AFP to conceal a hint of bitterness. “We’ve backed off,” summed up an officer at Torah base in Surobi. The French army said it has simply “changed its way of doing things” as part of the process to empower Afghan forces. “We do a little less in that... the Afghan army takes charge of its missions,” said Colonel Lionel Jeand’heurs, who commands the French contingent deployed in Surobi, explaining that the French troops, once on the front line, are now most often in support of Afghan forces.

The French are working to integrate Surobi,

recently. A further 11 troops responsible for training the Afghan army were also part of the departing party. All are heading to Cyprus for several days of “decompression” before returning to France, as with all French soldiers leaving the Afghan theatre. The departing legionnaires began their current mission on July 6.

But some feared their efforts had been in vain.

“They want to reduce losses and limit operations. It is poorly controlled, poorly managed,” said one on condition of anonymity. “Today it is a mess,” he said.—AFP

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

i n t e r n at i o n a l

China’s top communists call for cultural campaign BEIJING: The ruling Communist Party has approved a program to make ideology more popular at home and boost China’s image abroad at a time when the leadership is struggling with a more demanding public and a delicate political succession. Ending a four-day annual policy meeting Tuesday, the Central Committee - 365 of the power elite - adopted a jargon-filled communique on boosting China’s cultural influence overseas while reinforcing socialist principles among an Internet-connected population looking beyond the party for ideas and inspiration.

“More and more, culture is becoming a fount of national cohesiveness and creativity,” the communique said. “More and more, culture is becoming an important element of comprehensive national strength and competitiveness,” it said. While the gathering’s stated aim was to hammer out the new cultural initiative, the closed-door event was an occasion for networking and jockeying over the transition when President Hu Jintao and many other top leaders begin to step down a year from now.

The broad outlines of the succession have taken shape, with Vice President Xi Jinping expected to replace Hu and Vice Premier Li Keqiang to take over

from Premier Wen Jiabao. But party power brokers are trying to fill seven other slots in the Politburo Standing Committee and deal with an uncharacteristically open campaign from Bo Xilai, the telegenic, populist party secretary of the central city of Chongqing. Reports on the gathering made no direct reference to the leadership maneuverings, apart from saying the gathering approved a decision to hold the party congress that will inaugurate the new leadership in the second half of next year, as was widely anticipated.

The focus on cultural issues - a shorthand for ideology - comes at a precarious time for the leadership. Beijing feels that China’s stunning rise should translate into more respect from other powers and a greater say in world affairs. Meanwhile, at home, Chinese leaders are under pressure from a public that is upset over income inequality, corruption and other ills of rapid growth and feels empowered by rising prosperity and social media to criticize the government. Chinese leaders have tried to bolster their legitimacy with this noisy public by appealing to patriotic sentiments, depicting the West as determined to sabotage the country’s ascent and the party as the bulwark against the

threat. It has also mounted concerted efforts to police the Internet and, after the “Arab spring” protests unseated autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia, to intimidate Chinese political activists from launching a similar movement. Ahead of the party gathering, senior propaganda officials and prominent state-run media portrayed China as being engaged in an ideological and cultural war with the West.

“We should reasonably, favorably and appropriately conduct a struggle for international public opinion.

This is of vital importance for preserving national interests, security, social stability and ethnic unity,” Vice Propaganda Minister Wang Chen said in an interview published this week in the party newspaper, Study Times.

To compete, Tuesday’s communique said that China must create more “outstanding cultural products” - books, films, art - to attract Chinese and foreign audiences. A report on the national evening TV newscast that followed news about the meeting touted state-sponsored song-and-dance reviews, like one that appeared at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as an example of what China needs to do. “Building a strong country of socialist culture will promote advanced socialist

culture more deeply in people’s hearts,” the meeting statement said.

The communique repeatedly called for the promotion of “core socialist values” - a phrase meant to counter calls by liberal Chinese for “universal values” such as freedom of expression, which state media often portray as Western concepts unsuited to China’s unique circumstances. The par ty “stressed the need to promote the system of core socialist values to strengthen party unity and the struggle of the people with a common ideological and moral foundation.” State media have spoken more bluntly about the need to create Chinese companies that can compete with the foreign media conglomerates the government says dominate international debate.

A commentary in the party’s flagship People’s Daily this weekend said that revenues of China’s 500-plus publishing houses did not equal that of German media powerhouse Bertelsmann AG. It decried that Walt Disney Co.’s “Mulan” appropriated a Chinese legend that proved popular at the box office. “A country that can only export television sets but not its ideas will never become a great power,” said the commentary. — AP

Philippines says Muslim rebels kill 19 soldiers MILF ambush triggers nine-hour clash ZAMBOANGA: The Philippine military accused Muslim rebels yesterday of killing 19 soldiers on a remote southern island in one of the worst outbreaks of violence between the two sides in years. The fighting further complicated efforts to end one of Asia’s longest insurgencies, with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the military trading accusations of breaking a ceasefire in place to promote peace talks. The military said troops were on the hunt for members of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in the jungles of Basilan island when MILF rebels ambushed them, triggering a nine-hour clash.

Nineteen soldiers died, 13 were wounded and three remained missing, regional military

commander Lieutenant General Raymundo Ferrer told reporters. “We shall not only file ceasefire violations against them, but also murder chargers against their members who are responsible for killing and wounding our soldiers,” Ferrer said. The military initially reported that 13 soldiers had been killed in the fighting, and that six troops were taken hostage. But the bodies of the six soldiers were found yesterday, prompting allegations from the military that they had been killed while in captivity.

“They were definitely murdered... they were were still alive last night,” army spokesman Antonio Parlade said in Manila. The 12,000strong MILF has waged a rebellion since the

ZAMBOANGA: A nurse treats a wounded Philippine soldier at the Camp Navarro General Hospital in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga yesterday, after a clash with the country’s largest Muslim guerrilla group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Basilan the day before. —AFP

1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous-rule in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines. The rebellion has left about 150,000 people dead, with most of the deaths occurring in the 1970s when an all-out war raged. Although the two sides signed a truce in 2003 that paved the way for peace talks, the ceasefire is frequently marred by clashes across the vast southern Mindanao region that Muslims claim as their ancestral homeland.

The talks also broke down in August when the MILF rejected the government’s roadmap for peace, heightening tensions in Mindanao.

Tuesday’s fighting was the most deadly between the MILF and the military since 2008, when two rogue rebels launched a series of attacks mostly on Christian towns elsewhere in Mindanao that left about 400 people dead. It was also the worst on Basilan island since 2007, when 14 Marines were beheaded after a gunbattle with MILF rebels. Regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said the MILF commander accused of the 2007 atrocity, Dan Laksaw Ansawi, also led Tuesday’s MILF assault.

The military often accuses the MILF of providing shelter to the Abu Sayyaf, a small band of militants believed to number fewer than 400 but which is blamed for the country’s worst terrorist attacks. However the MILF denied it was responsible for Tuesday’s fighting. MILF spokesman Von al Haq said the violence erupted after the soldiers strayed into rebel territory.

He also said five rebels had died in the clashes, while the military claimed nine guerrillas were killed. Basilan, a remote and small island with a mostly Muslim community, has long been a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf because it can rely on the support of locals. About 600 people living near the town where Tuesday’s fighting fled their homes in fear of further violence, civil defence chief Benito Ramos said in Manila.

However both the Philippine military and the MILF said they would seek to follow ceasefire procedures, and there were no further clashes yesterday. The government also reaffirmed its commitment to the peace process, expressing hope that negotiations could resume next month.— AFP

Thailand PM admits govt overwhelmed by floods BANGKOK: Thailand’s new premier acknowledged yesterday that the country’s flood crisis has overwhelmed her government, and she pleaded for mercy from the media and solidarity from the country in battling the relentless waters. In an emotional appearance before reporters, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said her administration is doing all it can and trying to be as clear as possible about where the flooding may strike next.

However, mixed messages from officials in recent days about whether the floodwaters will enter Bangkok have left people confused.

A poll by ABAC, associated with Bangkok’s Assumption College, found that 87 percent of 415 people surveyed did not trust information from the government’s flood command center.

“We have been doing everything we can, but this is a big national crisis,” Yingluck said. “I’m begging for mercy from the media here.”

Bangkok’s city government, headed by the opposition, urged residents in seven northern districts to move belongings to safe places because of likely flooding. The warning came days after some officials had indicated the worst threat had passed. Meanwhile, flooding in areas directly north of the city worsened despite frantic government efforts to stave off the water.

The death toll in nationwide flooding is 317, mostly from drowning, with nearly 9 million people affected and 27 of the country’s 77 provinces still inundated. Initial estimates of the economic cost of destroyed shops, paralyzed factories and swamped farmland were $3 billion, but have since been rising.

Floodwaters in northern areas began in August and have slowly crawled south toward the Gulf of Thailand, though the government has notched up the urgency of flood-control efforts only in the past two weeks. “The government had said over and over again they were able to handle the situation, then what

happened? It got flooded from there to here,” said Puntip Susuntitapong, a 61-year-old retired banker in Bangkok.

Yingluck had no previous government experience when she came into power in August as the standard-bearer for the party aligned with her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who is a fugitive on corruption convictions but still widely popular. A distraught Yingluck appealed yesterday to reporters to stop asking whether Bangkok will be inundated. “The more you ask questions like this, the less useful it is going to be,” she said, adding that her role was to coordinate, not disseminate information.

She said experts were more qualified than she to give information, and that her own personal

views “might lead to lack of confidence and confusion among the people.”

“We are telling the truth, not concealing anything from the people,” she said. “We have been doing everything we can, but this is a big national crisis. On our own, we can’t get it done. We need unity from every side, and today we must set politics aside.” The administration’s low point in handling the floods may have been Oct. 13 when Science Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi issued a spur-of-themoment order on live television to immediately evacuate an area north of Bangkok. Within 20 minutes, he and his colleagues from the government’s flood emergency team were back on the air to rescind the order. —AP

BANGKOK: A girl holds on to a plastic bowl as she makes her way through floodwaters after a mud and sandbag wall collapsed in Bang Bua Thong in Nonthaburi province, suburban Bangkok yesterday.—AFP

CANBERRA: Queen Elizabeth II is greeted by well-wishers upon her arrival in Canberra yesterday. The Queen is on her first visit to Australia since 2006. —AP

Queen Elizabeth gets warm welcome in Australia CANBERRA: Crowds of cheering children waving Australian flags welcomed Queen Elizabeth II as she and her husband Prince Philip landed at an Australian air force base yesterday in the nation’s capital. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Governor General Quentin Bryce, the monarch’s representative in Australia, greeted the royal pair, who received a 21-gun salute as they emerged from their plane.

The warm welcome comes despite the ruling Labor Party’s desire for the British monarch to be replaced by a president as Australia’s head of state. Gillard has said Australia should become a republic after the queen’s reign. But Gillard said she did not believe that debate would mar the monarch’s first visit since 2006, when she opened the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The 85-year-old monarch will travel to four cities and open a meeting of leaders of mostly former British colonies during her 10-day visit.

“While the queen is here in Australia, what Australians will be doing is enjoying and celebrating her presence here,” Gillard told reporters hours before the queen arrived. “I believe she’s very well respected

by Australians and I think she’s going to be tremendously warmly received from the moment that she sets foot on Australian soil,” she added. Australians rejected a proposal to make Australia a republic at a referendum in 1999. Students from local schools lined up near the queen’s plane to present her with gifts, including bouquets of flowers, a paper crown and a stuffed Corgi - a nod to the monarch’s favorite dog breed. She grinned and chatted with a crowd of well-wishers before heading off to the Governor General’s official residence in Canberra, where she will spend most of her 10 nights in Australia.

Hundreds lined the drive leading to the residence to catch a glimpse of the royal couple as they drove by. Flag-waving Emily Seseile, 9, said she had come to see the monarch because “she’s the queen and it

could be the last time she comes.” Narelle Gibson, 69, held a sign that read “Australians for a constitutional monarchy,” the name of a group that wants to maintain the current system. She said she last saw the queen during her 1970 visit.

“It may be the last visit for the Duke of Edinburgh, but she’s got plenty of energy,” Gibson said, referring to the monarch and her 90-year-old husband. The queen will visit Brisbane and Melbourne before opening next week’s meeting of the 54-nation Commonwealth in the western coastal city of Perth. Leaders of the nations linked to Britain’s former empire, who meet every two years, will consider a range of recommended reforms including lifting laws against homosexuality that exist in most Commonwealth countries.

Media commentators have speculated that this Australian visit - her 16th - could be the queen’s last given her advanced years and the 11,000-mile (18,000-kilometer) distance from Buckingham Palace in London to a country that was one of the British Empire’s most far removed outposts.

But her former press secretar y Dickie Arbiter pointed to the example of the queen’s late mother, who visited Canada when she was aged in her 90s. “With the queen, you should never say ‘last;’ never say ‘never,’” Arbiter said in an interview published in The Canberra Times newspaper yesterday.

The queen’s biographer, Hugo Vickers, said she made a point of attending every meeting of the 54-nation Commonwealth.

Only 53 countries will be represented at the Perth summit because Fiji has been suspended since its army overthrew the government in 2006. “She has not minded when Commonwealth countries have dropped her as head of state, but she does mind if they leave the Commonwealth,” Vickers was quoted as saying by The Canberra Times. In 1954, the queen became the first reigning British monarch to visit Australia.— AP

Malaysia-Myanmar detainee swap plan raises worries KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s leading rights group criticized a government proposal to send some detainees from Myanmar home, saying yesterday that their lives could be in danger in the military-dominated country.

Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced this week that his country has agreed in principle to deport an unspecified number of about 1,000 Myanmarese citizens held at Malaysian detention centers for immigration offenses.

Myanmar would send back Malaysian detainees under the deal.

The deal is meant to curb overcrowding at Malaysian detention facilities and would not affect Myanmarese detainees who are eligible for refugee protection, Hishammuddin said.

However, Malaysia’s leading rights group Suaram said the proposal could still result in some Myanmarese citizens being forced to return to a country “where their life could be in danger.” “The Malaysian government is giving greater recognition to the undemocratic and tyrannical regime in this region,” Suaram said in a statement. There are at least 340,000 Myanmarese living in Malaysia, including more than 87,000 refugees registered by the

UN refugee agency. Many belong to ethnic minorities that left home for fear of persecution by the army, forced labor and extra-judicial killings.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ spokeswoman in Malaysia, Yante Ismail, said yesterday that asylum-seekers should “not be deported to a country where their human rights might be at risk.” She added that UNHCR currently has “good access” to people who want to apply for refugee protection in Malaysia. Malaysia’s Bar Council, the country’s main grouping of lawyers, said it cautiously welcomed the plan because it would free Myanmarese detainees from overcrowded Malaysian centers that pose health risks. But lawyers want safeguards to ensure the detainees won’t suffer “retributive or punitive action by their own government,” the Bar Council said. Malaysia’s plan with Myanmar was announced after another people swap deal with Australia was scrapped earlier this month. Under that plan, Australia would have sent asylum seekers to Malaysia in return for Canberra resettling registered refugees from Kuala Lumpur, but the Australian High Court ruled it illegal. —AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

NEWS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

KUWAIT: Protesters gather outside the National Assembly yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Outgoing FM hails Amir’s care, support KUWAIT: Resigned Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem AlSabah has highly appreciated HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s care and directives for him during his career at the Foreign Ministry. Speaking at a farewell meeting with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the ministry yesterday, Sheikh Mohammad said the Amir’s support of him had brought good impacts on Kuwait’s diplomatic march aiming to defend Kuwait’s interests.

The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Acting Foreign Minister Ali Fahd AlRashed and senior officials of the ministry. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made successes thanks to the firm diplomatic structure built by HH the Amir, he said. He also lauded the good achievements and initiatives of HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Sabah, who is a pioneer and graduate of the diplomatic institution founded by the Amir.

In this context, Sheikh Mohammad highly commend-

ed unlimited backing and great facilities provided by the prime minister for attaining the Amir’s vision for turning Kuwait into a regional financial and commercial hub. He also spoke highly of the premier’s main role in linking Kuwait’s interests to different world countries thanks to his foreign initiatives and good relationships with world countries’ representatives. He concluded by vowing to do everything he could to serve his dear Kuwaiti nation.

For his part, Al-Rashed said Sheikh Mohammad’s resignation from the Foreign Ministry is not only a loss to the ministry, but to the Kuwaiti government and people as well. He wished that Sheikh Mohammad would just have “some rest and then return to the government team”, appreciating his great effort in serving Kuwaiti diplomacy. Also at the farewell meeting, Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry Khalid A-Jarallah expressed great sadness at Sheikh Mohammad’s resignation. He voiced much thanks to the resigned minister for all his diplomatic efforts over the last period for the sake of Kuwait and its dear people. — KUNA

MPs, activists call on Amir to sack PM, govt Continued from Page 1 deteriorated under the governments of Sheikh Nasser since he was appointed to the post in Feb 2006.

Since then, Sheikh Nasser has resigned six times, made several Cabinet reshuffles and formed seven governments, the last and the current one in May. Although it was formed a few months ago, two leading ministers both from the ruling family - have resigned. In June, the then deputy premier and housing minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah resigned reportedly over a power struggle with the prime minister himself. Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah resigned on Tuesday as foreign minister over the suspicious transfers made through the foreign ministry.

Al-Mislem also claimed that “secret expenditures” for the prime minister rose from KD 5 million a year before Sheikh Nasser was appointed premier to as high as KD 100 million now. The lawmaker made direct accusations that the government paid bribes to MPs to win their votes in crucial voting in the Assembly, especially on no-confidence motions against the prime minister. AlMislem also called for dissolving the Assembly and holding fresh elections.

Opposition groups have been holding rallies and gatherings to drum up popular support against the government after reports that about 15 MPs received illegal payments worth close to KD 100 million which were deposited into their accounts. The public prosecution is investigating the accounts of those lawmakers to establish the source of the deposits which the opposition claims were “political bribes” by the government.

Islamist activist Hamad Al-Matar said the opposition rallies will continue until the fall of the government as he welcomed the resignation of the former foreign minister and urged other Cabinet members to step down.

Corruption has been on the rise in the state which has

amassed more than $200 billion of budget surpluses over the past 12 fiscal years, thanks to high crude price.

Between 2003 and 2009, Kuwait slipped 31 places to 66th position on the Berlin-based Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index among 178 nations. In 2010, however, it improved 12 places to the 54th position but still came last among the six energyrich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Kuwait, OPEC’s third largest producer, has been rocked by a series of political crises between the opposition and the government, stalling development despite the abundant oil-driven wealth.

Earlier, the recently launched local satellite channel Al Youm was banned from broadcasting the rally.

Mohammed Al-Da’as, General Director of Al Youm Channel told Kuwait Times he received an official letter from the Ministry of Information at 4:30 pm not to broadcast the event live. “I was surprised by this letter as the channel didn’t even announce that we intend to broadcast the rally. The reason mentioned in the letter was due to not having our new equipment checked by the Ministry of Information, although all our equipments are licensed by the Ministry of Commerce and the Customs Department as we imported it from the United States,” he stated.

The ministry refused to cooperate, according to AlDa’as. “As the machines are of small size, I demanded the ministry to check it through their committee, but they said the committee has left. I wonder if this committee was formed just to issue this letter and leave,” he added. This act of the Ministry of Information is arbitrary and abusive, he charged. “They informed us very late.

Furthermore they claimed they heard that Al Youm will broadcast the event live from ‘WhatsApp’ and didn’t verify the news from us. If they had informed us in the morning, we would’ve been able to do something,” lamented Al-Da’as.

Bruni gives birth to baby girl

KUWAIT: Outgoing Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah (front row, second left) and acting FM Ali Al-Rashed (front row, center) pose with other foreign ministry officials yesterday. — KUNA

PARIS: French first lady Carla Bruni gave birth to a baby girl yesterday, French media reported, her first child with husband President Nicolas Sarkozy and the first baby born to a French presidential couple in office. Europe 1 radio and BFM television said Bruni gave birth at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) after being admitted earlier in the day to the La Muette maternity clinic in central Paris. Neither the president’s office nor La Muette would immediately confirm the reports.

Sarkozy was on his way back to Paris after a brief trip to Frankfurt for talks with his German counterpart Angela Merkel and EU officials on Franco-German efforts to put together a plan to stem the euro zone debt crisis. He had visited La Muette clinic during the afternoon. France has been on tenterhooks for weeks over the impending birth, which could give Sarkozy’s image a welcome boost just over six months before a presidential election opinion polls show he could lose to Socialist challenger Francois Hollande.

Sarkozy’s popularity ratings have been stuck at just above 30 percent for months, despite his leadership on issues like the Libyan crisis, with many French angry at economic gloom and resentful of a leadership style many see as impulsive and brash. An opinion poll by CSA published yesterday, the first since Hollande was picked at the weekend to run for the left in next April’s presidential election, found Hollande could beat Sarkozy by 62 percent to 38 percent if the two faced off in a second-round runoff vote. The poll gave Hollande 35 percent support for the first-round vote in April against 25 percent for Sarkozy.

His daughter’s birth coincides with one of the most crucial weeks of Sarkozy’s four-year presidency as he battles to hammer out a plan with Germany to stem the euro zone’s debt crisis before a self-imposed deadline Sunday. Pollsters say that as well as his handling of the euro crisis, the image Sarkozy projects to voters in the months ahead will be crucial for his reelection prospects next April. — Reuters

14

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

opinion

THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF ESTABLISHED 1961

Founder and Publisher

YOUSUF S. AL-ALYAN Editor-in-Chief

ABD AL-RAHMAN AL-ALYAN EDITORIAL : 24833199-24833358-24833432 ADVERTISING : 24835616/7 FAX : 24835620/1 CIRCULATION : 24833199 Extn. 163 ACCOUNTS : 24835619 COMMERCIAL : 24835618 P.O.Box 1301 Safat,13014 Kuwait.

E MAIL :info@kuwaittimes.net Website: www.kuwaittimes.net

Issues

Mexican leftist tries softer image in election bid

By Anahi Rama idely seen as a threat to private business, the leftwing runner-up in Mexico’s 2006 presidential election is trying to recast himself as a moderate to boost his chances of winning power next year. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador narrowly lost the 2006 election and then claimed fraud, launching massive street protests that shut down central areas of Mexico City for weeks. The protests backfired. Lopez Obrador emerged with the reputation of a messianic radical and he may struggle to shake that image and mount a serious challenge in 2012. “I voted for him. But to be honest I didn’t like the political pressure he used. By closing down (boulevard) Reforma he hurt businesses and turned off many voters. I won’t vote for him again,” said Alfredo Figueroa, 40, an anthropologist.

Lopez Obrador, 57, is trying to win back former supporters like Figueroa by projecting a softer image and tackling claims that he would wreck the economy if he were president. “Don’t be fooled, I’m not against businessmen,” he said recently. He recently flew to the United States, Mexico’s biggest trading par tner, and pledged in a speech in Washington to fight monopolies and give priority to small and medium-sized firms. The US trip was immediately followed by a visit to Spain, the largest Mexican export market in Europe and home to a number of the most powerful banks in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador who also organized a business forum in the industrial northern city of Monterrey, a bastion of Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, or PAN. “He has a more emotive and conciliatory message, but he maintains the discourse that the left wants to hear,” said Roy Campos, director of the Mitofsky polling firm. “The trip to the United States isn’t really to give a message to the Americans, it’s for the Mexicans, as if to say: ‘Don’t accuse me of being an extremist, I’m mixing with the people in power.’”

A recent Mitofsky poll showed that 29 percent of Mexicans have a negative view of the gray-haired Lopez Obrador. That is the highest negative rating of any of the main presidential hopefuls, although it is down from 47 percent in 2007. The clear frontrunner ahead of the July election is Enrique Pena Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He scored 49 percent in a recent poll by GCE and Lopez Obrador trailed way behind with 13.5 percent.

Lopez Obrador led the race for much of the 2006 election campaign, establishing a strong base of support among Mexico’s poor, but Calderon overtook him in the final stages as fears mounted that Lopez Obrador might mismanage the economy. .

Since the financial crisis struck, the number of Mexicans living in poverty has increased to 52 million, creating an even bigger potential constituency for a leftist candidate. Some still believe Lopez Obrador, a former welfare officer for indigenous people in his native state of Tabasco, can make a difference in Latin America’s second biggest economy.

“Everyone who comes to power wants to take their cut and squeeze the people, but he was the only one who helped the old people, and single mothers,” said shopkeeper Marisela, 40.

Still, polls show the former mayor of Mexico City has failed to capitalize on growing discontent with Calderon’s conservative administration, which has struggled to create new jobs and bring violent drug cartels to heel. “I don’t think that people will give him another chance so easily,” said political analyst Fernando Dworak. First, Lopez Obrador has to win the nomination of his leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. His rival inside the party is Marcelo Ebrard, a more moderate leftist who succeeded Lopez Obrador as Mexico City’s mayor. Lopez Obrador has a clear advantage among party activists but polls show Ebrard could appeal more to the broader electorate.

The PRD has yet to decide whether it will pick its candidate with a vote of par ty members or by polling voters. The rivalry with Ebrard has split the PRD and voters have turned away from it. Lopez Obrador won the vote in half of Mexico’s states in 2006 but the party has failed to compete in a number of recent regional elections. — Reuters

W

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

Kenya push into Somalia ill thought-out enya’s invasion of Somalia in pursuit of Islamists it accuses of kidnapping foreigners is ill thought-out and leaves Kenya wide open to reprisal attacks, analysts said. “Kenya wants to show that it is taking action, but the intervention is not well thought-out,” said Roland Marchal, of France’s Centre for International Studies and Research. While accepting Kenya’s frustration at recent kidnappings and attacks on its territory, “one really has to wonder if this response is based on solid, actionable intelligence, or merely an emotional reaction,” said J. Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council think-tank.

Several analysts said that the Shabab had been running out of steam, but that the Kenyan offensive risks giving it a new lease of life. “Reports thus far seem to indicate a less-than-surgical operation which will only inflame tensions, and risks allowing the Shabab and other militants, now at a low point, to once again rally Somalis around them under the banner of nationalism,” said Pham. “The Shabab was losing ground and popular support. The Kenyan

K

military intervention will create conditions that would nourish violent extremism by giving the Shabab a cause, and this will raise the motivation of its fighters,” Afyare Elmi, a Somali academic at Qatar University, told AFP. “I believe this was a strategic mistake on the part of Kenya. Ethiopia used the same strategy and similar rhetoric but eventually failed,” he added.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late 2006 to topple the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), starting an occupation that lasted two years and spurring the formation of the AlQaeda-inspired Shabab insurgency from the embers of the ICU. The Kenyan military have not said how many men have been deployed, but analysts’ estimates, based on talking to people on the ground, range from 2,000 to 3,000 men. One problem facing Kenya is the “very substantial Somali diaspora in Kenya” said Peter Lehr, a terrorism expert at Scotland’s St. Andrew ’s University. Lehr said that Kenya has normally avoided angering that diaspora, including having been “reluctant to bring pirates to justice”. “Moving into Somalia just to find

the kidnapped aid workers is a bad move.

They don’t have the logistics, they don’t have the capacities,” he said.

The Shabab have already attacked outside their home base, claiming responsibility for July 2010 suicide attacks in Uganda that killed at least 76 people, retaliation for Uganda’s leading role in the Mogadishubased African Union force. “You have to take a lesson from other invaders who attacked our country and the consequence they faced,” Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage warned. “Ask the Ugandan president what motivated the attack on his country in July last year,” he added.

Even if Kenya’s offensive crushed the Shabab, which the “current force is not equipped to do”, the assault increases the risk of “sleeper cells” or “lone wolf” sympathizers attacking Kenya, Pham said. “One hopes that the Kenyan government has taken adequate measures for internal defense. If not, the folly of lashing out would constitute near-criminal negligence,” Pham added. EJ Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Director at International Crisis Group

said that even if Kenya did manage to drive the Shabab out of their main southern base of Kismayo port, the future after that is hazy.

“I think that the Kenyan intervention is more problematic than many think. Even if Kenya is able to dislodge Al-Shabab from Kismayo - a big if - what happens next?

Who takes over? Will Al-Shabab be defeated or, like the ICU (the Shabab’s forerunner), will it melt into the local population and carry out a guerrilla campaign?” He said it is likely Kenya will get dragged into a long military intervention that will be “hugely unpopular in Somalia.” That idea was echoed by CERI’s Marchal. “They have probably been encouraged by their allies,” he said, referring to two proxy groups Kenya has used to try to create a buffer zone along its border, Azania and Ras Kamboni. “As always, a military intervention is not the same thing as a strategy,” Marchal added. “What do they do afterwards? What is the aim of the war? To scare the Shabab?

Seize territory? Free the hostages? We don’t know.” — AFP

GOP contenders turn fire on each other

By Charles Babington he Republican presidential candidates tore into each other as never before in their latest debate, mindful that voting starts within 11 weeks and many GOP voters remain up for grabs. Mitt Romney emerged from the two-hour forum Tuesday night still the person to beat, but he was considerably scratched up on the issues of illegal immigration, health care and jobs.

The feisty faceoff in Las Vegas marked the first time the contenders treated Herman Cain as a serious threat, and they aggressively ripped his 9-9-9 tax plan, perhaps inflicting grave wounds.

And Texas Gov Rick Perry snapped out of his sleepy debate style, criticizing Romney so vigorously that the two men seemed close to blows at times. Perry was forceful from the start, battling to end his campaign’s recent slide and to re-establish himself as the most viable alternative to the former Massachusetts governor. Cable TV viewers who watched the debate’s first 60 minutes and last 10 minutes saw seven contenders make the greatest effort yet to distinguish themselves from one another and expose each other’s weaknesses. That left comparatively little time to bash President Barack Obama, but that’s something they all agree on anyway.

Some exchanges were personal, almost petty. Romney repeatedly chided Perry and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum for talking over him. Perry accused Romney of making false claims, and reminded voters that Romney had employed illegal immigrants to do lawn work a few years ago.

Romney said he instructed the landscape company to get rid of illegal workers. Perry said it was “the height of hypocrisy” for Romney to criticize the Texan’s immigration record. Romney put his hand on the scowling Perry’s shoulder and demanded, “Are you just going to keep talking?” Romney said Perry had suffered some poor debates, “so you’re going to get testy.” It was one of several moments that bordered on condescension.

When Romney said 40 percent of new jobs in Texas lately have gone to illegal immigrants, Perry said heatedly, “That is an absolute falsehood on its face, Mitt.”

Rebukes of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan dominated the debate’s first 15 minutes. Cain, a former pizza company executive, climbed to the top of recent GOP polls by touting his proposal to scrap current income and payroll taxes and replace them with a 9 percent levy on personal and corporate income and a 9 percent national sales tax.

Virtually every rival took a shot at it.

T

(Left to right) US Sen Rick Santorum, US Rep Ron Paul, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain, former Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney, Texas Gov Rick Perry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and US Rep Michele Bachmann say the Pledge of Allegiance during the Republican Presidential debate at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. — AFP “That’s a tax plan, not a jobs plan,” said Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. She said a liberal president and Congress might push the sales tax to 90 percent, and consumers would blame vendors. Rep Ron Paul of Texas called the plan dangerous and regressive. It’s good that nearly half of Americans currently pay no federal income tax, Paul said, adding that he would replace that tax “with nothing.”

Several candidates cited a new report by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank, that said Cain’s plan would raise taxes on 84 percent of US households. Cain, on the defensive as never before, said critics were misinterpreting his plan and mixing apples and oranges. Romney turned the phrase against him, saying Americans would be taxed on apples AND oranges because they would pay state and federal sales taxes in most states.

With Cain’s 9-9-9 plan treated like road kill, the candidates turned mainly to criticizing Romney and watching him and Perry spar in ways that hinted at real animosity.

Santorum, who lost his bid for a third Senate term six years ago, often played the aggressor. Noting that Romney ’s Massachusetts healthcare program had

required residents to obtain medical insurance, Santorum said, “Your plan was the basis for Obamacare,” the GOP epithet for the Democrats’ 2010 health care overhaul.

Romney, sometimes struggling to be heard, repeated his claim that the state plan was meant for Massachusetts alone.

Perry joined Santorum in saying Romney at times had signaled that other states should adopt the Massachusetts model. “The people of Massachusetts like it by about a 3-to1 margin,” Romney said. He added, however, “I didn’t get the job done in Massachusetts, and getting the healthcare costs down in this country is something I think we got to do at the national level.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it wasn’t fair to equate “Romneycare” with “Obamacare”. However, he said, “There’s a lot of big government behind “Romneycare ... more than your campaign is admitting.”

When talk turned to foreign policy, Cain was pressed to explain a CNN interview in which he said he might consider releasing all the terror suspects at the US naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, if AlQaeda demanded it as the price of handing over a captured American. “No, I said that I believe in the philosophy of we don’t nego-

tiate with terrorists,” Cain said. “I think - I’ve been saying - I would never agree to letting hostages in Guantanamo Bay go. No, that wasn’t the intent at all.”

Near the debate’s close, Santorum took a swing at Perry and Romney. “I didn’t run as a Democrat in Texas when it was popular,” he said, alluding to Perr y ’s pre Republican past. “I didn’t run as a liberal in 1994,” he said, referring to Romney’s unsuccessful bid to oust then-Sen Ted Kennedy.

In that campaign, Romney said he would be a more forceful proponent of gay rights than would Kennedy. Bachmann got the final word, saying: “ The cake is baked.

Barack Obama will be a one-term president.”

The GOP crowd loved it, of course.

Obama certainly faces big re-election hurdles. But Tuesday night’s forum pointed to more GOP bloodletting ahead as the rivals lunge for an up-for-grabs nomination.

Romney seems certain to remain the chief target, at least for a while. Perry served notice he’s back in the game. And Cain’s rough treatment suggested it’s possible that Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich or Paul will have chances to rise in the polls - and then face the consequences. — AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

RENANS: Michel Platini was quizzed

by Swiss court officials yesterday over why UEFA has not yet implemented a ruling ordering Sion’s reinstatement to the Europa League.

Platini, the president of European football’s governing body, spent around two hours at the prosecutor’s office in the canton of Vaud. He was followed by general secretary Gianni Infantino.

“The president is really happy to have answered questions from the prosecutor as a witness,” UEFA spokesman Alexandre Fourtoy told reporters.

“We will not further comment so that justice can gather all the information and draw its conclusion.” Sion were kicked out of the Europa League by UEFA for fielding ineligible players in their playoff tie against Scottish

McIlroy and Bradley take joint control of Grand Slam BERMUDA: US Open champion Rory McIlroy birdied three of the last five holes in deteriorating weather to join Keegan Bradley in a tie for the lead after Tuesday’s opening round of the end-of-season PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda.

The 22-year-old Northern Irishman battled strengthening winds and a torrential downpour to fire a four-under-par 67 at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton.

“I finished really, really well,” McIlroy told reporters after taking joint control of the two-round stroke-play event which traditionally brings together the winners of the year’s four majors.

“I gave myself so many chances on the front nine and didn’t really make anything but I started to hole a lot of putts on the back nine. It was a bonus to par 16 and birdie 17 in that bad weather, so I made up a few shots there.”

American Bradley, who won his first major title at the PGA Championship in August, had seized early control with a sizzling front nine of six-under 30 but he lost ground with two bogeys after the turn to be caught by McIlroy.

South African Charl Schwartzel, the Masters champion, also struggled over the closing stretch on the way to a 74 while Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke,

winner of this year’s British Open, battled to a 77.

Bradley, who became the first player to win a major title using a long putter with his PGA Championship victory in a playoff at Atlanta Athletic Club, made a redhot start highlighted by two eagles in his first seven holes.

“Two of the best shots I hit all year really, right at the pin the whole time,” the 25-year-old said of his stunning six-irons into the green to set up tap-in eagle putts at the par-five second and the par-five seventh.

“It was a great day. I got off to a really good start and I kind of slowed down on the back (nine), but actually still played very well. It was still a lot of fun.”

Schwartzel, who clinched his first major title with a spectacular four-birdie finish at the Masters in April, was two under for the day after 11 holes before struggling to the finish.

“Disappointing,” he said after covering the back nine in a messy five-over 40. “I thought I actually played really well up until 12. I hardly missed a shot.

“I didn’t make any putts on the greens, then I three -putted 12 and missed short ones on 13 and 14, then another three-putt on 16. That was frustrating.” —Reuters

SOUTHAMPTON: Keegan Bradley of the USA during the second round of the PGA Grand Slam of Golf at the Port Royal Golf Course. —AFP

Choi invites Asia’s best to Korea SEOUL: Some of the best golfers from Asia have arrived in South Korea to compete at the $750,000 CJ Invitational hosted by Players Championship winner KJ Choi.

PGA Tour veteran Choi, who finished third and fourth at the US Masters in 2004 and 2010 respectively and is currently ranked No. 14 in the world, has invited 55 golfers from the Korean Tour, 55 from the Asian Tour and 10 on behalf of sponsors to join him at the par-72, 7,229 yard Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Club in Yeoju.

“At this tournament, I want to play with young players with potential and give them a stepping stone,” Choi was quoted as saying by South Korean news agenc y Yonhap. “ There are a lot of things to take care of as both a player and the host of the event. I will try to do my best and hopefully that will lead to a great result.”

One of the up-and-comers to accept an invitation is Korean-American Anthony Kim, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour.

“He’s an epitome of what a Korean golfer should be,” Kim said of Choi. “He’s a well-respected man. I am trying to follow in his footsteps. Hopefully, I can put on a good show in his first tournament.”

As well as Kim, some of the top Asian-based players will be on show and, led by Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman, they paid tribute to Choi.

“When I was growing up, I knew KJ

Troicki, Zvonareva in q-finals

Platini quizzed on Sion

Berbatov snubs return call BUCHAREST: Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov has refused to come out of international retirement after several hundred Bulgarian fans made the trip to Romania to urge him to change his mind.

“I didn’t expect such reaction,” said Berbatov, an unused substitute in his team’s 20 Champions League win over Otelul Galati at the National Arena in Bucharest.

“I can’t play for the national team if I’m not playing for my club,” he added, in a barely concealed plea to United manager Alex Ferguson for more first-team football.

Berbatov, who boasts a remarkable international scoring record of 48 goals in 79 matches, quit the national team in May last year.

Bulgaria have struggled in his absence and scored only three goals in the Euro 2012 qualifiers to finish bottom in their group for their worst qualifying campaign.

“I would like to thank the fans, it was very pleasant.

My team mates wondered what was happening and I had to explain them (about the noise from the stands),” added the 30-year-old.

Last season, Javier Hernandez overtook former Bulgaria captain in the pecking order to become Wayne Rooney’s preferred strike partner at United.

Berbatov also has to fight for his place with 21-year-old Danny Welbeck and former Liverpool and Real Madrid striker Michael Owen.—Reuters

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

sp orts

Choi’s name,” said Siddikur. “He’s the No. 1 player from Korea and he’s ver y famous around the world. He’s giving back a tournament which is nice. It’s great for us. There are some players whom I like and KJ is one of them.

“He played on the Asian Tour before going on to become a star on the US tour,” he added. “It’ll be nice if I have a chance to win his tournament. I’m hitting it quite good the past few weeks, so I’m happy with my form.”

The sentiments were echoed by Chinese veteran Zhang Lianwei. “I think it is great that KJ is hosting this tournament on the Asian Tour. He started his career with us and for him to do something like this speaks well of his intentions and his heart,” Zhang said. “I’m grateful that he has given me an invitation to play in his tournament as we used to play a lot together in the past in Asia.” Choi long sought to become the first Asian to win a major, but that honor went to compatriot Y.E. Yang who took the 2009 PGA Championship. That doesn’t mean that Choi has given up on that dream.

“The fire is strong and it will always be,” he said. “However, even if I don’t win a major, I’m still very grateful for what I’ve achieved. Honestly, it’s so much more than what I had imagined.”

South Korean conglomerate CJ has announced it will sponsor Asian TourKorean Tour co-sanctioned event for next three years. —AP

side Celtic in August.

They lost an appeal to UEFA against the decision but, defying FIFA and UEFA rules which ban clubs from taking their cases outside sporting tribunals, won an injunction in their favour at a Swiss court.

UEFA has so failed to reinstate Sion and been ordered to pay 1,000 Swiss francs ($1,113) for each day that the court order is not carried out.

It has argued that its own statutes prevent it from overturning a decision made by its independent disciplinary tribunal. On Monday, UEFA sent the court a document suggesting ways in which Sion could be integrated into Group I of the competition, where Celtic took Sion’s place alongside Atletico Madrid, Rennes and Udinese.—Reuters

MOSCOW: Defending men’s champion Viktor Troicki and top-seeded woman Vera Zvonareva advanced to the quarterfinals of the Kremlin Cup with straight-set victories yesterday. The second-seeded Troicki beat Pere Riba of Spain 6-4, 6-4 while Zvonareva routed Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia, 6-1, 6-1.

Troicki broke once in each set and sealed the victory on his first match point. “It was a tough match today,” the Serb said. “It was tough to break him. He was serving always over 200 (kph_. But I also served good.”

Last year, Troicki beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in Moscow for his first career title. “I hope to do well to defend my title but there’s a lot of good players and I still have three matches to go to defend it,” Troicki said. In the quarterfinals, he will face either Alex Bogomolov Jr. or Mikhail Kukushkin.

Zvonareva, runner-up here in 2008, won nine consecutive games before Jovanovski held her serve in the fourth game of the second set. The Russian went on to finish the match in just over an hour.

Zvonareva is among seven players who have already qualified for next week’s seasonending WTA Tour championships in Istanbul.

Second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, who was scheduled to face Lucie Safarova later Wednesday, can secure the last spot with the victory. In the women’s first round, eighthseeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia defeated Polona Hercog of Slovenia 6-3, 7-6 (3). —AP

Depleted Penuins beat Wild ST. PAUL: Pittsburgh’s Pascal Dupuis had a short-handed goal and an assist as the depleted Penguins beat the Minnesota Wild 4-2 in the NHL on Tuesday.

James Neal scored for the sixth time this season while Chris Kunitz and Jordan Staal also got goals for the Penguins, who were winless in their previous three games. They have already played eight times in the first 13 days of the season, improving to 4-2-2.

Cal Clutterbuck had a shorthanded goal for Minnesota and Guillaume Latendresse scored for the first time in almost an entire calendar year, but the Wild could not add to its four-game winning streak against the Penguins.

Tuomo Ruutu, Anthony Stewart and Eric Staal had the other goals for the Hurricanes.

Rich Peverley had a power-play goal for the Bruins, who conceded a number of seemingly senseless penalties.

Kings 5, Blues 0 In Los Angeles, Simon Gagne had two goals and an assist in his home debut with Los Angeles as the Kings

blowout win.

Quick made several spectacular saves while remaining unbeaten in regulation this season.

Flyers 7, Senators 2 In Ottawa, Philadelphia rookie Matt Read had a goal and two assists in the opening 20 minutes as the Flyers built a four-goal lead and went on to beat Ottawa.

The four-goal outburst prompted

Sabres 3, Canadiens 1 In Montreal, Thomas Vanek scored just before the end of the second period to put Buffalo ahead to stay against Montreal and Ryan Miller made 40 saves to lead Buffalo over Montreal.

Vanek held up before driving a slap shot into the net from low in the left circle with 2.8 seconds remaining in the period.

Jordan Leopold scored earlier in the second and Christian Ehrhoff put his first Buffalo goal into an empty net with 28.3 seconds left.

Raphael Diaz scored his first NHL goal for Montreal, which held a 4123 shots advantage but completed an 0-2-1 homestand.

Hurricanes 4, Bruins 1 In Boston, Cam Ward stopped 33 shots as Carolina notched their second win over Boston in a week.

Carolina defenseman Joni Pitkanen had a goal and two assists while

Stars 3, Blue Jackets 2 In Columbus, Ohio, Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist as Dallas hung on for its fourth straight win, edging Columbus.

Steve Ott and Michael Ryder also scored for the Stars who seemed in complete control until Kris Russell pulled Columbus within one with just under three minutes remaining.

Vinny Prospal nearly tied it in the final seconds, with the puck going just wide of the post with the goalie beaten.

Rangers 4, Canucks 0 In Vancouver, New York broke open a scoreless game with four goals in the third period to beat Vancouver for its first victory of the season.

Mike Rupp started the scoring 2:22 into in the third, and goalie Henrik Lundqvist did the rest just as he did in the first two periods in keeping the Rangers in the game, making 40 saves in all.

Ryan McDonagh and Brian Boyle scored 93 seconds apart midway through the final frame, and Marian Gaborik added the last goal with 2:21 left as the injury-depleted and road-weary Rangers won despite being outshot 40-19.

Capitals 3, Panthers 0 In Washington, Tomas Vokoun blanked his former team with a 20save performance, and Washington beat Florida to improve to 5-0, the best start in franchise history.

Marcus Johansson, Alexander Semin and Jason Chimera scored for the Capitals, who join Detroit as the only NHL teams to win all their games thus far. The Capitals’ fourgame winning streak at home to start the season is also a club record.

Vokoun was rarely tested, but he couldn’t afford a slip-up in a tightly played defensive struggle. It was the 45th NHL shutout for the 35-yearold goalie, who played the previous four seasons with Florida.

Blackhawks 5, Coyotes 2 In Glendale, Arizona, Dave Bolland scored one third-period goal and had an assist on the other to help Chicago pull away to a victory over Phoenix.

Bolland’s steal and short-handed goal gave Chicago a 4-2 lead 2:27 into the third period. His assist helped set up Bryan Bickell’s score that made it 5-2 61/2 minutes later as the Blackhawks outshot Phoenix 35-16.

Marian Hossa, back after missing a game with an upper-body injury, scored Chicago’s first goal when his team had a two-man advantage in the first period. Jonathan Toews, Jamal Mayers and Bryan Bickell also scored for the Blackhawks. Taylor Pyatt and Ray Whitney scored for Phoenix.

final 5 minutes of the third period.

VANCOUVER: New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist (30) stops a shot from Vancouver Canucks center Manny Malhotra (27) during the second period of an NHL hockey game. —AP comfortably beat St. Louis.

Jonathan Quick made 27 saves while Anze Kopitar, Jarret Stoll and captain Dustin Brown each had a goal and an assist as the Kings finally returned home from a two-week, two-continent road trip, kicking off a season of high expectations with a

the Senators to switch goalies, pulling Alex Auld and replacing him with Craig Anderson.

Wayne Simmonds, Claude Giroux and Max Talbot also scored for the Flyers in the first period. James van Riemsdyk, Sean Couturier and Harrison Zolnierczyk scored in the

Flames 2, Oilers 1 In Calgary, Jay Bouwmeester and Alex Tanguay scored late in the third period, and Calgary rallied for a victory over Edmonton.

For the game’s first 54 minutes, it appeared that Tom Gilbert’s firstperiod goal would stand up as the winner. Calgary pulled even after a spirited rush into the Oilers end by Lee Stempniak eventually resulted in the puck landing on the stick of Bouwmeester, who beat screened goalie Devan Dubnyk with a wrist shot at 14:03.

The Flames then grabbed the lead 89 seconds later. Cory Sarich’s shot from the blue line into a crowd bounced to the side of the net where Tanguay knocked in his first goal of the season. —AP

NHL results/standings Results and results from the NHL games on Tuesday.

Carolina 4, Boston 1; Washington 3, Florida 0; Dallas 3, Columbus 2; Buffalo 3, Montreal 1; Philadelphia 7, Ottawa 2; Pittsburgh 4, Minnesota 2; Calgary 2, Edmonton 1; NY Rangers 4, Vancouver 0; Chicago 5, Phoenix 2; Los Angeles 5, St. Louis 0.

Eastern Conference Western Conference Atlantic Division Central Division W L OTL GF GA PTS Detroit 4 0 0 13 5 8 Pittsburgh 4 2 2 23 20 10 Chicago 3 1 1 17 12 7 Philadelphia 4 0 1 19 10 9 Nashville 2 2 1 12 15 5 NY Islanders 3 1 0 11 6 6 St. Louis 2 4 0 15 20 4 New Jersey 3 1 0 9 8 6 Columbus 0 5 1 12 20 1 NY Rangers 1 1 2 9 9 4 Buffalo Toronto Boston Montreal Ottawa

Northeast Division 4 1 0 17 3 0 1 13 2 4 0 11 1 3 1 12 1 5 0 16

10 10 13 16 30

Southeast Division 5 0 0 18 3 2 1 17 3 2 0 14 1 3 2 18 1 3 0 7

11 19 13 26 14

8 7 4 3 2

Colorado Minnesota Edmonton Vancouver Calgary

Northwest Division 5 1 0 20 2 2 2 14 2 2 1 10 2 3 1 14 2 3 0 13

13 16 10 20 15

10 6 5 5 4

Pacific Division Dallas 5 1 0 16 13 10 Anaheim 4 1 0 11 9 8 Los Angeles 3 1 1 14 10 7 Phoenix 2 2 1 15 16 5 San Jose 1 3 0 10 11 2 Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L) Washington Carolina Florida Tampa Bay Winnipeg

10 7 6 4 2

NBA negotiations last 16 hours, more talks planned NEW YORK: NBA players and owners spent a marathon 16 hours meeting with a federal mediator and planned to return late yesterday to continue the talks.

They didn’t emerge with the deal Commissioner David Stern wanted Tuesday, but things went well enough that owners decided to alter their plans after previously saying they weren’t available yesterday.

The sides met beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday and went late into the night, finally breaking after 2 a.m.

Wednesday. It was more than twice as long as any previous negotiating session since owners locked out players when the old collective bargaining agreement expired June 30.

Both sides left the meeting without commenting

at the request of federal mediator George Cohen.

Owners originally ruled out labor talks for late yesterday and today because they have two days of board meetings planned, but the labor relations committee that was set for a morning presentation will instead return to resume discussions with the players.

Owners still will meet later in the day to discuss plans for expanded revenue sharing among teams.

Players have wanted that as part of the CBA process, believing it’s a way for the league to address its losses.

But Stern said it can’t come until after the labor deal, so they first know what savings are coming from there.

Although the fact that talks didn’t break off is good news, one person with knowledge of the

process said not to presume there was any serious progress. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of Cohen’s request.

Joining Stern, Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver and other top league officials Tuesday were 13 team executives making up the labor relations committee, including Dallas owner Mark Cuban, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Knicks owner Jim Dolan, Spurs owner and committee chair Peter Holt and Heat owner Micky Arison. The players had their entire executive committee, led by president Derek Fisher of the Lakers, except for Bucks guard Keyon Dooling.

The sides have been divided mostly by two issues, the division of revenues and the structure of the salary cap system. —AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

sp orts

Wales targets upset win to prove Cup credentials AUCKLAND: The Welsh immediately cried foul after a 9-8 semifinal loss to France, saying they were more deserving of a World Cup final spot than the French.

The “We wuz robbed” complaints centered on the red card to captain Sam Warburton. His dangerous tackle left Wales a man short for more than an hour, yet the Welsh could still have pulled off an amazing victory if any of their three kickers had landed one of the six shots they missed in the game.

Even former Wales head coach Graham Henry, who has guided New Zealand into the final, was disappointed his old team missed out, saying it would have been a great final matchup.

Wales has one last chance to prove it really deserved to have reached its first ever World Cup final, by upsetting No. 2-ranked Australia in the playoff for third place on Friday night.

Australia coach Robbie Deans has been one of the admirers of Wales’ running rugby, which has earned the side a return to prominence and respect.

But he didn’t back any changes to the tournament format, which has seen France advance to the final after losing two pool games. France, he said, “went through the system and they prevailed.”

Deans also was pragmatic about the worthiness of the bronze-medal game between two hurt and disappointed semifinals losers who usually would prefer to go home than endure week-long attention on the finalists. The game was still relevant, Deans said, because it offered ranking points which will help for the next World Cup, and his Wallabies were taking it seriously. “Absolutely,” he added.

The match will also be a moneymaker for the tournament host, with a crowd of at least 50,000 expected at Eden Park two days ahead of the final.

Both teams had in mind their fans for motivation.

Stand-in Wales skipper Gethin Jenkins said his squad was keen to play well as a “thank you” to their fans. Not only had thousands of Welsh followed the

AUCKLAND: Wales rugby player Shane Williams puts on a practice bib during a training session in Auckland. Wales will play Australia in the bronze medal Rugby World Cup match at Eden Park tomorrow. — AP team to New Zealand, and thousands of locals The Wallabies didn’t feel robbed after losing to backed them for the entertainment they offered, the All Blacks 20-6 in their semifinal - they were but also the support was evident by the 61,543 fans more devastated to come off second best so clearly. who packed Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for a free Winning the Tri-Nations title in August, then ousting live screening of the semifinal at dawn last Saturday. defending champion South Africa in an incredible That was nearly 3,000 more than attended the quarterfinal had galvanized Australian support of actual game. Millennium Stadium will also show rugby in a country where it ranked lowly among the Friday’s game on its giant TV screens live and for four football codes. The Wallabies said they’d taken free. the bitter loss to heart and were out for redemption.

Pakistan guided into driver’s seat by Umar

ABU DHABI: Pakistan’s cricketer Taufiq Umar raises his bat and helmet in celebration after scoring a century on the second day of the opening cricket Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. — AP

Butt accused of forcing Asif to bowl no-balls LONDON: The lawyer representing Mohammad Asif has accused former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt of pressurizing Asif to bowl a no-ball during the Lord’s test against England last year.

During the 10th day of the spot-fixing trial at a London court on Tuesday, Butt spent a grueling five hours in the witness stand as he was questioned first by Asif’s lawyer Alexander Milne and then by prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee.

After playing a video of an over in which Asif bowled a no-ball, Milne told Butt: “You had been talking to Mr Asif through this over and pressurizing him.”

Milne continued: “Before Mr Asif bowled his no-ball, you said to him, ‘run faster ... you are running too slow.’” Butt, who frequently showed flashes of anger during a challenging day for the 27-year-old, denied the accusation.

“I’m not there to pressure him, just to encourage,” Butt said. “If you have played cricket in any part of your life you would know that these things are never said. It is no term. There’s no suggestion in cricket as ‘run faster.’ He is not running the 100 meters, he’s bowling. Asif has never been about pace, he is a rhythm bowler.”

Butt and Asif are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, following the match in August 2010 when they allegedly conspired with agent Mazhar Majeed, teenage fast bowler Mohammed Amir and other people unknown to bowl

pre-planned no-balls. Butt and Asif deny the charges.

Butt must continue in the witness stand on Wednesday as Jafferjee was yet to even start probing him on the match in question at Lord’s and three no-balls. The jury has already been informed that it can only give a verdict on what happened in relation to Lord’s and the three no-balls in question.

Jafferjee spent much of Tuesday questioning Butt about the background to the Lord’s test. Referring to a notebook Butt kept to track income, expenditure and money that was “still to be received,” the prosector wanted to know why Butt had not noted a €30,000 endorsement deal that he signed with Majeed to have a sticker on his bat advertising one of Majeed’s companies Capital Cricket. “It’s up to me about what to write and what not to write.

It’s my diary,” Butt replied, becoming agitated by Jafferjee’s probing.

Jafferjee also asked Butt why he withdrew $181,000 from his Bank Alfalah account in Lahore, Pakistan on the day of his police interview in London on Sept. 3, 2010. Butt transferred the amount into his mother’s account.

“It might have happened on the same day as my interview but it was not something that I aimed to happen on the same day,” Butt said. “I can’t explain why (I withdrew it). “You are trying to portray something else, but you don’t know anything about the Muslim culture.” The case continues. — AP

ABU DHABI: Taufiq Umar hit his sixth Test century and fellow opener Mohammad Hafeez scored 75 as Pakistan took a firm grip on the first Test against Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi stadium here yesterday.

The left-hander made an undefeated 109 and added 118 for the opening wicket with Hafeez and another unbroken 141 for the third wicket with Azhar Ali (60 not out) as Pakistan reached 259-1 by stumps, a lead of 62 with eight wickets intact.

If it was Pakistani bowlers’ day, with Junaid Khan taking five wickets, on Tuesday it was batsmen’s turn on Wednesday who further blunted an ordinary looking Sri Lankan bowling attack.

Umar, Hafeex and Azhar batted without any trouble on an unresponsive pitch to frustrate the Sri Lankans, who remained in a search for an elusive wicket in the first and third session.

Azhar, who completed his tenth fifty in his 14th Test, ably supporting Umar. It was Umar who edged Herath towards third man for a couple to take Pakistan past Sri Lanka’s first-innings total of 197.

The ease with which Pakistani batsmen were coping, Sri Lankan captain Tillakaratne Dilshan immediately took the second new ball in the 81st over as their only chance to stage a fightback.

But even that did not bring any luck for the Islanders as Umar hit three boundaries, two off Suranga Lukmal and then glaneced the same bowler for a single to bring up his hundred off 259 balls.

Umar said it was satisfying to fulfill his team’s need. “I am happy that I fulfilled team requirements which were to stay at the pitch and put a good total,” said Umar, who hit eight boundaries during his 296-ball patient knock. Sri Lanka’s batting coach Marvan Atapattu said his team needs to

bat out of trouble.

“We have to bat out of this disappointing situation,” said Atapattu, also a former captain.

“We missed a good chance in the first innings and had luck been with us we would have got more than one wicket.”

Sri Lanka spurned a chance to get Azhar out, when experienced Mahela Jayawardene dropped a catch in the slips off Herath when the right-hander was only seven.

Earlier it was Hafeez who anchored Pakistan’s innings after they resumed at 27-0. Umar reached his 12th half-century with a sharp single, and has so far hit only three boundaries as Pakistan scored only 59 in the second session.

Umar was more cautious as Sri Lanka introduced spinners Rangana Herath and Tillakaratne Dilshan from both ends. They bowled four maiden overs between them with tight line and length, but did not get much turn.

Hafeez then broke the deadlock in scoring, jumping out of his crease to hit Herath over long-off for a six and then slashed towards third man to bring his fifth Test half-century.

He then swept the same bowler for two to bring up Pakistan’s 100. Hafeez has so far hit eight boundaries and a six during his 121-ball knock.

Sri Lanka’s three-pronged pace attack and spinners failed to give any trouble to the Pakistani openers on a pitch which had some grass on the first day.

The remaining two Tests in the series will be played in Dubai (October 26-30) and Sharjah (November 3-7). The Tests will be followed by five one-day and a Twenty20 international.

The series was shifted to United Arab Emirates after Sri Lanka refused an invitation to t o u r Pa k i s t a n o v e r s e c u r i t y fears. — AFP

“To let ourselves down is one thing but to let the supporters down, the fans and the country down is another,” center Adam Ashley-Cooper said.

Australia has made eight changes for the match, including the return from injury of fullback Kurtley Beale, Berrick Barnes in midfield and lock Nathan Sharpe starting his 100th test. Sharpe will be the fifth Australian to notch a century of test caps.

Thanks to a Welsh grandfather, Sharpe said he was asked to play for Wales way back when Henry was coach but declined.

Wales made only three changes, all in the forwards. Prop Paul James, lock Bradley Davies and No. 8 Ryan Jones were brought in. James Hook was left at flyhalf, given a second chance like his opposite number Quade Cooper, to regain confidence after sub-par displays in the semifinals.

The match is only the first of five meetings between the teams within the next eight months.

The Wallabies return to Cardiff on Dec. 3, and Wales tour Australia for a three-test tour next June.

“We face Australia back home at Millennium Stadium in just over a month’s time and we are single-minded in our assertion that we want that homecoming to be a celebration of us achieving the status of one of the top three teams in the world,” coach Warren Gatland said.

“We have come a long way and put together a string of performances that the nation can be proud of so far in New Zealand and we need to ensure that the history books reflect what we know we are capable of - and it is only by beating the Wallabies on Friday night that we feel this will be achieved.”

But Sharpe, who has experienced two losses to Wales in his eight tests against them, said the Wallabies were out to put the Welsh in their place.

Mindful of the glut of games with Wales coming up, he said, “If you let these teams get one over you, they get too much confidence.”— AP

Saints’ Brees hopeful for deal despite slow talks NEW YORK: New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees hopes to end his National Football League (NFL) career with the 2009 Super Bowl champions but says there has been little progress in talks over a new contract with the team.

The five-time Pro Bowl selection is in the final year of his deal with New Orleans and at 32 years old, clearly hopes to secure a long-term deal similar to those given to other elite quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

“It is ongoing although there hasn’t really been any progress made here over the last few weeks. I have given that responsibility to my agent and the general manager of the Saints,” Brees told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“It is their job to get that done and my job is to play football and help my team win. That’s all I am really thinking about now.”

Should a deal not be done by the end of the season, the Saints would almost certainly put a franchise tag on Brees - a move which would bind him to the team for another year and avoid the risk of him becoming a free agent.

The danger for Brees, like any other quarterback in the NFL, is that having a short-term deal gives him even more than usual limited security in the case of a serious injury.

“Do I hope it gets done sooner rather than later? Absolutely,” said Brees, who is second in the NFL this season with 2,152 passing yards for the 4-2 Saints.

“But am I anticipating that this could possibly be next year, this off-season and something not get done? Yes, I am prepared for that happen. I hope it isn’t the case but I am prepared if it is.”

Brees is a hugely popular figure in New Orleans after he was actively involved in community work following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then led the Saints to their first ever Super Bowl and the eventual victory.

That has created a tight bond with the fans and the Texan said he aimed to stay with New Orleans until he retires. “I want to be a Saint, I want to be here my whole career, I would like to get this done as soon as possible,” said Brees.

“But I am focused on winning football games and doing whatever I can to help my team do that. I am not thinking contracts right now.” Last month the Saints handed a three-year contact extension to head coach Sean Payton who has worked with Brees throughout the last five years.

Brees’ agent Tom Condon also represents Indianapolis Colts quarterback Manning, who in July agreed a five-year $90 million contract before being ruled out for most of this season with a neck injury. — Reuters

Scoreboard Scoreboard at the close of play after day two of the first test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi on yesterday: Sri Lanka first innings (A. Mathews 52 not out, J. Khan5-38)

197

Pakistan first innings (overnight 27-0) M. Hafeez lbw b Herath 75 T. Umar not out 109 A. Ali not out 60 Extras (b-3, nb-12) 15 Total (for 1 wicket - 98 overs) 259 To bat: Y. Khan, Misbah-ul Haq, A. Shafiq, A. Akmal, U. Gul, A. Cheema, S. Ajmal, J. Khan Fall of wicket: 1-118 Bowling: Welegedara 16-1-56-0, Lakmal 13-3-58-0, Herath 35-10-55-1, Pradeep 15-0-57-0, Dilshan 19-6-30-0.

Drew Brees celebrates in this file photo.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

sp orts

KUWAIT: (Left) A folkloric performance during the opening ceremony (Right) Young girls welcoming the Asian shooting community.

Asian Air Gun Championship kicks off

By Abdellatif Sharaa KUWAIT: President of Kuwait and Asian Shooting Federations, Vice President of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah said “we are reaping the fruits of relentless efforts and cooperation between Asian countries through paying more attention to sports in the continent.”

Sheikh Salman was speaking after the official opening ceremony of the 4th Asian Air Gun Championship in Kuwait which will last until October 23rd, 2011. Sheikh Salman Al-Humoud Al-Sabah said these competitions, at this important level gives shooters the opportunity to gain international experience and improve their skills, which will help in the future. Sheikh Salman said competitions will not be easy because there are top world champions participating.

The Asian Shooting Sport Confederation will meet this evening at Regency Palace, to renew its confidence in Sheikh Salman Al-Humoud AlSabah, for another 4 year term as ASC President. Sheikh Salman, who is also President of Kuwait Shooting Sport Federation and vice president of ISSF, did not face any opponent, in appreciation of his major role in advancing the games in a short period. His plans for the ASC were fruitful as results of Asian Shooters place the continent in a highly advanced place in Olympic and international competitions, be it in shotguns, Air Guns and archery.

The organizing committee presented a magnificent opening show on Tuesday evening at Martyr Fahad Al-Ahmad Hall at Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Olympic Shooting Complex. The opening ceremony reflected the major interest of Kuwait Shooting Sport Federation in this significant event. The opening ceremony included a documentary about the development of the shooting sport under the leadership of Sheikh Salman AlHumoud and the board of directors. The film showed Kuwaiti shooters

Is the NCAA hiding something?

NEW YORK: Fifteen months ago, Alabama coach Nick Saban called for a crackdown on agents, saying some were no better than pimps. It seemed like a curious choice of words at the time, since the same could be said about some college coaches, who play just as fast and loose recruiting those kids in the first place. But the comparison was spot on in one regard: Like pimps, rogue agents rarely have to worry about getting caught.

Two weeks after Saban kicked off his crusade, an Associated Press survey found that despite laws on the books in 42 states governing agents’ dealings with college athletes, they were almost never enforced. Twenty-four states reported taking no disciplinary or criminal action against agents; most didn’t even know whether state or local prosecutors had ever pursued such cases.

Around the same time, North Carolina’s secretary of state decided to take the opposite tack.

With the NCAA investigating whether agents had funneled improper benefits to UNC defensive tackle Marvin Austin and receiver Greg Little - the probe would eventually expand to include former UNC associate head coach John Blake and others - Secretary of State Elaine Marshall set in motion an investigation of her own to determine if the state’s sports agent laws were broken. Considering how little cooperation her office has received from the NCAA thus far, it seems fair to ask whose side the organization is on.

Making a case against rogue agents has never been easy. But a decade or so ago, the NCAA tried to make it easier by lobbying state lawmakers to agree on a set of standardized rules. The result was the Uniform Athletes Agent Act, adopted by 39 states, including North Carolina, and similar to those in California, Michigan and Ohio, which retained their own laws to deal with agent oversight.

The UAAA gives schools the right to sue agents who violate the law, though there’s no chance of an award large enough to undo the damage, which in UNC’s case has already been considerable.

Fourteen players missed at least one game and seven players were forced to sit out the entire 2010 season - including Austin and two others taken in the first two rounds in this summer’s NFL draft. A Tar Heels team considered a good shot for a BCS bowl wound up 8-5 and in the Music City Bowl instead.

Head coach Butch Davis was fired in July, even though he was never tied directly to or cited for any violation and the school still owes him nearly $3 million. In a bid for leniency ahead of next week’s meeting with the NCAA’s infractions committee, UNC penalized itself last month - vacating all 16 wins from the 2008-09 seasons, cutting nine scholarships over the next three years and agreeing to pay a $50,000 fine.

Considering how much wrongdoing

is alleged, gathering evidence wouldn’t seem hard. But because the law provided no funding, the secretary of state’s office has had to deploy staffers who usually investigate securities fraud to build a case. Getting the NCAA to help has proven an even more daunting task.

After some early cooperation, Marshall’s office went to state court last week to force the NCAA to turn over documents from its investigation.

‘This came as a surprise to us,” NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said in an emailed statement. “We were under the misimpression that we had a cooperative relationship with the office.”

There’s been too much legal and jurisdictional wrangling to recount here.

Suffice it to say that the NCAA provided some documents when North Carolina made its requests through the secretary of state’s office in Indiana, where the organization is headquartered, but even those had the confidential information redacted.

The NCAA said that was because of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act - known as FERPA - then added, “We are not sure of the Secretary of State’s motives or agenda, but we plan to fight this action aggressively in court.”

The NCAA’s response is more pragmatic than principled at this point. It’s no doubt worried that if it cooperates fully with North Carolina’s request for documents from its investigation, it will have to do the same with any other state law-enforcement agency doing the same. Yet that’s exactly what the NCAA proposed when it sought out cooperation from the states, the NFL and its players association to deal with an “age-old problem that not just one group or organization can solve on its own.”

Where the secretary of state’s effort goes from here is anyone’s guess. A hearing on its request for an unredacted copy of the NCAA notice of allegations outlining nine violations as well as records of interviews conducted by NCAA staff is set for Nov. 28.

The office is running on a limited budget, although some of its subpoenas, especially those involving Blake’s financial ties to the late NFL agent Gary Wichard, suggest it might be onto something. Though no one in the office will say as much, they were no doubt hoping that several other states whose flagship schools got caught breaking rules because of improper contact with agents would take up the cause. None have thus far.

Few organizations like to conduct their business in public, which hardly makes the NCAA an exception. But policing the schools, or at the very least helping the schools to police themselves, is the reason the NCAA exists in the first place. And if it can’t be counted on to provide cooperation in an instance like this, it has to make you wonder what else the organization might be hiding.—AP

achievements at the regional and international levels.

Chairman of the Board and Director General of Public Authority for Youth and Sports Major General (Rt) Faisal Al-Jazaf, who declared the

Sheikh Salman Al-Sabah and the Iranian Head of Delegation in a joint picture with the women air rifle winners.

tournament open congratulated Sheikh Salman and the Organizing Committee on the opening ceremony which shows the efforts that guarantees the tournament’s success. Al-Jazaf said Kuwait Shooting proved itself at the Arab and Asian levels due to the sincere efforts by the officials and hoped this success continues.

President of the Arab Shooting Federation Eng. Duaij Al-Otaibi expressed his satisfaction with the events of the 4th Asian Air Gun Championship, adding that the organizing committee will continue with the same efforts and dedication to ensure organizational and administrative success at all levels. The competitions yesterday proved tough at both the individual or team levels for men and women, as results shows: In the Men’s 10m Air Rifle China’s Qinan Zhu was first by scoring 700.2 out of 700 points followed by India’s Abhinav Bindra who scored 697.6 out of 700, while his compatriot Satyendra Singh scored 696.7 out of 700.

In the 10m Air Rifle Men Team The team of Qinan Zhu, Tianyou and Tao Wang from China were first with a score of 1786 points, followed by Indian team of Abhinav Bindra, Satyendra Singh and Gagan Narang scoring 1779 points and the Iranian team of Mahdi Ahmad, Hossein Bagheri and Saber Parasti finished third with a score of 1773 points.

In the Women’s 10m Air Rifle event Iran’s Narjes Emamgholinejad was first with a score of 501.2/600 points, followed by Siling Yi from China with a score of 501/600 and Xiangyan Wan also from China scoring 501/600.

While in the team event China’s Siling Yi, Xiangyan Wan and Yue Zhang were first with a score of 1195 points followed by Singapore’s Yafei Li, Jasmine Ser and Huan Cheng with a score of 1187 while Iran’s team of Narjis Emamgholinejad, Elaheh Ahmadi and Nesa Paryab was third with a score 1186 points.

Americans win 4 of 5 gold MEXICO: The rivalry in the pool at the Pan American Games was a washout Tuesday as the United States won four of five gold medals to leave Brazil in its wake.

Julia Smit, Arthur Frayler, Sean Mahoney and the women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay team all won races to give the Americans 12 gold medals in swimming through four days of competition.

Brazil, the biggest US challenger for pool supremacy with six gold, failed to win a race on the daily program for the first time at this year’s games.

“Brazil has been having a great meet,” Mahoney said after winning the men’s 200 breaststroke. “They have so many good swimmers on their side. It’s really fun that they are competing at such a high level. It brings a lot of challenges.”

Sm it wo n t he 200 indivi du a l medley, defending her title from four years ago and adding another gold to her win in the 400 IM. “ This one was really exciting for me because I won this medal in 2007 Pan Ams and it was one of my goals to repeat,” Smit said. “The Pan Am Games is one of my favorite games I’ve ever been to, so really excited to get a second gold medal.”

A short time later, Frayler and Ryan Feeley finished 1-2 in the men’s 1,500 freestyle, and then Mahoney and Clark Burckle did the same in the 200 breaststroke.

In the last event of the night, Catherine Breed, Elizabeth Pelton, Chelsea Nauta and Amanda Kendall combined to win the relay.

Both Mahoney and the 4x200 team won their races in Pan American Games record times.

The burst in the pool ex tended the American lead at the top of the medal standings. The United States has won 24 gold and 63 overall, while Brazil is next with 10 gold and 30 overall.

“We have talked about (the rivalry), but mainly all the guys have that feeling that we want to be at the top spot,” Frayler said.

“When we hear other national anthems we want to get the top spot and see our flag there again.”

Americans or Brazilians had won ever y swimming race at this year’s games, but that changed Tuesday when a pair of brothers from the Cayman Islands swept the top two places in the 200 freestyle. Brett and Shaune

Fraser are both products of the University of Florida, and both competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Benjamin Hockin earned bronze in that race, winning the first Pan American Games swimming medal for Paraguay and shutting out the Americans for only the second time in Guadalajara.

Hockin, who has an English father and a Paraguayan mother, was born in Colombia

was a fun race. I wanted to go fast in the first 100 and died in the final. But happy with the medal.”

Pereira won the 400 individual medley and s wa m in the prelimina ries of the 4 x1 0 0 freestyle relay to earn two golds. He added a third on Monday in the 100 backstroke.

At the games four years ago in R io de Janeiro, the Brazilian won six gold medals to break Mark Spitz’s record for most golds in

MEXICO: Mexico’s Daniel Delgadillo strokes his way through the third leg of a preliminary heat for the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay at the Pan American Games. —AP bu t competed for Britain a t the 2 0 0 8 Olympics before switching nationalities to Paraguay last year. “ This is incredible, a dream come true.

Unbelievable,” Hockin said. “I dreamed and I hoped for this.” Thiago Pereira, Brazil’s top swimmer, had been looking for his fourth gold medal in the pool, but had to settle with a bronze in the 200 breaststroke.

“Feel pretty tired right now. It was my fourth event, still four to go,” Pereira said. “It

one Pan Am Games.

The host Mexicans also had another good day, winning two rowing titles and another rhythmic gymnastics gold. Canada and Cuba also added three each to their tallies.

But the United States was the star team of t h e d ay. B e s i d e s t h e s w i m m i n g h a u l, Americans won a pair of rowing golds and another shooting title, while Julie Zetlin won her third title of the games by taking the ribbon event in rhythmic gymnastics.—AP

Tomic tames qualifier to set up Monfils match

Gael Monfils in action in this file photo

STOCKHOLM: Australian teenager Bernard Tomic tamed Estonian qualifier Jurgen Zopp at the Stockholm Open here yesterday to set up a quarter-final with French top seed Gael Monfils.

The 18-year-old, ranked 44th and youngest player in the ATP Top 50, beat Zopp 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-0 to become an opening opponent for Monfils, who had a firstround bye and is making his Stockholm debut. The Frenchman will be testing a knee injury which forced him to miss last week’s Shanghai Masters, where Tomic earned a Top 10 win over American Mardy Fish. A positive scan result in Paris allowed Monfils to return to the ATP this autumn after his fitness scare. “It will be a tough task,” said Tomic, who turns 19 on Friday.

“It’s a first match for him and I’ve gotten a feeling for the court. But Gael’s a worldclass player, it will be a good fight.”

Tomic won the opening set against number 145 Zopp in a tiebreaker, but had

to run out the final set to love to earn the victory in just over one and three-quarters hours with 10 aces and 51 winners.

“It was really tough, it was my first time on the centre court here. To play a guy like that in the first round is tricky. I’m happy I won in the end.”

Wimbledon quarter-finalist Tomic stands 16-14 on the season as he heads into his first match against Monfils. “I played well in Asia and I have a good feeling come into this event,” said the Australian. “Wimbledon was big for me but I have a lot to learn and need to spend the next few years improving my game.”

Another hot prospect, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, coached by Australian Peter McNamara, advanced as he put out American Ryan Sweeting 6-3, 6-1 with six aces and four breaks of serve. Number 70 Dimitrov won a round in Shanghai and reached the Bangkok quarter-final where he lost to Andy Murray.—AFP

y

A

18

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

S P ORT S

Critics want red card for Brazil’s ‘top hat’ RIO DE JANEIRO: Ricardo Teixeira has dominated Brazilian soccer for so long that, like many of the best players, he is known by just one name.

They call him the “cartola,” literally the “top hat,” a title given to football bosses that instills respect and fear in equal measure and can carry more than a hint of shadiness.

Teixeira’s critics hope the hat may finally be slipping from the head of the man who has been chief of Brazil’s football confederation for 22 years and leads the local organizing committee for the 2014 World Cup despite a slew of corruption allegations against him.

A federal police investigation launched this month threatens to shed new light on reports that Teixeira, a member of world soccer body FIFA’s ruling executive committee, took millions of dollars in bribes from a sports marketing firm.

That comes as he also faces chilly political winds from Brazil’s presidential palace and growing concern over the country’s lagging, over-budget preparations for the World Cup. Teixeira’s critics say his role as the face of the 2014 tournament, with influence over where public funds are spent, risks becoming a major embarrassment for Brazil at an event meant to showcase its rise to developed-world status.

“Football is for the people and the people are paying for his individual actions,” Romario, the legendary former striker who played a starring role in Brazil’s 1994 World Cup title, told Reuters in an interview.

“If he responds to the questions that millions of Brazilians want to ask, it will be good for the World Cup and things could start to move forward,” added Romario, now a federal congressman who has unsuccessfully called on Teixeira to testify before Congress.

Police are investigating allegations that Teixeira, 64, laundered money from bribes he is suspected of receiving in the 1990s along with two other high-ranking FIFA officials.

That follows separate allegations this year, also being investigated by police, that he oversaw a scheme to divert public funds from a 2008 Brazil friendly match.

Teixeira denies the allegations against him and has blamed the British media-the BBC first reported he took bribes- of sour grapes after England lost its bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The Brazilian Football Confederation, known as the CBF, declined requests to comment for this article.

Until this year, Teixeira could count on his warm ties with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s jovial, football-loving

former president. But Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, has made little secret of her disapproval of the cartola.

She was reportedly horrified when Teixeira did not invite Brazil soccer great Pele, a global sporting icon, to the preliminary World Cup draw in Rio de Janeiro in July. In what amounted to a public humiliation for Teixeira, she hurriedly appointed Pele as Brazil’s honorary World Cup ambassador.

The first woman to lead Brazil has taken a tough stance against unethical behavior by her ministers, five of whom have been forced to resign this year. The latest cabinet member in the spotlight is Sports Minister Orlando Silva, who denies accusations that he skimmed money from sports programs and took delivery of wads of cash in the ministry’s garage.

A rapidly expanding middle class in Brazil has become less tolerant of the corruption and nepotism that have for long plagued politics and the sport Brazilians refer to as the “beautiful game.” That has helped fuel match-day protests this year where thousands of fans of different teams have found common ground under the slogan “Ricardo Teixeira out!”

Rousseff has effectively frozen Teixeira out of negotiations with FIFA about legislative changes needed

ahead of the World Cup, an official with knowledge of the talks told Reuters. On her trip to Europe this month, Rousseff made it clear to FIFA executives, including General Secretary Jerome Valcke, that she does not have confidence in Teixeira, the official said.

“Dilma told them: only deal with me,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Barring scandalous new revelations or the unlikely event that he is arrested, it is hard to see how Teixeira could be forced out of the World Cup organizing committee, which like the CBF is a private body.

“It’s an issue for FIFA ... we won’t interfere in this process,” said Alcino Reis Rocha, special soccer adviser at Brazil’s sports ministry. He added that Teixeira’s committee does not directly receive funds from the federal government.

Teixeira has said he will leave the CBF after the World Cup, and he is widely believed to be planning a run for the FIFA presidency in 2015.

His woes come at a time when the budget for the 2014 tournament is ballooning as organizers try to make up for a slow start on stadiums and other infrastructure, raising concern about misuse of taxpayer money.

Juca Kfouri, one of Brazil’s bestknown football journalists, said

Teixeira is suffering one of his worst stretches since becoming the head of the CBF in 1989. If the pressure keeps mounting, Kfouri said Teixeira could decide to relinquish his World Cup role to avoid further scrutiny.

“He invested a lot in his relations with Lula and didn’t expect Dilma to be this cold with him,” said Kfouri, whom Teixeira has hit with more than 50 lawsuits for his reporting about him.

Teixeira didn’t help his image with a startlingly blunt interview with Brazilian magazine Piaui in July in which he called the British “a bunch of pirates” as he sipped champagne in a luxury hotel in Zurich, where FIFA is headquartered.

He went on to boast that he could “get away with anything” at the 2014 World Cup, “the most slippery, Machiavellian things. Denying press credentials, barring access, changing game schedules” to thwart his perceived enemies in the media.

The new police investigation in Brazil into allegations of money-laundering and illegal money transfers is likely to focus on a Lichtensteinbased company called Sanud, which was highlighted in the BBC report and as long ago as 2000 was linked to Teixeira by a Brazilian congressional inquiry.

Brazilian prosecutors say Teixeira

used the firm as a shell company in a sophisticated money-laundering operation.

Swiss prosecutors investigated the collapsed sports marketing firm ISL but the case was settled after they said two FIFA officials-whose names have not been divulged-paid back 5.5 million Swiss francs ($6.1 million).

The BBC reported that the officials were Teixeira and Joao Havelange, the former FIFA president who is also Teixeira’s former father-in-law.

Those who want to see Teixeira stripped of his World Cup responsibilities hope the Brazilian police will have access to documents in the Swiss case that have not been made public.

But even Teixeira’s critics are not optimistic about him calling it quits any time soon. Nor do they expect the murky world of Brazilian soccer to become a bastion of ethics even if Teixeira suddenly left the scene.

Marcos Alvito, an anthropology professor at the Federal Fluminense University in Rio and a member of the National Association of Fans, said corruption in Brazilian soccer was rooted in the often incestuous relationships between the CBF, television, construction firms and politicians. “This is the system that has to be dismantled. But it’s a powerful system,” he said. —Reuters

Ugly all-in brawl a black day for Asia SUWON: Asian football suffered one of its darkest days yesterday as a showpiece regional semifinal erupted in violence and a major match-fixing scandal was blamed for a tragic apparent suicide. In a blow to attempts to clean up continental soccer, the AFC Champions League semifinal between Suwon Bluewings and Qatar’s Al Sadd was temporarily halted as both teams traded punches in an ugly all-in brawl.

A tepid encounter at South Korea’s Suwon World Cup Stadium exploded late in the second half after Al Sadd’s Mamadou Niang raced through for his breakaway second goal while most of Suwon’s team were tending to an injured player. A pushing and shoving match deteriorated into chaotic scenes as the teams, substitutes and coaching staff were drawn into the melee which halted one of Asia’s biggest club games for 10 minutes.

Al Sadd’s K ader Keita and Suwon player Stevica Ristic were both sent off as order was finally restored and shortly afterwards, goal-scorer Niang became the third player expelled for a second yellow card for kicking the ball away.

Boos rang out around the stadium as the match finally ended 2-0 to Al Sadd after 10 minutes of injury time, with Suwon facing an uphill task against the Qatari team in next week’s second leg in Doha.

Hours earlier, former Sangju Sangmu Phoenix coach Lee SooCheol was found hanging in his apartment south of Seoul, weeks

League.

Lee, 45, was sentenced to two years in prison with three years of probation last month on

SUWON: South Korean Suwon Samsung Bluewings’ unidentified member fights with Qatari Al Sadd’s Mohammed Kasola (white) during their AFC Champions League semifinal soccer match. —AP after being sentenced in charges related to a fixing scandal that has rocked South Korea’s K-

charges of blackmailing the parents of a player implicated in match rigging to take a bribe.

“No suicide note was found, but his family members said he has been distressed in recent months by the match-rigging scandal,” an unnamed investigator told Yonhap news agency.

In July, prosecutors charged 57 people — 46 current and former players and 11 criminal gang members and gambling brokers-for fixing 15 matches last year. Lee’s death follows the suicide in May of Jeong JongKwan, a 29-year-old midfielder who killed himself in a Seoul hotel room while being investigated for his involvement in the scandal.

It has been an especially difficult year for Asian football after regional soccer chief Mohamed bin Hammam was banned from the sport for offering bribes to FIFA delegates, an accusation he denies. China’s Zhang Jilong has taken charge of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) as acting president and has pledged to do his best to clear up serious corruption problems and improve standards.

Yesterday’s fighting is the second controversy to hit the latter stages of the AFC Champions League after Al Sadd’s quarterfinal opponents Sepahan were handed a 3-0 forfeit for fielding an ineligible player.

S o u t h K o re a’s J e o n b u k Motors take on Saudi giants Al Ittihad in Jeddah later with the t wo - l e g g e d s e m i s’ re t u r n g a m e s t a k i n g p l a ce n e x t Wednesday. —AFP

Morelia, Monterrey and Toronto in quarter-finals

TEXAS: Toronto FC forward Ryan Johnson goes after the ball with FC Dallas defender George John (14) in the second half during the CONCACAF Champions League match. —AP

MEXICO CITY: Mexican teams Morelia and Monterrey and Canada’s Toronto all qualified for the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League on Tuesday.

Morelia came from behind to beat Costa Rica’s Alajuelense 2-1 in Group A, Toronto overcame Dallas 3-0 in Group C to eliminate their MLS rival and, in Group D, Monterrey won 2-1 at the already qualified Seattle Sounders.

Mexico’s Santos Laguna is the other team already through, with the remaining three quarterfinal places to be decided in matches on Wednesday and Thursday.

Visiting Alajuelense took the lead against Morelia in the 37th minute with Argentine Pablo Gabas scoring with a left-foot shot from 35 meters.

Substitute Joao Rojas equalized for Morelia in the 56th, before Miguel Sabah’s near-post header gave the Mexican team the lead three minutes later.

Morelia tops Group A on 12 points from Alajuelense, which is

also on 12 points. Los Angeles Galaxy is on nine and Honduran team Motagua is on zero points.

Los Angeles Galaxy visits Motagua on Thursday, needing a win to overtake Alajuelense and claim a berth in the quarters.

Dutchman Danny Koevermans opened the scoring for Toronto against Dallas in the 29th, with Joao Plata adding two second half goals. Toronto has 10 points in Group C, Pumas UNAM has eight, Dallas seven and Panamanian team Tauro five.

Pumas host Tauro on Wednesday in the final game in the group.

In Group D, Abraham Carreno scored the first for reigning champion Monterrey in the 3rd minute.

Fredy Montero equalized for Seattle just before halftime, but Argentine Cesar Delagado got the winner for Monterrey in the 60th.

Monterrey has won the group with 12 points, with the Sounders second on 10 points. The other teams in Group D, Guatemala’s Comunicaciones and Costa Rica’s Herediano, are out of contention, but play late yesterday. —AP

KIEV: Besiktas’ players practice during a training session at Lobanovskiy’s stadium in Kiev, Ukraine. Besiktas will play against Dynamo Kiev in the Europa League soccer match today. —AP

Atletico faces an uphill task to get back on track MILAN: Atletico Madrid faces a challenge to put its season back on track when it travels to Udinese on Thursday in the first of a Europa League double-header against the in-form Italian side.

The two matches will have a strong bearing on the outcome of Group I, with Atletico and Udinese both on four points after two games.

Atletico’s start to the season has seen it earn just two wins in seven Spanish league games, while it drew away to Rennes in its last Europa League fixture.

Gregorio Manzano’s team is scoreless in its last three league games, and enters the match off consecutive 0-0 draws to Sevilla and promoted side Granada.

Its defense, however, is much improved over last season. Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, brought in on loan from Chelsea to replace David De Gea, has kept five clean sheets in seven Spanish league matches this season.

“I think that we are playing well, but we just have problems scoring,” Courtois said.

“We have good forwards, the only thing lacking is a win.” Udinese, meanwhile, is flying high in Serie A, and currently sits joint top of the standings, alongside Juventus.

Francesco Guidolin’s team is yet to lose a match this season but goalkeeper Samir Handanovic said his teammates would not be complacent. “Our opponent is of the top level,” he said. “We will be ready. We hope our fans will be too.” Celtic travel to Rennes, with both clubs looking to chalk up their first wins in the group.

Udinese’s fellow Serie A club Lazio travels to Zurich also full of confidence after winning the Rome derby at the weekend.

However, it has not fared so well in Europe, drawing with Vaslui before losing at Sporting in Group D. Miroslav Klose, who was left off the Lazio squad in order to rest, was cautious about his teammates’ chances. “Lazio is very strong and can even aim for the title, but it’s better to remain with our feet on

the ground,” he said.

Tottenham has four points in Group A, despite a stuttering start to its European campaign. Harry Redknapp’s team drew against PAOK in its first game and followed that up with an unconvincing win at home against Shamrock Rovers.

It faces a top-of-the-table clash at home to Russian side Rubin Kazan without key defender Ledley King, who suffered a groin injury in the 2-2 draw with Newcastle Sunday. Michael Dawson and William Gallas are also unavailable, leaving Younes Kaboul and Sebastien Bassong as the club’s only fit senior center backs. Redknapp is expected to rest first-team regulars Scott Parker, Luka Modric, Rafael van der Vaart and Emmanuel Adebayor against Rubin.

Schalke also suffered an injury blow ahead of its match at AEK Larnaca, when goalkeeper Ralf Faehrmann hurt his knee in the 2-1 defeat to Kaiserslautern at the weekend. Huub Stevens’ team will have to rely on an inexperienced replacement in the shape of either Lars Unnerstall or Mathias Schober. Schalke is top of Group J after a 3-1 victory last time out against Maccabi Haifa, which plays Steaua Bucharest on Thursday.

In Group F, Athletic Bilbao will be looking to maintain its 100 percent record when it hosts Salzburg. After starting the season with three defeats and two draws, Bilbao has begun to adapt to new coach Marcelo Bielsa’s attacking style and has won its last two Spanish league games.

Bilbao recorded a 2-0 victory over Paris Saint Germain last time out, ending the French side’s eight-game unbeaten run.

PSG next faces Slovan Bratislava.

PSV also has a perfect record after beating Legia Warsaw and Rapid Bucharest in Group C, and now travels to winless Hapoel Tel Aviv.

The top two in each of the 12 groups will advance to the knockout phase along with the eight third-place teams from the Champions League groups.—AP

Mourinho second-season syndrome kicking in at Real MADRID: Jose Mourinho has often said his teams do better in his second season in charge and Real Madrid’s thrashing of Olympique Lyon in the Champions League provided further evidence to back his claim.

Real were utterly dominant against an unambitious Lyon team at the Bernabeu on Tuesday, running out 4-0 winners with goals from Karim Benzema, Sami Khedira, Mesut Ozil and Sergio Ramos.

Three wins from three games without conceding a goal left the Spaniards top of Group D, five points ahead of Ajax Amsterdam and

Lyon, in their quest to improve on last season’s semi-final appearance.

Real are pursuing a record 10th European Cup, and Mourinho his third all with different clubs, and it seems to be coming together even without Cristiano Ronaldo getting on the scoresheet.

The world’s most expensive player notched an incredible 53 goals in all competitions last year but this season he has been a more creative influence and he provided yet another assist to set up the opening goal for Benzema.—Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

S P ORT S

Arsenal take top spot

ITALY: AC Milan forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic (left) of Sweden, challenges for the ball with Bate Borisov midfielder Artyom Kontsevoi during a Champions League, Group H, soccer match. — AP

Milan cruise to victory MILAN: AC Milan breezed to a comfortable 2-0 victory over BATE Borisov at the San Siro yesterday to keep pace with Barcelona at the top of Champions League Group H. Goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Kevin Prince Boateng ensured an easy night’s work for the Rossoneri. It also means both they and the Spanish defending champions can qualify for the knock-out stages with victory in their next matches in two weeks time. It means the crucial clash between the pair at the San Siro on November 23 should decide who tops the group.

Such was Milan’s comfort zone that they even managed to give French centre-back Philippe Mexes a short run-out on his injury comeback.

Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri had said the day before the game that a win was vital to keep on Barca’s heels and his side seemed to have taken note.

They poured forward from the get-go, determined not to let things become nervy, as they had in the 2-0 success against Viktoria Plzen three weeks ago.

From a half-cleared Antonio Cassano corner Alberto Aquilani volleyed wide from 15 yards.

Ibrahimovic then had a crack from fully 45 yards on the half-volley with goalkeeper Aleksandr Gutor off his line, but saw his effort fly over.

A clinical break from Milan saw

Cassano tee up Aquilani whose precise effort came back off the upright. Cassano chipped the ball to the back post where Ibrahimovic lifted his volley over the bar.

Even full-back Taye Taiwo tried to get in on the act with a volley from 30 yards but it sailed well wide.

Borisov should have taken the lead when Mark van Bommel’s awful pass put Renan Bressan in one -on-one with Christian Abbiati but the Milan goalkeeper made a crucial one-handed save to spare the Dutch midfielder’s blushes.

And a minute later Ibrahimovic gave the hosts the lead as he latched onto a rebound from Aquilani’s scuffed shot to finish low inside the near post on 33 minutes.

He almost had a second but clipped wide off the far post from Cassano’s pass.

BATE started the second period with a flurry of activity, the most alarming of which for Milan was a Maxsim Bordachev chance that Abbiati had to turn behind.

Ibrahimovic was still proving dangerous but after he showed good control with his chest, Marko Simic blocked his shot.

But from the resulting corner Boateng hit a rasping, rising shot from 25 yards that crashed in off the underside of the bar. Borisov probably should have had a consolation goal late on but Maxsim Skavysh shot straight at Abbiati when well placed. —AFP

PARIS: An injury-time goal by substitute Aaron Ramsey gave Arsenal a 1-0 win at Marseille yesterday that enabled Arsene Wenger’s side to leapfrog their opponents to top spot in Champions League Group F. The Welsh midfielder applied a cool finish in the dying seconds of a forgettable game that had betrayed the fragility and lack of confidence that have plagued both sides’ starts to the season.

Marseille had not conceded a goal in the competition prior to Ramsey’s intervention, but they now find themselves a point behind Arsenal prior to the return fixture at the Emirates on November 1.

The chances of seeing both sides in the last 16 were fur ther enhanced by Borussia Dor tmund’s unexpected 3-1 defeat at Olympiakos, however, which leaves the German champions bottom at the group’s halfway point.

Renovation work has reduced Stade Velodrome’s capacity to 42,000 but OM’s earlyseason struggles meant there were only around 30,000 fans present to see a match in which a sense of occasion was conspicuously lacking.

Marseille sported their orange third kit, with Arsenal in uncharacteristic blue, and referee Damir Skomina added a liberal splash of yellow with early bookings for Arsenal pair Alex Song and Andre Santos and OM’s Andre Ayew. Ayew’s name was taken for protesting over Skomina’s failure to award a penalty for a handball by Carl Jenkinson, and television replays suggested the hosts could count themselves unfortunate. Marseille had started strongly but their goal was the first to be threatened, with Souleymane Diawara obliged to clear a looping header from Robin van Persie off the line.

For all their endeavour, OM were toiling in attack, but Loic Remy provided a flash of brilliance on the half hour, jinking inside Per

FRANCE: Arsenal’s Johan Djourou of Switzerland (left) and Arsenal’s Tomas Rosicky of Czech Republic (right) challenge for the ball with Marseille’s Loic Remy of France (center) during their UEFA Champions League soccer Group F match. —AP Mertesacker and Jenkinson from the byline ing goal at the other end. The Cameroon cenbefore his shot was blocked by the latter. tre-back allowed the ball to run beneath his Moments later it was Lucho Gonzalez’s turn foot, giving Walcott a clear sight of goal, albeit to draw gasps from the Arsenal fans, as he from a narrow angle, but OM captain stole in front of Mertesacker to toe Mathieu Mandanda saved with his feet.

Valbuena’s cross across goal and wide.

Mandanda then denied van Persie, but Lucho and Ayew sparked an unseemly Marseille looked to be safe until Ramsey was scramble in the Arsenal box minutes shy of the gifted acres of space on the left-hand side of hour, before a defensive error by Nicolas the OM area and calmly placed the winner N’Koulou almost gifted the visitors the open- inside Mandanda’s right-hand post. —AFP

Zenit hold Shakhtar in Donetsk

Champions League results/standings Group E At Leverkusen, Germany Bayer Leverkusen (GER) 2 (Schurrle 52, Sam 56) Valencia (ESP) 1 (Jonas 24) At London Chelsea (ENG) 5 (Meireles 8, Torres 11, 27, Ivanovic 42, Kalou 73) Genk (BEL) 0 Group F At Marseille, France Marseille (FRA) 0 Arsenal (ENG) 1 (Ramsey 90) At Piraeus, Greece Olympiakos (GRE) 3 (Holebas 8, Djebbour 40 Modesto 79) Borussia Dortmund (GER) 1 (Lewandowski 26) Group G At Donetsk, Ukraine Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) 2 (Silva Willian 15, Silva Luiz Adriano 45) Zenit St Petersburg (RUS) 2 (Shirokov 33, Faitzulin 60) At Oporto, Portugal Porto (POR) 1 (Hulk 13) APOEL Nicosia (CYP) 1 (Jose Almeida 19)

Boateng 70) BATE Borisov (BLR) 0 Played Tuesday Group A At Naples, Italy Napoli (ITA) 1 (Badsuber 39-og) Bayern Munich (GER) 1 (Kroos 2) At Manchester, England Manchester City (ENG) 2 (Marchena 43og, Aguero 90+3) Villarreal (ESP) 1 (Cani 4) Group B At Moscow CSKA Moscow (RUS) 3 (Doumbia 29, 86, Cauna 76) Trabzonspor (TUR) 0 At Lille, France Lille (FRA) 0 Inter Milan (ITA) 1 (Pazzini 21) Group C At Basel, Switzerland FC Basel (SUI) 0 Benfica (POR) 2 (Cesar 20, Cordoza 75) At Bucharest Otelul Galati (ROM) 0 Manchester United (ENG) 2 (Rooney 64-pen, 90+2-pen)

Group H At Barcelona, Spain Barcelona (ESP) 2 (Iniesta 10, Villa 82) Viktoria Plzen (CZE) 0

Group D At Madrid Real Madrid (ESP) 4 (Benzema 19, Khedira 47, Lloris 55-og, Sergio Ramos 81) Lyon (FRA) 0

At Milan, Italy AC Milan (ITA) 2 (Ibrahimovic 33,

At Zagreb Dinamo Zagreb (CRO) 0 Ajax (NED) 2

Champions League group stage tables after yesterday’s matches (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points): Group E Chelsea Bayer Valencia RC Genk

Played Tuesday Group A Bayern 3 2 Napoli 3 1 Man City 3 1 Villarreal 3 0

1 2 1 0

0 0 1 3

5 4 3 1

1 2 4 6

7 5 4 0

7 6 3 1

Group B Inter CSKA T’zonspor Lille

3 3 3 3

2 1 1 0

0 1 1 2

1 1 1 1

4 7 2 3

3 5 4 4

6 4 4 2

3 5 5 5

5 4 4 2

Group C Benfica Man Utd Basel Otelul

3 3 3 3

2 1 1 0

1 2 1 0

0 0 1 3

4 6 5 1

1 4 6 5

7 5 4 0

2 2 1 1

7 7

Group D R Madrid Ajax Lyon Dinamo

3 3 3 3

3 1 1 0

0 1 1 0

0 1 1 3

8 2 2 0

0 3 4 5

9 4 4 0

3 3 3 3

2 2 0 0

1 0 2 1

0 1 1 2

8 4 2 0

1 3 3 7

7 6 2 1

Group F Arsenal 3 Marseille 3 O’piakos 3 Dortmund 3

2 2 1 0

1 0 0 1

0 1 2 2

4 4 4 2

2 1 4 7

Group G APOEL Zenit FC Porto Shakhtar

3 3 3 3

1 1 1 0

2 1 1 2

0 1 1 1

4 6 4 4

Group H AC Milan Barcelona Borisov3 Plzen3

3 3 0 0

2 2 1 1

1 1 2 2

0 0 1 1

6 9 8 5

ATHENS: Olympiakos’ Rafik Djebbour (left) and Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels run for the ball during their Champions League Group F soccer match in the port of Piraeus. — AP

Olympiakos end Euro drought ATHENS: Olympiakos clinched their first victory in the Champions League this season with a 3-1 win over Germany’s Borussia Dortmund which kept them in contention for a last 16 spot.

The Greeks have three points while Dortmund, after a second defeat in three games, slumped to the foot of Group F which is now headed by Arsenal who have seven points while Marseille are on six points.

The Gunners defeated Marseille 1-0 in France.

Olympiakos, defeated by Marseille and Arsenal in their first two matches, were ahead against the run of play after just eight minutes.

Jose Holebas, a German player of Greek descent, headed Ivan Marcano’s cross into the corner after beating Marcel Schmelzer to the

ball. But Dortmund, the champions in 1997, were level after 26 minutes. Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who had an earlier attempt ruled out for offside, volleyed past Franco Costanzo after Mario Goetze had set him up from a quick clearance from keeper Roman Weidenfeller.

Five minutes from the interval, Rafik Djebbour restored the Greeks’ lead after a mistake by Mats Hummels. A Kevin Mirallas cross evaded Hummels and Djebbour held off Neven Subotic to shoot past Weidenfeller.

As Dortmund pressed for a leveller in the second half, Olympiakos seized their opportunity when defender Francois Modesto headed in a free-kick from Ariel Ibagaza in the 79th minute to put the result beyond doubt. —AFP

DONETSK: Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk twice surrendered a lead to draw 2-2 with Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg, who missed a penalty, in the Champions League Group G yesterday.

Brazilians Willian and Luiz Adriano scored one apiece for Shakhtar, while Roman Shirokov and Viktor Faizulin were on target for Zenit.

Shakhtar, who came into the match having clinched just one point in their first two matches, should have been a goal down in the 10th minute.

But Shirokov missed a penalty when Shakhtar keeper Alexander Rybka saved his spotkick following a foul on Faizulin.

Shakhtar made the most of their lifeline five minutes later when Willian beat Zenit goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeyev with a shot from the edge of the box.

In the 23rd minute, Zenit replied with a dangerous attack by forward Alexander Bukharov, who dribbled through the defence on the left before passing to Danny.

He fed Faizulin who could only hit the woodwork from seven metres. In the 33rd minute Zenit pulled level through Shirokov, who chested down Bukharov’s pass past Rybka, sending the ball home with a sharp-angled shot.

However, Shakhtar went into the dressing room with a 2-1 lead as Razvan Rat sliced through the Zenit defence with a razor-sharp pass from the right to Adriano, who swivelled and drove the ball in from 12 metres in injury time. On the hour mark, Faizulin equalised, beating Rybka from 25 metres. —AFP

Leverkusen floor Valencia LEVERKUSEN: Ex-Germany captain Michael Ballack inspired Bayer Leverkusen to come from behind to beat Valencia 2-1 in the Champions League yesterday to stay in touch with leaders Chelsea in Group E. With Chelsea going top of the group after hammering Belgium’s Genk 5-0 at Stamford Bridge, the win puts Leverkusen second in the table and just a point behind as they now enjoy a four-point gap over third-placed Valencia.

The Spaniards will host Leverkusen in the return leg in Spain on November 1. Ballack, 35, played his first 90 minutes of the season and set up the winning goal just after the break with a superb pass from the halfway line which split the defence.

The Spaniards had looked to have the game under control when Brazil striker Jonas put them ahead midway through the first-half, but Leverkusen fought back through goals by midfielders Andre Schuerrle and Sidney Sam after the break.

Valencia were finally rewarded for their intense early pressure when Spain’s Roberto Soldado found plenty of space down the left wing and his cross fell to the feet of Jonas who fired home from five metres. It was no more than Valencia deserved having had nine shots on goal in the opening 25 minutes alone.

With Ballack playing in the middle of an attack ing midfield, Leverkusen failed to threat the Valencia goal until the 40th minute when Schuerrle tested Valencia goalkeeper Diego Alves from long-range.

From the resulting corner, Ballack managed to get his head to the ball, but Leverkusen striker Steffan Kiessling fired wide.

Schuerrle put his side level with his second goal in two games when he trapped a cross from the left wing and blasted home past Alves from 15 metres out on 51 minutes.

Midfielder Lars Bender forced Alves into a good save just moments later as Leverkusen asserted themselves. Ballack showed he can still produce defence-splitting passes when he picked out Sam’s run from deep to put the winger into space and Sam showed superb finishing to drill the winning goal past Alves on 56 minutes.

Sam’s strike was obvious relief for Leverkusen coach Robin Dutt who was mobbed by his team after the goal-scorer sprinted to the bench to GERMANY: Leverkusen’s Stefan Reinartz (right) and Valenciaís Roberto Soldado challenge for the ball during the celebrate after a series of poor results. —AFP Champions League Group E soccer match. —AP

Ugly all-in brawl a black day for Asia

Pakistan guided into driver’s seat

by Umar

18

16

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

Ramsey puts Arsenal in top spot of CL Group F

Page 19

LONDON: Chelsea’s Spanish Fernando Torres (center) vies with Genk’s Abel Luis Masuero (left) during a UEFA Champions League Group E football match. — AP

Torres’ brace helps demolish Genk LONDON: Fernando Torres ended his Champions League goal drought in emphatic fashion as the Chelsea striker’s double inspired a 5-0 demolition of Genk at Stamford Bridge yesterday.

Torres had gone 875 minutes without scoring in Europe’s elite club competition, a miserable run that dated back to April 2009 when he scored for Liverpool against Chelsea.

But the Spaniard finally got back on track with two clinical finishes against the woeful Belgian champions. Portuguese midfielder Raul Meireles opened the scoring with his first goal for the club, but it was Torres who took centre-stage with his brace. Branislav Ivanovic added the fourth goal just before half-time and Salomon Kalou completed the

rout in the second half.

Torres, who now has four goals in his last four appearances, will be back on the sidelines on Sunday as he serves the final game of his domestic suspension when Chelsea face QPR. But the much-maligned forward has done all he can to ensure he returns to the team after that ban.

His efforts ensured Chelsea remain top of Group E, one point ahead of second placed Bayer Leverkusen, after the biggest win of boss Andre Villas-Boas’s reign which equalled the club’s largest ever Champions League victory.

Genk arrived in west London ravaged by injuries and Villas-Boas clearly felt Chelsea could take all three points without being at full strength as he

rested John Terry and Didier Drogba, while Juan Mata dropped to the bench.

Chelsea threatened immediately and Torres timed his run perfectly to meet a Meireles pass, but with just goalkeeper Laszlo Koteles to beat he scuffed a tame shot against a post.

Fortunately for Torres, the Belgians looked terrified whenever Chelsea crossed the halfway line and it wasn’t long before the Blues were ahead.

Meireles was granted acres of space to advance towards the Genk penalty area in the eighth minute and, as the Belgians naively continued to back off, the midfielder took advantage with a fierce shot from 25 yards that flashed past the flatfooted Koteles. Genk’s lack of awareness at the back

27th minute. When Meireles curled over a cross the Genk defence stood statuesque as Torres met the delivery with a glancing header into the far corner.

Ivanovic bagged the fourth goal in the 42nd minute when he headed home from Malouda’s inswinging free-kick and even Genk’s lurid pink kit couldn’t hide the blushes of Mario Been’s side as they trooped off at half-time.

Chelsea had no need to extend themselves after the break but they kept Koteles busy with efforts from Malouda and Bosingwa before substitute Kalou made it five in the 73rd minute.

Jose Bosingwa crossed from the right and Kalou was on hand to tap in after Koteles blocked Torres’s initial effort. — AFP

Barca edge past Plzen

APOEL edge closer to knockout stages OPORTO: APOEL Nicosia, in only their second ever appearance in the Champions League group stages, took a significant step towards the knockout stages with a 1-1 draw at Porto yesterday.

At the first round’s midway stage the Cypriots top Group G on five points while 2004 winners and reigning Europa League champions Porto are placed third.

APOEL turned up at the Estadio do Dragao with coach Ivan Jovanovic’s side featuring a cluster of Portuguese-speaking players inclusing Kaka, who played against Porto in the Europa League final in Dublin in May when he was on loan at Sporting Braga.

Porto were missing Jorge Fucile, suspended after picking up a brace of bookings in the 3-1 loss to Zenit St Petersburg last time out, but back from a two match ban was influential midfielder Fredy Guarin.

James Rodriguez, who scored Porto’s only goal in Russia, kept his place, with Cristian Sapunaru replacing Fucile.

The game was only minutes old when Dionitis Chiotis, the APOEL goalkeeper, was in the wars and required medical attention after courageously smothering Kleber’s shot from inside the box after a through ball from Guarin.

On 12 minutes, showing no ill effects from the hit he took in the ribs, Chiotis palmed away Kleber’s half volley. But the visiting keeper wasn’t so lucky seconds later when he was beaten by the imposing Hulk’s direct free kick to give Porto the perfect start.

Porto’s lead lasted only six minutes as against the run of play the Cypriots drew back level with a touch of samba magic of their own when Hulk’s fellow Brazilian Ailton unleashed an unstoppable 25 metre shot into the far bottom corner of Porto skipper Helton’s goal. APOEL’s Helio Pinto picked up the first of 11 yellow cards for a late challenge on Rodriguez. Shortly after French referee Antony Gautier was fishing in his pocket again this time Argentine centre back Nicolas Otamendi the recipient for hacking down Ailton.

On the half hour Chiotis stopped a low effort from Rodriguez and he was called into service again just before the break, denying a dangerous header from Kleber - who walked off at half time having picked up a booking for dissent.

Gautier brandished his fourth card seconds after the restart, deeming APOEL’s Macedonia winger Ivan Trickovski guilty of diving. The fifth followed two minutes later when Porto’s Rolando was arguably lucky not to be given his marching orders for trip-

was exposed again in the 11th minute when Torres increased Chelsea’s lead.

Frank Lampard clipped an incisive pass towards Torres and Genk’s back-four parted like the Red Sea as the Spaniard ran clear on goal, took two touches to settle himself and dispatched a cool finish beyond Koteles.

Torres was a constant danger and he drifted out to the left flank before cutting back inside to whip over a low cross which Florent Malouda pushed wide and moments later surged past two defenders to lash just over.

After months of misery, Torres must have been licking his lips at the sight of such accomodating opponents and he grabbed his second goal in the

PORTUGAL: Porto’s Kleber Pinheiro, from Brazil (right) attempts a shot at goal pressed by APOEL FC’s Claudiano ‘Kaka’ Silva during their Champions League Group G soccer match. — AP ping Ailton. Jovanevic was then forced into a change of keeper with Chiotis, still feeling his first half rib injury, replaced by summer signing Urko Pardo.

Porto were handed their fourth booking (Rodriguez for diving) — and the home side’s fifth (Sapunaru) and sixth (Alvaro Pariera) came not long after.

APOEL were only prevented from taking the lead just after the hour when Helton saved Nuno Morais’ menacing point-blank shot. Tension mounted in the closing stages with Guarin and Kaka cautioned after a scuffle and Porto then had Helton to thank for a series of game-saving injury-time saves. —AFP

BARCELONA: Holders Barcelona ran out 2-0 winners over Czech minnows Viktoria Plzen in their Champions League clash here yesterday.

However, while goals from Andres Iniesta and David Villa maintained Barca’s unbeaten record in the group they are level on seven points with AC Milan who were 2-0 winners over BATE Borisov - they were surprisingly ineffective in front of goal.

Iniesta broke the deadlock after an excellent move between him and Lionel Messi although it did not open the floodgates as Plzen battled hard at the back and rode their luck with Messi himself hitting the woodwork on two occasions. David Villa added gloss to the result with a strike eight minutes from time.

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has made it his objective to qualify as quickly as possible from the group stage and was true to his word that he would not be resting any of his attacking stars despite a packed fixture list.

Meanwhile, Javier Mascherano came into the centre of defence alongside Eric Abidal. For Plzen the Champions League has been a whole new experience after they won the Czech League for the first time and it has been a baptism of fire having been drawn in the same group as AC Milan and Barcelona.

It started ominously for Plzen as Pedro Rodriguez mis-kicked in front of goal and Dani Alves blazed over when both might have scored. A delightful interchange between Iniesta and Messi led to Barcelona taking the lead

SPAIN: Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (center) vies with Viktoria Plzen’s goalkeeper Marek Cech (right) and Viktoria Plzen’s defender David Limbersky (left) during the Champions League football match. —AP

after ten minutes.

Iniesta missed several weeks with a hamstring strain but looked back to his best with his instinctive passing and movement, although he did fade as the game wore on.

He and Messi cut their way through the Plzen defence before Iniesta lifted the ball over a defender and finished clinically.

Barcelona were dominating but the second goal escaped them. A move which spanned the length of the pitch saw Villa play in Messi but the Argentine’s clipped shot was parried by the keeper.

Pedro was a constant danger but he did not have his usual eye for a goal as he shot over with the goal

gaping and then Messi spurned another good chance before hitting the post with a free-kick on the point of half time.

Chances came and went for Barcelona more often than not from the feet of Messi. He wriggled past several challenges inside the box after 53 minutes but was denied by the keeper, and then hit the post after a sublime piece of skill saw him beat one man and then hurdle two more challenges. Despite pressing tirelessly it seemed as though there were to be no more goals until the Catalan side finally found the back of the net again. Messi was stopped in his tracks in front of goal but the ball fell to Villa who slotted home.—AFP

y

A

Business e niv rsar n

S Korea, Japan boost currency swap deal

Years

Page 25

India’s FM sees economic growth easing to below 8% Page 26

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

US consumer inflation subdued, building construction jumps 15%

KSE ends trade on a red board

Page 24

Page 26

ATHENS: Protesters throw petrol bombs to riot police as they demonstrate in front of the Greek parliament in Athens yesterday as a two-day general strike began against a new austerity bill demanded by Greece’s international creditors to avert bankruptcy. — AFP

Eurozone strugglers reel from downgrades Sarkozy, Merkel to hold talks ATHENS: Violent protests rocked Greece, Germany lowered its growth forecast and Spain was hit by a credit downgrade yesterday in an increasingly grim build-up to a crunch summit on Europe’s debt crisis. As diplomatic sources said leaders would consider boosting the capacity of their eurozone rescue fund to up to two trillion euros when they meet from tomorrow, emerging powers added their voice to calls for decisive action.

As French President Nicolas Sarkozy headed to Frankfurt for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on the crisis, a general strike and protests in Greece served as a shot across the bows of leaders demanding more belt-tightening.

The sense of despair was best illustrated in Athens where police clashed with protesters outside parliament on the eve of a vote on a new round of spending cuts. “I can either pay my taxes or feed my children, I cannot do both,” Sophia Robola, an employee at a store shutter company, said as she joined the protests.

The authorities said more than 70,000 people converged on central Syntagma Square while unions put the figure at 200,000, making it the biggest such protest to date. Tear gas blanketed central Athens as police fought to keep control, while thousands of peaceful protesters braved the clashes and remained on the square in front of the Greek parliament.

A battle later broke out outside a row of luxury hotels on the square and a department store was vandalised by hooded and masked protesters. A presidential guard sentry box was set on fire near the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Greece’s foremost military monument next to parliament. Four people including two policemen were hurt, according to the ambulance service.

The protests came on the first day of a 48hour general strike. Unions in Portugal, another country which has had to slash spending to secure loans, also announced a shutdown for November 24. Greece secured an agreement last

year for a 110-billion-euro ($149-billion) bailout package from the Europe Union and the International Monetary Fund but it has had to convince the lenders that it is implementing stringent spending cuts to qualify for each loan installment.

Measures taken so far include a rise in the retirement age and major cuts to civil servants’ salaries. Plans for temporary lay-offs of many public sector workers should also be approved in today’s vote. EU leaders will discuss new ways to help out Athens at their summit and rubberstamp the release of the next eight billion euros in loans.

They will also look to strengthen the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which now has 440 billion euros but would need much more if it had to throw a lifeline to other strugglers such as Italy or Spain. According to one diplomat, the leaders would discuss boosting the fund’s capacity to between “one and two trillion euros.”

QNB in talks for stake in Dexia Turkey unit DUBAI: Qatar National Bank said yesterday it has launched potential takeover talks with DenizBank, the Turkish division of troubled Franco-Belgian lender Dexia. State-backed QNB said the discussions, at an early stage, are aimed at “acquiring a controlling stake” in DenizBank. It didn’t say how big of a share it is seeking.

“Their success depends on the conformity of DenizBank business activities with QNB Group’s international expansion strategy along with an agreement on a price that fairly reflects the financial position of DenizBank and the result of its operations,” QNB said in a statement to the Gulf nation’s stock exchange.

Dexia declined to comment on the potential bid. Dexia faced a cash squeeze in recent weeks as other banks grew increasingly reluctant to lend it money, in part because of its exposure to Greece and other troubled eurozone economies. Last week the Belgian government nationalized Dexia’s retail arm in that country to protect savers and clients from the wider group’s problems.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, controls QNB through a 50 percent stake in the bank. The small natural

gas-rich OPEC member state is increasingly buying up European assets as policymakers on the continent work to contain the debt crisis there. Precision Capital, a Qatari investment vehicle backed by the country’s ruling family, last week agreed to buy the private banking division of Belgium’s KBC Group for just over euro1 billion ($1.38 billion). The same group of Qatari investors is also in talks to buy Dexia’s Luxembourg division, known as Banque Internationale Luxembourg. Dexia spokeswoman Stephanie Rodin said that deal hasn’t been completed yet.”We are still waiting for the offer that will have to be approved by the Board of Dexia SA,” she said.

Qatar government-backed investors in recent years have acquired large stakes in European icons such as Barclays PLC, Credit Suisse Group, Volkswagen AG, and the London Stock Exchange.In late August, Qatari investors agreed to pump 500 million euros into the merger of Greece’s second and third largest banks. Earlier this month, Qatar Holding, the government’s main investment arm, said it would spend $775 million to buy a stake in European Goldfields, which operates a gold mine in Greece. — AP

The source said EU president Herman Van Rompuy had been in discussions with outgoing European Central bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet, the German and French governments and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. The weekend summit must deliver “a vigorous response to give guarantees to all countries,” Barroso said, highlighting the need to help Spain. “We are at a crucial moment which can be decisive for the EU,” he added. The alarm was also sounded by India whose Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told journalists that “the eurozone is in a deep structural debt crisis” and said there was a belief among the Group of 20 major economies that it should put its own house in order before seeking help from outside.

Reports that the EFSF would be increased helped Europe’s stock markets and the euro rally.

London’s FTSE 100 index of top shares rose 0.83 percent while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 also jumped 0.88 percent. However the prospect of lower than expected growth in Germany and the

downgrade of Spain’s credit rating tempered the mood. Government sources told AFP that Germany would slash its forecast to 1.0 percent for 2012, compared to the 1.8 percent projected in April, when it releases updated projections today.

In Britain, which is not part of the eurozone, minutes of the latest meeting of the Bank of England’s policymakers showed a consensus that the economy would fail to pick up in the fourth quarter. The dire situation in Spain was illustrated by the downgrade late Tuesday from Moody’s who slashed its country rating by two notches to A1 from Aa2, with a negative outlook.

On Tuesday, France was also warned its rating could be cut, leading Sarkozy to demand “very important decisions” be taken in the coming days. “This crisis is going to lead us in the days ahead to take important, very important decisions... Allowing the destruction of the euro would be to take a risk of destroying Europe,” said Sarkozy. — AFP

Investors choose US T-bonds over gold LONDON: Gold slid yesterday as higher hopes of a resolution to the euro zone debt crisis persuaded investors to shrug off a downgrade to Spain’s credit rating and opt for equities, but a softer dollar helped provide some support.

Spot gold was bid at $1,652.79 a troy ounce at 1041 GMT from $1,658.64 an ounce late in New York on Tuesday.

European stocks and the euro rose on optimism policymakers will take major steps at a summit this weekend to solve the festering debt crisis and offset the impact from a cut to Spain’s sovereign credit rating.

That was denied by senior European Union officials, but not before the tone for the day was set. “When risk appetite increases then there’s more (gold) selling,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank, adding that a main reason for the price fall since early September was forced selling to cover losses in other markets.

Gold has fallen about 15 percent since hitting a record high of $1,920.30 on

September 6. Also a factor behind lower prices has been investors choosing to buy US Treasury bonds as a safe place to park assets, instead of gold. Indirectly that means demand for dollars, which when it rises makes gold more expensive for holders of other currencies.

“The dollar is softer today, but gold has been down nearly 1 percent today ...

That relationship appears to have gone AWOL,” a precious metals trader said.

Reports that France and Germany had agreed to boost a euro zone rescue fund to two trillion euros ($2.76 trillion) came ahead of a meeting of euro zone leaders on Oct. 23 to discuss further aid for Greece.

“The situation with gold could well change should risk aversion escalate after 23 October, provided the broader market is disappointed by the EU’s debt crisis management with policymakers failing to leverage the EFSF substantially and avoid a structural Greek default,” VTB capital said in a note.

“Global gold (exchange traded funds)

are already seeing small inflows, while physical buyers were active above recent dips.” Looking ahead the wedding season in India is expected to generate strong physical buying interest, traders said.

“Stronger inflows into SPDR will be a good indication of investors coming back to the market,” a trader said.

Holdings of the largest silver-backed ETF, New York’s iShares Silver Trust dipped 0.61 percent on Tuesday from Monday, while that of the largest gold-backed exchange-traded-fund (ETF), New York’s SPDR Gold Trust remained unchanged for the same period.

Spot silver was bid at $31.89 an ounce from $32.03 late on Tuesday, palladium at $616.97 from $617.86 and platinum at $1,529.99 from $1,527.75. “(Platinum) supplies are probably now ample enough that participants can afford to be more picky on price levels; a sub$1,500 platinum price tag will most likely attract renewed demand,” UBS said in a note. — Reuters

y

A

22

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

BUSINESS

QFMA finalizes draft listing and IPO rules for SMEs DOHA: Qatar Financial M arkets Authority (QFMA) has finalized the draft listing and IPO rules for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This draft rules emerged following a thorough study conducted by the Authority to assess the needs of these companies and to identify the means and mechanisms that can be used to help them grow and develop through listing on capital markets. The study covered benchmarking with regional and international experiences in respect of IPO and listing similar companies on various capital markets as well as their monitoring and supervising framework in order to assure protection of the shareholders’ interests.

The draft rules is being presented for consultation with the concerned stakeholders, which is expected to come into force soon after approval.

The draft IPO and listing rules completes the various regulatory initiatives that the Authority is currently undertaking in order to support the objectives of the capital market in the state and increase its role in driving the cogs of economic development in Qatar. The project is in line with the decision issued by the Supreme Council for Economic and Investment Affairs, and is thought of as a leading step forward in achieving the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030.

Speaking on the occasion,. Nasser Ahmed Al Shaibi, CEO of QFMA, said: “The project of listing small and medium enterprises on the capital market aims to support these companies by providing them access to the adequate financing to help them grow, expand and develop. This goal can be achieved by listing these businesses on a dedicated market in Qatar Exchange, under flexible regulations that fit the structural and legal situation of these enterprises, while maintaining a strong level of supervision to protect the interests of shareholders.

“Small and Medium Enterprises are the backbone of this economy and all others. Listing these companies on

Indus Property Exhibition 2011 opens tomorrow with prime properties on display KUWAIT: The Indus India Property Exhibition 2011, which runs on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd of October, at the Ramada Hotel Kuwait in Al Riggae, will showcase over 100 premium real estate projects from across India.

The two-day exhibition will be open from 10.45 am to 8.30 pm on both days.

Some of the developers exhibiting at the biggest real estate show this year will include, among others, Lokhandwala Infrastructure, which over the last three decades have developed several prestigious and awardwinning projects in central and south Mumbai.

Using the latest technologies to ensure high quality construction and timely deliver y, Lokhandwala Infrastructure’s team of highly qualified professionals ensure the company delivers better homes and a better living environment to their customers with minimum impact on the environment. The company’s corporate philosophy of ‘rise above’ reflects their penchant for delivering quality and exceeding expectations with

every new initiative.

Nirmal Lifestyle, a leading property developer from Mumbai with several prestigious real estate developments in their portfolio will also be showcasing several of their premium properties at the show. Having built over five million square feet of impressive commercial and residential properties, the Nirmal Lifestyle Group is looking to tap non-resident Indians (NRIs) in the lucrative West Asian market.

Among the properties that the Group plans to display at the property exhibition in Kuwait are US Open, India’s first sports branded lifestyle apartments and Turquoise, a fully furnished premium residential project coming up in the Mumbai suburb of Mulund. The proposed residential complex will have 39 floors with two and three BHK apartments spanning 1143 to 1440 square feet.

Vijay Group, a brand name signifying good quality, exceptional service, price worthiness and superior value in the fast expanding Indian real estate sector, is another developer that will be

exhibiting at the real estate show.

As a leading business group and a trusted name in housing since 1985, Vijay Group has earned a reputation through their quality construction and timely completion of projects, and their unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction.

Vijay Group will be exhibiting four of their prime properties, Orion, Residency, Nakshatra, Vijay Galaxy and Vijay Annex, at the show. All four residential complexes are in Thane, off Ghodbunder Road from the Eastern Express Highway and in close proximity to malls, schools, colleges, hospitals. One-two and three bedroom premium apartments, with panoramic view of Ulhas River on one side and National Park on the other, are on offer at these residential blocks.

Mantri Developers, one of India’s leading real estate developers building world class residential properties, IT parks, shopping complexes, commercial buildings and educational institutions, will also be showcasing their prime properties at the real estate exhibition in Kuwait.

Among the properties that Mantri Developers will be highlighting are several of their prestigious luxury projects, including Pinnacle, South India’s tallest residential project and luxury apartments at Alpyne, Espana, Glades and Serenity in Bangalore.

A trendsetter in the Indian real estate sector, Mantri Developers can be credited with pioneering a number of industry firsts. They were the first to offer bare shell constructions that allowed for customization of interiors and specifications and the first to enter into public-private-partnership with the government to develop infrastructure like roads, metro stations and lakes. In the coming years the company plans to focus on the residential sector, retail, hospitality, IT Parks and educational institutions in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.

Indus India Property Exhibition 2011 is organized by Indus Fairs and Exhibitions, a pioneer and premium organizer of exhibitions in India, in association with Response Events and Exhibitions in Kuwait.

capital markets can help achieve a number of goals, including the support of the national economy by enabling these companies to source the necessary funds to finance their expansion to new markets”, Al Shaibi added.

Al Shaibi clarified that the new project includes a package of incentives for SMEs, and easier IPO and listing

Nasser Ahmed Al Shaibi requirements as compared to companies listed on the main market, in terms of the minimum required capital, number of shareholders, number of shares issued in the IPO and the company’s financial history. The disclosure rules will be less in the SMEs, without compromising the integrity of the market.

The cost of IPO and listing will be less as compared to companies listed on the main market.

“Listing this type of companies on the capital market will maximize their economic value, improve their position in relation with banks and clients and make these enterprises a destination of choice for strategic investors that are look ing for long term investment opportunities”, Al Shaibi concluded.

Burgan Bank participates in ‘Internal Audit and Risk Assurance conference’ KUWAIT: Burgan Bank recently participated in the “Internal Audit and Risk Assurance Conference”, which was held in Dubai. The conference provided a platform for industry leaders to highlight the important role of internal audit and risk assurance in enabling organizations meet their business objectives. Amr El Kasaby, Burgan Bank’s Group Chief Internal Auditor represented the bank, and presented Burgan Bank’s strong experience in Internal Audit. El Kasaby spoke about “Quality Assurance Review for the Internal Audit”. Burgan Bank stresses the importance of Internal Audit as a crucial function to measure risk effective-

Amr El Kasaby

ness, and to continue to deliver objective and reliable results that will not only aid the stability of any organization in times of uncertainty, but also enable sustainable development.

Amr El Kasaby, Burgan Bank’s Group Chief Internal Auditor said: “It is important to note how the internal audit function plays a significant role within an organization. In banks, such units are important for the effec-

tiveness of operations and can contribute to an efficient and constructive working relationship between the management as well as regulators...”

“At Burgan Bank, we strongly believe that a strong internal audit department is part of sound corporate governance. We continue to provide more practical training for our employees as well as our subsidiaries with an aim to constantly

enhance our overall performance,” added El Kasaby.

Burgan Bank continues to demonstrate its leadership by participating in reputable conferences, and applying best practice methods across its wide operations, with an aim of ensuring consistent high quality delivery of banking solutions in the region.

The conference highlighted a range of topics that included measuring risk effectiveness, conducting an efficient and effective planned risk based audit, auditing enterprise risk management processes, as well as aligning an audit plan to business strategies.

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2729700 .4311150 .3778050 .3039250 .2704290 .2822790 .0055870 .0024850 .0743490 .7243480 .3860970 .0728120 .7092900 .0063710 .0460710

.2782330 .4394270 .3850890 .3097840 .2756420 .2877210 .0056950 .0025330 .0757820 .7383120 .3935400 .0742160 .7229640 .0064940 .0469590

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2736500 .2772500 GB Pound/KD .4321890 .4378750 Euro .3787450 .3837280 Swiss francs .3046820 .3086900 Canadian dollars .2711020 .2746680 Danish Kroner .0508700 .0515390 Swedish Kroner .0415150 .0420610 Australian dlr .2829810 .2867040 Hong Kong dlr .0351910 .0356540 Singapore dlr .2172690 .2201270 Japanese yen .0035630 .0036100 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 .0056760 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 .0025240 Pakistan rupee .0000000 .0032140 Bangladesh taka .0000000 .0036720 UAE dirhams .0745340 .0755140 Bahraini dinars .7261510 .7357040 Jordanian dinar .0000000 .3921500 Saudi Riyal/KD .0729930 .0739530 Omani riyals .7110560 .7204110 Philippine Peso .0000000 .0064700

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.591 5.610 3.181 2.498 3.518 219.600 35.475 3.632 6.387 8.986 0.271 0.273

GCC COUNTRIES 73.576 75.811 716.640 732.830 75.129

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Egyptian Pound - Cash Egyptian Pound - Transfer Yemen Riyal/for 1000 Tunisian Dinar Jordanian Dinar Lebanese Lira/for 1000 Syrian Lier Morocco Dirham

ARAB COUNTRIES 48.250 46.162 1.262 195.260 389.630 1.851 5.956 34.605

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 275.800 Euro 381.430 Sterling Pound 437.690 Canadian dollar 271.720 Turkish lire 148.520 Swiss Franc 309.890 Australian dollar 283.030 US Dollar Buying 275.500

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria

SELL CASH 287.700 733.110 3.860 275.900 541.400 36.600 51.900 167.800 48.200 384.500 36.120 5.880 0.032 0.238 0.240 3.690 391.220 0.187 90.460 46.200 4.240 223.900 1.786

50.200 716.000 3.210 6.520 76.260 73.600 218.370 37.320 2.604 438.500 42.500 311.600 5.600 9.320 198.263 75.160 276.000 1.200

715.820 3.195 6.385 75.830 73.600 218.370 37.320 2.498 436.500 310.100 5.600 9.190 75.060 275.600

10 Tola

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 437.500 275.600

Sterling Pound US Dollar

SELL DRAFT 286.200 733.110 3.632 274.400

218.400 46.147 383.000 35.970 5.605 0.031

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

288.99 277.04 311.45 384.47 438.07 3.64 3.648 5.592 2.501 3.509 3.183 75.02 733.08 46.16 392.10 716.26 76.00 73.59

287.70 278.00 311.60 385.00 439.00 3.62 3.705 5.930 2.600 4.250 3.250 75.20 733.10 48.40 392.00 716.00 76.25 73.85

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd 390.610 0.186 90.460 3.520 222.400

Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar

Selling Rate 275.550 273.830 435.395 382.845 307.975 730.580

UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

75.000 75.635 73.440 387.870 46.208 2.497 5.611 3.186 3.636 6.377 675.900 3.690 9.050 5.800 3.590 91.530

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co.

GOLD 1,735.880

UAE Exchange Centre WLL

GOLD 307.000 155.000 80.000

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

Currency Rate per 1000 (Tran) US Dollar 275.600 Pak Rupees 3.180 Indian Rupees 5.600 Sri Lankan Rupees 2.515 Bangladesh Taka 3.640 Philippines Peso 6.420 UAE Dirhams 75.140 Saudi Riyals 73.650 Bahraini Dinars 732.700 Egyptian Pounds 46.130 Pound Sterling 439.300 Indonesian Rupiah 3.190 Yemeni Riyal 1.550 Jordanian Dinars 391.600 Syrian Pounds 5.750 Euro 384.500 Canadian Dollars 278.100 Nepali rupee 3.690

Al Mulla Exchange Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000) US Dollar 275.250 Euro 382.800 Pound Sterling 436.300 Canadian Dollar 274.200 Japanese Yen 3.605 Indian Rupee 5.594 Egyptian Pound 46.115 Sri Lankan Rupee 2.497 Bangladesh Taka 3.624 Philippines Peso 6.372 Pakistan Rupee 3.180 Bahraini Dinar 733.000 UAE Dirham 74.950 Saudi Riyal 73.450 *Rates are subject to change

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

BUSINESS

Al-Tijari rewards customers with cash back up to 20% of purchases

Ahmed Heikal

Citadel Capital completes EGP 1.05bn rights issue CAIRO: Citadel Capital (CCAP.CA on the Egyptian Exchange) announced yesterday that shareholders have fully subscribed to its EGP 1.05 billion ($175.6 million) capital increase, adding EGP 718 million ($120 million) in fresh cash to its balance sheet. The announcement comes at the close of the second and final subscription period for a rights issue approved by shareholders and Egyptian regulators in August 2011.

“The successful close of our capital increase despite challenging global and local market conditions is ringing endorsement from key shareholders of Citadel Capital’s long-term fundamentals,” noted Ahmed Heikal, the firm’s Chairman and Founder. “Notably, our long-term Gulf investors strongly backed Citadel Capital during this rights issue. In addition, leading international institutional investors - including Western and regional funds - subscribed to Citadel Capital,” he continued.

The rights issue saw shareholders subscribe to 210 million new shares (including 52.5 million preferred shares) at a par value of EGP 5 each. The firm now reports capital of EGP 4,358,125,000 distributed across 871,625,000 shares, including 217,906,250 preferred shares and 653,718,750 common shares.

“This is the first of several steps that we expect will add an additional US$ 200 million to our war chest by the end of the year, putting Citadel Capital in a robust financial position heading into 2012. We see this as opportunity capital: It is more than sufficient to ensure our 19 existing platform companies weather any additional economic headwinds - and in the event of an improving business climate, it provides us with the flexibility to more rapidly grow our existing portfolio or to pursue compelling new opportunities of multiple forms. Throughout, we will remain very cautious,” Heikal noted.

In addition, Citadel Capital and its platform companies have raised a further US$ 319.3 million in equity and debt since January 2011 despite ongoing regional tensions. The firm continues to enjoy the unqualified support of leading international financial institutions including the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, IFC African, Latin American and Caribbean Fund ALAC, Dutch development bank FMO, German development finance institution DEG, the European Investment Bank, France’s PROPARCO, Germany’s KfW Entwicklungsbank, Belgium’s BIO, Equity Bank of Kenya and the ICF Debt Pool, all of whom have joined leading regional LPs in participating in Citadel Capital transactions this year.

“We see a further 12-18 months of turbulence ahead, a fact that sees us continue to manage costs at the platform and portfolio levels. That said, we are optimistic: Our investments are firmly on the right side of macroeconomic trends, and we remain resolute in our belief that greater democracy in key nations across our footprint will only enhance the outstanding macroeconomic fundamentals that short-term investors are presently discounting,” Heikal concluded.

KUWAIT: The Commercial Bank of Kuwait announced yesterday the launch of its new marketing campaign in cooperation with Habchi and Chalhoub Company, Al-Zaer Showroom and Electrozan Company.

This campaign confirms CBK’s ongoing endeavors to provide customers with outstanding services through specially tailored marketing promotions and offers. The new marketing campaign shall allows AlTijari credit card and prepaid cardholders to take advantage of cash back up to 20% of their purchases during the campaign period from 20th October 2011 to 20th January 2012.

Commenting on the launch of the new campaign, Ramzi Al Sabbour y, Executive Manager,

Marketing and Sales Department at Commercial Bank of Kuwait said that this campaign was launched in response to customers ambitions to receive state-of-the-art services from Al-Tijari and to satisfy their needs and building on the success similar marketing campaigns and offers have achieved emphasizing that Al-Tijari has took the lead in launching such campaigns and stressing that this campaign outweighed the preceding campaigns as it will last for three months, and thus customers will have shopping added-value and further benefit of the campaign.

Al Sabboury added that the cash back will start following the expiry of the campaign, i.e. beyond 20th January 2012. He went on to say

Ramzi Al Sabboury

Joyalukkas expands its presence to Kumbakonam KUMBAKONAM: Joyalukkas continues its rapid expansion drive by opening showrooms in strategic locations across India. They have now entered into the temple town of Kumbakonam, considered the chief commercial district of Tanjavur region. This jewelery showroom is set to be a landmark on Nageshwaram North Street with its unique design and construction. Joyalukkas Brand Ambassador R. Madhavan inaugurated this large format jewelry showroom in the presence of VIP’s, local dignitaries and senior management of Joyalukkas on 16th October.

The convenient 10,000 sq. ft. Joyalukkas jewelry showroom, with convenient car parking facility for over 100 cars, offers its latest international and traditional designs specially chosen from its outlets across the world for jewelry buyers of Kumbakonam . Latest and exclusive jewelry offerings in Gold, Platinum, Precious Stone, Pearl and Silver jewelry are available at the Joyalukkas, Kumbakonam showroom. Joyalukkas maintains a strict policy of adhering to global standards of quality across all products and services and, based on this, all jewelry available at the Kumbakonam are indeed 100 percent BIS hallmarked for gold, 100 percent IGI certified for diamond and 100 percent PGI certified for platinum jewelry.

“I consider it as a blessing to open a jewelery showroom in the temple town of Kumbakonam.

Kumbakonam has a healthy mix of commerce and tourism hence we consider this as one of the key locations for Joyalukkas. We opened a large format showroom here to meet the needs of residents and tourists coming to Kumbakonam. With this location and landmark showroom, our expertise, our range and designs in jewelry and our trained and friendly staff I am sure we will delight the jewelry lovers in and around Kumbakonam and give them an exceptional experience in jewelry shopping.” said Joy Alukkas , Managing Director of Joyalukkas India Limited.

The showroom has been designed in signature Joyalukkas jewelry showroom format with opulent interiors with the objective of offering a warm and welcoming feel to jewelry buyers. The positioning of the showroom, in heart of the town, is aimed at providing customers the pleasure of choosing their favourite jewelery with comfort and convenience. “‘The brand name ‘JOYALUKKAS’ is completely different from all other similar brand names that operate in the market. We are an international chain with 85 plus showrooms across international cities like London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Muscat, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait, Dammam, Riyadh, Singapore and in India in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Kochi. The ‘Joyalukkas’ mis-

IKEA Kuwait launches IKEA Smaland Kids Club KUWAIT: IKEA Kuwait announces the launch of its new and entertaining youth centric Club - IKEA Smaland Kids Club. The IKEA Smaland Kids Club is a lively funfilled area dedicated for children ranging within the age group of 4-9 years who can receive their membership for a fee of 1KD. This will be a key feature in the IKEA Store reinforcing its vision to reach out to its young customers along with scheduled special offers for members from the IKEA children range.

Children who enroll can look forward to a series of exciting activities and games along with added bene-

that the main objective of this campaign is to attain customers’ utmost satisfaction and to reward them on their shopping at Habchi and Chalhoub, “Al-Zaer” showroom and their outlets located in Kuwait’s International Airport, Hilton Resort in Fahaheel, as well as the outlets in Al-Salam Hospital, Al-Saif Hospital, Muwasat Hospital and Kuwait Oil Company Hospital in Ahmadi, as well as upon their shopping at Electrozan Showroom in Salmiya and Shuwaikh. Saboury noted that to ensure the best services rendered to our customers, Al-Tijari sales team will be available at Electrozan and Al-Zaer showrooms to entertain customer’s queries with regard to this campaign.

fits that include birthday wishes as well as surprise gifts every month.

Children and their families will also receive a copy of the quarterly Enewsletter, which contains fun-filled interactive activities, stories, competitions, news about special events and updated information on existing and upcoming promotions.

Once registered, children with the most number of visits to the IKEA Kids Club will receive a token of appreciation.

At IKEA Smaland Kids Club, the diverse sets of games are designed to stimulate children mentally and physically with contests ranging

from musical chairs, treasure hunts, ball race as well as math and puzzles amongst many more. Contestants of these games are divided into two categories, the first being from 4 to 6 years old and the second from 7 to 9 years old. When visiting the club, children can also get free face painting, balloon twisting, coloring and sand art, henna and sticker tattoos, as well as hair braiding.

Participants are urged to visit the IKEA Smaland Kids Club website on http://www.ikea.com.kw/kids/?ml=5 &mlt=system&tmpl=component to receive more information on daily news and updates.

sion is to appeal to the niche as well as regular jewelry buyers, for whom jewelry shopping is a complete package of product, price, choice, service and location,” added Mr. Joy Alukkas.

Joyalukkas is the only retail jewelry chain with ISO 14001-2006 and ISO 9001-2008 Certification and inaddition to this has received many awards and accolades from various prestigious bodies in India and around the world. Some of the popular awards that Joyalukkas has won include, The Best Diamond Jewellery Retailer - 5

times in a row, Best Gold Exporter- 3 times in a row, Best Jewellery Showroom for its Chennai showroom and The Best Jewellery Retail Chain. The landmark Joyalukkas Chennai showroom was also recently recognised by the Limca Book of Records for being the largest jewelry showroom in the world. After Kumbakonam, Joyalukkas will expand their presence to Trichy and Thanjavur before December 2011. Also, in the year 2012, Joyalukkas plans on opening 20 new showrooms globally.

KUMBAKONAM: Joyalukkas Kumbakonam showroom inaugurated by Joyalukkas brand ambassador actor R. Madhavan, with (left to right) P D Jose (General Manager, Gold Division), Anpazhakan MLA, Joy Alukkas (Managing Director), P D Francis (Retail Manager), Jolly Joy Alukkas (Director, Joyalukkas) and Mary Jeny Joy Alukkas (Director, Joyalukkas).

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

KSE ends trade on a red board GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) continued its downward momentum yesterday mainly hit by the retreating heavyweight banks stocks.

Also, an active volume was noticed during the day on stocks that are marked with low shares turnover.

Market Indices Global General Index (GGI) ended the day down by 0.54 percent, at 182.02 point. Market Capitalization was also down for the day, reaching KD 29.75bn. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 5,884.1 point, shedding 13.20 points (0.22 percent) to its previous close.

Market Breadth During the session, 98 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards decliners as 40 equities declined versus 22 that advanced.

Daily Trading Activity Total volume traded was down by 32.34 percent with 138.95mn shares changing hands at a total value of KD 19.19mn (17.11 percent lower compared to Tuesday’s session). Investment sector was the volume leader, accounting for 32.01 percent of total shares exchanges. International Financial Advisors (IFA) was the session’s most traded stock with 15.52mn shares exchanged.

The services sector was the value leader, having 34.21 percent of total traded value.

Top Gainers and Biggest Decliners In terms of top gainers, National Real Estate Company was the top gainer for the day, adding 9.43 percent to its share value and closing at KD 0.116. On the other hand, United Projects Company shed 7.35 percent and closed at KD 0.315, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Sectors-Wise Global’s sectoral indices ended the day on a mixed note. Except for Global Insurance Index which was unchanged during the trading session, banking stocks headed the retreat. Six out of the nine constituents of the sector ended the day in the negative territory, driving the heavyweight index down by 1.31 percent. Kuwait Finance House (KFH) was the only gainer in the sector. The scrip closed up by 1.14 percent at KD 0.890.

Sector heavyweight, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) lost 1.79 percent. At the same time, Commercial Bank of Kuwait (CoBK) retreated by

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

business

4.65 percent, recording the steepest decline in the sector yesterday. In Global analyst comment; CoBK posted a strong movement in its net income during 3Q2011 which was recorded at KD 6.8mn, up significantly from KWD0.1mn in 2Q2011 and KWD1.3mn in 1Q2011. The bottomline was nevertheless down by 65 percent YoY which can be accounted for by the exceptionally low provisions taken by the bank in 3Q2010.

While provisions dropped by 30 percent QoQ they were still over 2 times higher than those posted in 3Q2010. CBK’s top-line remained largely stagnant YoY (down by 2 percent); the drop on a quarterly basis seems more profound but that can be attributed to a spike in interest income that came in the previous quarter and that was not deemed to be sustainable.

Resultantly, total income of the bank remained relatively unchanged YoY and QoQ with a slight tapering of 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively. As for provisions, these were equally distributed between specific and general with roughly over KWD7mn in each; while those related to investments stood high at KWD5mn, driven possibly by the weakness in the equity market. The bank continued to see a decline in loans which are down by 8 percent YTD while a 3 percent YTD rise in deposits could add some pressure to spreads; Noteworthy that the QoQ growth in deposit was strongest in 3Q2011. The capital adequacy of the bank was reported at 20.75 percent.

Global Industrial Index was the second

biggest decliner for the day. The index shed 0.53 percent from its value dragged down by retreat in the share price of National Industries Group (Holding), ending the day down by 1.85 percent and closing at KD 0.265. Further damping the index was Gulf Cables & Electrical Industries Company which posted a 1.33 percent decrease in value to close at KD 1.480.

In terms of gainers, Global Food Index took the lead with a gain of 1.33 percent backed by heavyweight Kuwait Foodstuff Company (Americana) ending the day up 1.37 percent and closing at KD 1.480. Global Investment Index ended the day with 0.28 percent gain. The index’s gain was aided by Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) which ended the day up by 3.03 percent at KD 0.340. Furthermore, Kuwait Investment Company was also a contributing factor to the index’s gain by posting a 1.72 percent increase and closing at KD 0.118.

Yesterday trading was also intense in the services sector, aggregating 30.45 percent of total traded shares. Global Services Index registered a daily gain of 0.07 percent, on the back of 1.32 percent of gains registered in heavyweight Agility. The scrip topped the value list for the day with KD 2.75mn worth of shares traded.

Oil News The price of Kuwaiti crude oil decreased USD2.62, settling at $105.88pb on Tuesday, compared to $108.50pb on Monday, said the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) yesterday.

Egypt’s grey economy swells in post-Mubarak turmoil CAIRO: There was little certainty to Fouad Abdel Aziz’s existence except for the fact that as a member of Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, he had some protection from rivals trying to muscle in on his business selling sunglasses in a Cairo market. The complex network of patronage that stretched from Egypt’s former president to the vendors of Attaba street market was largely swept away with Mubarak’s overthrow in February, and 63-year-old Abdel Aziz is nervous about the future.

He earns 10 to 15 Egyptian pounds ($1.65 to $2.50) a day- enough for a meal of beans or lentils. “I have five kids and I really wanted to educate them but I couldn’t afford it and they are on drugs now,” said Abdel Aziz, who quit school before he was 10. “I dream of a night when I can sleep without having to worry.”

One fifth of Egypt’s 80 million people live in poverty, according to official figures, and in the short term, the overthrow of Mubarak in February has made life harder for many of them-political unrest and uncertainty have hit the economy hard, deterring investment and disrupting trade and tourism. With the economy floundering and formal jobs scarce, more Egyptians are trying to make ends meet in the massive grey economy, which operates outside the tax system and most government regulation. Many begin by acquiring cheap Chinese-made goods such as toys, women’s underwear, shoes or kitchen appliances, and hawking them from carts or tarpaulins spread out on pavements or hung from walls.

Attaba and other markets across Cairo may appear chaotic at first glance, but under Mubarak there was a pecking order that the police would help protect, often in exchange for bribes, traders say. As the number of street vendors has mushroomed since Mubarak’s ouster, the police, rebuked by the newcomers, have abandoned their attempts to stem the tide.

Souk Gomaa (Friday Market), under a bridge in the southeast of the capital, was shut last year after a fire weakened the vast structure and the government promised traders a new site. But police who stood guard by the bridge spanning Cairo’s City of the Dead slum left when Mubarak fell, and the market is thriving again, despite fears that the structure could collapse.

The government has promised to bring

street vendors under control. But 222,000 Egyptians have been migrating to the capital annually in search of work in recent years, according to state statistics agency CAPMAS, and real jobs are scarce.

Around 7,000 jobs were advertised in national newspapers in July, down 53 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Manpower said. Vacancies shown in the national employment bulletin slumped to 4,300 from 30,000.

The government says 11.8 percent of the 26.3 million Egyptians eligible to work did not have jobs in the second quarter of 2011. Experts say that unemployment figure is misleadingly low, because the number estimated as employed include millions struggling in the informal sector.

Metawia Mohamed, a 35-year-old with three children, sells bracelets, bangles and other accessories from his stall in downtown Cairo, earning him around 20 pounds per day. According to official statistics, Mohamed is employed because he works at least one hour per week.

Mohamed said he had almost forgotten that he has a commerce diploma, qualifying him to work as an accountant. “I am under constant threat that the authorities will confiscate my goods and stand, and I don’t have any other source of income.

Finding a job is very hard in this country,” he said. Reliable statistics were already a rare commodity during Mubarak’s three decades in power; accurately calculating the number employed in the informal sector today is impossible. But analysts estimate that the grey economy employs some 42 percent of the labour force and contributes roughly one third of gross domestic product. The grey economy ballooned in the 1990s when economic reforms eroded the Socialist-influenced, centralised economy in favour of the private sector. The reforms threw millions out of safe publicsector jobs but the faster growth that followed was lopsided, enriching the privileged but failing to create enough jobs for the poor. Now, for the short-term at least, Egyptians have neither rapid growth nor more social equality. Economists polled by Reuters expect GDP growth of 1.3 percent in the year to June 2012, down from around 6 percent annually in recent years, which was barely enough to absorb a fastgrowing young population into the job market. —Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

BUSINESS

Saudi Arabia’s GDP expected to grow by 7.5% KAMCO Saudi, Qatar Stock Exchange Monthly Review KUWAIT: After incurring losses for three consecutive months (Jun - Aug), which witnessed the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) drop 11.2 per cent, the TASI bucked its negative trend during September and gained 2.23 per cent to close the month at 6,112.37 and end as the best performing market amongst its peers in the GCC region. Ensuing Euro zone debt crisis, volatile oil prices coupled with sell offs in global and regional markets failed to hamper investor sentiments as renewed buying interest was witnessed across all the listed sectors except the heavyweight banking sector. Positive economic indicators coupled with investor’s optimism that the Saudi economy is expected to strengthen further in 2011, fuelled by a robust increase in non-oil GDP, supported by massive capital spending by the government, a rally in oil prices and increase in global oil demand boosted sentiments and shaped the performance of the market during September. Gains recorded during the month led the TASI to minimize its YTD-11 losses to 7.68 per cent. The TASI witnessed lower volatility in comparison to the previous month, as the volatility of daily returns during the month improved to 14.5 per cent as compared to 25.1 per cent recorded in August. Trading indicators recorded double digit increases with volume, value traded and number of deals climbing 39 per cent, 41 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively. During September, the total traded volume reached 3.1 bn shares distributed over 1.8 mn transactions as compared to 2.2 bn shares spread over 1.2 mn transactions in August-11. Value traded rose to SAR 74 bn, up from SAR 52.4 bn in the previous month.

Saudi Banking Sector The market heavyweight Banking sector, which represents 24.9 per cent of the aggregate market cap, witnessed its market cap drop 0.6 per cent to SAR 302.4 bn (USD 80.6 bn) from SAR 304.2 bn (USD 81 bn) a month earlier. Despite the prevailing uncertainty in the regional financial sector brought about by the protracted

European debt crisis and weak global economy, the Saudi banking sector is expected to remain strong and positive. Lending activity is expected to increase in 2011 on the back of higher public spending and is likely to drive corporate loan books. Retail loans are also expected to remain strong on supportive demographics. Increased banking activity and relatively improved market conditions have kept non-interest income growth strong during the current year. Moreover, social welfare spending by the government along with bonus salaries are likely to keep demand for corporate as well as retail loans high in the Kingdom. Furthermore, strong growth in the deposit base, lower loan-todeposit ratios, adequate capital levels and improved asset quality allow Saudi banks to expand their credit portfolio.

Saudi Petrochemical Sector Despite falling oil prices and instability in global economy, the market heavyweight Petrochemical Industries sector bucked its previous month negative performance and witnessed its market cap gain 3.1 per cent to SAR 457.5 bn (USD 122 bn). Renewed buying interest was witnessed on the sector amid investor optimism that increased investments in the petrochemical industry coupled with a rise in oil prices as compared to its 2010 and 2009 levels along with increased demand and improving prices for petrochemical products would in turn have a positive impact on the sector’s profitability.

The Saudi Economy: According to estimates released by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Saudi Arabia’s real GDP is expected to grow by nearly 7.5 per cent in 2011, up from 4.1 per cent in 2010, mainly on the back of high oil prices and an increase in oil production. Saudi Arabia’s economy looks set for a period of sustained growth, with oil revenues remaining high, non-hydrocarbons exports on the rise and the effects of a massive investment program by the state starting to materialize. According to the latest figures released

by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Saudi Arabia pumped the most oil in 30 years in August as it boosted production along with other members of the OPEC. According to the IEA, the Kingdom produced 9.8 million bpd in August, as compared to a revised figure of 9.7 million bpd for July. While some of the forecast increase in GDP is being driven by oil revenue and the Kingdom’s investment program, the government’s long-term policy of diversifying the economy is also having a greater impact. According to the Central Department of Statistics, non-oil exports had jumped by 14 per cent in Q1-11, with overseas sales totaling USD 9.9 bn on the back of growing demand for Saudi plastics and petrochemical products.

Inflation Saudi Arabia’s annual inflation eased to 4.8 per cent in August as compared to 4.9 per cent in July. On a month-on-month basis, inflation rose to 0.5 per cent in Aug-11, after climbing 1.2 per cent in July. Food prices in August soared to 1.5 per cent from a 1 per cent climb in July. Housing price growth slowed to 0.7 per cent in August after a 1.6 per cent surge in July, while transport costs remained flat after a 0.7 per cent increase in the previous month. SAMA expects inflationary pressures to continue at a moderate pace during Q3-11 as consumer prices are expected to climb due to surging global food prices and planned increased government spending.

Qatar Exchange Review Market Briefing: Global equity markets continued their slump in September as the ongoing European debt crisis coupled with last month’s S&P downgrade of the US’ credit rating reinforced recessionary fears as investors found support for the possibility of a double dip recession. Despite the global economic situation, the QE 20 Index continues to prove resilient to the market forces erasing value in its peers as it managed to rise 0.5 per cent to record 8,393.92. Qatar’s enviable

fiscal health has helped the economy minimize the effects of the negative market forces destroying wealth in global equities as its economy powers ahead with development plans aided by ample liquidity. The market moved sideways during the month with no clear trend in either direction as the bourse alternated between fears of a worsening global economic situation and optimism of the sound fundamentals and economic growth story in Qatar. Trading activity decreased during the month as volume dropped 1.8 per cent to 130.8 mn shares while value fell 5.62 per cent to QAR 5.33 bn in 85,372 transactions; volatility improved slightly to record 10.54 per cent as compared to 14.45 per cent the previous month. The Qatari Exchange announced some structural changes, to its sectors and index for the near future. In terms of structure, the index has split the services sector into three distinct sectors of Real Estate, Telecoms, and Consumer Goods & Services in order to better represent the makeup of the market as the old services sector represented 38 per cent of total market cap lumping together a broad variety of companies.

Inflation Annual inflation in August reached a 20-month high to record 2.1 per cent, a level not seen since January 2010. During August, M2 annual growth slowed to a five month low of 22.6 per cent as compared to a 34.4 per cent rise witnessed in July. Bank lending jumped 18.8 per cent on an annual basis in August to reach the highest level in 26 months, as compared to a 17 per cent increase in July.

According to the IMF World Economic Outlook September 2011, Real GDP is projected to grow by 18.7 per cent and 6.0 per cent in 2011 and 2012, respectively, and is set to record 4.9 per cent by 2016.

At the same time, inflation is forecast to increase by 2.3 per cent in 2011 after recording deflation of 2.4 per cent in 2010; inflation is forecast to increase further in 2012 to record 4.1 per cent.

Gulf debt restructurings may enter tougher phase Private companies particularly vulnerable

SEOUL: A man walks by a screen showing the exchange rate between the Japanese yen and the South Korean won in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. South Korean President Lee Myungbak and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda agreed yesterday to expand the size of a currency swap deal and push to resume stalled free trade negotiations. The Japanese written on the board read: “spot purchase, top,” and “sales for cash, bottom.” — AP

S Korea, Japan boost currency swap deal SEOUL: South Korea and Japan agreed yesterday to expand their currency swap arrangement to the equivalent of $70 billion in the face of global uncertainty, and to revive efforts to reach a free trade pact. The agreements came at a summit between Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and President Lee Myung-Bak, who urged Tokyo to work harder to settle disputes arising from the bitter 20th-century colonial era. “We agreed that it is important to strengthen currency cooperation in order to preemptively stabilise financial markets amid deepening uncertainties in the global economy,” Lee told a joint news conference.

The existing currency swap arrangement with Japan is worth the equivalent of $13 billion.

The leaders vowed to strengthen working-level discussions on a possible free trade agreement.

Negotiations have been in limbo since 2004.

Noda sweetened the mood for his first bilateral diplomatic trip by returning five volumes of historic royal Korean books seized during Japan’s harsh rule from 1910-45. By December Japan is to return the remaining 1,200 volumes.

Relations remain prickly because of decadesold disputes. “While mentioning that moving toward the future without forgetting history is the basis for Korea-Japan relations, I emphasised that Japan needs to make active efforts over issues stemming from” colonial rule, Yonhap news agency quoted Lee as saying. A row over contested islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) — known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan-flared again in June when flag carrier Korean Air mounted a test flight over them.

Three conservative Japanese lawmakers who planned a trip near the islands to reassert their country’s claim were barred from South Korea in August. The same month the South lodged a strong protest against Japan’s 2011 defence white paper, which describes the islands as Japanese territory.

Seoul also complains that its neighbour’s school textbooks distort their shared history. And it wants to discuss compensation for Japan’s use of Korean women as military sex slaves during World War II. Japan says all colonial issues were settled in a 1965 compensation deal that led to the normalisation of relations. A Japanese official told reporters the leaders did not talk about compensation for the women during their 80-minute meeting, and had no concrete discussions on the islands dispute.

The official said Noda chose Seoul for his first foreign bilateral visit because he sees South Korea as “the most important neighbour for Japan” and wants to build future-oriented relations. On North Korea, Lee and Noda said that ending the North’s nuclear programmes is crucial for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia.

The two countries are members-with China, the North, the United States and Russia-of a sixparty forum that began meeting in 2003 to negotiate Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament. The North now wants to return to the talks it abandoned in April 2009, a month before staging its second nuclear test. South Korea, Japan and the United States say it must first show it is serious about scrapping its atomic arsenal. — AFP

DUBAI: Two years after the Dubai debt crisis erupted, contributing to a wave of loan restructurings across the Gulf, those restructurings may be entering a more difficult phase as banks become reluctant to extend maturities further.

Government-related and private companies in the region have so far avoided defaults by agreeing with creditors to push out maturities-a process labelled “extend and pretend” by some cynical bankers.

This method has helped banks avoid billions of dollars in writedowns and companies to avoid the shame of defaulting. But some banks may now be reaching the limits of their willingness to accept this strategy.

Instead, they may demand that debtors make payments while the banks write down part of the debt, or resort to more radical strategies such as debt-for-equity swaps. “In recent months, we have started to see the end of the first phase of restructurings where refinancings were largely based on extending and pretending,” said David Stark, managing director for restructuring advisory services at consultants Deloitte, which has advised on debt restructurings in Dubai.

“We are beginning to see situations where the hoped-for market recovery has not materialised and, as a consequence, more radical restructuring may be required.”

The most prominent example of maturity extension is the $25 billion restructuring of state-owned conglomerate Dubai World , which promised full repayment plus interest to 80 creditors in exchange for their agreement on new five- and eight-year financing facilities.

The jury is still out on the success of Dubai World’s restructuring. Its plan says there will be asset sales, which could include prized assets such as ports operator DP World , but Dubai has clearly

been reluctant to sell off its crown jewels.

Some other debt restructuring plans in the region have clearly run into trouble, because they were based on excessive hopes for economic recovery and rebounds in asset prices-the main Dubai stock market index is languishing slightly below the low it hit in 2009.

Kuwait’s Global Investment House is an example.

Last month the investment firm asked banks to defer debt payments set down under the $1.7 billion restructuring accord which it signed in 2009, and it appointed Evercore Partners to advise it on putting together a new debt plan.

It is not yet clear how Global Investment’s new deal will work. But a simple extension of maturities may be difficult. One reason is that the euro zone debt crisis has increased pressure on the funding of European banks, some of which are no longer as happy to see their money tied up for long periods.

“We are seeing a toughening stance from European banks, but this is as much due to a recognition that problems in companies here won’t be resolved by a short term bounce-back of asset values, and more significant changes need to be made, as it is by the European situation,” Stark said.

An international banker, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said many banks remained reluctant to write down debts in the Gulf. “You would not believe some of the things I see and hear as the local banks discuss how to deal with their auditors and the central bank to avoid provisions,” he said.

But banks in the Gulf have been building their capital positions since 2009; United Arab Emirates central bank figures, for example, show average capital adequacy ratios at the country’s banks rose from 19.2 percent in December 2009 to 21 percent in June this year. So many lenders are now in a bet-

World wealth to grow 50% in five years

MIAMI: In this Friday, Oct 14, 2011 photo, an American Airlines Boeing 767 takes off from Miami International Airport, in Miami. Even higher fares couldn’t pull American Airlines out of its financial nosedive. American’s parent, AMR Corp., said yesterday, that it lost $162 million in the third quarter, as fuel spending jumped 40 percent, wiping out higher revenue from fare increases and passenger fees. — AP

BSkyB profit up despite TV subscriptions slowdown LONDON: British Sky Broadcasting PLC, in which Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has a large minority stake, saw its first quarter profits rise further as increasing sales of telephone and broadband packages offset a slowdown in new television subscriptions The company said yesterday that profit on continuing operations in the three months to end-September rose by 24 percent to 225 million pounds ($355 million) from 182 million pounds a year ago. Revenue increased 8.5 percent to 1.66 billion pounds as customers rose by 4 percent to 10.4 million.

BSkyB shares spiked 4.4 percent at 705 pence on the London Stock Exchange. “Against a grim economic backdrop, these are very good figures,” said Steve Malcolm, analyst at Evolution Securities, who rates the shares as “buy.”

ter position to accept write-downs. “Write-downs will still be avoided if possible this year but as many big regional players are expected to be overcapitalised into 2012/13, bank managements may take the opportunity to take hits they could not afford in 2009 and 2010,” said Paul Reynolds, a managing director in debt and equity advisory services at financial consultants Rothschild.

Debt-equity swaps also remain rare, but a 1 billion dinar ($3.6 billion) deal in February this year to restructure the debt of Kuwait’s Investment Dar , owner of half of luxury carmaker Aston Martin, may be a model for others. The plan includes giving creditors a 10 percent stake in Investment Dar. However, such deals will only be options for businesses with good enough cashflows to attract banks.

Relations with governments will play a role in banks’ decisions on restructurings. Some European and local banks do not want to jeopardise business ties to governments by being too aggressive with state-linked firms-especially, in the case of the European banks, since the sums involved are often minor compared to the billions of euros at stake in the euro zone.

Big state-linked firms have also been able to adopt a “take it or leave it” approach to banks because of their size and, in the case of Dubai World, the use of Decree 57, a bankruptcy law that was introduced by the Dubai authorities to deal with the restructuring of the conglomerate. The lack of precedents for the decree meant banks were reluctant to test it, making them more inclined to a consensual approach.

But most of the restructurings now being discussed in the Gulf are of private companies, which do not have such advantages; Decree 57 does not cover them. This leaves them open to tougher terms from the banks. — Reuters

BSkyB said 28 percent of its customers have signed up to its triple play of TV, broadband and telephone services, up from 23 percent a year ago. Earlier this year, News Corp. had to ditch its bid to take full control of BSkyB in the wake of a phone hacking scandal and alleged bribery of police at its Sunday tabloid, the News of the World. When the scandal became the number one news story in Britain in July and prompted the subsequent pulling of the News Corp. bid, BSkyB shares slumped from around 850 pence to a little over 600 pence a month or so later.

The phone hacking scandal has raised questions about the position of BSkyB’s chairman, James Murdoch, who also chairs News Corp. subsidiary News International, owner of the

now-defunct News of the World. Pensions & Investment Research Consultants, Europe’s largest independent proxy agency, has urged BSkyB to replace Murdoch with someone independent of News Corp., which holds 39 percent of BSkyB shares.

James Murdoch has been recalled by a House of Commons committee to answer questions about his role. Former News of the World editor Colin Myler and former legal adviser Tom Crone have said that James Murdoch was wrong when he claimed in earlier testimony that he was unaware of a critical piece of evidence suggesting that illegal espionage was far more widespread at the tabloid than claimed.

Myler and Crone insist that Murdoch was explicitly told about the evidence in 2008. A

more detailed look at the figures showed that BSkyB got a break fee of a 39 million pounds from News Corp. - the fee covers regulatory and other costs which are due if a bid is terminated.

The company also garnered 77 million pounds worth of sales of set-top boxes to sister broadcaster Sky Italia, up from 48 million pounds the year before. Sky Italia is 100 percent owned by News Corp. In its statement, BSkyB made mention of a decision by the European Court of Justice which found in favor of a British pub landlord who used a foreign decoder rather than one provided by Sky. The company did not comment on the potential impact on its earnings, but said it remains to be seen how U.K. courts will apply the judgment.—AP

ZURICH: Global wealth could rise 50 percent to $345 trillion over the next five years, spurred by a near doubling of total household wealth in China and strong growth in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa, a Credit Suisse report released yesterday said.

The Global Wealth Report 2011 from Credit Suisse research said total global wealth jumped 14 percent between January 2010 and June 2011, ending the period at $231 trillion, with Asia Pacific countries responsible for 54 percent of the rise. “These are times of unprecedented economic change, and a radical reconfiguration of the world’s economic order is taking shape,” said Osama Abbasi, Chief Executive Officer for Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse.

“Emerging markets are important drivers of the global recovery and remain the key growth engines of global wealth.”

With an expected $81 trillion, the United States is seen remaining in the top spot in 2016 in terms of total household wealth, while China is set to leapfrog Japan into second place by almost doubling its household wealth to $39 trillion. Adults in Switzerland, Australia and Norway are the richest in the world, with Swiss adults holding average wealth of $540,010, the only country where the average adult has more than $500,000. The net worth of the average Swiss person when measured in US dollars, was bumped up by the strength of the Swiss franc, which rose about 10 percent in value against the greenback from the start of the year to the end of June. — Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

business

Argos owner tells govt to help UK consumer LONDON: Britain’s cash-strapped shoppers need help from government, and they need it now, the boss of Britain’s No. 1 household goods retailer, Home Retail, said after his firm posted a 70 percent slump in first-half profit. Terry Duddy, chief executive of the Argos owner, said yesterday UK consumers needed more direct aid than the Bank of England’s recent move to revive the faltering economic recovery with a fresh dose of quantitative easing.

“I do think they (consumers) need more help. I think it’s becoming even more clear what a difficult position we’re in and how difficult it is for the consumers,” he told reporters. He called on UK Finance Minister George Osborne to use his statement in November to provide tax relief at lower income levels, such as increasing the threshold on income tax to 10,000 pounds ($15,640).

“For this business, and I think in general, it would be a good thing to be able to give people more pounds in their pocket who are in that lower income or lower middle income bracket.”

Shares in Home Retail, which also owns Homebase, Britain’s second biggest do-it-yourself retailer, fell 13 percent after the firm said recent trading had not picked-up by as much as it had expected. “As we now enter our busiest trading period market conditions remain both weak and volatile, and in these early weeks of the second half we have not seen the improvement in sales that we had anticipated,” said Duddy.

He reckons sales at Argos stores open over a year could be down as much as 7 percent over the year to end-February 2012, having fallen 9.1 percent in the first half, mainly on the back of plummeting sales of consumer electricals. Panmure Gordon analyst Philip Dorgan cut his 2011-12 pretax profit forecast for the group by 25 percent to 96 million pounds ($150 million). In 2009-10 the firm made 254 million pounds.

British retailers are generally struggling as rising prices, muted wages growth and government austerity measures force shoppers to rein in spending on non-essential items. The squeeze on British

household finances was starkly illustrated on Tuesday when official data showed inflation hit a three-year high in September driven by soaring gas and electricity bills. Home Retail, which is facing intense competition from supermarkets, specialist and internet players, has been particularly hard hit as its predominantly low-income customers are suffering the most severe hit to their budgets. The firm made an underlying pretax profit of 28.3 million pounds in the six months to Aug. 27.

That compares with analysts’ average forecast of 30 million pounds, according to a company poll of nine, and 94.7 million pounds made in the same period last year. Operating profit at Argos crashed to 3.4 million pounds from 54.4 million pounds. At Homebase it fell to 29.9 million pounds from 46.2 million pounds. Total first half sales, reported last month, fell 6 percent to 2.57 billion pounds. Home Retail, which ended the period with net cash of 200 million pounds, maintained its interim dividend at 4.7 pence. However, most analysts expect the final dividend to be slashed.

Duddy is under pressure from some analysts to dramatically scale down Argos’s 754-store portfolio and reshape its catalogue offer. However, he is adamant the firm’s multi-channel strategy is the right one. The CEO is looking for growth from TV shopping, mobile phone applications, and entry into new product areas such as books and children’s wear. He also announced on Wednesday a joint venture with Chinese appliance maker Haier Electronics to develop a multi-channel retailing business in China.

Home Retail shares which prior to Wednesday’s update had already lost 45 percent of their value over the last year, were down 15.3 pence at 104.3 pence at 0931 GMT, valuing the business at 860 million pounds. “Management has stated that it has kicked the tyres, looked under the bonnet, taken the engine to pieces, put it back together and decided that it doesn’t need to change strategy,” said Panmure’s Dorgan. “We take a more simple view. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” — Reuters

US consumer inflation subdued, building construction jumps 15% Autos, rentals and apparel restrain core CPI

NEW DELHI: In this picture taken on August 3, 2011, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee arrives for the Monsoon Parliamentary Session in New Delhi. India’s growth will be less than expected as the global financial crisis and a string of interest rate hikes slows Asia’s third-biggest economy, the country’s finance minister said yesterday. — AFP

India’s FM sees economic growth easing to below 8% NEW DELHI: India’s economic growth will be slower than government projections, highlighting how high inflation, rising interest rates and global financial turbulence threaten the country’s momentum, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said yesterday.

But Mukherjee hinted India may continue to tighten monetary policy, in contrast to most other major emerging economies, to keep stubbornly high inflation in check despite fears of a broader economic slowdown.

“Most of us are expecting India’s growth to go down below 8 percent. This is disappointing,” Mukherjee told a news conference. “But if we can, we must not lose perspective of the global situation. There is a slowdown all over the world.”

“Let me not hide the fact that I have been disappointed by our growth components over the last few months. It is evident that India’s growth rate in 2011-12 will be less than what we presented in February when I presented the budget.”

The budget had projected economic growth of around 9 percent this fiscal year.

Businesses have winced at a series of rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) — there have been a dozen since March 2010 — and are bracing themselves for the prospect of another increase at the bank’s next policy review on Oct 25.

The RBI’s stance has been hawkish compared to other major emerging economies such as Brazil and Indonesia, which have eased policy because of concerns about the sluggish global economy. “There is no one size fits all, the central banks across the world may have been moving in a particular direction but the Indian central bank has its own concerns to take care of,”

Mukherjee said.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI), India’s most closely watched inflation gauge, stayed well above the RBI’s comfort zone at more than 9 percent in September.

Headline inflation readings have been above 9 percent for 10 straight months, driven up by bottlenecks affecting food distribution, weakness in the rupee and high oil prices.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold more than $2.2 billion worth of Indian shares between August and September as fears of a recession in the developed world prompted global investors to sell riskier assets. The main 30-share benchmark BSE index is down nearly 17 percent so far this year.

“We are concerned about the volatility of FII flows,” Mukherjee said. Industrial output growth for Asia’s third-largest economy has dwindled into low single digits, while car sales are expected to rise just 2-4 percent this fiscal year to March 2012, an industry body has forecast.

India’s industrial production grew a slower-than-expected 4.1 pct in August over the previous year.

Exports are also forecast to slow down.

Slowing growth and steadily high global oil prices have also put pressure on the fiscal deficit. “With the crude prices remaining where they are it will be a great challenge to maintain the fiscal deficit numbers to 4.6 percent this year,” Mukherjee said.

Private economists see the fiscal deficit widening to up to 5.6 percent of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year 2011/12 ended-March, against government’s target of 4.6 percent as the gap between tax receipts and spending widens. — Reuters

LISBON: A broker works in the trading room of a Portuguese bank in Lisbon, yesterday. Portugal has raised euro 1.5 billion ($2.07 billion) in a debt auction with nearflat interest rates as investors took heart from the government’s latest spending cuts. — AP

WASHINGTON: US consumer prices outside food and energy rose at their slowest pace in six months in September as the cost of apparel and used vehicles fell, suggesting inflation pressures remained contained.

Another report yesterday showed groundbreaking on new homes rose at the fastest rate in 1-1/2 years, though most of the gains came from the often volatile multi-family construction.

The Labor Department said its core Consumer Price Index edged up 0.1 percent, also held back by flat prices for new cars and a modest rise in rental-related costs.

Economists had expected core CPI to rise 0.2 percent last month. The index increased 0.2 percent in August. Overall consumer prices increased 0.3 percent last month, as expected, after advancing 0.4 percent in August. The moderate rise in consumer prices offered assurance that inflation pressures remained in check despite a sharp rise in wholesale prices last month.

“The housing data combined with CPI data shows that the economy, while it still is muddling along, is showing a little forward momentum that has not generally been anticipated by most analysts,” said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

The reports also suggested the Federal Reserve had some wiggle room for further monetary policy easing, should the economic recovery falter, even though the year-on-year change in core inflation has already reached 2 percent.

The Fed keeps a close eye on core inflation as it tries to guide the overall inflation to 2 percent or a little under. The 12-month change in overall inflation hit 3.9 percent, the highest since September 2008.

The US central bank is searching for more ways to boost growth and lower an unemployment rate that has stubbornly remained above 9 percent. It has already cut overnight lending rates to near zero and pumped $2.3 trillion into the economy. For now, the pressure for monetary stimulus has lessened amid signs the economy fared much better in the third quarter.

That positive tone on the economy was reinforced by a separate report from the Commerce Department showing housing starts increased 15 percent to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 658,000 units, well above economists’ expectations for a 590,000-unit rate. However, almost all the gains were in the volatile multifamily segment.

The housing sector remains far from recovery.

Another report showed applications for U.S. home mortgages tumbled 14.9 percent last week as demand for both refinancing and purchases fizzled.

US stock index futures pared losses yesterday after the data. US Treasury debt prices extended losses, while the dollar fell against the euro. Core consumer prices last month were restrained by new motor vehicle costs, which were unchanged

for a third straight month. This likely reflects a normalization in supplies after the March earthquake in Japan disrupted production.

Prices for used cars and trucks fell 0.6 percent after months of gains. Apparel prices dropped 1.1 percent, the largest decline since September 1998. Shelter costs edged up 0.1 percent, the smallest rise since April, as owners’ equivalent rent edged up 0.1 percent after rising 0.2 percent in August.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses owners equivalent rent to measure the amount homeowners would pay to rent or would earn from renting their property. A 2.9 percent increase in the price of gasoline pushed overall consumer prices last month. Gasoline had risen 1.9 percent in August. Food prices gained 0.4 percent after increasing 0.5 percent in August. — Reuters

CANONSBURG: A new home development is photographed in Canonsburg, Pa., Tuesday.

Builders broke ground on more homes last month, but permits for future construction fell, a grim sign for the housing market. — AP

Spain downgrade ups pressure on EU to act BRUSSELS/MADRID: A double-notch downgrade of Spain’s credit rating has piled pressure on European leaders to make decisive progress on solving the region’s debt crisis at an Oct. 23 summit. The blow from Moody’s Investors Service came just a day after the agency warned France its triple-A rating could be at risk and as Greeks began their biggest strike in years in protest at a painful austerity drive designed to avert default. Markets are counting down to a summit of EU leaders on Sunday which Paris has said will deliver a decisive outcome while Berlin has been more cautious. The Spanish rating cut, which highlighted the threat of contagion from debt-stricken Greece, tempered a sharp rally in shares on Wall Street late on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that leaders would not solve the debt crisis at a single meeting. “These sovereign debts have been built up over decades and therefore one cannot resolve them with one summit but it will take difficult, long-term work. Nonetheless, I do think we will also be able to take relevant, important decisions,” she said.

The hope is that Sunday’s summit will agree new steps to reduce Greece’s debt, strengthen the capital of banks with exposure to troubled euro zone sovereigns and leverage the euro zone’s rescue fund to prevent contagion to bigger economies. Scotching a media report that said a deal had been struck between Paris and Berlin to scale up the European Financial Stability Facility by around 5 times to more than 2 trillion euros, a senior EU official said: “It’s wrong.”

A second source said: “It’s naive to think you can make those calculations and come up with a nice round 2 trillion figure. It’s not nearly as simple as that,” he said. The summit is likely to agree to leverage the bailout fund by allowing it to underwrite a portion of newly issued euro zone debt, officials have told Reuters. But the details are still being thrashed out.

“I think the models to make the EFSF more flexible need ... significantly more preparation,” Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter said. By guaranteeing the first 20-30 percent of any losses, the EFSF could stretch three to five times further.

With about 300 billion euros of its 440 billion-euro capacity still available, the fund could be expanded to more than 1 trillion euros, enough to support the refinancing needs of Spain and Italy for at least the next year or longer and ward off market attacks. As well as trying to strengthen the rescue fund, euro zone leaders are racing to convince banks to accept “voluntary” writedowns of up to 50 percent on their Greek sovereign holdings and are trying to agree on a blueprint for recapitalising financial institutions at risk from the deepening crisis.—Reuters

UAW workers approve Ford labor deal DETROITL: Hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers ratified a labor deal with Ford Motor Co yesterday, leaving Chrysler as the last US automaker without a finalized contract.

Ford hourly workers voted by a nearly 2-to-1 margin to approve the four-year deal, clearing the way for the creation of almost 6,000 jobs and investment of more than $6 billion in the automaker’s U.S. plants and also boosting its chances for a credit rating update that would reduce borrowing costs.

“The American auto industry is on its way back,” UAW President Bob King said in a statement.

The proposed contract had been in jeopardy as late as the end of last week when early returns had shown a slight majority of those voting against ratification, but intense lobbying

by UAW leaders who warned a better deal was not to be had in the weak economy helped turn the tide.

Sixty-three percent of Ford workers casting ballots voted to ratify the deal, but UAW leaders acknowledged the high level of frustration among many of the 41,000 members.

“Working people in this country are clearly frustrated about the inequity in our society,” said Jimmy Settles, UAW vice president in charge of Ford relations. “Our members at Ford are frustrated with the economy, the lack of wage increases over the years, outrageous executive compensation and the immorality of Wall Street.”

The deal gives Ford workers at least $16,000 in bonuses over the term of the contract, including a $6,000 signing bonus. That is more generous than the $11,500 minimum General Motors Co workers will receive over the life of their new deal.

Many veteran Ford production workers were unhappy with the lack of a raise since 2003 in their base wage even as Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally’s 2010 compensation package totaled $26.5 million.

Another sore point: Many Ford workers had hoped the contract would resolve a grievance over pay that salaried employees received, but hourly workers did not. An arbitrator is expected to decide on the issue in mid-November.

Workers at several Ford plants had voiced fear about the prospect of a strike if the contract

failed to pass. Ford was the only U.S. automaker whose UAW members retained the right to strike if a deal could not be reached.

Ford executives, who will host a conference call today morning to explain the deal’s financial impact, touted the pact yesterday. “Our agreement is fair to our employees and it improves our competitiveness in the US,” Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, said in a separate statement.

Ford shares were up 3 cents at $11.81 near midday yesterday. Analysts have said the proposed deal with Ford and the contract at GM would cap costs and link the pay of blue-collar workers more directly with performance.

“I’m glad to see they got it done because we didn’t need a strike,” said Jefferies analyst Peter Nesvold, who has a “buy” rating on Ford shares.

“It does set the stage for a potential credit upgrade and a dividend, potentially in the next 30 to 60 days.”

Ratification of the Ford deal leaves Chrysler Group LLC, majority owned by Italian automaker Fiat SpA, as the last of the Detroit automakers with a labor deal to ratify.

UAW workers at Chrysler, the weakest financially of the Detroit automakers, are voting on their tentative pact through Oct. 26. They are guaranteed much less, including a signing bonus of $1,750.

UAW workers at GM ratified their deal in late September. Completing deals with the U.S. automakers would allow UAW leaders to turn their focus to trying to organize workers at the US plants of foreign automakers, something King has called vital to the union’s survival. — Reuters

HUDSON: The Ford logo is displayed at a Ford dealership in Hudson, Wisconsin on May 27, 2009. — AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

TECHNOLOGY

FM licence sale set to open up India’s airwaves MUMBAI: Indian radio presenter Lavanya Padmanabhan has seen many changes during her 13 years in the business, from reel-to-reel tapes and manual faders to the introduction of computerised, digital technology. But a planned government FM licence sale, loosening the state’s grip on the airwaves with the potential to create hundreds of new radio stations reaching millions of Indians, may well be the biggest shift yet.

“It’s a superb opportunity,” she told AFP at the studios of Big FM 92.7 in India’s entertainment and financial capital, Mumbai. “Radio is a medium that can only grow bigger and bigger from here...

It can reach where no other medium can.”

Lavanya isn’t the only one excited. Her bosses, their competitors and media analysts also see the auction of more than 800 FM licences as a turning point. “It will be a watershed event for radio in India,” said Asheesh Chatterjee, chief financial officer at Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd, which runs 45 Big FM stations across India. “For the first time, private FM players... will be shoulder-to-shoulder with the (state-run) national broadcaster All India Radio (AIR). “The radio industry will now be able to actually carve out a niche

for itself and start competing with regional television, regional print and national television with all its might.”

India’s radio broadcasters have had to look on, particularly over the last decade, as hundreds of new television channels went live, creating near 300 billion rupee ($6 billion) industry and the world’s third largest market. Radio was by far the most popular source of entertainment and information in India before the television explosion. The socalled “phase three” licence auction, which the government estimates could raise up to $400 million, may redress the balance, with increased listeners and advertising.

Under the plans, about 227 new cities are in line to get FM radio services in addition to the existing 86. Licences have been extended from 10 years to 15; news bulletins are allowed for the first time; and foreign investment limits have been increased. Companies will also be allowed to run more than one station in the same market. Global consultancy KPMG estimates the sale - expected in mid 2012 - could boost revenues from 10 billion rupees last year to 24.9 billion rupees by 2015.

“The phase-three policy is extremely

important to all radio broadcasters,” said Prashant Panday, chief executive of Entertainment Network (India) Ltd, which operates 32 Radio Mirchi stations.

“Radio is the only sector in the Indian media industry that hasn’t been able to add any capacity in the last five years and more,” he said in an email interview.

“Phase three will mean that radio will be able to catch up with the other segments of media.”

ENIL, part of the Times Group that owns the Times of India newspaper, and Reliance Broadcast said they were looking to add second frequencies in major markets and were keenly eyeing the potential of smaller cities. “Radio will be an extremely important medium” in smaller markets, said Panday. “As economic activity spreads into these smaller towns, they will emerge important in the years to come.”

Broadcasters, though, want a further relaxation of the regulations, not least the requirement for commercial channels to source news bulletins only from AIR. “Why would we pay money to AIR to broadcast news that they produce?” asked Panday. “We are India’s largest media organization - surely we can do a better job getting news ourselves?” Also

contentious is that only three new frequencies and eight left over from the last auction in 2001 will be available in India’s eight largest cities.

Jehil Thakkar, head of media and entertainment at KPMG, said phase three lays the foundations for a move away from programming based around

popular Bollywood film music towards talk radio and more niche content. “M and A (mergers and acquisitions) will happen and some consolidation. Also it (radio) will become a national medium, so we will see the emergence of some national players that will drive revenue,” he added. — AFP

MUMBAI: Radio jockey Lavanya Padmanabhan hosts her show at the 92.7 Big FM studio on Oct 14, 2011. — AFP

Samsung, Google unveil new ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ phone ‘Galaxy Nexus’ has host of features

NEW YORK: Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, introduces the Droid Razr Tuesday. – AP

Motorola brings back ‘Razr’ name NEW YORK: Seeking an edge in the world of high-end smartphones, Motorola is bringing back the “Razr” name, once attached to the best-selling phone in the world. The phone revealed Tuesday is thin, like the old Razr.

Otherwise, the new Razr is a different breed from the folding “dumb” phone that made Motorola the second-largest phone maker in the world, before Apple Inc. shook up the industry with its iPhone in 2007. The new phone, called the Droid Razr, has a big touchscreen and runs Google Inc’s Android operating system. Verizon Wireless will start taking pre-orders on Oct 27 and sell it for $300 with a two-year contract. The Droid Razr will use Verizon’s new LTE high-speed wireless data network.

In an interview, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. CEO Sanjay Jha said the compa-

ny’s testing had revealed that the Razr name still resonates with people, and they say they’re more likely to buy a phone that carries it. “People have incredibly fond memories of using their Razrs,” he said at a press event in New York. As sold by Verizon, the phone will be called the “Droid Razr.” In other countries, it will be just “Razr.”

Motorola was never able to come up with a phone that could match the old Razr in popularity. As its popularity declined, the company’s fortunes plummeted. The company split up in January, with Motorola Mobility taking the cellphone part of the business. It is now the world’s eighth-largest maker of phones. Motorola Mobility is based in Libertyville, Illinois, and has agreed to be bought by Google for $12.5 billion. The deal is expected to close by early next year. — AP

Intel outlook defies worries of PC decline SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp forecast quarterly revenue above Wall Street’s expectations, defying concerns that tablets and a shaky economy are eating into demand for personal computers. Intel shares moved sharply higher after the company beat earnings expectations and said developing countries like China are fueling expansion and helping make up for slower growth in the United States and Europe. “Guidance is well above consensus estimates, but below seasonality,” said Patrick Wang, an analyst at Evercore Partners. “They are giving us a realistic look at the fourth quarter and it seems like they are guiding conservatively.”

Intel’s processors are used in 80 percent of the world’s PCs but the company has failed to gain traction in increasingly popular mobile gadgets like Google Inc’s Android smartphones and Apple Inc’s iPad, which some people are buying instead of laptops. Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said Intel’s outlook was a little lower than normal for this time of year, mostly because of weakness in Europe’s economy. Corporate information technology spending has held up in recent quarters despite the lackluster economy, helping sales of Intel’s high-margin server chips.

Tech companies such as Facebook are also investing heavily to build out their computing capacity, helping data center sales for the world’s leading chipmaker rise 15 percent in the quarter. “Emerging markets are good, enterprise is strong, the mature market consumer is a little bit weaker,” Smith told Reuters. “I’d say Europe was a little bit weaker than the US.” In the third quarter, sales of Intel’s Atom mobile chips plummeted 32 percent, reflecting consumers’ growing preference for tablets over netbook PCs the Atom chips are widely used in.

Shares of Intel have risen about 11 percent this year, outperforming the Nasdaq composite index, which has been flat. Analysts recommending the company say it has been punished too much for its lag in mobile computing and point to the stock’s 3.6 percent dividend yield. Intel said it spent $4 billion to buy back shares during the third quarter and authorized another $10 billion for more buybacks. The Santa Clara, California company is rushing to develop more energy efficient chips for tablets and phones although it is not expected to become competitive in mobile any time soon.

It is also promoting Ultrabooks, a new super-thin category of laptops using Intel processors - similar to Apple’s MacBook Air. Early Ultrabook models, meant to combine the best features of tablets and laptops, may seem expensive to consumers, analysts say. But as new features are added to them, such as touchscreens and “instant on” capability, Intel expects the Ultrabooks to account for 40 percent of the consumer PC market by the end of next year.

Chief Executive Paul Otellini told analysts on a conference call that the potential release of Microsoft Corp’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system next year could fuel higher PC sales and help Intel. Intel said revenue in the current quarter would be $14.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Analysts’ average forecast was $14.23 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company’s GAAP net income in the third quarter was $3.5 billion, up 17 percent.

Earnings per share were 65 cents. Analysts on average had expected 61 cents.

Intel said non-GAAP revenue in the third quarter was $14.3 billion, up 29 percent and higher than the $13.87 billion expected on average by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Shares of Intel jumped 4 percent in extended trade after closing up 0.52 percent at $23.40. — Reuters

HONG KONG: South Korea’s Samsung Electronics yesterday unveiled its new smartphone that runs on Google’s latest Android operating system, the latest weapon in its battle to topple Apple’s iPhone. The launch of the “Galaxy Nexus”, which comes days a after the new iPhone 4S went on sale, was initially scheduled for October 11 but was delayed following the death of Apple chief Steve Jobs as a gesture of respect. Samsung - the world’s number two mobile phone maker - and Apple are also engaged in a series of patent lawsuits over the technology and design of smartphones and tablet computers.

“We are very proud of this milestone,” Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business president JK Shin said as the new phone was unveiled in Hong Kong.

The Galaxy Nexus is the first device to use the new Android “Ice Cream Sandwich” - a title that continues Google’s tradition of naming its operating systems after desserts in alphabetical order. The firms said the new handset offers easier and quicker Internet browsing, an improved camera and enhanced security using face recognition technology. It also features “Android Beam”, a function that allows content to be shared between two devices by simply touching them together.

The smartphone will be available in the United States, Europe and Asia from November, before being gradually rolled out to other markets. Its price was not announced. The launch of the Galaxy Nexus come as Apple’s iPhone 4S has already notched up sales of more than four million units since launching in seven countries on Friday. The Apple handset will be available in 22 other countries, including much of Europe, by the end of October, and more than 70 countries by the end of this year.

However, Samsung is seeking a ban of sales of the new iPhone in Japan, Australia, France and Italy, cit-

ing what it called patent infringements regarding mobile technology, part of an escalating legal saga between the two. The legal battle over the $100 billion smartphone and tablet computer market began in April in the US when Apple accused Samsung of “slavishly” copying its market-leading iPhone and iPad. Apple has since sought a ban on sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab

HONG KONG: Models display the new Galaxy Nexus smartphone during a news conference yesterday. — AP

In rare miss, Apple’s earnings disappoint SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc stunned Wall Street by reporting results that missed expectations for the first time in years, blaming rumors of the new iPhone for hurting demand in the September quarter. Shares of Apple fell 7 percent in extended trading on Tuesday, wiping some $27 billion off the value of the world’s largest technology company. It was Apple’s first quarterly earnings under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in August at a critical juncture for the company.

Apple is battling Google Inc in the mobile arena, as well as other challengers such as Samsung and Amazon.com Inc. “Investors are going to start to speculate that there is change under way now that Jobs is gone, and that there’s trouble ahead. We don’t share that point,” said Channing Smith, co-manager at Capital Advisors Growth Fund, which holds Apple shares.

“The iPhone is where the weakness was and it’s an explainable one. The strong demand for the iPhone 4S set up strong demand for the holiday season.”

Apple said it sold 17.07 million iPhones in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept 24 - well short of the roughly 20 million forecast by analysts. The iPhone is Apple’s flagship product, yielding some 40 percent of annual sales. Revenue rose 39 percent to $28.27 billion, lower than the average analyst estimate of $29.69 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It was the first time Apple missed revenue expectations since the fiscal fourth quarter of 2008. Net profit was $6.62 billion, or $7.05 a share. That fell shy of expectations for earnings of $7.39 per share. The last time Apple missed EPS estimates was in the first quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. “Expectations for this company were red-hot, that is why we downgraded it,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, who lowered his rating on the shares days before. “The reality is their business is not an annuity. They have to sell their quarter’s worth of revenue every 90 days.” “They had a big upgrade cycle with the iPhone, the numbers came in weak. They need to set records every time they report to keep up the momentum.”

Apple executives said consumers had postponed purchase decisions until the crucial holiday quarter because of speculation that a new phone was on the

in Germany, Australia and other countries, prompting Samsung to file counter-suits. The Korean firm is pressing Apple hard in the lucrative smartphone business. Apple shipped 20.3 million smartphones worldwide in the second quarter of this year compared with Samsung’s 19.6 million, although the South Korean firm has been catching up with its US rival thanks to the popularity of the Galaxy. — AFP

way. Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S in early October, and it hit stores last Friday. Apple - which typically offers projections so conservative they are disregarded - on Tuesday forecast December quarter revenue and earnings above Wall Street’s estimates. “There’s no question this was a transition quarter ahead of the 4S,” said WP Stewart portfolio manager Michael Walker. “With the early pace of iPhone 4S sales, my guess is that disappointment is relatively short-lived.”

“I’m not going to call Q3 a throwaway quarter for iPhones, but it was definitely a transition.”

Cook started his first earnings conference call as CEO by honoring Jobs, who died on Oct. 5 after a years-long battle against pancreatic cancer. He said he was “very confident” of posting record iPhone sales in the current quarter. The company moved 4 million iPhone 4S units -more than double its predecessor - in its first three days, despite lukewarm reviews. Another area for optimism for Apple was iPads. The company moved 11.12 million units during the quarter despite attempts by various manufacturers, including Samsung, to capture a slice of the tablet market. Now Amazon.com has also entered the fray with its Kindle Fire tablet.

Acknowledging the competition, Cook said it was “reasonable to say” none of Apple’s rivals have gained any traction, and he expected the tablet market to be bigger than personal computer in the long term. Cook also told analysts that Greater China mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan-was becoming an all-important region for Apple as it has “quickly become No. 2 on our list of top revenue countries very, very quickly.” Revenue from the region increased four-fold to $4.5 billion during the quarter.

The new CEO fielded questions on Apple’s cash pile of over $81 billion, saying the money provided flexibility for acquisitions and investing in the supply chain. “That said, I’m not religious about holding cash or not holding it,” he added. “It’s a topic for the board on an ongoing basis.” Apple’s Mac sales saw a large spike during the September quarter but it failed to lift earnings. Apple sold 4.89 million Macs, up 27 percent from a year ago. Gross margin came to 40.3 percent - a tad higher than Wall Street’s forecast of 39.74 percent. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.—Reuters

Yahoo! earnings not as dismal as expected SAN FRANCISCO: Struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! beat Wall Street expectations even though its third quarter net profit dove 26 percent from a year earlier as revenue sank.

Yahoo! had net earnings of $293 million on revenue of $1.072 billion in the quarter to Sept 30, compared with $396 million in profit on $1.124 billion in revenue over the same period last year. “We’re pleased that revenue, operating income and EPS (earnings per share) were all above consensus this quarter,” said interim Yahoo! chief executive Tim Morse. “My focus, and that of the whole company, is to move the business forward with new technology, partnerships, products and premium personalized content - all with an eye toward growing monetization.”

The company’s stock price climbed more than two percent to $15.82 per share in after-hours trade following the report. Yahoo! continued striving to transform itself into a “premier digital media company” after being eclipsed by Google in the Internet search market where it was born. The Sunnyvale, California-based firm said the search was still on for a new boss to replace Carol Bartz, who was ousted as chief executive in September. Bartz has portrayed the board as being impatient for improved revenue because of the criticism it received for turning down a $47 billion takeover offer from Microsoft before she joined the company in January 2009.

A former chief executive of business software company Autodesk, Bartz was hired to engineer a turnaround at Yahoo! but was fired in September with more than a year remaining on her contract. Morse said that recruiting a new chief executive will “take some time” and that the Yahoo! board is looking at “the full range of options available to return the company to a path of robust growth.” Rumors swirling around Yahoo! in recent weeks included that US technology colossus Microsoft or even the boss of Chinese Internet retail powerhouse Alibaba might be interested in buying it.

“Yahoo! has a leadership problem and Microsoft has invested a ton of money in insuring its success,” said independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle. “If Yahoo! goes under or is bought by a competitor, it is a loss for Microsoft.” Speculation that Yahoo! might opt to merge with fellow fallen Internet star AOL buzzed online and in public forums. After Bartz replaced co-founder Jerry Yang as Yahoo! chief, Microsoft signed a deal for its search engine to handle queries at Yahoo!, helping Bing gain ground on rival Google.—AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

Plastic-brained teens have big IQ swings PARIS: Youngsters experience huge swings in intelligence during their teenage years, a finding with widespread implications for education, scientists reported yesterday. The results will not surprise parents who find their children are a sandwich short of a picnic at one stage of their adolescence but a few years later display shafts of brilliance-or sometimes the reverse.

But the study say the shifts are linked to changes in the structure of the brain, not to hormonal surges, a finding that challenges an enshrined belief. The theory that intellectual ability is stable throughout one’s life underpins intelligence tests applied in primary schools that sometimes shape an individual’s life by determining options in education and careers.

British researchers tested 33 adolescents in 2004, when the volunteers were aged between 12 and 16. They used a standard intelligence quotient test which measures “verbal IQ” language skills, arithmetic, general knowledge and memory-and “non-verbal IQ,” such as identifying missing parts of a picture or solving a visual puzzle. They put the youngsters through a second test in 2007-8. On both occasions, the individuals were placed in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which takes a 3-D snapshot of the brain. In some cases, the teenagers’ IQ over this period fell-or rose-by 20 points compared to a counterpar t of a similar age.

Stunned by this discovery, the team turned to the MRI images and found

the teens’ brains had undergone significant changes during the intervening years. For example, an increase in verbal IQ was associated with an increase in the density of grey matter in the left motor cortex, a part of the brain that helps process speech. A rise in nonverbal IQ was linked to a boost in grey matter in the anterior cerebellum, which is associated with hand movements.

But an increase in one kind of IQ was not necessarily accompanied by an increase in another. “We found a considerable amount of change in how our subjects performed on the IQ tests in 2008 compared to four years earlier,” said Sue Ramsden of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London (UCL).

“Some subjects performed markedly better but some performed considerably worse. We found a clear correlation between this change in performance and changes in the structure of their brains, and so can say with some certainty that these changes in IQ are real.”

Previous research has highlighted the plasticity of the brain, an organ that can change in structure throughout adult life. For instance, London taxi drivers who take the road-map test known as “The Knowledge” have a bigger hippocampus, a nodal point for navigation and memory. “The question is, if our brain structure can change throughout our adult lives, can our IQ also change?” said lead researcher Cathy Price, a UCL professor. “My guess

is, yes. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that our brains can adapt and their structure changes, even in adulthood.” Still unclear, though, is whether the IQ changes in adolescence are due to early or late development, or whether education played a role. If the findings, reported in the British journal Nature yesterday, are replicated elsewhere, the implications could be farreaching. “ We have a tendenc y to assess children and determine their course of education relatively early in life, but here we have shown that their intelligence is likely to be still developing,” said Price. “We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early stage when in fact their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years.”—AFP

US health panel cautious on HPV screening vs Pap Recommends against HPV tests in women under 30

This NASA image obtained yesterday shows swirling a landscape of stars known as the North America Nebula. Clusters of young stars (about one million years old) can be found throughout the image. Some areas of this nebula are still very thick with dust and appear dark even in Spitzer’s view. —AFP

Male breast cancer rare but can be aggressive SINGAPORE: Men are diagnosed with breast cancer at less than one percent the rate of women, but when they are the disease is often more advanced on average, and they are more likely to die from it, according to an international study. Researchers led by Mikael Hartman at the National University of Singapore combined cancer registries from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Singapore and Geneva, Switzerland, with cases dating back to 1970.

The data included about 460,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer, and about 2,700 men. Men were more likely to have the disease that had spread beyond the breast by the time they were diagnosed. In treatment, they had less surgery and radiation than women but similar rates of chemotherapy and hormone treatment. Over the entire time period, men had a 72 percent chance of surviving breast cancer in the five years after a diagnosis, compared to 78 percent in women.

“Men who develop a breast lump delay seeing their doctor longer than a comparable woman with similar symptoms,” Hartman said in an email to Reuters Health. “Male breast cancer is rare but men can develop the disease and should be aware that they should seek care if a breast lump develops.” His team said in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that previous studies have shown that it typically

takes a few months from when men start getting symptoms until they are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Men are most commonly in their 60s or 70s when diagnosed, according to the US National Cancer Institute. Radiation exposure and diseases that increase estrogen levels, such as liver cirrhosis or the genetic disorder Klinefelter syndrome, are among the factors that raise a man’s risk. “It’s not surprising that men with breast cancer present with later stages,” said Susan Dent, from the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre in Canada, who was not involved in the study.

“That’s just because the awareness of the fact that breast cancer can occur in men is just not as acute. Men aren’t as likely to think of it, and health care providers aren’t as likely to think of men having breast cancer.” Men should be particularly aware of breast cancer, and possibly consider getting screened for it, if they have a family history of the disease, including a predisposition to cancer caused by mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are well known to raise women’s risk of breast and ovarian cancers, she added.

Because of recommendations for regular mammograms in women starting in their 40s or at age 50, depending on the country, many cancers are caught in women before they have any symptoms. —Reuters

In US, many with severe depression go untreated WASHINGTON: The United States is a world leader in rates of antidepressant use, but as many as two-thirds of Americans with severe depression are not on medication, said a government study released yesterday. Eleven percent of Americans age 12 and older are taking antidepressant medication, a slight uptick over a 2009 survey that showed 10.1 percent, according to the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

However, just one -third of people with “severe depressive symptoms take antidepressant medication,” said the survey, which described rates of antidepressant use by age, race, income, sex, severity and treatment time.

“Large numbers of Americans are not receiving antidepressants for their clinical depression,” said Mark Olfson, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, in an interview with AFP. “There is evidence of a mismatch between who most needs these drugs and who is getting them,” said Olfson, who co-authored a 2009 study that showed rates of antidepressant use in the United States had doubled from 1996 to 2005.

Experts said the shortfall comes despite efforts to convince more primary care physicians to discuss mental health with their patients, since people see their regular doctors more frequently than they do psychiatrists.

Frequent commercials on television and in other media promoting antidepressant drugs in the United States could be leading more people to ask their doctors for such prescriptions, but not among the group that could be most helped by them.”One of the things you see is when patients start asking for the medication they end up getting prescriptions for much less severe forms of

depression,” Olfson said. “One of the things we know is that antidepressants are most effective when they are given to people with more severe rather than less severe depression.”

The survey also said antidepressants are the most common prescription drug used by people age 18-44, and rates are two and half times higher in women than in men. Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of women age 4059 take antidepressants, more than in any other age-sex group, said the study, funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The high rate among women is not a surprise, according to Norman Sussman, professor of psychiatry and associate dean for continuing medical education at the New York University school of medicine.

“Women have a much higher rate of anxiety disorders. At any point, women are more likely than men to be amenable to taking medications,” Sussman told AFP.”Men view acknowledging that they are depressed as some sort of personal or character failure, and more often than women, men to turn to alcohol and drugs to self-medicate, whereas women are more able to talk about their symptoms and seek help and in turn receive it.” The data also showed significant racial and ethnic differences, with almost 14 percent of non-Hispanic whites taking antidepressants compared to four percent of AfricanAmericans and three percent of MexicanAmericans. Olfson said that even though non-whites are getting treated less often, studies have shown they are just as likely as whites to suffer from depression. “The reasons for these differences do require more research and more study. Part of it may have to do with underlying cultural preferences,” said Olfson. — AFP

WASHINGTON: A US government-backed medical panel yesterday took a cautious view of a new generation of cervical cancer tests, discouraging women under the age of 30 to screen for human papillomavirus as a way to prevent cancer. In proposing changes to its 2003 guidelines on cer vical cancer, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said it still didn’t have enough evidence to weight the health benefits and harms of HPV testing in women older than 30. Overall, the panel maintained that a Pap smear test in women between 21 and 65 years of age “substantially ” reduces the number of cervical cancer cases and deaths.

The panel, comprised of primary care physicians who are exper ts at evidence -based research, is highly influential in setting the tone for primary care prac tice. I t must weigh the potential benefits of early detection of disease through screenings against the potential harms to healthy patients who may be subjected unnecessarily to more invasive procedures or side effects.

Earlier this month, the task force came under fire from doc-

tors and cancer patients after recommending against prostate cancer screening in healthy men. It was the subject of a similar controversy in 2009 after recommending that doctors scale back on routine mammograms in women in their 40s and 50s to prevent breast cancer. Under President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, the services recommended by USPSTF would also have to be covered by insurance companies with no co -pays or deduc tibles.

Yesterday, the task force largely aligned with general practice and cancer societies’ guidelines on screening for cervical cancer it terms of frequency and age group-specific recommendations. Maintaining the recommendation of screening women every three years, the panel said it found “little to no benefit” in screening women older than 65 who had been previously tested and no impac t on women younger than 21. Previously, USPSTF’s recommendations applied to women of 21 years old or within three years of becoming sexually active.

False positives However, USPSTF was more

skeptical of HPV testing and socalled “liquid-based” Pap tests, which have largely replaced the conventional Pap smear in the United States.

After reviewing all clinical data available on the subject, the panel recommended against HPV tests, alone or in combination with a Pap, in women under 30, noting that screening for HPV causes more false positive cancer results than the Pap smear alone.

“There are no clinically important differences between liquidbased and conventional cytology” in cervical cancer detection, the task force said. For women over 30, evidence remains insufficient to weigh HPV test harms and benefits.

HPV is a common virus that causes warts, including genital warts. Usually, the immune system clears the infection, but persistent infection with certain strains of HPV leads to cervical cancer in some women. In recent years, tests for those “high-risk” HPV strains have been developed to help in screening for the disease. A few HPV tests are approved for use, along with Pap tests, for screening women age 30 or older. In younger women,

the HPV virus, while common, often clears out on its own.

Every year, about 12,000 US women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and a third of them die from it. HPV, a sexually-transmitted virus, is the most common cause of such cancer, which predominantly strikes middle-aged women.

In a regular Pap, a doctor swabs or scrapes cells from the cervix to examine them under a microscope to find cancer or precancerous changes. Some have raised concerns that the Pap may not be able to detect some cell changes, but the routine test is greatly credited for a steep decline in cervical cancer deaths the United States has seen since the 1950s. With HPV tests, doctors analyze a swipe of cells for presence of viral DNA. The liquidbased Pap version allows the cervix cells to be used for HPV testing. “We believe that this type of decision (showing no difference between liquid-based and conventional Pap) could create a stir in the women’s health community, given the near complete conversion to liquid-based tests,” Capitol Street analyst Ipsita Smolinski wrote in a note ahead of the release. —Reuters

UPHAM: The spacecraft White Knight Two is photographed by a guest outside the new Spaceport America hangar Monday.

Branson and NM officials dedicate space terminal UPHAM: With his usual flair, British billionaire Richard Branson rappelled from a balcony and took a swig while christening the world’s first built- from-scratch commercial spaceport on Monday. Branson’s Virgin Galactic will stage its commercial space tourism venture from Spaceport America in a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico. Branson was joined by Gov Susana Martinez, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and scores of would-be space travelers at the terminal-hangar for the dedication. It had been nearly a year since Branson was in New Mexico to celebrate the completion of the runway.

“The building is absolutely magnificent,” he said. “It is literally out of this world, and that’s what we were aiming at creating.” With the spaceport and mothership completed, the company is now finalizing its rocket tests.

“We’re ticking the final boxes on the way to space,” Branson said. He hopes enough powered test flights of Virgin Galactic’s sleek spacecraft can be done by the end of 2012 to start commercial suborbital flights from the spaceport soon after.

More than 450 people have purchased tickets to fly with Virgin Galactic. About 150 of them attended the ceremony. Before getting to enter the hangar, the crowd was treated to a flyover by WhiteKnightTwo, the mothership that one day will help take space tourists on suborbital flights. The $209 million taxpayer-

financed spaceport will be a launch station for people and payloads on the rocket ships being developed for Virgin Galactic. With custom metal paneling and massive panes of glass, the state-of-the-art terminal rises from the desert floor to face the nearly 2-mile concrete runway.

The building will house Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft, mission control and a preparation area for travelers. It was six years ago that Virgin Galactic and New Mexico officials reached an agreement to build the spaceport.

Officials said the completion of the terminal and hangar marks another major milestone that brings the dream of rocketing tourists into space closer to reality. Still, the question many are asking is when the first ships will launch from Spaceport America. It was Branson who once predicted the maiden passenger flight would take off in 2007.

Branson acknowledged the wait in an interview Monday. He and his two children will be among the first to fly, and he said he wants to ensure he can bring them home safely. “We want to be sure we’ve really tested the craft through and through before turning it over to the astronauts who bought tickets to go up,” he said. “If it takes a bit longer, we’ll take a little bit longer.” Commercial service will start up after the company gets a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. NASA has already signed a $4.5 million contract with the

company for up to three chartered research flights.

Tickets for rides aboard WhiteKnightTwo cost $200,000. The 2 1/2-hour flights will include about five minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth that until now only astronauts have been able to experience. Like development of the spacecraft, construction of the 110,152-square-foot terminal and hangar facility has been complicated. There were delays, building code problems, contractor disputes and costly change orders. State officials blamed the unprecedented nature of the project as well as its remote location, the lack of infrastructure and the weather.

New Mexico Spaceport Authority executive director Christine Anderson arrived at the spaceport a day early to find WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo stowed in the hangar.

“This was quite a feat,” she said of the construction, joking with the crowd that she was glad the spacecraft fit in the cavernous hangar. The building was designed by United Kingdom-based Foster + Partners, along with URS Corp and New Mexico architects SMPC. Virgin Galactic and officials with the New Mexico Spaceport Authority are touting the design as green. It uses geothermal energy; tubes running through the earthen berm surrounding part of the building help cool the interior; and natural ventilation can be used during mild seasons.—AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

H E A LT H

Massive S. Korea river project still making waves SEOUL: President Lee Myung-Bak likes to think big, but his cherished $19 billion project to dredge, dam and beautify South Korea’s four major rivers has stoked fears it is too ambitious and insufficiently green.

Revitalising the Han, Nakdong, Geum and Yeongsan rivers is the centrepiece of Lee’s “Green New Deal”, a bold plan to create jobs after the 2008 global downturn and to nurture a new national growth engine. Since it began in 2009, work has focused on building 16 weirs and dams with small hydroelectric power plants and natural passageways for fish. It is now 80 percent complete and to its fans there is much to like.

Rivers have been dredged, with the silt used to reinforce banks and build playgrounds and parks for sports, camping and

picnics. Roads, sewage plants and cultural and sightseeing infrastructure have also been constructed. “Lee’s project gratifies the requirements of the times - green growth,” says Chungnam University professor Jung Kwan-Sue, a water resources specialist.

There is also the promise of a jobs bonanza.

The project will create 340,000 jobs and boost economic output by 40 trillion won ($34.6 billion) over its four-year lifespan, including the trickle -down effects of tourism, according to the Land and transportation Ministry.

In addition a network of bicycle lanes stretching more than 1,600 kilometres (1000 miles) set to open next month will encourage South Koreans to use the river courses for recreation. More still, when it’s

completed in December next year, the ministry says it will save 1.3 billion tons of water a year for drinking and farming, while also reducing floods. Official data show floods and drought cost the country 4.2 trillion won ($3.65 billion) annually. “This is a very essential project as flash floods will be reduced significantly in rainy seasons and a shortage of water will be resolved in dry seasons,” Jung added.

But caution hangs over the scheme’s potential economic impact. “It is true that the project contributes to development of our national economy,” said Samsung Economic Research Institute analyst Park Hwan-Il. “But unlike other projects to build roads and industrial infrastructure, it’s hard to quantify the economic benefits brought

by the river project.” Some see the greengrowth strategy as too heavily focused on economic rather than environmental gain.

In a recent report, two professors - Yun SunJin of Seoul National University and Cho Myungrae of Dankook University - said 64 percent of the budget for the Green New Deal would be spent on projects related to civil engineering. The study found opponents of the “four rivers” scheme also believe the work created is mostly shortterm construction contracts and not those really needed to employ a highly-educated younger generation. “Though the government announced that around 340,000 jobs will be created by the project, opposing groups argue that only 2,000 jobs will be created over the long term,” their report

said. Civic groups and opposition politicians have rounded on the project, decrying it as wasteful and damaging to the existing environment. “Water quality has already deteriorated in some areas because of new dams and excessive dredging, endangering the survival of fish,” environmental activist Ahan Cheol told AFP. After taking office in 2008, Lee pushed to dig a cross-country canal but scrapped it after widespread protests.

Instead he promoted the four rivers project, saying it offers a dual promise of environmental and economic gain. Defending the project Lee has said the work will “help secure abundant water resources, create flood control systems, improve water quality, restore ecosystems and create opportunities for rural development”.— AFP

Facebook friends linked to big brain

YEOJU, South Korea: In a picture taken on Oct 8, 2011, heavy equipment is used by workers to construct the Gangchon bridge.— AFP

PARIS: Does Facebook alter the brain? That’s the question which flows from an unusual investigation into the online social network used by 800 million people. Volunteers placed in a 3-D scanner had bigger, denser structures in three areas of the brain if they had a big list of Facebook friends compared to counterparts who had few online friends, scientists found. The three locations are all linked with the power to socialise. The superior temporal sulcus and middle temporal gyrus, “are associated with social perception such as perceiving other people’s gaze or social cues from facial expressions”, said University College London researcher Ryota Kanai. The third area, the entorhinal complex, “might be associated with memory for faces and names”, he said.

Two years ago, Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield unleashed a storm about online networking and its impact on the young. “The mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity,” Greenfield warned in a speech to Britain’s House of Lords. Lead investigator Geraint Rees, a UCL professor of

neuroscience, said the new study opened up key questions touching on this controversy. Among them: whether the size of the socialising area of the brain leads one to create more friends - and whether this area is changed by online social networks... or not at all. Only further work would resolve this cause-or-effect riddle, he said.

The study appeared yesterday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, published by Britain’s de-facto academy of sciences. Rees’s team enrolled 125 students, 46 of them men, whose average age was 23.

Their Facebook friends varied in number from just several to nearly 1,000. Averaged out, this meant around 300 friends per volunteer. These results were then checked, to monitor for any bias, in a separate sample of 40 volunteers. In a third experiment, the scientists looked more closely at a sub-sample of 65 of volunteers to see whether there was a link between the online world and real world in brain structure.

In addition to undergoing brain scan, this group also filled out a questionnaire about their friends in the real world. Matching the tally of real-world friendships with that of online friendships, the scientists found only

one correlation in brain matter. This was in an area called the bilateral amygdala, which is believed to process and store memories of emotional events. There was no such association in the three brain areas - the superior temporal sulcus, middle temporal gyrus or entorhinal complex - that had been highlighted in the first experiment.

Rees said this was curious. It could mean that different areas of the brain are used for different forms of socialising. Previous research has established that the brain is a flexible organ. If someone learns a particular motor skill - for example, if they learn to juggle - then the grey matter in the motor cortex, which controls muscles, becomes thicker. But bigger does not necessarily mean better, said Rees. “There are also examples of the other way around, where more grey matter is associated with more distractibility, in trying to concentrate on a particular task. So we don’t know yet the exact relationship, whether more (grey matter with online networking) is good or not, and we don’t know yet the exact cellular constituents, the exact type of nerve cell and what exactly is happening. That’s really for future research.” — AFP

y

A

30

e niv rsar n

Years

PAYS thanks Al-Eid

Egypt’s youth charity in Kuwait

T

he Public Authority for Youth and Sport sends a letter of gratitude to official spokesman and Director of the Information and Publications Affairs Department Tawfiq Al-Eid, for his distinguished efforts while serving as chairman of the media committee during the 8th Youth Theater Days Festival, as he observed the media coverage and daily television feed, and eliminated obstacles for press and media outlets to cover the event.

UC College Aluva - Alumni Kuwait (UCCAAK) A Fun-Packed Get-together Outdoors!

It is time to take a break and make the best use of the current climatic conditions. All friends and alumini members of the Union Christian College, Aluva and their families are invited to a fun-filled day outside. The picnic package awaits you with plenty of surprises - sports, games, quiz, gifts, sumptuous meals and lots more!! So grab the opportunity and register!

Date: Friday, 21st of October , 2011 Venue: Ahmadi (KOC) Gardens Time: 8:30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m.

For additional information and registration please call : 99032839, 66624920

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

W H AT ’ S O N

W

Helmy El-Touni at Tilal Gallery

P

hotographer, painter, designer and art teacher in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo. Received a bachelor in the art of theatrical design in addition to painting. Has contributed in several activities related to fine arts and visual, such as publishing puppet theater to develop national models for furniture.

One of the best contributors to the art of graphic design books, graphic in the Arab world, his several thousands of pictures have been published in children’s books in several foreign languages by the organizations of the United

Nations. Recipient of numerous awards and the Arab World ... Including the Medal of the Leipzig International Exhibition. Held many individual exhibitions in many countries. His works are inspired by nature, symbolic units of folk art and mythology.

Touni has been in constant contact with Kuwait and its people today are happy to celebrate the love and appreciation. Tilal Gallery offers visual treat to art lovers in Kuwait as it hosts fine artistes of the country.

e have successfully mobilized the shipment in car transport, which will in turn go to Cairo for distribution to beneficiaries.

The kind contributions are newly collected. Volunteers are all from the expat youth in Kuwait and the volunteer girls were in the fiercest competition to get the shipment on time.

Mohammed Samir, one of the founders of the charity said that preparing for the next shipment of donations is starting from now, and he invited all the volunteers and donors for the new campaign for the youth and good of Egypt in Kuwait under the name ?(Hsshom Bel Dafa) shipment No. 7. For details and more information, please contact: 97574370 99009355 - 96648889

Angamaly Association Onam tomorrow

A

ngamaly Pravasi Association of Kuwait will hold its anniversary, Onam celebration and general body meeting tomorrow, Friday at Indian Central School, Abbasiya from morning onwards.

Announcements

Thanima readies for tomorrow’s Onathanima

Future Eye Theatre to hold seminar Future Eye Theatre, Kuwait will hold an interactive seminar on ‘Theatre and Poetry’ at 6.30 pm on Saturday, October 22 at the Successlines auditorium, Abbassia. Visiting theatre personalities from Kerala Madhu Sankaramangalam and M K Gopalakrishnan (Vidheyan fame) will lead the seminar outlining the emerging trends in Malayalam theatre based on visual representation of poetry.

Theatre actors will reinforce their presentations by dramatic performances of poetry. All theater lovers are welcome. For details contact, Tel: 97277151, 97106957 or 90025785.

Art competition The eleventh Onam celebrations of Pathanamthitta District Association will be held on Friday, October 28.

The association is holding an art competition in poetry and short story writings and the association is inviting poems and short stories from talented individuals among Malayalees in Kuwait. Persons interested in participating may send their writings with photograph to the following address before October 20. Email: pta@ptadistrict.org, pdakuwait@gmail.com for more information, contact 97863052 or 66501482.

Indian Lawyers’ Forum Onam Indian Lawyers’ Forum will celebrate Onam, the unique, secular, harvest festival of Kerala on 18th November, 2011 Friday 10.30 am at Hi-Dine Restaurant Auditorium, Abbassia. Celebrations will include traditional variety entertainments, with the grand ‘ONASADHYA’. All Indian Lawyers & Law graduates working here in Kuwait are invited with their families.

For details contact Panicker 97203939, Pulikkal 97260159. Email: advpanicker@gmail.com Kala painting competition Kala (Art) Kuwait will conduct Children’s Day by marking the birth day of the first prime minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, under the auspices of Kala (Art) Kuwait on Friday, 4th November 2011 at the Indian Community School, Khaitan Branch, at 2 pm. For details: 99489078, 97449419.

Tulukoota talent hunt Tulukoota Kuwait will hold a “Talent Hunt 2011” a chance to prove an inborn trait in you that confirms your individuality, uniqueness. For more information and registration form kindly log on to our Website: www.tulukootakuwait.org or visit our facebook page - Tulukoota Kuwait Talent Hunt 2011. You could also email your form request to: secretary@tulukootakuwait.org or contact our area coordinators mentioned below. Mangaf, Fahaheel, Abuhalifa : Ronald Dsouza- 60035824, Shalini Alva23726164, Suma Bhatt- 97834578 Salmiya & Hawally: Swarna Shetty- 99006934, Kripa Gatty66044194 Kuwait City, Jahra, Sharq: Rekha Sachu65044521,97862115 Farwaniya, Abbassiya, Shuwaikh & Khaitan: Sathyanarayana- 66585077 Sanath Shetty- 67712409.

BEC T10 Cricket tournament The BEC T10 Tennis Ball Cricket Tournament will be organized & played from 7th October to 11th November, 2011. The Tournament being organized

by RED N BLACK CRICKET CLUB and sponsored by BEC EXCHANGE will be played out in Abu Halifa cricket grounds. For registration and other queries please mail at mail@rednblack.org or call 66820148/ 66130940/ 66841653.

Brain Bang Calling all students aged 11 and above, Support Group for Accelerated learning under the umbrella of FOCC (Friends of CRY Club, Kuwait), BRAIN-BANG invites you to join us in our fortnightly Friday Class from 11.45 am to 13.45 pm in Salmiya starting October 7th for the next 6 months. Successfully running for the seventh consecutive year.

KGA Alemao Memorial Football Tournament The 3rd edition of Eslinda Alemao Memorial Football 7-a-side tournament will be held on first day of Eid Al Adha Festival (6th November 2011) to be held at the MOH Grounds, Al-Sabah Hospital Premises, Shuwaikh under the auspices of Kuwait Indian Football Federation (KIFF). All KIFF affiliated teams are requested to contact the organizers, Kuwait Goan Association (KGA). For more info, Email: kgakuwait@gmail.com Tel: (+965) 94963677.

M

K Gopalakrishnan and Madhu Shankaramangalam, well known film-drama activists, who reached Kuwait to direct and conduct CHOLKAZHCHA in ONATHANIMA 2011, united Onam celebrations of Kuwait

Malayalees scheduled to take place tomorrow, Friday at Indian Central School, Abbassiya were accorded a cordial reception at Kuwait International Airport by Thanima volunteers.

SMCA Kuwait enters 17th year of service

S

yro Malabar Cultural Association Kuwait has entered its 17th working year. The new managing committee was elected unanimously during the Annual General Body meeting conducted on October 7th, Friday at Pravasi Auditorium, Abbasiya. As the bylaw stipulates, the First Managing Committee of the year was convened on Friday 14th October to complete the subcommittee formation and other statutory formalities. SMCA is one of the largest Indian Associations in Kuwait, and is working in coordination with Syro Malabar Associations in other Gulf Countries and in the other parts of the world.

The Annual general Body Meeting started with flag hoisting and singing of SMCA anthem. Homage was paid to the soul of former head of the Syro Malabar Church Cardinal Mar varkey Vithayathil, to the departed members and to all departed relatives of SMCA members.

The General Body was presided over by the outgoing president Jaison Mathew Chemmannur. The annual report presented by the then general secretary Rejoy Varghese Kelamparambil and audited income and expenditure statement presented by the then treasurer Wilson Vadakkedath were approved after discussion. New office bearers were elected under the supervision of the

Chief Election Commissioner Martin Mathew. The General Body elected Thomas Issac as the Central Auditor and Aiju Joseph as Chief Election Commissioner for the year 2011-12. The new officials took oath of office as the Bylaw stipulates. Meeting was adjourned after address by the elected president Jacob Pynadath and vote of thanks by the elected General secretary Bijoy Palakunnel.

The new office bearers of SMCA are Jacob Pynadath George (President), Manoj George (Vice President), Bijoy Palakunnel (Gen. Sec), Shijo Alex (joint Sec), Thomas Lonappan (Office Sec), Luis Neriamparambil (Treasurer), Febin Mathew (Joint Treasurer), Abhilash Jose Baby (Baladeepthy Chief Coordinator), Aneesh Thengumpally (Convener Cultural Comm), Sanal Shaji & Tomy Ikkarettu (members,Cultural Comm), George Thekkel (Convener Social Welfare Comm), Anil Cahckalackel & Vincent Alappattu (members, Social Welfare Comm), Bejoy Kelamparambil (Convener Arts Comm), Gigi George Parakkadan & Siby ullattil (members, Arts Comm), Shaji Nagaroor (Convener, Abbasiya), Davis Narikulam (Convener, City- Farwaniya), Siby Joseph Aricattu (Convener, Fahaheel), Titty Cherian (Convener, Salmiya).

Upcoming events Indian Fiesta-2011 The entertainment wing of Creative Indians Association announces their forthcoming event “INDIAN FIESTA2011” on 28th October, 2011 at the Kuwait Entertainment City Doha from 2 PM till 11 PM. The day will offer tons of free rides, games, discount stalls, mouth watering Indian food stalls, dance performances, music, and a whole lot more of entertainment. The highlight of the carnival will be performances by the gorgeous looking and rocking performer Anushka Manchanda of the Golmaal 3 , Cash Naughty Naughty , Kites, Mit Jaaye Gham (Dum Maaro Dum) songs Fame and the Handsome versatile singer/ music director Harshit Saxena of the Haal e Dil song from the Film- Murder2 Fame.

The Hot Stepper group invites sponsors to be part of this Grand Indian Fiesta. Call 22455818. For dance performances, email at dance@hotstepper.com. Visit and register on our website www.hot-stepper.com for timely updates on the event.

FCC beach clean up To All Filipinos in Kuwait... “Tara Na, Mag-Exercise Na Tayo Tuwing Biernes!! The Filipino Cultural Club (FCC), invites you to attend / participate in” FCC’s beach Clean-up and Physical Fitness” program dubbed as “A Dance with the Sun by the Sea...

Season-2” on 28 October, 7 am, McDonald’s Corniche, Gulf Road, other activities include fun games, painting competition for the kids, sponsored by Zain, Western Union, McDonald’s at seaside, Gulf road, starting 28 October 2011 - March 2012. As an added attraction, there will be a “Weight Loss Competition” and participants will be weighed every week. Fitness program will run for four months every Friday 7 am McDonald seaside. Come, join us and tag along your family and friends in this very exciting and stimulating activity. See you then, for more information: Contact: Bong - 99530665, Maria - 99079341, Cynthia & Danny - 99169310, Mildred & Nelson - 60999203, Claire - 67037497.

Youth India sports The preparations for the Youth India Shifa Al Jazeera Sports 2011 are in full swing, with the declaration of the captains for each zone, said Sports 2011 Convenor Nisar K Rasheed. Online registration is available at http://youthindiakuwait.com for the The Shifa Al Jazeera Pravasi Sports which will be held on the 28th at Kaifan Amateur Athletic Stadium and is open to all Keralites.

The last date for registration is 25th October.

KEF celebrates Onam

T

he Kuwait Engineer’s Forum (KEF) celebrated the regional festival of Kerala “Onam” in the presence of more than 1000 engineers and their families. The event was held at the American International School of Kuwait, Hawalli, and was inaugurated by the First Ladies of the Eight Constituent Alumni Associations which form the KEF network. The KEF is one of the largest and most prominent Alumni Associations in the GCC region with over 1200 members, who are all engineering professionals from renowned Engineering Colleges inside and outside Kerala. KEF regularly hosts a variety of cultural and sports events around the year, celebrated with traditional and customary Keralite pomp and gaiety. The Onam banquet, onasadya, deliciously prepared by visiting chef Pazhayitam Mohanan added glitter to the glamour of the program.

This year’s Onam celebrations commenced with the Welcome Address delivered by the KEF General Convenor Jacob George Thomas. What followed was a plethora of well-organized cultur-

al programmes from Kerala, as well as from across the globe. Some of the highlights of the event included the traditional art forms of Kerala such as the Ottanthullal, Thiruvathira, etc. and some extraordinary performances such as a Light and Sounds show, a Seasons Gala, a musical drama and multiple dance performances by children, youth and senior members of KEF. Global dance forms such as the Salsa, Tap dance, etc. enriched the event with an international flavor appealing to all audiences. “Ramanan” the famous poem by Sri. Changampuzha Krishnapillai was visualized on stage. A live orchestra band led by Mr. Baalamurali on Violine, Mr. Basheer on Keyboard, Mahadven on flute was playing the fusion music throught the 51/2 hour programme as a filler between the main events. Rythem was handled by Soni Francis on acoustic drum, Mr. Sajeev on table, Mr. Rakesh on mridangam and Manojmavelikkara on Morsing. The event concluded with a vote of thanks by the KEF Arts Convenor Shemej Kumar.

y

A

31

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

W H AT ’ S O N

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA The Embassy of the Argentine Republic to Kuwait will hold Argentinean National Elections on October 23. Argentinean citizens already registered in the Embassy electoral register can vote at the Argentina Embassy, located in Mishref, Block 6, St. 42, Villa 57, from 08:00 am until 18:00 pm. Citizens visiting Kuwait or not registered in the embassy Electoral Register can also justify their “No Vote” at the same day and time at the Argentinean Embassy. For further information, contact us on phone no. 25379211, Email: ekuwa@mrecic.gov.ar nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF BRITAIN The Visa Application Centre (VAC) will be closed on the same dates above. The opening hours of the Visa Application Centre are 0930 1630 Application forms remain available online from the UKBAs’ website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk or from the Visa Application Centre’s website: www.vfsuk-kw.com. And also, from the UK Visa Application Centre located at: 4B, First Floor, Al Banwan Building (Burgan Bank Branch Office Building), Al Qibla area, opposite Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City. For any further inquiries, please contact the Visa Application Centre: Website: www.vfs-uk-kw.com E-mail:info@vfsuk-kw.com Telephone:22971170. The Consular Section will also be closed on the same dates. For information on the British Embassy services, visit the British Embassy website: www.ukinkuwait.fco.gov.uk

The British Embassy - Consular Public Counters will be closed on November 1 and will re-open on 2nd November. For the latest FCO travel advice please visit: www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-livingabroad/travel-advice-by-country/middle-eastnorth-africa/kuwait nnnnnnn

BBQ Nights at Palms Beach Hotel and Spa

P

alms Beach Hotel and Spa Kuwait launched its ‘Barbeque Nights’ festival in a ceremony attended by media and press personnel who were invited by General Manager Rabei’a AlSukhn. “The annual event is a great activity for families, groups and individuals looking for good taste and quality time to spend the weekend, where they can enjoy a special seaside outdoor experience surrounded by palm trees and rose gardens”, said marketing and sales manager Waseem Mahdi. Meanwhile, marketing and public relations manager Ahmad Lutfi described the invitation for media outlets as a “token of appreciation for their continuous support to the Palms Beach Hotel and Spa”.

Asia Education Service opens new book collection

nnnnnnn

A

sia Education Service as part of its project of spreading the culture of reading among Malayalee expats of Kuwait is planning to open book and magazine corners at various outlets in Kuwait. Asia Education Service’s first such corner has already started at Lulu Fahaheel and shortly it is going to be at supermarkets, malls and event halls where people are expected to gather in a large number. A number of fiction and nonfiction books, including books on education, cooking, travel etc in Malayalam as well as the popular periodicals and

newspapers are available at these counters, said Alexander Chacko of the Asia Education Service.

Exhibition at the AUK

Enjoy your Eid Al Adha at Movenpick Hotel

T

his Eid, experience the warmth of the traditional Arabian values and hospitality coupled with the Swiss standard services at Movenpick Hotel Kuwait Free Trade Zone. Astounding Holy Adha package offering you a luxurious Executive room at KD 89 per night.

Exquisite Breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets are delicately prepared by The Movenpick Executive Chef at the Bays international Restaurant, which overlooks the Swimming pools. Diners can expect to indulge in dishes from all corners of the world, while enjoying the charm of genuine Arabic welcome within a warm family atmosphere.

Special for Eid Al Adha , Bays Restaurant is holding daily BBQ with finely-grilled meats cooked to the specif-

ic tastes of each guest.

Guests also can choose from 21 airconditioned tents at the Garden Restaurant where they can join friends and family while appreciating the pleasant aroma of an Arabic Shisha.

The Movenpick Hotel Kuwait makes your Eid Al Adha more memorable with a range of fun activities. During Eid days, kids can enjoy interacting with a Baroue mascot, face painting, bouncing castle, trampoline, sand arts, and coloring.

This Eid offers an exciting opportunity to discover Kuwait’s newest and most impressive lavishness getaway. Seize this golden opportunity and book your room now at the Movenpick Hotel Kuwait Free Trade Zone, where fun and surprises await you.

T

he Graphic Design Program a the American University of Kuwait will be hosting an art exhibition featuring the works of Stefan Kirov Kanchev on October 2427, 2001. The exhibition will be open from 4-6 on October 24th and from 10 am - 6 pm from the 25-27. This exhibition is open to the public.

Stefan Kirov Kanchev, (Aug 6, 1915 - Aug 22, 2001) was an applied graphic artist born in Kalofer, Bulgaria. He studied mural painting under Dechko Uzunov at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia.

Kanchev is best known for his logo design work and been referred to as

F

Artist Johnarts Kalabhavan presents a caricature of visiting Member of Kerala Legislative Assembly (MLA) Raju Abraham of Ranni constituency to the MLA during a function organized by Ranni Pravasi Samgham, Kuwait.

the “father of Bulgarian graphic design” and the “master of the trademark.” In total, Kanchev has authored around 1,600 logos and his work spanned most varieties of applied art, though he was most productive in his trademark and logo work and as a designer of book covers, posters, greetings cards, print advertisements, stamps, product labels and packaging. As a designer, Kanchev was often inspired by traditional Bulgarian art and folklore. His works are imaginative, with calm and clear composition, felicitous relation between fonts and shapes, clear forms and creative ideas.

Friends of Kannur free medical camp riends of Kannur Kuwait Expats association (FOKE) is organizing a Free Medical checkup and consultation camp in Association with Kuwait Medical Association, Indian Doctors Forum and Kuwait Heart Foundation on Friday, 28th October 2011 at India International school Mangaf from 8 am to 1 pm.

The objective of this medical camp is to provide free medical consultation for needy and under privileged people of the society. Camp will be on opportunity for the Indian expatriates living in various labor camps and to those who do not have easy and direct access to free medical examination and consultation to consult with Indian doctors.

Consultations will be available in as

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait.

Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

General Medicine, Diabetics, Dermatology, Neurology, Nephrology, Orthopedic, Cardiology, Gynecology, Ophthalmology, ENT and Surgical.

FOKE request all the expatriates to utilize the opportunity. Those who are interested to attend please call the following numbers to register their names.

Abbassia & Hassawi 67701560 / 97910261, Farwaniya / Riggaie 65735032 / 66977035/ 65827604, Khaithan 99887567 / 97697513, Sulaibiya 66393186 / 66967345, Salmiya 66151238 / 97205348, Kuwait City 66577124, Fahaheel 99597460 / 97343960, Jahara 99192494 / 99640520 / 66251464. Registration forms are also available on FOKE website www.friendsofkannur.com

EMBASSY OF GERMANY The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kuwait wishes to announce that as of 1 May 2011, the external service provider Al Qabas Assurex is operating a Visa Application Centre in support of the German Embassy. Short-term visa applications for travels to Germany (e.g. for tourism, visits, business) are to be submitted to the service provider Al Qabas who for your convenience will ensure that all relevant documents are included in your application. Your personal appearance at the Application Centre is not required. Address of the Visa Application Centre: Al Qabas Assurex Sanabel Tower (Al-Babtain) Mezzanine (M3) opposite Sharq Mall Kuwait 22924444 Fax: 22924442 Further information are available on the following websites: www.kuwait.diplo.de www.qavisa.com nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on October 26, 2011 (Wednesday) Diwali. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF NEPAL The Embassy of Nepal will remain closed on Wednesday, October 26 on the occasion of Laxmi Puja festival. The Embassy of Nepal requests all concerned to use the telephone numbers and fax no of the Embassy whenever they wish to contact us for any reason during the office hours (09:00 - 1500 Hrs) for any business, as follows: Tel No: Reception and Operator / Consular and visa services: 25243254/57.

Ambassador’s Office: 25243275 Fax: 25243250 Email: Kuwait@mofa.gov.np nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF US The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) Leadership for Democracy Fellows Program is now accepting applications - deadline Nov 1, 2011. The MEPI Leaders for Democracy Fellowship (LDF) Program is an exciting, selective 3-month program in the United States for 20-25 young civic leaders from the Middle East and North Africa. The program begins with 6 weeks of academic coursework, where fellows focus on the concepts of leadership, democracy, communication, and conflict resolution among other issues. After completing the academic portion of the program, participants engage in a 6week professional assignment with a political, nongovernmental, or public policy organization in Washington, DC. For more information about the program, please email: kuwaitmepi@state.gov Visit us @ USEmbassyQ8 http://www.facebook.com/USEmbassyQ8 nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF UKRAIN Dear compatriots!

We’d like to inform you that in response to the increasing number of our citizens who work in the state and the need for 24-hour operational telephone in case of emergency the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait has opened “hotline telephone number” - (+ 965) 972-79-206.

EMBA The Ni Mishre enquir 25387 or nige

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

00:45 01:40 02:35 03:30 04:25 05:20 06:10 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:40 09:10 10:05 11:00 11:55 12:50 Irwin 13:45 14:40 Baker 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:25 18:20 19:15 Baker 20:10 21:05 22:00 22:55 23:50

Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Galapagos Wildest Africa Untamed & Uncut Beast Lands Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Animal Cops Specials 2009 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife The Really Wild Show Growing Up...

Breed All About It Bad Dog Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Animal Cops Miami Michaela’s Animal Road Trip New Breed Vets With Steve Galapagos Weird Creatures With Nick Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife The Really Wild Show Baby Planet Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Must Love Cats Weird Creatures With Nick Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Mutant Planet Queens Of The Savannah Untamed & Uncut I Shouldn’t Be Alive

00:00 Keeping Up Appearances 01:05 The Weakest Link 01:50 Casualty 02:40 Full Circle With Michael Palin 03:30 Doctors 04:00 Keeping Up Appearances 04:30 Balamory 04:50 Gigglebiz 05:05 Me Too 05:25 Charlie And Lola 05:35 Buzz & Tell 05:45 Balamory 06:05 Gigglebiz 06:20 Me Too 06:40 Charlie And Lola 06:55 Buzz & Tell 07:05 Balamory 07:25 Gigglebiz 07:40 Me Too 08:00 Charlie And Lola 08:10 Buzz & Tell 08:20 Balamory 08:40 Gigglebiz 08:55 Me Too 09:15 Charlie And Lola 09:25 Buzz & Tell 09:40 Keeping Up Appearances 10:40 The Weakest Link 11:25 Lark Rise To Candleford 12:15 Doctors 12:45 Eastenders 13:15 Casualty 14:10 Keeping Up Appearances 15:40 Lark Rise To Candleford 16:30 The Weakest Link 17:15 Doctors 17:45 Eastenders 18:15 Casualty 19:10 Lark Rise To Candleford 20:00 The Weakest Link 20:45 Doctors 21:15 Eastenders 21:45 Incredible Journeys With Steve Leonard 22:35 Coast 23:35 Afterlife

00:15 00:40 01:35 02:00 02:50 03:40 04:05 04:55 05:45 06:10 07:00 07:25

07:55 Daily Cooks Challenge 08:25 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 08:50 The Hairy Bikers Ride Again 09:15 Rhodes Across Italy 10:00 Come Dine With Me 10:50 Antiques Roadshow 12:30 Bargain Hunt 13:15 Daily Cooks Challenge 14:45 Bargain Hunt 15:30 Antiques Roadshow 17:10 Come Dine With Me 18:00 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 18:25 The Hairy Bikers Ride Again 18:50 Eating In The Sun 19:50 Come Dine With Me 20:40 Antiques Roadshow 22:25 Bargain Hunt 23:10 Masterchef Australia

The Naked Chef Come Dine With Me What Not To Wear Antiques Roadshow Antiques Roadshow Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Come Dine With Me What Not To Wear Antiques Roadshow The Hairy Bikers Ride Again Daily Cooks Challenge

00:00 BBC World News 00:30 World Business Report 00:45 Sport Today 01:00 BBC World News America 01:30 Asia Business Report 01:45 Sport Today 02:00 BBC World News 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Sport Today 03:00 Newsday 03:30 Asia Business Report 03:45 Sport Today 04:00 Newsday 04:30 Asia Business Report 04:45 Sport Today 05:00 Newsday 05:30 Asia Business Report 05:45 Sport Today 06:00 Newsday 06:30 Hardtalk 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 BBC World News 08:30 World Business Report 08:45 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 World Business Report 10:45 Sport Today 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Hardtalk 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 BBC World News 13:30 World Business Report 13:45 Sport Today 14:00 GMT With George Alagiah 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 World Business Report 15:45 Sport Today 16:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 BBC World News 18:30 Hardtalk 19:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 20:30 World Business Report 20:45 Sport Today 21:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 22:30 World Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 BBC World News America 23:30 Hardtalk

00:20 00:45 01:10 01:35 02:00 02:25 02:50 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:35 05:00 05:10 05:35 06:00 06:15 06:30

Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones Johnny Bravo Duck Dodgers King Arthur’s Disasters The Scooby Doo Show Popeye Classics Tom & Jerry Popeye The Jetsons The Flintstones Looney Tunes Pink Panther & Pals Tex Avery Yogi’s Treasure Hunt The Garfield Show New Yogi Bear Show Bananas In Pyjamas

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

TV PROGRAMS 06:55 07:20 07:45 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:20 11:35 12:00 12:15 12:40 12:55 13:20 13:45 14:15 14:40 15:05 15:30 15:55 16:20 Doo 16:45 17:10 17:35 18:00 18:25 18:50 19:00 19:25 19:50 20:15 20:45 21:10 21:35 22:00 22:25 22:55 23:05 23:30 23:55

Baby Looney Tunes Gerald Mcboing Boing Jelly Jamm Pink Panther And Pals Puppy In My Pocket The Garfield Show Dastardly And Muttley The Flintstones Tom & Jerry Pink Panther And Pals Top Cat New Yogi Bear Show Puppy In My Pocket Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Bananas In Pyjamas The Jetsons Duck Dodgers Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Tom & Jerry The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDastardly And Muttley Tom & Jerry Puppy In My Pocket The Garfield Show The Flintstones Pink Panther & Pals Gerald Mcboing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Top Cat Wacky Races Tom & Jerry The Scooby Doo Show Dastardly And Muttley Tom & Jerry Johnny Bravo Dexters Laboratory The Garfield Show Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop

00:05 Robotboy - Elements 00:30 Squirrel Boy 00:55 George Of The Jungle 01:20 Cramp Twins 01:45 Chop Socky Chooks 02:10 Best Ed 02:35 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 03:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 03:25 Generator Rex 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Flapjack 04:40 Chowder 05:05 Powerpuff Girls 05:30 Ed, Edd n Eddy 05:55 I Am Weasel 06:20 Squirrel Boy 06:45 Cow & Chicken 07:00 Eliot Kid 07:04 Cow & Chicken 07:12 Eliot Kid 07:25 Angelo Rules 07:50 Best Ed 08:15 Flapjack 08:40 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 09:05 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 09:30 Courage The Cowardly Dog 09:55 Cow & Chicken 10:20 I Am Weasel 10:35 Adventure Time 11:00 Ben 10 11:25 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 11:50 The Secret Saturdays 12:15 Samurai Jack 12:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 13:05 Codename Kids 13:30 Skunk Fu! 13:50 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 14:15 The Amazing World Of Gumball 14:40 Ed, Edd n Eddy 15:05 Camp Lazlo 15:30 Chowder 15:55 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 16:25 Cow & Chicken 16:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog 17:15 I Am Weasel 17:40 George Of The Jungle 18:05 Casper’s Scare School 18:30 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 18:55 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien

EVOLUTION ON OSN ACTION HD

19:20 Generator Rex 19:45 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 20:10 Hero 108 20:35 Bakugan: New Vestroia 21:00 Total Drama Action 21:25 The Amazing World Of Gumball 21:50 Billy And Mandy 22:00 Ben 10 22:25 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 22:50 The Secret Saturdays 23:15 Samurai Jack 23:40 Megas XLR

00:00 Backstory 00:30 World Sport 01:00 The Situation Room 02:00 World Report 03:00 World Business Today 04:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 05:00 Anderson Cooper 360 06:00 World Sport 06:30 Talk Asia 07:00 World Report 07:30 Backstory 08:00 World Report 10:00 World Sport 10:30 I Report For CNN 11:00 World Business Today 12:00 American Morning: Wake-Up Call 12:30 Mainsail 13:00 World One 14:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 15:00 News Stream 16:00 World Business Today 17:00 International Desk 18:00 The Brief 18:30 World Sport 19:00 Prism 20:00 International Desk 20:30 Mainsail 21:00 Quest Means Business 22:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 23:00 Connect The World With Becky Anderson

00:15 00:40 01:35 02:05 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:15 08:45 09:10 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 14:10 15:05 15:30 16:00 16:25 16:55 17:20 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:30 22:25 23:20

Swamp Brothers Extreme Fishing Stunt Junkies Time Warp Dirty Jobs Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How It’s Made How Stuff’s Made Dirty Jobs Wheeler Dealers Fifth Gear Stunt Junkies Time Warp How It’s Made Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Auction Kings Dual Survival Ultimate Survival Extreme Fishing Swamp Brothers Cash Cab Us Wheeler Dealers Fifth Gear Stunt Junkies Time Warp Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Auction Kings How Stuff’s Made How It’s Made Cash Cab Us One Man Army Ultimate Survival Kidnap And Rescue

00:05 The Tech Show 00:30 Mega Builders 01:20 Stunt Junkies 01:45 Body Spectacular 02:35 Brainiac 03:25 The Gadget Show 04:15 How Does That Work?

04:45 Mega Builders 05:40 One Step Beyond 06:10 Engineered 07:00 Scrapheap Challenge 07:55 Moon Machines 08:50 The Tech Show 09:15 Weird Connections 09:40 The Gadget Show 10:35 Engineered 11:30 Sci-Fi Science 11:55 How Does That Work?

12:25 Body Spectacular 13:15 Moon Machines 14:05 One Step Beyond 14:30 Stunt Junkies 14:55 Mega Builders 15:45 Weird Connections 16:10 Scrapheap Challenge 17:00 Brainiac 17:50 Sci-Fi Science 18:15 The Tech Show 18:40 Invisible Worlds 19:30 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 20:20 Ecopolis 21:10 The Gadget Show 21:35 The Gadget Show 22:00 Invisible Worlds 22:50 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 23:40 The Gadget Show

00:00 00:25 00:50 01:15 01:35 02:00 02:25 02:50 03:15 03:35 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:15 05:35 06:00 06:20 Cody 06:45 07:05 07:30 07:55 08:20

Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Emperor’s New School The Suite Life Of Zack And Phineas And Ferb Wizards Of Waverly Place Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie Fish Hooks

08:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:00 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 09:20 The Hive 09:30 Handy Manny 09:40 Imagination Movers 10:05 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 10:30 Phineas And Ferb 10:50 Good Luck Charlie 11:15 Phineas And Ferb 11:35 Suite Life On Deck 12:00 Wizards Of Waverly Place 12:25 Sonny With A Chance 12:45 Good Luck Charlie 13:10 Hannah Montana 13:30 Suite Life On Deck 13:55 Wizards Of Waverly Place 14:20 The Adventures Of Disney Fairies 14:55 Good Luck Charlie 15:20 Phineas And Ferb 15:45 Fish Hooks 16:10 Shake It Up 16:35 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 17:00 Wizards Of Waverly Place 17:25 Good Luck Charlie 17:50 Fish Hooks 18:15 Shake It Up 18:45 Suite Life On Deck 19:35 Good Luck Charlie 20:00 Wizards Of Waverly Place 20:25 Jake & Blake 20:50 Hannah Montana 21:15 Sonny With A Chance 21:35 Good Luck Charlie 22:00 Shake It Up 22:25 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 22:50 Sonny With A Chance 23:15 Wizards Of Waverly Place 23:35 Jonas

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Then And Now 01:25 E!es 02:20 E! Investigates 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 50 Super Epic TV Moments 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Khloe And Lamar 09:45 Khloe And Lamar 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Fashion Police 13:35 Extreme Close-Up 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 Giuliana & Bill 15:30 THS 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Ice Loves Coco 17:25 Ice Loves Coco 17:55 E! News 18:55 THS 19:55 Giuliana & Bill 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Bridalplasty 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Kourtney & Khloe Take Miami

00:30 The Haunted 01:15 A Haunting 02:05 I Almost Got Away With It 02:50 I Almost Got Away With It 03:40 Dr G: Medical Examiner 04:25 A Haunting 05:15 The Haunted 06:10 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 07:00 Undercover 07:45 Forensic Detectives 08:35 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 09:20 Real Emergency Calls 09:45 Street Patrol 10:05 Ghost Lab 10:50 FBI Files 11:40 Undercover 12:25 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 13:15 Fugitive Strike Force 14:00 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 14:50 Street Patrol 15:15 Real Emergency Calls 15:35 Ghost Lab 16:20 FBI Files 17:10 Forensic Detectives 18:00 Undercover 18:45 Real Emergency Calls 19:10 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 19:55 Street Patrol 20:20 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 21:10 Fugitive Strike Force 22:00 Cuff Me If You Can 22:50 Forensic Justice 23:40 Dr G: Medical Examiner

00:00 Danger Men 01:00 Destination Extreme 01:30 First Ascent 02:00 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 02:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 03:00 Endurance Traveller 04:00 Departures 05:00 Departures 06:00 Danger Men 07:00 Destination Extreme 07:30 First Ascent 08:00 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 08:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 09:00 Endurance Traveller 10:00 Departures 12:00 Danger Men 13:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 13:30 Bondi Rescue 14:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 14:30 Travel Madness 15:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 15:30 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 16:00 Cruise Ship Diaries 17:00 Ultimate Traveller 18:00 Meet The Natives 19:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 19:30 Bondi Rescue 20:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 20:30 Travel Madness 21:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 21:30 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 22:00 Cruise Ship Diaries 23:00 Ultimate Traveller

FLY ME TO THE MOON ON OSN CINEMA

00:00 John Carpenter’s Ghosts Of Mars-PG15 02:00 Child’s Play 3-18 04:00 4.3.2.1.-18 06:00 Triassic Attack-PG15 08:00 The Karate Kid II-PG 10:00 Fast Lane-PG15 12:00 Evolution-PG15 14:00 The Karate Kid II-PG 16:00 Deceit-PG15 18:00 Evolution-PG15 20:00 From Within-PG15 22:00 The Grudge 3-18

01:00 Death Race 2-18 03:00 The Boys Are Back-PG 05:00 Fly Me To The Moon-PG 07:00 Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea-FAM 09:00 The Boys Are Back-PG 11:15 The Spy Next Door-PG 13:15 Winx: Secret Of The Lost Kingdom-PG 15:00 Skellig-PG15 17:00 The Brothers Bloom-PG15 19:15 The Open Road-PG15 21:00 Just Wright-PG15 23:00 Saw VI-R

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Party Down 02:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 03:00 Friends 03:30 Friends 04:00 Two And A Half Men 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Malcolm In The Middle 06:00 Coach 06:30 Weird Science 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Two And A Half Men 08:30 Friends 09:00 Malcolm In The Middle 09:30 The Simpsons 10:00 Parks And Recreation 10:30 Coach 11:00 Weird Science 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 Two And A Half Men 13:00 Friends 13:30 Malcolm In The Middle 14:00 Coach 14:30 The Simpsons 15:00 Parks And Recreation 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Weird Science 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Friends 18:30 Friends 19:00 Outsourced 19:30 Wilfred 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Funny Or Die Presents 22:30 Entourage 23:00 Party Down 23:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00

Terra Nova True Blood Big Love Warehouse 13 Eureka Good Morning America The Good Guys Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View Terra Nova Warehouse 13 Live Good Morning America The Invisible Man The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Turn Back Your Body Clock Bones

20:00 21:30 22:00 23:00

The X Factor (US) Look-A-Like Treme Law & Order: Criminal Intent

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 18:00 19:00 20:00 22:00 23:00

Law & Order Rescue Me Terra Nova True Blood Warehouse 13 Terriers Law & Order Two And A Half Men Coronation Street Burn Notice Terriers Terra Nova Warehouse 13 Two And A Half Men Coronation Street Burn Notice Law & Order Two And A Half Men Two And A Half Men Burn Notice Bones The X Factor (US) Treme No Ordinary Family

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 PG15 09:00 11:00 13:15 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Gothika-18 Valhalla Rising-18 The Final Destination-18 Stonehenge ApocalypseThe Three Musketeers-PG15 Windtalkers-PG15 Raising Cain-PG15 The Three Musketeers-PG15 Patriot Games-PG15 Jennifer’s Body-18 Ong Bak 2-PG15 Storm Warning-18

00:00 Happy Ever Afters-PG15 02:00 Wake-PG15 03:45 French Kiss-PG15 05:45 Julie And Julia-PG15 08:00 Sleepover-PG15 10:00 12 Men Of Christmas-PG15 12:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel-FAM 14:00 Revenge Of The BridesmaidsPG15 16:00 Happy Ever Afters-PG15 18:00 500 Days Of Summer-PG15 20:00 Couples Retreat-18 22:00 Tomcats-18

01:15 03:00 05:15 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 PG 19:00 19:30 21:30 23:45

Adieu Gary-PG15 Funny Bones-PG15 The Shock Doctrine-PG15 End Of The Spear-PG15 Fantastic Mr. Fox-FAM The Shock Doctrine-PG15 Tuck Everlasting-PG Sweet Liberty-PG15 Where The Wild Things AreRita-U The Last Station-PG15 Of Gods And Men-PG15 Into The Night-18

01:00 The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee-PG15 02:45 My Name Is Khan-PG15 05:30 Post Grad-PG15 07:00 The Fog Of War-PG15 09:00 How To Train Your Dragon-PG 11:00 The Client List-PG15 13:00 Sweet Home Alabama-PG15 15:00 Leap Year-PG15 17:00 How To Train Your Dragon-PG 19:00 Two Lovers-18 21:00 Just Wright-PG15 23:00 Agora-18

00:00 Dinosaur Island-PG 02:00 The Enchanted Mountain-PG 04:00 Queen Of The Swallows-FAM 06:00 Dinosaur Island-PG 08:00 Turandot-PG 10:00 Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore-PG 12:00 Marmaduke-PG

14:00 Christopher Columbus-PG 16:00 The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie-PG 18:00 Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore-PG 20:00 Arthur And The Revenge Of Maltazard-PG 22:00 The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie-PG

00:15 02:30 05:30 06:30 07:00 09:15 10:15 12:30 13:30 14:00 15:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 21:30

Rugby World Cup UFC 136 Trans World Sport Le Mans Series Highlights Rugby World Cup RWC Weekly Highlights Rugby World Cup Speedway FIM World Le Mans Series Highlights Trans World Sport European PGA Tour WWE NXT The Ultimate Fighter Aquabike World Premier League Snooker

00:30 Masters Football 03:30 Asian Tour Golf Show 04:00 Currie Cup 06:00 Futbol Mundial 06:30 Beach Volley Ball 07:00 AFL Highlights 08:00 Masters Football 11:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 12:00 Golfing World 13:00 Total Rugby 13:30 RWC Highlights 14:30 Futbol Mundial 15:00 Trans World Sport 16:00 World Hockey 16:30 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 17:00 Rugby World Cup 19:00 Total Rugby 19:30 Golfing World 20:30 Trans World Sport 21:30 Live Premier League Snooker

00:00 Futbol Mundial 00:30 European Tour Weekly 01:00 Golfing World 02:00 Premier League Snooker 05:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 06:30 European Tour Weekly 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Trans World Sport 09:00 LV Anglo-Welsh Cup 11:00 AFL Highlights 12:00 World Hockey 12:30 Total Rugby 13:00 Asian Tour Golf Show 13:30 Golfing World 14:30 European Tour Weekly 15:00 Live European PGA Tour 19:00 Asian Tour Golf Show 19:30 Beach Volley Ball 20:00 Futbol Mundial 20:30 Total Rugby 21:00 European PGA Tour

00:00 01:00 03:30 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00

Le Mans Series Highlights Super Formula Aquabike World WWE Tough Enough UFC Unleashed UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line WWE Tough Enough Intercontinental Le Mans Cup WWE Vintage Collection WWE Bottom Line V8 Supercars Championship Intercontinental Le Mans Cup Speedway FIM World Aquabike World Power Boats UIM WWE Vintage Collection WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC 136

Classifieds THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

ACCOMMODATION Luxurious fully furnished one bed + bath, sea view in Salmiya, in a 2 bed apartment in Salmiya. Tri-weekly cleaning, OSN, wifi, pool, Gym. Shared kitchen and lounge with 1 person.

Contact: 55359977.

(C 3707) 20-1-2011 Furnished sharing accommodation for couple or single working lady in a 2 bed room C-A/C building.

Contact: 97896765.

(C 3699) 19-10-2011 Accommodation available for family near Kuwait City, Darwaza Abdul Razzak, Rabiya Building. Contact: 97560488 / 22440534.

(C 3682) Single room accommodation available for one or two bachelors or a small family in a two-bedroom flat in Abbassiya near Paradise Restaurant from 1st November 2011.

Contact: 97669236 / 24315927. (C 3701) 17-10-2011

SITUATION WANTED

FOR SALE Mitsubishi Galant 98, 1 year passing, dark green color, price KD 450/- only.

Contact: 65079379 5pm 7pm.

Suzuki Jeep Grant VITARA, model 2011 full option sun roof, CD, fog lamb, alloy rim, keyless entry + starting, registration till 29-03-2014, 7,970km done only, white (metallic color) cash price KD 4,850/-, installment possible. Contact: 66507741. (C 3705) 19-10-2011 Nissan Altima model 2008, full option, color white pearl, four cylinder, good condition, price KD 3,400/only. Contact: 99419677.

(C 3700) Toyota Corolla model 2006 GLi White color, 1.8 engine full option, sun roof, alloy rim, CD, fog lamp, wooden interior, 78,000 km done, excellent condition, price KD 2,650/-. Contact: 99105286. (C 3702) 17-10-2011 Toyota Corolla, model 1999, Xli, white (box), 1.8cc, automatic gear, well maintained, passing till May 2012, price negotiable.

Only serious buyer contact: 99223481. (C 3697)

Mechanical Engineering graduate, with immaculate English language skills, looking for a job in Kuwait.

Transferable residency.

Contact: 67078742.

(C 3663) 19-10-2011

SITUATION VACANT Housemaid: Transferable residency, clean, honest, reliable likes cats and dogs, salary depending on residency and experience.

Contact: 99042702.

(C 3703)

No: 15245

Houseboy: Transferable residency, clean, honest, reliable for all house duties.

No time -wasters please.

Contact: 99042702.

(C 3704) 17-10-2011 Wanted driver for small Kuwaiti family, 3-5 years experience in Kuwait, speak, read write English, 20-30 years old. Contact: 99997550. (C 3685) Driver vacancy is available, valid Kuwaiti driver’s license and transferable residency required.

Contact: 99018760 / 99390585.

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines JZR THY ETH UAE ETD DHX FDB GFA QTR THY JZR FCX JZR KAC BAW KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC IRA KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY ETD GFA MEA JZR MSC KNE MSR JZR SYR VOS MSR UAL RJA MSR FDB OMA JZR QTR DHX VOS KAC SVA KAC KAC KNE

Flt 267 772 622 853 305 370 67 211 138 770 503 201 555 412 157 206 382 302 53 332 605 352 284 362 855 132 125 301 213 404 165 9621 789 623 561 341 83 610 982 640 621 57 645 357 140 876 93 562 500 546 788 745

Arrival Flights on Thursday 20/10/2011 Route BEIRUT ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA DUBAI ABU DHABI BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA ISTANBUL LUXOR DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MANILA/BANGKOK LONDON ISLAMABAD DELHI MUMBAI DUBAI TRIVANDRUM ISFAHAN COCHIN DHAKA COLOMBO DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH ABU DHABI BAHRAIN BEIRUT DUBAI SOHAG JEDDAH SOHAG SOHAG DAMASCUS/DEIREZZOR BAGHDAD CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES AMMAN ASSIUT DUBAI MUSCAT MASHAD DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI/KANDAHAR AMMAN JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH JEDDAH

Time 0:35 1:15 1:45 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:10 3:15 3:20 4:10 5:15 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:15 7:20 7:50 7:55 7:55 8:00 8:05 8:10 8:20 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:35 10:55 11:10 11:15 11:20 12:10 12:30 13:00 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:00 14:10 14:15 14:15 14:15 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:40 14:45

VOS JZR QTR JZR KAC MLR ETD UAE KAC GFA SVA JZR TAR TAR JZR ABY RBG FDB ALK JZR ALK KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JAI SIA IRA FDB OMA JZR MEA KAC MSR VOS DHX KLM UAE GFA QTR UAL JZR MSR JZR JZR MSR DLH RLB AXB JZR PIA

84 257 134 535 118 403 303 857 154 215 510 777 327 327 239 127 3553 63 227 177 227 104 502 542 618 786 614 674 774 572 458 617 61 647 179 402 178 618 43 372 445 859 217 136 981 135 606 513 185 612 636 1202 389 539 205

DJIBOUTI BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO NEW YORK COLOMBO/DUBAI ABU DHABI DUBAI ISTANBUL BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH TUNIS/DUBAI TUNIS/DUBAI AMMAN SHARJAH ALEXANDRIA DUBAI COLOMBO/DUBAI DUBAI COLOMBO/DUBAI LONDON BEIRUT CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH BAHRAIN DUBAI RIYADH MUMBAI SINGAPORE/ABU DHABI AHWAZ DUBAI MUSCAT DUBAI BEIRUT GENEVA/FRANKFURT ALEXANDRIA BEIRUT BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN LUXOR SHARM EL SHEIKH DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT BISHKEK KOZHIKODE/MANGALORE CAIRO LAHORE

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

Airlines KAC AXB DLH AIC KLM PIA THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD QTR THY JZR VOS JZR GFA KAC JZR BAW FDB JZR KAC KAC IRA JZR KAC UAE ABY KAC QTR VOS ETD GFA KAC MEA KAC JZR KNE JZR MSC KAC MSR KAC JZR SYR VOS MSR RJA FDB MSR

Departure Flights on Thursday 20/10/2011 Flt Route 677 DUBAI/MUSCAT 394 COCHIN/KOZHIKODE 637 FRANKFURT 976 GOA/CHENNAI 447 AMSTERDAM 216 KARACHI 773 ISTANBUL 622 BAHRAIN/ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 771 ISTANBUL 560 SOHAG 44 BEIRUT 164 DUBAI 212 BAHRAIN 545 ALEXANDRIA 356 MASHAD 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 787 JEDDAH 153 ISTANBUL 606 MASHAD 256 BEIRUT 561 AMMAN 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 101 LONDON/NEW YORK 133 DOHA 84 BAGHDAD 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 165 ROME/PARIS 405 BEIRUT 541 CAIRO 776 JEDDAH 790 JEDDAH 238 AMMAN 9622 SOHAG 501 BEIRUT 624 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 342 DEIREZZOR/DAMASCUS 83 DJIBOUTI 611 CAIRO 641 AMMAN 58 DUBAI 622 ASSIUT

Time 0:10 0:15 0:40 0:50 0:55 1:10 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 5:00 5:10 5:55 6:00 6:55 7:10 7:40 8:20 8:25 8:40 8:50 8:55 8:55 9:00 9:10 9:15 9:40 9:50 9:55 10:00 10:00 10:15 10:20 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:10 12:15 13:00 13:10 13:30 13:40 14:00 14:00 14:20 14:30 14:35 14:40

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

UAL OMA KAC DHX KNE KAC SVA JZR KAC JZR QTR KAC JZR VOS ETD MLR QTR UAE GFA TAR ABY JZR JZR RBG SVA FDB ALK JZR KAC KAC JAI FDB IRA KAC KAC OMA MEA SIA MSR KAC DHX KLM UAE GFA FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR MSR UAL KAC KAC MSR

982 646 673 875 746 617 505 178 773 512 141 613 538 82 304 404 135 858 216 328 128 184 266 3554 511 64 228 134 283 361 571 62 616 331 351 648 403 457 619 543 373 445 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 607 981 411 415 613

BAHRAIN MUSCAT DUBAI BAHRAIN JEDDAH DOHA JEDDAH DUBAI RIYADH SHARM EL SHEIKH DOHA BAHRAIN CAIRO BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DUBAI/COLOMBO DOHA DUBAI BAHRAIN TUNIS SHARJAH DUBAI BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA RIYADH DUBAI DUBAI/COLOMBO BAHRAIN DHAKA COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI AHWAZ TRIVANDRUM COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT ABU DHABI/SINGAPORE ALEXANDRIA CAIRO BAHRAIN BAHRAIN/AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA LUXOR WASHINGTON DC DULLES BANGKOK/MANILA KUALA LUMPUR/JAKARTA CAIRO

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

34

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 474

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) It is possible to overdo the exercise program—careful this morning. Keep an ever watchful eye on balance in your life now. This means a reasonable amount of exercise, balanced nutrition, play, work, rest and time to volunteer your services. You may find yourself turning away from the emotional and working with the facts in order to see the positive side of life. A very strong time, but do not drive yourself or others too hard. Your support system—family, home, those who give you nourishment—becomes more secure at this time. You enjoy doing nice things for the people you love. You encourage better support. It is easy to see what you value. Your sense of appreciation is sharpened and in high focus. The evening will bring good luck.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Your best path to notoriety, if that is what you seek, is through your social contacts. You may be in competition for a particular position in the job place at this time. Whether you get the position or not is least important. Now is the time to express yourself and do your job; just like you know how. Science, philosophy or religion are likely to seem as if they hold the ultimate answers at this time in your life. You may find yourself in on-going conversations with several co-workers that like to talk about world affairs. Intelligent communication helps to open up ideas in your own mind—enlarge your scope of thinking. True wisdom lies in discovering that there are no ultimate answers, only good questions.

Ideological crusades grab your attention.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. A form of entertainment that enacts a story by a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement.

4. A white secretion of the sebaceous glands of the foreskin.

10. White crystalline compound used as a food additive to enhance flavor.

13. A dark-skinned member of a race of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived.

14. A town in central Belgium.

15. A hospital unit staffed and equipped to provide intensive care.

16. United States singer and film actor (1904-1977).

18. A track or mark left by something that has passed.

19. A public promotion of some product or service.

20. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

21. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

23. Extinct flightless bird of New Zealand.

26. Dearly loved.

28. The sixth month of the civil year.

30. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

37. Jordan's port.

39. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

40. An informal term for a father.

41. A soft yellow malleable ductile (trivalent and univalent) metallic element.

42. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

46. The Mongol people living the the central and eastern parts of Outer Mongolia.

49. A power unit equal to the power dissipated when 1 abampere flows across a potential difference of 1 abvolt (one ten-thousandth of a milliwatt).

53. Speaking a Slavic language.

54. Queen of the Olympian gods in ancient Greek mythology.

57. A heavy brittle diamagnetic trivalent metallic element (resembles arsenic and antimony chemically).

58. City in southwestern Colombia in a rich agricultural area.

59. South American armadillo with three bands of bony plates.

60. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

62. Goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld.

63. A feeling of intense anger.

64. A small cake leavened with yeast.

DOWN 1. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

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

3. The sound made by a pigeon v 1.

4. A region of Malaysia in northeastern Borneo.

5. The month following April and preceding June.

6. Angular distance above the horizon (especially of a celestial object).

7. A gland in which gametes (sex cells) are produced.

8. A chronic progressive nervous disorder involving loss of myelin sheath around certain nerve fibers.

9. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

10. A member of the extinct Algonquian people formerly living in northern Indiana and southern Michigan.

11. A descendent or heir.

12. A Russian prison camp for political prisoners.

17. Scarabaeid beetle considered divine by ancient Egyptians.

22. A sheet or band of fibrous connective tissue separating or binding together muscles and organs etc.

24. The capacitance of a capacitor that has an equal and opposite charge of 1 coulomb on each plate and a voltage difference of 1 volt between the plates.

25. 1/10 gram.

27. The basic unit of money in Romania.

29. African tree with edible yellow fruit resembling mangos.

31. A military trainee (as at a military academy).

32. A doctor's degree in music.

33. Tall hat.

34. A burn cause by hot liquid or steam.

35. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

36. A logarithmic unit of sound intensity.

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

43. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread.

44. Type genus of the Gavidae.

45. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

47. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

48. (Jungian psychology) The inner self (not the external persona) that is in touch with the unconscious.

50. (Scottish) Bluish-black or gray-blue.

51. An architectural partition with a height and length greater than its thickness.

52. Articles of the same kind or material.

53. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

55. A federal agency established to coordinate programs aimed at reducing pollution and protecting the environment.

56. A small piece of cloth.

61. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) You will be reaping the rewards of your efforts the next few days. This could be in sales, volunteer service, budgeting or any of the other negatives that you work to make a positive. You feel good because you know you have done your best—a rewarding day. There is a greater than usual interest in relationships, social connections and the arts. Seeing both sides of an issue and figuring out resolutions to opposing views are some of the things that take on more importance in your life. You may find yourself guiding someone younger than you in matters of importance this afternoon. Marriage and other close relationships give rise to great expectations; a most positive time gets underway now. You can enjoy and appreciate yourself and life in general.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

You spend far too long inside today. During your lunch break, take a little time to move around out of doors for a while. You may want to try something new or different this afternoon. This is a great time to be with others in team situations, whether in a work or play environment. You may be asked to coordinate events. A group gathering may need your guidance. This could mean a teaching or tutoring session. There are fun, new ways to communicate and your easy manner will make interactions with others go well. You may find yourself more talkative and adaptable than usual. A dialogue with a senior is insightful and fun; living life seems to have many different lessons for each person and you learn some life lessons from listening.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You will be pleased at the progress you have made this whole year—just take a look! This is a rewarding day. Financial savvy and a practical turn of mind are qualities that take on greater importance in your life. You have a natural way of knowing how to put people, ideas and things together to work profitably. Playing the role of a medium can be rewarding. The energies this day are toward getting rid of what does not serve you well and moving on to better and greater possibilities. Today you may decide to sell that piece of antique furniture you worked so hard to refurbish—this sort of thing brings you a great deal of money. You are unusually motivated or driven in new and unexpected directions this evening.

Donít stay awake too long.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) There is a yearning to broaden horizons now—travel, more education, add to your friends, etc. You may feel restricted in some way. Perhaps you think this is not the time to try to branch out, but it is, in all seriousness, the time to end one project and allow new ideas to flood your mind. Perhaps you are a designer of some sort and it is time to do a little free-flow thinking—keep notes. Travel for business or pleasure can be planned at this time—there are choices in direction. A conference with close family members may be very important just now.

Your friends may need your help this evening to move or make decisions regarding their jobs, schools or families; listening is good. All of this should go rather smoothly. A book can be enjoyed later tonight.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. Work on keeping your thoughts positive and constructive—and teach others to do the same. This whole month has given you the opportunity to work on better focus and new understandings. You are beginning to form some ideas of goals and successes that you want to see happen in your life. Scattered energies today may make it difficult for you to choose a direction at this time. The best activity for now is to stick with a routine and keep planning those goals—this frustrating time will pass. Short trips or a vacation may be planned and talked about between yourself and your loved ones. You will enjoy becoming more involved with family activities this fall.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Your emotional drive and sense of things may be a bit off in your timing and in numbers today. This might not be a good time for large, expensive purchases. However, this is a good time to complete unfinished projects and perform the routine jobs that others might not enjoy. This is a wonderful time to volunteer your services to other co-workers. This type of activity will put you in a position to hear or gain inside information; store for later use. You keep busy and you are always ready to lend a listening ear. Any frustrations of the morning should clear by the afternoon. Everything seems to be rearranging itself at this time. Accept new conditions philosophically. Your intuition will help you at this time—with most any subject matter.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) This is a period that is heightened with new ways to communicate. Interaction with others and an exchange of ideas shows off your quick mind—you are smart as a fox. If you are working, you will find yourself wanting to really buckle down and take advantage of some quiet time this morning.

Your organizational abilities and a sense of responsibility will be what guides you and proves successful. If you are at home today, inventions are possible. General good feelings and a sense of support and harmony make this a happy time. A little trip or drive to the country is favored this evening. This may only be a visit to someone out-oftown but these next two days are perfect for enjoying your favorite form of relaxation.

There is good news this evening.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

You probably do not have to worry about your weight, but still—you might be interested in the new trends and what everyone else is doing to stay healthy. Stress is much easier to wade through if your body is up to the climb. Check out the large health food stores that have fresh food and watch what those healthy looking customers are ordering. Check out the heart healthy diet and the new Cancer diet. This is a nice day that should just flow along. In particular, you will do well in activities that include teaching, lecturing or guiding others. There is support all around you today. You can demonstrate great understanding to the needs of others just now and are in a good position to help others. This evening your positive attitude rubs off on others.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) An important relationship, perhaps with a young person or someone in your near environment, may come into focus today.

There could be an emotional overtone to all of this that may require understanding and flexibility on your part. You have a lot of energy to pour into practical decisions, but take care that you do not come across too strong—others may not be so willing to accommodate your needs. High-level differences of opinion or outlook represent an important area of change in your life at this time. This extends to fundamental religious or philosophical beliefs, which cry out for reexamination in the light of new information and influences. Fresh insight comes to you through mass media—broadcasting, publishing, advertising.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

Today and tomorrow are the best times to start a diet or exercise program. This is a significant day, which you can use to your best advantage. This is a day that is not too stressful; there is time for accomplishing tasks or setting things up to work in your favor. Everything may be pouring in at once and it’s all good news. Saying and writing things with style counts for a lot now and this tends to bring out the social butterfly in all of us. Neighbors or brothers and sisters will likely bring all kinds of good experiences your way this afternoon. You may benefit from an older person this evening. You are in a mood of self-enjoyment. This is the perfect time to enjoy entertainment with friends or family, perhaps a community playhouse.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

i n f o r m at i o n

FIRE BRIGADE

112

Al-Madena

22418714

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

24812000

Al-Jahra

25610011

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Al-Salmiya

25616368

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Ministry of Interior website: www.moi.gov.kw For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

POLICE STATION Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

Clinics Rabiya

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Keifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Al-Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Kheitan

24710044

Fintas

3900322

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

PHARMACIES

AIRLINES

ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

Kuwait Airways Jazeera Airways Jet Airways FlyDubai Qatar Airways KLM Air Slovakia Olympic Airways Royal Jordanian Reservation British Airways Air France Emirates Air India Sri Lanka Airlines Egypt Air Swiss Air Saudia Middle East Airlines Lufthansa PIA Alitalia Balkan Airlines Bangladesh Airlines Czech Airlines Indian Airlines Oman Air Turkish Airlines Aeroflot

22433377 177 22924455 22414400 22423888 22425747 22434940 22420002/9 22418064/5/6 22433388 22425635 22430224 22425566 22438184 22424444 22421578 22421516 22426306 22423073 22422493 22421044 22414427 22416474 22452977/8 22417901/ 2433141 22456700 22958787 22453820/1 22404838/9

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist 25340300

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291 22666288

Rheumatologists:

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

Dentists

Internists, Chest & Heart

25339330

25655535

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

General Surgeons

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antiga Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands

0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345

Central African Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Cyprus (Northern) Czech Republic Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador England (UK) Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia

00236 00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044 00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689

y

A

36

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

LIFESTYLE G o s s i p

Ross cancels concert at US college G eorgia State University has announced that rapper Rick Ross, who was hospitalized last week, has canceled a planned concert there.

Georgia State officials said in a statement that the rap artist notified them that he’ll be unable to perform at

Friday’s GSU homecoming concert in downtown Atlanta. GSU’s statement said Ross suffered two seizures last week while attempting to travel to various performances in the Southeast. School officials say ticket refunds will be made available.

Sarkozy visits Carla

McCartney ex-wife

at maternity clinic

Mills sued by hairdresser

rance’s President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday visited the Paris maternity clinic where his supermodelturned-singer wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was due to give birth. The French leader left around 30 minutes after he arrived, and it was not clear when the birth was expected, but some media reports had suggested the 43-year-old first lady was to give birth later in the day. The Elysee Palace has said it will not speak publicly about the birth, which 56-year-old Sarkozy and his wife regard as a private matter, but reports in the daily Le Figaro

F

and on BFM television said it was imminent. Large crowds of reporters and onlookers were gathered behind a security cordon outside the La Muette clinic, This would be the first time in modern French history that a sitting president has become a father, although Carla has a son from a previous relationship and Sarkozy has three. La Muette’s director has said Bruni-Sarkozy will receive the same treatment as all the other mothers at the exclusive private clinic, but the location has been under discreet police surveillance for several days.

aul McCartney’s ex-wife Heather Mills has been sued by a Los Angeles hairdresser who claims the former reality TV show contestant failed to pay as much as $80,000 as she pursued stardom in Hollywood. David Miramontes, who works under the name David Paul, claims in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday that he worked for Mills starting in 2005 and quit in 2008 after she repeatedly failed to pay him, saying she had no money until her divorce from the former Beatle was finalized. Mills and McCartney ended their acrimonious marriage in 2008 and in December of that year, Mills began avoiding Miramontes. He prepared an invoice for $80,000, but it has yet to be paid. Miramontes charged as much as $5,000 per haircut for an out of office appointment, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks payment plus punitive damages, court costs and attorney fees. Neither Mills, who resides in Great Britain and in New York, nor a representative for her could be reached late Tuesday. Mills and McCartney were married in 2002 in a lavish ceremony in Ireland, but four years later they separated, blaming intrusion into their private lives. In their bitter divorce settlement, Mills was awarded 24.3 million pounds ($38 million) by a judge. The former model, 43, performed on TV’s “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007 despite having had her left leg amputated below her knee following a 1993 traffic accident. She was voted off the series in its sixth week.

McCartney remarried earlier this month to American heiress Nancy Shevell at a London register office.

P

Catholics, Jews condemn

Sarandon’s pope Nazi quip atholic and Jewish groups are condemning actress Susan Sarandon for referring to Pope Benedict XVI as a Nazi. The head of the Catholic League says her comment was “obscene” and the Anti-Defamation League released a statement calling on the actress to apologize to the Catholic community for the “deeply offensive” remark.

Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 1995 anti-death penalty film, “Dead Man Walking,” made the comment during an interview Saturday at the Hamptons Film Festival on Long Island. As first reported by Newsday, Sarandon said she gave a copy of the book on which the film is based to the German-born pope, referring to him as a Nazi. A telephone call to Sarandon’s representative asking for comment was not immediately returned.

C

Soulja Boy says he’s innocent after arrest in Georgia ip-hop star Soulja Boy proclaimed his innocence as he encountered dozens of screaming fans outside a bail bond company following his arrest on a drug charge in Georgia. CBS Atlanta reports (http://bit.ly/pvmBTz) that the artist said “I’m innocent, man” during the chaotic scene Tuesday as bodyguards rushed him into a waiting car. Soulja Boy, also known as DeAndre Cortez Way, faces a drug charge after police stopped his rental car in the west Georgia town of Temple on Interstate 20.Temple Police Chief Tim Shaw said police stopped the Cadillac Escalade early Tuesday because a light wasn’t working. He said officers found marijuana inside. The rapper was released on $10,000 bond. Carroll County officials say he was represented by attorney Kip Jones, who had no comment when contacted.

H

Model’s drug-smuggling trial begins in Argentina olombian model Angie Sanclemente declared her innocence Tuesday as her cocaine-smuggling trial began in Argentina. The case against Sanclemente and six others alleges that she and her Argentine boyfriend recruited beautiful young women to smuggle drugs to the Mexican resort of Cancun en route to Europe for $5,000 a trip. The probe began when one of the suspects was allegedly caught in the Buenos Aires international airport with 121 pounds (55 kilos) of cocaine. The former Colombian Coffee

C

Queen says she came to Argentina to get married, not to commit crimes. “I’m not interested in dirty business,” Sanclemente declared, and clarified that she considers herself an actress, not a model. But she also acknowledged that she felt she couldn’t abandon her boyfriend even though he “was mixed up in something criminal.”

Sanclemente, 31, was a fugitive in Argentina for months before her arrest in 2010. If convicted, she faces up to 16 years in prison.

Moore to star in a new TV comedy he singer-and-actress will appear as a newlywed in single-camera show ‘Us and Them’, which explores the conflict between families and inlaws. Mandy will play Annie who along with her husband Ben relay the story from their viewpoint. The comedy - which was given the go-ahead after network ABC agreed to air a pilot episode - will be helmed by ‘Real Steel’ director Shawn Levy. While the series will explore the problems in family life, Mandy recently revealed how her own stable background and happy marriage to Ryan Adams has made her contented and “boring”. She said: “I am boring first and foremost. I’m a boring homebody. You know what? I always like to think that I owe so much to my family. I love my parents - I have a really great, strong support system in my family and always have, and my parents sacrificed so much for me to be able to realize this dream that I had at a real young age. “Being busy with work, certainly keeps me grounded but then also realizing the lineation between working and still having a private life, a personal life for yourself. Finding that balance I think is essential in having some semblance of groundedness in your life.” —Bang Showbiz

T

Carey craved ‘Slurpees’ ariah Carey had cravings for cherry-flavored “Slurpees” during her pregnancy. The ‘Hero’ hitmaker claims she “didn’t even care about food” while she was expecting twins Moroccan and Monroe - who were born in April - but was constantly thirsty for the slushy ice-based drinks and also “candied apples”. Debuting the six-month-old twins to the world for the first time during an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC’s 20/20 to air tomorrow , Mariah’s husband Nick Cannon said: “She did have cravings. The thing that we always would share together would be Big Gulp Slurpees.” Mariah explained: “The cherry. The red flavor. I just wanted like thirst-quenching things. I didn’t even care about the food really.” Nick added: “Or candied apples too - early on.

It’s hard to find them at two in the morning!” The couple who welcomed the twins into the world on their third wedding anniversary - recently admitted while son Moroccan has a “laid back” personality, daughter Monroe is already showing “diva” tendencies. Nick said: “My daughter is a diva. My son is laid back. When he wakes up, he wakes up smiling. He’ll wait for a minute and if he’s hungry, he’ll let you know. “My daughter is just instant, she goes in and will not stop crying until you give her what she wants. It’s like sleep and then screaming. My daughter is just on one all the time.”

M

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

37

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

lifestyle M u s i c

nother court date, another jail threat for Lindsay Lohan. A city prosecutor recommended yesterday that the troubled starlet be sent back to jail because she had been ousted from a community service assignment at a women’s shelter. Lohan had been ordered in April to serve 360 hours at the Downtown Women’s Center, an agency that helps homeless women. It is unclear how many hours she completed there, but she was terminated by the center and has been serving hours lately with the American Red Cross. Deputy City Attorney Melanie Chavira will ask that Lohan be found in violation of her probation and be sentenced to jail, city attorney’s spokesman Frank Mateljan said Tuesday.

It will ultimately be up to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner to decide whether Lohan warrants another probation revocation hearing and a return to jail, where she has been sent four previous times only to be released early due to jail overcrowding. If the judge determines Lohan has violated her probation, she will have to schedule an evidentiary hearing for a later date, after which any punishment would be determined. The judge has said

A

illions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!” As Tintin prepares to take on the world in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, the fearless boy reporter’s adventures are hotting up at home.

Thirty years in the making, the Avatar-style film hits screens worldwide next week as the Belgium-born comic-book hero fends off racism charges, squabbles over his legacy, and whisperings over his sexuality and morals. A children’s bedside classic in much of Europe, the movie and its sequels by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, look set to fire up sales of Tintin’s 24 adventures from Tibet to the Moon that have left heirs to author, Herge, sitting pretty on a pot of gold.

But the couple overseeing his legacy-worth almost as much as Sean Connery and far more than Hugh Grant according to this year’s Sunday Times “Rich List”-are under a barrage of “thundering typhoons” from Tintinophiles over the merchandising of the intrepid boy crusader. If the movie, as expected, turns out to be a box-office hit in tune with the spirit of the original comic character, the Tintin revival may soothe the squabblings and turn the page on his creator’s controversial dealings with the wartime far right. Herge, real name Georges Remi and one of Belgium’s most beloved sons, died childless in 1983 at age 75, leaving the estate to his widow Fanny Vlamynck, a coloring artist 28 years his junior. By all accounts more interested in Buddhism than business, and more focused on Herge’s groundbreaking graphics than his art as storyteller, Vlamynck for the past decade has left business dealings in the hands of second husband, Nick Rodwell.

“B

‘The Rolls Royce of comic books’ The controversial Briton 18 years her junior, said to have opened London’s first Tintin shop, has slowly but surely taken Tintin’s face off mustard pots and the like to refocus the brand in line with his belief that “Tintin is the Rolls Royce of comic books”. The couple to that end gifted an original Herge plate to Paris’ contemporary Pompidou Centre art house, and in 2009 opened a 15-million-euro (20-million-dollar) museum to his glory, designed by a Pritzker prize-winning architect and largely dedicated to Herge’s art, rather than best-selling cartoon character.

Rodwell, said Hugues Dayez, author of a book on the Tintin legacy, “has completely cut Tintin off from children and from popular culture.”

While Brussels’ official Tintin boutique does offer small figures at around four euros a shot, prints go for 55 and collectors’ items such as the iconic red rocket range from 44 to 300 euros. The couple moreover have irked the press as well as the Tintinophiles. In 2009, Rodwell kicked off a local storm after branding a journalist “a liar” and attacking two others on the official Tintin.com website. With Belgians already smarting over Rodwell’s increasing restrictions over the use of the image of their favorite cartoon, the website shut down Rodwell’s blog.

Worth 73 million euros, according to the Sunday Times, the couple will be under strict scrutiny by critics over the movie’s treatment of Tintin under a deal between the pair and Hollywood. “There’s a risk that Spielberg’s vision will undermine Herge’s,” Jean-Claude Jouret, a former manager of the estate told AFP. “It’s undoubtedly good business but perhaps it won’t help the longterm preservation of his work.”

Belgian critics however last week hailed a sneak preview of “The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn” as “a bull’s eye”. And Dominique Maricq, an oldtimer at Herge Studios, told AFP that Hollywood appeared bent “on respecting the spirit of Tintin’s world, of not turning him into an American super-hero.”—AFP

Belgian actor Jean-Pierre Talbot, who acted as Tintin in 1961 in the first of the two movie adaptations ‘’Tintin and the mystery of the golden fleece’’ holds a picture of him and creator of Tintin Belgian author Herge, in Desnie ahead of the release of Steven Spielberg’s movie on Tintin’s adventures. — AFP

&

M o v i e s

she thought the women’s shelter assignment would do Lohan some good.

Lohan’s spokesman Steve Honig said the actress is now doing her service with the American Red Cross. He declined comment on the recommendation that Lohan be sent back to jail. He said the “Mean Girls” star has been working hard to satisfy the terms of her release, including psychological counseling and completing a Shoplifters Anonymous course. “She’s really pounding away,” Honig said. Lohan took to Twitter on Tuesday evening and posted, “I just want it to be known, that just because I was not followed &photographed during the times I’ve gone to community service, does NOT mean that I wasn’t following my obligations (by going) to the court.”

Lohan, who aside from a role in last year’s film “Machete” has seen her acting career evaporate in recent years, has been in perpetual trouble since May 2010.

Another judge determined she violated her probation in a 2007 drunken driving case and sentenced her to jail and rehab. She faltered after being released from a rehab facility early and was sent to the Betty Ford Center, where she got in an altercation with a rehab worker who later sued. Within weeks of her release from Betty Ford, Lohan was accused of taking a $2,500 necklace without permission from an upscale jewelry store near her home in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. Sautner determined the January incident constituted a probation violation and Lohan was ordered to undergo psychological counseling and perform 480 hours of community, with 120 hours to be spent at the county morgue.

Lohan later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge in the necklace theft case, and served 35 days of a four-month sentenced on house arrest. Honig said he

Q: You play a young analyst who discovers some serious information that causes major panic at the company. How did you decide which role you’d play?

A: “It was never a question because every other character was at least 10 years older. But I felt really drawn to the role, as well. Obviously the social relevance of the film drew me in, but there is something about the perspective and the compelling way in which the story is laid out. It invites the audience to have their own opinions. It generates dialogue.”

Q: And you’re also producing for the first time.

Was it tough wearing both hats at once?

A: “I had to work hard (as a producer) to get the movie together before I could start focusing on my role. But once I did that, I immersed myself in my relationship with the character and it became about my work as an actor. My producing responsibilities waned a bit by that point, and I relied heavily on my producing partners on the day-to-day stuff.”

did not know how many hours of community service Lohan had completed and that information would be given to Sautner on yesterday. Mateljan said he had not personally reviewed the probation report and did not know why Lohan was booted from serving at the Downtown Women’s Center. “We feel that her being terminated from it is a violation,” Mateljan said.—AP

Q: You’re also back on TV in an upcoming two-part episode of the FX series “American Horror Story.”

A: “Yes, then I’m going back to do a couple more I think before the end of the season. I play a gay ghost. It’s basically like my (gay) character on (the former VH1 series) ‘So NoTORIous’ and my character from ‘Heroes’ mixed into one.”

Q: Do you think playing gay roles could typecast you?

A: “No, I don’t think so. I’ve played gay characters before. I’ve played straight characters before. It hasn’t shaped my relationship to my work and they’ve all been interesting characters.”

Q: What do you consider your big break?

A: “‘Heroes’ really changed the game for me in a

Lindsay Lohan is pictured alongside her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley during a case review conference in Los Angeles in this file photo.

— AP photos

way that nothing before it had. That job came out of a really lean period for me. I felt a lot of limitations and, of course, they were all selfimposed. And they were able to find an outlet in that role in ‘Heroes’ and that really changed my journey creatively and professionally.”

Q: Then to have your first feature film be “Star Trek!”

A: “That was an unexpected next-level experience that changed the game even further than I ever thought it would. To be on a TV show with a steady gig for four years and earn a good living was as far ahead as I thought for myself.

Getting launched into that whole other layer was incredible. And I think I’ve worked to make the most of it.” — Reuters

Q: What made you decide that the time was right to become a multi-hyphenate?

A: “It was directly correlated to the rise of my career with ‘Heroes’ and ‘Star Trek.’ I decided to start the company after I was cast in that movie, but before it was announced. We were still eight months away from shooting it and another two years from it coming out. I saw very specifically that a window was open, but I knew it wouldn’t stay open forever.”

Q: Speaking of “Star Trek,” what’s happening with the sequel? You must’ve read the script and know.

A: “I do not. The script is in its final stages of being written, but they are sharing specific plot points so I only know what they’ve told me. “I start prepping November 1st and we start (shooting)mid-January. I’ll be training for a sequence in the movie which doesn’t come in until later, so I’ll keep training

In this image released by Roadside Attractions, Zachary Quinto (left) and Penn Badgley are shown in a scene from “Margin Call.”—AP

Review

DJ Cam’s ‘Seven’ he South Korean author of a novel turned box-office hit about teachers who sexually abused disabled students has vowed to fight to the end to change what she says are outdated and weak sex crime laws. The book “Dogani”, or “The Crucible,” and the film of the same name, are based on a true story about a new teacher at a school for deaf children who discovers that the principal and teachers abuse the students. The crimes take place over a number of years from 2000.

The new teacher decides to help the students by revealing the truth.

The book and subsequent film, released last month, have prompted a public outcry. Equally as shocking for the more than 4 million viewers of the film were the light punishments handed out to the convicted offenders.

“Through this movie, the fury of the people has brought a public consensus for stronger punishment so that children, disabled people, and women can be protected,” author Gong Ji-young told Reuters.

“I don’t know if these laws could be reformed by this outburst of interest, but when people take interest and step forward for the progression of our society, I will be honored as the author.”

Gong, 48, has a powerful supporter in her quest to toughen punishment for

T

sex offenders-the country’s president, Lee Myung-bak. After watching the film, Lee said society needed to be more conscious of sexual crimes against the disabled, and that he would work to better protect people with disabilities and minors. The government has proposed amendments which are pending debate in parliament.

Outrage The film has provoked outrage in a country where respect and family values resonate. Many viewers said they felt shame. Leading newspapers have given the movie blanket coverage, lamenting the lax legal process. The Korea Herald said in an editorial it had “turned the nation into a cauldron of seething public outrage”. Gong’s book revisits the serial rapes of deaf students by teachers at a school in Gwangju, 330 km (200 miles) southwest of Seoul, over five years.

“From elementary school days to when I finished high school I lived through it. I want to show everything that happened,” former student Yang Kil-seok, who left the school in 1984, told Reuters. —Reuters

offers sullen hip-hop here’s something dour about DJ Cam’s new album “Seven,” with its slow and brooding fusion of hiphop and jazz. The French mix master has an interesting approach to blending disparate sounds, but seldom do things develop into a full gallop here, leaving the effort feeling a bit unfinished. DJ Cam likes trickles of piano, streams of ethereal synth work and a walking pace to his work. The beats are simple and often border on Casio keyboard territory, as is evident on “Dreamcatcher,” with its old-school computer hand claps.

But the further you get into that track, less is revealed.

This is the routine on other songs as well, like the title track “Seven” and “Fontainebleau.” The sounds and mixing is fine, but there is no great unveiling of purpose to the songs. The beginning sounds like the middle which sounds like the end. There is little plot to DJ Cam’s purpose. At best, DJ Cam has given us an even-paced album to do other activities to, while it plays in the background, not jarring in its delivery of hip-hop tinged chill music. DJ Cam dulls the senses a bit too much here on “Seven,” when a bit more creative arc to the tracks would have served the music better.

Check this track out: “Swim,” featuring vocals from Chris James, is a beautiful track. James treats it perfectly, caressing the notes with a lowthroated groan here and a soaring high note there. DJ Cam cooks up the perfect backbeat, with just enough soul to keep things stimulating. — AP

T

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

lifestyle F A S H I O N

Republic Fashion Week

Models present creations by Marisol Henriquez during the Fashion Week in Santo Domingo. —AFP

Fashion guru gets the

boot on ‘Dancing’

C

arson Kressley can go back to evaluating wardrobes and other style choices. The fashion guru was booted off “Dancing With the Stars” on Tuesday night, leaving seven other contestants. It wasn’t unexpected, given that the judges of ABC’s celebrity TV dance competition had given him the lowest scores for his 1980s-themed routine a night earlier.

Kressley, who made his name with the show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” dressed in a cheerleader’s outfit that he probably would have disdained on his own show for his routine with partner Anna Trebunskaya.

He thanked everyone involved with “Dancing with the Stars” before making his exit. “This has been pure joy for me,” he said. “I hope I can just make people smile and laugh and have a good time.” Host Tom Bergeron joked about the injustice of

a gay personality bounced from the show one week before it is to feature music from Broadway. Singer Kelly Clarkson performed on Tuesday’s results show. The two remaining contestants who came closest to being sent home on Tuesday were actor David Arquette and soccer star Hope Solo.

Others left in the game are actor J.R. Martinez, reality T V personality Rob Kardashian, activist Chaz Bono and TV hosts Ricki Lake and Nancy Grace.

“Dancing” has proven to be a durable commodity for ABC. Its two episodes last week were second only to the CBS drama “NCIS” in the Nielsen ratings. The weekly “Good Morning America” featuring interviews with the kicked-off contestant has helped boost that show in its competition with NBC’s “Today.”—AP

File photo shows TV personality and fashion expert Carson Kressley, right, and his partner Anna Trebunskaya perform in the celebrity dance competition series ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ in Los Angeles. —AP

Fashion designers put their marques on bicycles B

icycles are going couture. Ralph Lauren, Missoni and Kate Spade, better known for fashionable clothing, are now taking up a new product line, designer bicycles-and they are selling fast. Three-speed bicycles with the trademark zig-zag and striped patterns of Italian fashion house Missoni nearly sold out the day of their introduction at Target this month, and only a few are still available in scattered stores.

The two-wheelers, which cost $399, got a jump-start from a covetous celebrity tweet by actress Jessica Alba. One version-with a distinct copper-color pattern-sold out the first day and has resold for as much as $1,279.95 on EBay. They were snapped up by customers such as Connie Chen, a Portland, Ore., industrial engineer and occasional bike rider. “I was really drawn to the patterns of the paint and the fact that it was a designer bicycle and was very classic with a leather seat and a basket,” Chen said.

Fashion designers like bicycles because, unlike cars, they are comparatively easy and inexpensive to customize in ways that produce dramatic visual results and “become moving billboards” for their work, said Constance Winters, who runs the popular blog Lovely Bicycle (www.lovelybicycle.com). In addition to writing on the technical issues of cycling, she has been following the intersection of bicycles and high fashion.

Designers are putting their imprint on the two-wheelers through special color schemes, logos and component selection, often leaning to leather saddles, grips and handlebar tape.

“Bicycles also require accessories, such as handlebar bags and panniers, which is right up fashion designers’ alley,” Winters said.

This month, Ralph Lauren’s Rugby division will unveil a $2,200 limited-edition men’s twospeed leather-saddled “roadster” bicycle and accompanying line of tweed cycling clothes, the fashion house’s interpretation of what sporting men and women might have worn before World War II. The fashion house plans a Tweed Run on Saturday in New York to pitch the new line. It is patterned after an annual 10-mile recreational bike ride by the same name through London that is a favorite of enthusiasts of vintage bicycles and clothing. Earlier this year, Kate Spade New York partnered with boutique Manhattan bicycle retailer Adeline Adeline to offer a European-style women’s single-speed twowheeler in a distinctive green and bicycle bags to sell at the shop and Kate Spade stores nationwide. Kate Spade advertises that the “enclosed chain case keeps hemlines safely out of harm’s way.” “Many companies are looking for any association that they feel is cool and links with youth or a product which is very fashionable,” said Paul Smith, the English fashion designer. “A bicycle is no exception.”

Julie Hirschfeld sells the bicycle from designer Kate Spade and other fashion bicycles at her Adeline Adeline store in New York City. —MCT photos

Although demand for these bicycles is rising, they still make up only a tiny portion of what’s sold annually in the US. Kate Spade has produced 100 bicycles, including 30 that went to the Shutters on the Beach hotel in Santa Monica, Calif, to rent to guests. Ralph Lauren will sell just 50 bikes.

Target’s was the most populist venture, with roughly 1,700 stores selling one women’s Missoni bike model and the company’s online business selling more Missoni models, including a men’s bike. The limited number of these fashion bikes is one of the attractions, said Elsa Termenon, a Philadelphia-based writer for Swedish magazines and author of the fashion blog Styleabaad (http://www.styleabaad.com), who purchased the $1,100 Kate Spade bicycle.

“I look for something unique and special and something that not everyone else has,” Termenon said. “It goes with my personal style.

The way I dress is very colorful and I wear a lot of vintage dresses.”

Other trendy retailers are pitching bicycles as fashion statements. Urban Outfitters has paired with Republic Bicycles to offer an online

bike shop. Shoppers can select a frame style-a traditional men’s or a Dutch looping stepthrough women’s bike-and customize in thousands of ways by picking from multiple color options for the frame and individual components such as pedals, saddles and wheels. The bikes start at $399.

These retailers aren’t going for the fitnessoriented weekend cycling crowd that’s dominated by decidedly unfashionable “MAMILS,” otherwise known as middle-aged men in Lycra shorts. “We allow our customers to customize their bike with color and offer different models so they can make their bike a reflection of their personal style,” said Crystal Carroll, an Urban Outfitters spokeswoman. “Anyone with an interest in fashion is aware that everything they buy is a reflection of their style.”

The Kate Spade bicycles fit with the other inventory at Adeline Adeline, where owner Julie Hirschfeld focuses on durable steelframed city bikes. You won’t find a super-light carbon-fiber racer in her shop. Hirschfeld said customers consider bicycles a form of transportation and fun. Some might use them to commute; others take their bikes for a leisurely ride through Manhattan’s Central Park and a picnic, or out to coffee. “A bike is part of your lifestyle if you are riding it a lot and you want it to be part of your outfit,” Hirschfeld said.

“People want a nice-looking bike.” The companies aren’t actually making bikes but rather putting their designer imprint on products made by established manufacturers. —MCT

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

lifestyle F A S H I O N

Free necklaces and shipping for

holiday shoppers?

R

etailers are so desperate this holiday season that they’re willing to lose money to get you to spend yours. Take online jeweler Stauer. It’s offering a $249 amethyst necklace for free - provided customers pay the $24.95 it costs to ship it. Stauer will lose money on the deal, but it hopes to reel in new customers who will buy other jewelry. “In this economy, you have to be outrageous in your offers,” said Michael Bisceglia, the president of Stauer who found that more than a third of customers who took advantage of a similar deal on a $179 pearl necklace in 2009 bought additional items. “You have to shake up the world a bit.”

Not every retailer will go as far as giving away merchandise during the holidays, but many will offer profit-busting incentives. It’s a critical time of year for merchants, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue in November and December. And they’re so worried that Americans are spooked by the weak economy that they’re willing to sacrifice profit for sales.

Nordstrom, for instance, is one of the first retailers to offer free shipping on most orders, no matter how small, even though it could wind up paying $3 to ship a $7 pair of socks. Furniture chain Raymour & Flanigan is allowing customers to go four years without paying interest on their purchases - the longest period it has ever offered - even though it will have to help cover a chunk of

those charges itself. And Sears is not only offering to match the cheapest prices customers find online, but the department store chain is giving them an additional 10 percent off the difference. “You may be making a $1 profit instead of a $3 profit,” Fiona Dias, chief strategy officer of members-only shopping service ShopRunner.com, said about retailers. “But you’re not losing a sale.” Retailers are nervous about holiday sales because many Americans are cutting back on spending as they grow increasingly concerned about the stubbornly high unemployment rate, stock market turmoil and an overall fragile US economy. In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that eight of 10 Americans think the country is in a second recession.

“Retailers are now scared because some believe they’re in a second recession,” said C Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group. “And the second recession is hitting them in the biggest shopping season of the year.”

Despite the challenging environment, revenue in November and December is expected to be up about 3 percent. The increase - below last year’s 5.2 percent spike - is above the 2.6 percent average gain over the last 10 years.

But Americans are expected to do more online comparison shopping and spend less time in stores. ShopperTrak, a Chicago research firm that tracks how many customers come in at more than 25,000 stores, expects foot traffic to drop

2.2 percent during the holiday season compared with a year ago. So far this year, consumers have gone to an average of three stores during a mall trip, down from an average of five stores in 2006. To get people to spend more money once they’re in stores, retailers are offering incentives that could shrink their profits. For instance, merchants long have matched prices at competing bricks-and-mortar stores, but not online retailers. After all, it’s hard for them to compete with the online-only guys that can offer lower prices because they don’t have the high overhead costs of running

physical locations. But now a growing number of bricks-and-mortar stores like Bed Bath and Beyond Inc. are matching prices with online-only merchants like Amazon.com.

Staples Inc. doesn’t have a formal policy to do so, but it has started leaving price matching with online-only competitors to the discretion of its store managers. Amy Lee, 40, found this out when she saw an Epson printer for about $25 cheaper on Amazon.com. A Staples sales clerk in New York City agreed to give it to her for the lower price.

“I was surprised. Twenty-five dollars

Cali Exposhow F a s h i o n

S h o w

Models present a creation by Italian designer Alberta†Ferretti†during the first day of the Cali Exposhow fashion show on October 18, 2010, in Cali, Valle del Cauca department, Colombia.

—AFP photos

off is huge,” said Lee, who paid $124.95 for the printer. “I would have gone home and ordered on Amazon.” Sears Holdings Inc. is going one step further by giving customers an additional 10 percent off the difference between its price and a competitor’s online price. So, if a shopper finds a TV that’s $30 cheaper at Best Buy Co, they would get the lower price and an additional $3 off. The catch? The retailer will only match online prices of retailers that have physical locations, not online-only merchants.

“We’re not focusing on short-term profits,” said Tom Aiello, a Sears spokesman, about why the retailer is offering the deal. “We believe that if customers know they’re going to get the product at the price they want, they will come to us more and more.” Some retailers, meanwhile, are sweetening incentives they already offer to the point that it could erode profits. Raymour & Flanigan, for instance, is beefing up the terms of its no-interest loans, which have become popular among retailers of bigticket items like furniture and TVs. The loans typically enable customers to forgo paying any interest on purchases for one to three years provided they make the monthly payments on time. Retailers must help pay some of customers’ interest charges - about 12 percent for threeyear terms - to the financing companies that provide the loans. But the companies hope to make up for those costs in sales volume. —AP

e niv rsar n

y

A

Lohan returns to court amid call for jail sentence Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

37

Meet the Gauls — minus the dolmens F

File photo shows visitors standing in front of a self-portrait of Dutch-born painter Vincent van Gogh at the Vittoriano museum in Rome. —AFP

New book says Van Gogh’s death was murder not suicide D

id Vincent van Gogh, one of the world’s greatest artists who only sold one painting in his short and tortured lifetime, commit suicide in 1890 in a wheatfield in northern France? Two American authors are now challenging the theory that the enigmatic postImpressionist killed himself aged 37, saying he claimed to have attempted suicide to protect two teenaged brothers-one of whom shot him. Van Gogh, who suffered prolonged bouts of mental illness and depression-he sliced off an ear once-was not contemplating taking his life, Gregory White Smith and Steven Naifeh argue in their new book “Van Gogh: The Life”.

“The version retained is not credible,” Smith said in an interview published in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next. The duo, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their biography of US artist Jackson Pollock, have spent 10 years researching their book which argues that van Gogh was shot dead while painting just outside the town of Auvers-surOise near Paris. “How did he get the gun?”

Naifeh asked on the CBS show 60 Minutes.

“Everybody in Auvers knew that he had been in an insane asylum. Pistols were a rarity in rural France. Who would’ve given Vincent van Gogh a gun?”

According to the authors who had access to family letters and private correspondence, the painter left his boarding house on the fateful day-July 27, 1890 — with paints and easel. “Why would he have waited just until this moment to end his days?” Naifeh told NRC Next. “He wasn’t

who was 13 at the time of van Gogh’s going through the most difficult period in death-the painter replied “yes” when a dochis life. “Does someone paint when he has tor asked him if he had taken his own life. decided to end his life? It just simply does Naifeh told CBS: “What the evidence points not hold,” he added. to is that this incident took place not in the Van Gogh-whose life was immortalized wheat fields, but in a farmyard on the Rue

by Kirk Douglas in the 1956 film “Lust for Boucher. That it involved these two boys.

Life”-returned to the boarding house run “And that it was either an accident or a by the Ravoux family five hours later with a deliberate act. Was it playing cowboy in bullet wound and died in the arms of his some way that brother Theo after went awry? Was it 30 hours. Smith teasing with the said doctors at the gun with Vincent time reported the lunging out? It’s bullet entered at a hard to know “crazy angle”. The what went on at gun and his paintthat moment.” The ing supplies from Van Gogh musethat day have nevum in er been found.

Amsterdam-which The authors argue had extended that van Gogh was cooperation to shot, probably accidentally, by File photo shows the entrance of the new the two authorsone of the Vincentre, the Vincent van Gogh Center, said the new theSecretan brothers. before its official opening in Nuenen, ory was “interesting” but added it They say one of southern Netherlands. —AFP was premature to them alleged that discard the longthe artist had held suicide theory. Museum curator Leo stolen his pistol.

Jansen said “there are still questions without answers regarding the suicide of Van ‘Still questions without answers’ Gogh,” but noted that the “spectacular” theWhen asked by police whether he had ory proposed by the two US writers equally committed suicide, he is said to have leaves “some questions unanswered”. replied from his deathbed: “I believe so.

“The two authors have not found new Don’t accuse anybody else... it is I who facts, they have just interpreted them difwanted to kill myself.” According to the ferently,” he said, also questioning why van daughter of the boarding house owner-

Gogh would protect two boys “who never stopped bothering and teasing him?”

Naifeh said he believed “a couple of kids had shot Vincent van Gogh and he decided to basically protect them and accept this as the way to die. These kids had basically done him the favor of, of shooting him. “He knew that he was a burden to Theo. So there’s something wonderfully sweet and touching about the fact that Vincent would accept death partly to end his own misery.

But even more so to take this terrible burden off of his beloved ill brother’s shoulders.”

But Van Gogh-who once wrote that he would never amount to anything as a painter and whose works now are among the most expensive pieces of art-would not have become the legend had he lived a normal life, leftist Dutch De Volkskrant daily said in an editorial on Tuesday. “If Vincent van Gogh died of old age at the age of 80 in 1933, bathed in glory and in possession of both his ears, he would never become the myth that he is today,” it said. “His psychosis, his depressions, his errors and their manifestations-an ear severed, suicide-are as much the integral history of ‘Vincent van Gogh’ as the cypresses and wheatfields” the famously painted, it said. —AFP

eisty forest-dwellers in winged helmets, with a fondness for roast boar, strong drink and Roman-bashing.

That is the pen portrait of the Gaul as summed up by the pint-sized comic hero Asterix-and it is wrong from start to finish. Drawing on three decades of archaeology, “Les Gaulois”, an exhibition opening this week at Paris’ Cite des Sciences, debunks popular myths about the Celtic tribes, known collectively as the Gauls, who peopled modern-day France before the Roman invasion.

And far from brutish war-mongers, the show reveals them to be sophisticated farmers, traders and craftsmen.

“The Gauls didn’t wait for the Romans or Greeks to civilise them,” said the archaeologist Francois Malrain, one of the show’s curators. “They lived in a refined society,” he explained. “They were clever farmers and breeders, with a metalworking know-how and dexterity that was unequalled across the whole of Antiquity.” Since the Gauls wrote on tablets of wood or wax-very few of which survived-their story has been written by others, from the conquering Romans down the ages to the Asterix comic books.

But in the past decade preventive digs, carried out every time a new road is laid or train line built, have uncovered some 500 Gaul sites yielding precious insight into their culture and skills. Exquisite bronzes-a tiny cross-legged deity or a bird of prey-reveal a stylized craftsmanship, a brass boar has the smooth curves of a Brancusi sculpture, while several Gaul coins bear striking similarity to Pablo Picasso’s abstract faces. There were no winged helmets in the Gauls’ world-but a 2004 dig in Tintignac, in the Limousin region, uncovered a treasure trove including a curved swan helmet, and a magnificent carynx, a ceremonial war trumpet.

Dolmens are another Asterix anachronism-they date from the neolithic-and so is roast boar: the Gauls were a farmer people, who cleared vast swathes of forestland to rear beef, sheep and pigs. On the other hand, the Gauls did drink a lot of wine, as evidenced by the presence of amphorae in huge quantities, and traces of a flourishing wine trade that linked the Celts with the Mediterranean world.

A picture shows a copy of the Gundestrup Cauldron, displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Paris. —AFP photos Aerial archaeology, which detects vanished dwellings by spotting humus-rich soil from the sky, has shown they lived in dense networks of wattle-and-daub farms, clustering in villages and small towns by the third century BC. They farmed linseed and poppyseed for oil, black mustard, fennel and coriander for spices, barley and emmer wheat for flatbread and hemp and flax for their textiles. And while the 60-odd tribes who peopled what is now France, Belgium and Switzerland were not a single unified culture, they were linked by complex trade ties and had a “commun cultural foundation,” Malrain explained. Some 200 Gaulish words survive in modernday French, from the words for horse to zipper, cream to beret. In a scene-setting prelude to the show, ancient

A snake-head Carnyx.

British author Julian Barnes wins Booker Prize B

ritish author Julian Barnes on Tuesday won the Man Booker Prize, one of the highest-profile awards in Englishlanguage literature, at the fourth attempt for his novel “The Sense of an Ending”. Barnes picked up the £50,000 ($80,000, 57,000 euros) award, which recognizes the best work of fiction by an author from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, at a ceremony in London. He told the audience assembled at the Guildhall he was “as much relieved as I am delighted” after losing out in 1984, 1998 and 2005.

Barnes also referred to the build-up to this year’s prize, which was overshadowed by the launch of a rival award in protest at the apparent populist nature of the six-book shortlist. He said: “I’d like to thank the judges, who I won’t hear a word against, for their wisdom and the sponsors for their cheque.” The Leicesterborn author joked that in moments of paranoia he suspected a “small cottage industry” was working to prevent him from winning the award after being passed over for his works “Flaubert’s Parrot”, “England, England” and “Arthur and George”.

Barnes, 65, was the bookmaker’s favorite ahead of Carol Birch, with “Jamrach’s Menagerie”, and AD Miller’s thriller “Snowdrops”. “The Sense of an Ending” is the story of a seemingly ordinary man who revisits his past in later life and discovers that his memories are flawed. The panel was chaired by the former head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, Stella Rimington, who before presenting the award said she made no

apologies for including “readable” novels in this year’s shortlist.

Rimington accused her critics within the publishing world of resembling the “KGB at its height” for their use of “black propaganda, de-stabilization operations, plots and double agents”.

Revealing the winner, Rimington said the slim book stood up to re-reading several times and praised Barnes’s style. “We thought it was a beautifully written book, we thought it was a book that

This photo shows British author Julian Barnes posing with his book “Arthur and George” at Hatchards book store, in London. —AFP

spoke to humankind in the 21st century,” she told the audience.

Jon Howells from Waterstone’s, one of Britain’s biggest booksellers, said Barnes, who once branded the award “posh bingo”, was a deserving victor.

“Julian Barnes is a worthy winner-this is not, right writer, wrong book syndrome, ‘The Sense of an Ending’ is a brilliant novel, one that turns in the reader’s head long after finishing,” he said. The other books on the shortlist were “The Sisters Brothers”

by Canadian writer Patrick deWitt, “Half Blood Blues” by Esi Edugyan, also from Canada, and “Pigeon English” by British author Stephen Kelman. A group calling itself “The Advisory Board of the Literature Prize” last week vowed to knock the Booker off its perch as the benchmark of literary taste after taking exception to Rimington’s promotion of “readability” within the shortlist. The newly created “Literature Prize” will also include novels by American writers in the hunt for the “best novel written in the English language and published in the UK in a given year.” Rimington defended accusations of “dumbing down” during her presentation speech. “If our shortlist starts a new debate about the nature of the novel we’d be delighted,” she said.

“Much better that than merely patronizing the judges, insulting the shortlist authors or writing lists that you would have chosen if you had been the sole judge. All that to me is dumbing down,” added the former intelligence chief. Last year’s prize was won by Howard Jacobson for “The Finkler Question” —AFP

texts, sculptures and paintings show how the figure of the Gaul has fallen in and out of favor over the centuries. Greek and Roman armies brought home unflattering reports of the people they found in northern Europe. “Physically, the Celts have a terrifying aspect, a rough and cavernous voice,” the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote at the time. “They use few words and speak in enigmas.” Cut to the Middle Ages, when France’s kings sought to distance themselves from their brutish ancestors, and the Gaul disappeared from view.

With the French Revolution in 1789, the new-born republic resurrected him as they set about forging a new national image-witness the bare-chested brave depicted in “Le Courage Gaulien”, a 1830 painting by Francois Gerard.

Later that century, Napoleon III bankrolled the first digs to explore Gaul society, and as France smarted from defeat by the Prussian armies in 1870, the Gaul war hero Vercingetorix-defeated at Alesia in 52 BC and executed in Rome became a symbol of French courage in the face of the invader.

In the 20th century with the advent of mass advertising, Gauls were used to sell soap bars or beer-and of course the enduring Gauloises cigarettes. Even the collaborationist Vichy regime co-opted the Gaul as a symbol as part of a youth scheme under the Nazi occupation. And finally, in 1961, the first Asterix comic album was released with its moutachioed hero and barrelshaped companion Obelix-whose magic-potion swigging, centurion-bashing antics still shape so much of popular belief. —AFP