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Kuwait’s buses require nerves, heart of steel

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Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Air India strike upsets expats’ vacation plans Airline operates truncated schedule

By Sajeev K Peter

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he vacation travel plans of many Indian expatriates in Kuwait have gone haywire following the ongoing strike by the Air India pilots as India’s flag carrier sharply curtailed its schedules to south Indian destinations. Many passengers booked on Air India now look for alternative airline bookings paying exorbitantly high fares as India’s carrier was forced to reduce its weekly flight schedule from five to three.

While officials claim that the airline maintains a truncated schedule despite the agitation, it has halted booking for July from Kuwait.

“The pilot strike is something that is beyond our control. Still, we are operating three weekly flights from Kuwait in place of five to south Indian destinations. Currently, we manage to accommodate about 70 percent of the passengers on the same day itself they are booked. The backlog is being adjusted in subsequent flights. We are also rerouting some of the passengers via Chennai on Indian Airlines fights,” an Air India official told the Kuwait Times on condition of anonymity.

Some passengers who just arrived from India narrate their harrowing tale as they had to fly through Goa, Chennai and Bangalore before finally landing at their destination in Kochi after more than 16 hours.

Many are now concerned about their return journey as well.

According to them if they fail to return to Kuwait as scheduled, their jobs will be in jeopardy.

“If the strike continues, there is no guarantee that we can come back in July as planned,” says Hussain Khaled. Also, people who are scheduled to go back to India on expiry of their visit visas are also on the horns of a dilemma. According to officials, only about 20 percent

MUMBAI: Aircraft of India’s flag carrier Air India lie on the tarmac of the Mumbai International Airport. The strike by a section of Air India pilots entered the 43rd day yesterday. of the passengers booked on Air India are seeking refunds since a new booking now is extremely difficult and fares are very high.

“As a travel services company, we are experiencing serious difficulties in rescheduling bookings for passengers as a result of the disruptions,” P. N. J. Kumar, CEO, Caesars Travels Group told the Kuwait Times. According to him, the prolonged strike without any immediate solution in sight has critically undermined the reputation of Air India as India’s flag carrier.

According to officials from Mumbai, Cash-strapped Air India has suffered a loss of around Rs. 500 crores due to the 45-day-old pilots’ strike, forcing the airline management to extend its curtailed international flight plan till July 31. The strike has crippled its international operations and the airline is only operating 38 international flights out of the original 45 services now. The management has resorted to sacking striking pilots though such punitive measures have thus far failed to deter striking pilots.

Soaring airfares With the Air India pilot strike continuing unabated, fares of airlines operating from in and out of Kuwait to various Indian destinations have gone up more than 200 percent, soaring even beyond the usual peak season prices, industry sources admit. “It is like making hay while the sun shines. Today the fares are exorbitant on all airlines making it hard for people to look for an alternative booking,” Suresh Mathur, Secretary, Kozhikode District NRI Association told the Kuwait Times.

But David Abraham, General Manager, House of Travels, Kuwait said that airfares are always high during summer peak season. “I admit there are some disruptions, but the impact of the AI strike on fares is minimal. The fares are going up because of the heavy demand,” he pointed out.

With the strike entering the 42nd day yesterday, several Indian community leaders also started voicing their anger over India government’s callous attitude towards the strike. Calicut District NRI Association recently convened a meeting in which representatives of Indian community organizations aired their simmering discontent over the situation.

“There is only one solution. It is political,” said Sathar Kunnil,

Coordinator of the Karippur Airport Users Movement. “Air India is a state-run airline and the government is managing it. So the onus is completely on the government to find a solution to the issue,” he added.

According to him, all Indian politicians irrespective of their party affiliations are indifferent towards the grievances of non-resident Indians (NRIs). In scathing remarks, he said, “The misery of the expats over air travel has been a perennial issue. All the political leaders both ruling party and opposition are fully aware of the problem. But they are

not up to finding a lasting solution to the problem. Their interest is confined only to attracting more NRI investments into the country or collecting funds and donations for their party,” he added.

“Giving just the money back doesn’t help the passengers. You know, at this 11th hour, it is hard to find a new booking to India. And if at all you manage one, you have to pay a price for that,” Simona Bakaya, a travel industry professional, told the Kuwait Times. “With the AI strike going on, I know it will be a messy affair this time. So, I cancelled my travel plan to India this summer,” Simona added.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Underground ‘flesh market’ booming in ‘staid’ Kuwait

By Chidi Emmanuel

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olding a shopping bag, an umbrella and a mobile phone, Jayanti (who claimed to be from North India) could be mistaken as a working class lady who was just coming out of a shopping mall. But after a chat with a Kuwait Times reporter who posed as an undercover ‘customer’, Jayanti revealed her true identity - a sex worker. “How much will you pay me,” she asked with a smile. After negotiating, she agreed to take KD 15 for two hours. When asked why she was carrying a shopping bag filled with food items, she said “if you walk alone on the street empty handed, the cops (police) will suspect you, but if you carry a shopping bag, they will think you went shopping.”

A few minutes later, Kuwait Times spotted another woman in her midthirties roaming around near Apollo Hospital in Salmiya, who turned out to be a prostitute too. “Why are you following me,” she queried at first. After a while, she entered one of the baqalas in the area - pretending to be buying some things, but when she noticed that we were not cops after our interactions with her, she started bargaining on the price. “How long do you want it and how much will you give?” she asked. At the end, we agreed to meet the following day for KD 20.

HOME DELIVERY, PROSTITUTION ZONE Prostitutes and pimps in Kuwait are getting smarter and adopting new strategies to avoid detection, as authorities clamp down on their illegal activities. From Ahmadi to Farwaniya governorate, the sex business seems to be flourishing with the stakeholders devising different ways to navigate through their underground sex trade routes. Recently, police in Hawally arrested two men accused of running a prostitution service and using cafes to lure their customers. The suspects, an Arab man and an Indian, admitted during investigations that they helped set up customers with Asian prostitutes for KD 10 a night. Also in Farwaniya, police raided 10 vice dens and arrested 16 suspects and 45 young pleasure seekers, according to another report.

In Hasawi, a Kuwait Times reporter who acted as an undercover customer was led to a brothel by a pimp who offered to set him up with a prostitute for KD 5, but eventually settled for KD 3 (per round). It seems Kuwait governorates have been divided into prostitution zones. Whereas Ahmadi governorate is controlled mostly by Filipinos, Hawally governorate is dominated by Ethiopians while the Farwaniya governorate and part of Salmiya are controlled by South Asians (Indians, Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis). “We control this area. We don’t have Ethiopians here. If you want Ethiopians, go to Hawally,” one Bangladeshi pimp boasted when a Kuwait Times reporter (undercover) sought an Ethiopian prostitute. “I can connect you to the Arabs including Kuwaitis who are into this business but you have to pay me KD 8 to get their contacts. They collect big money and you have to be very careful while dealing with them,” the Hasawi pimp advised. He gave the contact of another pimp (known as Big Mama) in charge of Salmiya area, and introduced us to her.

When contacted, Big Mama asked us what age limit we want and how much we were willing to pay. “I have between 25-30 and 30-36 year-old ladies,” she said. “If you want, I can bring them to your house. You don’t need to come and pick my girls, I will tell my special taxi to bring them to you,” she added. After first, she wanted to make sure we were neither Arabs nor South Asians. When asked why she doesn’t deal with Arabs and South Asians, she said “they don’t like to pay and if you demand your money, they will threaten to call the police. Also, some of them are working for the police. Police pay them to catch us (prostitutes),” she added as she narrated their ordeals and ugly encounters with bad clients, police and the health hazards in the prostitution business. Even against all odds, money is still changing hands. Most of our sources requested anonymity for reasons of safety and protection.

CHINESE STYLE In one of the shopping malls in Salmiya, three Chinese ladies were sighted giving out their numbers to selected lucky guys. “How are you!

Good man! Call me ok,” one of the ladies said as she clandestinely handed a piece of paper to the undercover reporter. “They always come here in the evening to look for jobs and customers. They come in groups,” one of the shop attendants told Kuwait Times. When asked what kind of job, he said “prostitution of course”. We eventually made the call to bargain. But when asked why they are selective, the Chinese prostitute echoed the same reason given by Big Mama. “Although they (Arabs) are our main customers, they can put you in trouble. They normally don’t like to pay,” she said.

RISKS AND DEADLY BUSINESS According to most of the prostitutes Kuwait Times interviewed, prostitutes make above KD 160 as monthly income. The risks involved in this illicit business include violence, arrest, slavery, jail term, deportation and infections among others. In Hasawi, we (the Kuwait Times undercover reporter and a Bangladeshi pimp working for us) were attacked while covering this story by some pimps who accused us of being police

Prostitutes, pimps change style amid police crackdown agents. Our guide told us that the owner of the brothel in the area is enslaving girls and will do anything to protect his business.

“These prostitutes don’t have resident visas and do not undergo medical tests. This could be very dangerous when they

are infected with any sexually transmitted diseases. They will just pass it to their clients who will then pass it over to their wives and kids as the chain reaction continues. Also, the prostitutes can as well be infected by their customers,” Dr Andrew O, a pediatrician at Sabah Hospital warned.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Conspiracy Theories

Life really is the greatest school

Satire Wire

Reset: Kuwait Parliament do-over

By Sawsan Kazak

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

L

ife is undeniably ironic. There are no guarantees for anyone, whether rich or poor, strong or weak, a king or a beggar. It is truly amazing: you can go to bed as the ruler of a country, and wake up a runaway. You can suddenly find yourself hunted by those once closest to you. Just look at what the Arab Spring did to once extremely powerful leaders! Nobody had ever even dared to argue with them, and their power was so mighty that it even extended to their servants.

Imagine if Hosni Mubarak was still in power and had fallen ill. It would be major news, plastered across Egyptian media outlets including TV channels, newspapers, social sites and blogs. It would be covered day and night, and updated regularly. Imams in mosques would be praying for his health. Florists would sell masses of roses and well-wishers would sleep nearby the Al-Quba Palace to make sure they heard the newest updates. It’s the same in the case of both Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former President of Tunisia.

The situation in which our ex-honorable gentlemen of the Parliament found themselves in as they woke up today got me thinking about the drastic changes so many oncepowerful figures have gone through recently. These men handed back their luxury cars, emptied the drawers of their posh offices and sacked their entourages and staff.

How, I wondered, did those who had hired their wives as their secretaries, deliver the bad news? One can’t help but chuckle at the irony of how these men, who were just recently showing off and threatening to hold grillings, have now lost their power. Just recently the very same men wielded their power excessively, acting as if they were the sole rulers of the state and, even worse, ‘owners’ of the people. They had somehow convinced themselves that they were superpowers. What are they thinking now that their power has suddenly been snatched away?

Maybe we’ll see them back to Erada Square, threatening to protest. It’s well and truly over for them, despite their claims that the previous National Assembly was corrupt.

Plus, look who’s talking! Life really is the greatest school, after all.

sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

K

uwait’s constitutional court announced Wednesday the annulment of the February 2012 elections, which resulted in the dissolution of Parliament and in a surprising, almost Hollywood-style twist, the previous National Assembly, which was originally dissolved in 2009, was reinstated.

The previous Cabinet is expected to regain its constitutional powers and pretend that the dissolution never took place. What would cause such twist in the plot, you ask? Well, apparently, the Amiri decree that dissolved the previous Parliament was unconstitutional, and so was the follow-up decree that invited Kuwaitis to elect a new Assembly. Why were those decrees unconstitutional, you wonder? Because they were recommended by an illegal Cabinet.

Confused yet? Well, since I have a knack for simplifying difficult situations, let me try my hand at this one: it’s a

ried and about four years into the union and a couple of kids later, you realize that your decision to tie the knot was unlawful as it was done under the influence of family pressure. This would obviously mean that your vows were false, which would mean your marriage certificate was unlawful, which would lead to the nullification of your union and dissolution of your married life and therefore the reinstatement of your previous state: single.

The question then becomes, what took you so long to realize that the state you find yourself in is illegal and any decisions you make can, and will, be overturned? How did they not know that the decree was unconstitutional until now? I know paperwork in Kuwait is slow moving, but this has to be a record-breaker. But based on my experience in video game do-overs, the second time around is rarely any better than the first.

Just kiddin’, seriously

Kuwait’s Parliament: Not solved but dissolved

By Sahar Moussa

Follow me on Twitter: @badryaD

sahar@kuwaittimes.net

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KUWAIT: The seaside on Gulf Road is pictured on a weekday without the hustle bustle of families enjoying their summer vacation. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Kuwait Parliament do-over. You know like the type you have when you are playing video games and you’re unhappy with the results, so you simply restart the game? That’s a do-over.

Usually you will find an excuse like ‘I had something in my eye’ or ‘I was distracted by that cat outside,’ which would support your insistence that a do-over is necessary.

Don’t you wish you could apply this kind of practice in other aspects of your life? Say, for instance, you quit your job, start a new one and a year into your new position, you realize that your resignation was accepted by a boss that no longer works at the company, thus making his signature null and void. You then go back to your previous position a year later and start working as if you never left; trashing the personal items of the employee that took your place, of course.

Or, maybe, you decide to get mar-

verybody deserves a chance, even the Parliament in Kuwait.

Although I think it’s a long journey before Kuwait gets to know what it needs to reach certain requirements to become a democratic country, in every aspect, I do admire their efforts.

As Thomas Edison said “I have not failed 1,000 times; I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”

Speaking of experiments, all of us remember how impressive it was when Kuwait’s women won parliamentary seats in 2005 when for 50 years, Kuwait’s Parliament was an exclusive male domain. Unfortunately, the experiment was a disappointment because as soon as these ladies took their seats, they forgot that they had created history and the huge responsibility they were supposed to carry forth. Instead, the bulb that was supposed to light the future, dimmed.

In March 2008, another bulb fused out when the Parliament was dis-

solved by Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah. This was followed by yet another failed experiment in 2009 just to name a few.

The interesting experiment was the election that was held in February 2012 when Islamists won the elections. The opposition won 34 of the 50 seats in the National Assembly, with 23 of them going to Sunni Islamists. Liberals won nine seats, while women did not win any.

Although this election was won by socalled ‘democratic’ elections, it wasn’t victorious at all.

Since the Islamists took over the Parliament, ridiculous proposals were made; mountains were made of molehills, people felt more stressed and the future looked more bleak.

Nothing from the people’s demands were solved; instead it was dissolved like Kuwait Times quoted: “The Cabinet has reviewed steps and procedures needed to be taken for the execution of the mentioned ruling. In

relation to its implications on the annulment of the electoral process and the invalidity of its announced winners, along with reinstating of the constitutional authority of the dissolved National Assembly by the power of the Constitution,” according to Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad AlSabah, the Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and State Minister for Cabinet Affairs.

Although that doesn’t seem so democratic, because another election must take place for the people to decide who they want to speak on their behalf, but this is not the Parliament’s candidates’ problem anymore. It’s the Kuwaitis’ problem, if they are able to vote not for tribal, wasta and family reasons but vote for the sake of their country, progress and development.

Now, I think Kuwait has had, let’s say 50 experiments, so they still have 950 experiments before they light the future bulb. So, good luck with that.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Kuwait’s buses

KUWAIT: A bus is pictured in Kuwait. — Photos by Sherif Ismail

By Sherif Ismail

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here are millions of stories to hear and tell once onboard one of Kuwait’s many buses. My own experience of using public transport here was bitter and amusing. Firstly, it was a long wait; we spent 20 minutes at a bus stop outside Messila beach where two buses (an old blue one and a new red one) from different companies approached the stop. The pair were racing each other, each as keen as the other to reach the stop and scoop up the passengers first. Surprisingly, the old blue bus managed to edge into the lead and reached us first.

Onboard, the driver hardly spoke with the passengers. I greeted him and asked if the bus was going to Salmiya, to which I got little more than a mumble and a nod in response.

KUWAIT: (Inset) The broken glass on the window can be seen.

I was curious to see what kind of condition the buses here are in, and even though I didn’t expect much, I was shocked.

The seats were in terrible condition. The air conditioning was on a safe-mode and the heat outside was melting us. It was loud and the smell of diesel was overwhelming. For a moment I lost track of where I was; had I unknowingly slipped into an impoverished, under-developed country? The front seats, which are reserved for female passengers, were occupied by men. I watched as the driver counted cash while driving along

Gulf Road, repeatedly bumping into the curb. I couldn’t believe the risks he took, and was shocked and disturbed as he abruptly hit the break to avoid hitting the car in front of him, sending all of the passengers crashing into the seats in front. As my head struck the seat in front of me, I felt as though I was on a roller-coaster, minus the safety precautions and fun factor.

But it wasn’t all bad; the camaraderie that developed between passengers on the bus was very interesting. People greeted and chatted with one another warmly having formed a bond with each other over time. A pair of women, one from Sri Lankan and the other from the Philippines, shared their concerns about their Iqamah (Residency visa), the cost of renewing or transferring it, and their problems with their sponsors. The Sri Lankan expatriate complained about how her sponsor had forced her to work all week long without any days off. She lamented how he had bargained when she asked to go on her annual vacation, allowing her only 14 paid days, as per the old labour law, leaving the rest as unpaid vacation. The Filipino woman consoled her, and shared her story of how her ‘Mama’ (sponsor) and the owner of the beauty salon she works were only paying her a housemaid’s salary, “I’m staying with some colleagues and can hardly manage just with some tips I get from the customers. Sometimes they give food and old clothes, too,” she said with a sigh.

As the bus became more crowded with every stop, more stories unfolded. As the bus trundled along, one of the passengers struck up a conversation with me, introducing himself as a clerk for a small company, “Our boss forces us to pay for our residency and health insurance fees, despite how low our salary is,” he said. “Why is the bus so hot?” I asked the driver, who said that some of the air conditioners do not work and instead circulate hot air. Upon hearing the comment, a passenger was quick to remark that many drivers prefer not to use the air conditioning, “Look, the driver has his window open and it’s 47 degrees Celsius outside,” he pointed out.

As I was about to enquire about the air conditioning, or lack thereof, a loud bang echoed throughout the bus. More bangs ensued and suddenly the atmosphere of the bus turned tense and panicked. “It’s a group of teenagers who want to force the bus to stop,” said one of the passengers while the driver accelerated to try and escape before the traffic light turned red. The kids kept kicking and knocking on the side of the bus, throwing water bottles at it, cursing and insulting the passen-

KUWAIT: The bus can be seen stopping at a signal - which can be very dangerous for the passenger getting down.

gers and the driver! The passengers went silent and were clearly afraid. A few passengers told me that kids sometimes attack buses for fun, sometimes even throwing stones at the windows!

Despite the growing tension, I decided to continue my journey all the way to down town Kuwait City to hear more stories. The passenger next to me left and was soon replaced by an old lady, who was on her mobile phone, “Mama please find me any job. I can even clean houses. I need to send money to my kids. I have to pay KD 600 to my sponsor to allow me stay in Kuwait,” she said in broken Arabic. She hung up.

“Where do you work, Baba?” she asked. I told her that I’m a clerk, and she started telling me about her life and her fears.

She was torn between returning home indebted, or staying in Kuwait after having spent almost all of her annual earnings.

After hearing her woes, I decided to leave the bus. I left with a heavy heart after hearing so many sad stories. I can safely say that one has to be extremely brave to take a bus in Kuwait. In just one ride, I experienced attacks from teenagers, dangerous driving and air conditioners pumping hot air, but what will stay with me most is the emotional, heart-breaking stories I heard from some of society’s most vulnerable individuals.

KUWAIT: The engine is left exposed to cool the system down in the absence of air conditioning.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Instagram in Kuwait hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! This summer, let other people see the way you see Kuwait through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds.

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If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

Sandstorm road

Indian wa

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Notes found on a stairwell

Duststorm sidewalk

Safyre black and white

Photos by lescribbler ( Taken with Instagram)

Sabelpie

Notes on a dinar

Treelight - Fourth Ring Road

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

A glass apart Glassblowing is a trade that is on its way out, but why?

By Ben Garcia

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he glassblowing craft is slowly dying. There are only three genuine glassblowing factories around the world today. Two factories are based in Germany in the town of Waldsassen, close to the Polish border, and another in France, according to a Kuwaiti businessman who introduced the art to the local market.

Glassblowing is a glass-forming technique which was invented by the Phoenicians around 50 BC along the Syro-Palestinian coast.

The earliest evidence of glassblowing comes from a collection of waste in a glass shop in Jerusalem, including fragments of glass tubes, glass rods and tiny blown bottles, dating from 37 to 4 BC. The Waldsassen factories have been doing glassblowing artwork the traditional way for the past half century. The technique to make glass into an art piece requires a special technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube. The person who makes the artwork is called a glassblower, glass-smith or gaffer.

According to Nasir Alessa, Managing Director of NME Company, the sole distributor of glass blown products from Glashuette Lamberts Company in Germany, this traditional technique is slowly dying out. Part of his interest lies in the survival of the blowingglass factory. “The art of glassblowing is really dying since there are now lots of companies which have introduced machine-made glass,” Alessa says, explaining that the factory will survive the tests of time if there are people out there who care about mouth-blown glass products. “We want to help educate our consumers. We want to make them care for and appreciate glass furniture especially now that more and more factories are shifting into automation and machines for mass production. We want to return the glory of glass products to homes, offices, buildings; adorned, admired and treated well because of its unique beauty and charm,” he said.

For Alessa, the glassblowing product is a work of art, a product of creativity and innovation. “The products are of artisan craft. They are artisan because the finished products are of high quality. Most of the glass you see is coloured and decorative,” he added.

The products made in the factory are used as decorations on walls, doors and windows. Natural colour is mixed while the glass is blown using the pipe to create sheets or any decorative materials.

“So the quality is superb compared to machine made glass; it gives you a different taste and unique characteristics. What we are trying to convey to our clients is that because it is mouth-blown and not machine-made, we have excellent quality of finished products,” he added.

Alessa laments how the modern generations of people are taking glass products for granted. “Usually the glass is overlooked as passive material. They are negligible and taken for granted. We don’t know what it’s worth,” Allessa added.

Glassblowing involves three furnaces; the first contains a crucible of molten glass, the second is called the ‘glory hole’ and is used to reheat a piece and the final furnace is called the ‘lehr’ and used to slowly cool the glass. The major tools involved are the blowpipe, the punty, bench, marver, blocks, jacks, paddles, tweezers, paper, and a variety of shears. The tip of the blowpipe is first preheated; then dipped in the molten glass in the furnace. The molten glass is ‘gathered’ on to the blowpipe in much the same way that honey is picked up on a dipper. “The colours we use are natural; we mix it with very fine sand and while the glass is being

melted we spew the colour into the mixture of glass being moulded so it is embedded in the glass rather than just on the surface. So the result is really superb,” he said.

Glassblowing is a technique that is now being used in smallscale and mass-scale production in various countries around the world including Asia and the Americas. In Kuwait, the artisanship of the blown glass is important. Alessa said, “We only supply to artistes who will subsequently turn the glass product into gorgeous designs on windows and walls.”

The glassblowing product is a work of art, a product of creativity and innovation.

KUWAIT: The traditional method to blow glass is pictured.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Kuwait’s My Business

Online complaints can be good for business

By John P. Hayes

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) honored the winners of its Reyada (Pioneer) competition for the year 2011 at the Science Club on Wednesday night. — KUNA

G

o ahead, type the word “Aramex” in your next tweet or Facebook status and see what happens.

“Uncle Fadi” is watching!

Fadi Ghandour, founder of Aramex, raised the customer service bar internationally in 2008 when he hired an “online conversationalist” to monitor what’s being said about his company. When people mention Aramex online, “Uncle Fadi” knows almost immediately.

Imagine the possibilities for business owners and managers: If you know what people are saying about your company, you can invite yourself into their conversations.

Instead of losing customers for unknown reasons (because no one complains to you), you can save customers and possibly win many more in the process.

Ghandour learned these lessons in 2005 when a blogger in Jordan posted her frustration about Aramex and the founder posted a reply. The blogger was shocked to see Ghandour’s comment, and pleasantly surprised when he later met with her and solved her problem.

Similarly, I recently exchanged tweets with a local blogger who complained about poor customer service in Kuwait. “No one cares,” we agreed. He complained about a problem with his Internet provider, and I mentioned a problem with Aramex. And that’s how I met “Uncle Fadi”.

Actually, I met Murad Bdair, a product consultant for Aramex in Kuwait. “How can we help you?” he tweeted, a short time after my tweet.

When a customer anywhere mentions Aramex in the cyberspace world, someone in the terrestrial world (specifically, Dubai) learns about it in a nanosecond. “We use a variety of tools to monitor social media messages,” explained Lina Shehadeh, the company’s chief marketing officer. “Often times, we know when something is wrong even before our people on the ground are aware of it, and then we take action.” For a company with 353 locations in 60 countries, this is a huge advantage.

Taking action means notifying the local office that there’s an issue, and someone in the local office immediately “engages” with the customer. Thus, when Bdair heard about my tweet, he offered his assistance.

Was I surprised?

I was shocked!

Most businesses pay little attention to customer service, and suddenly there was a multi-national corporation inquiring about how to help me. When’s the last time that happened to you? By the way, the blogger I mentioned earlier - he never heard from his Internet provider.

During the past six months, mentions of Aramex have doubled on social media, according to Shehadeh. “Social media is a channel that customers find easy to use,” she explained. “With just one tweet you can get the founder’s attention, so it’s a very efficient way for customers to be heard.”

Perhaps you’ve heard that Ghandour is retiring this year. Not to worry, “Uncle Fadi” will still monitor your posts. The cost of paying attention to customers is far less costly than losing them by ignoring their concerns. Since hiring that first “online conversationalist,” Aramex has trained many of its 12,000 employees to become “social media ambassadors”.

Imagine the benefits if “Uncle Fadi” influences the Kuwait business community, online as well as offline.

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

KFAS honors winners of Reyada 2011 competition KUWAIT: The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) honored the winners of its Reyada (Pioneer) competition for the year 2011 at the Science Club on Wednesday night. The Reyada competition is an annual event with two categories; photographic pictures and video (DVD) and drawing. The theme for entries this year was Kuwaiti history and the environment. 309 participants of different ages contributed, said KFAS Science Culture Director, Dr. Hamid AlAjlan.

Al-Ajlan said that the entries sought not only to show the beauty of the Kuwaiti environment, but also to shed light on the scale and types of damage it suffers. He noted that the competition often highlights particularly special talents. He added, “We cannot look away while the environment gets abused and destroyed. This competition aims to raise awareness of the issue.” The official added that the top prize for the winning photograph is KD 700, which went to Mohammad Yousef Al-Hmeid. Ayman Mohammad Rashed won KD 500 for coming in at second place, and Ahmad Abdelridha Abdullah won KD 300 for taking third place. There were also 10 prizes of KD 200 each for unique entries.

Top prize in the video category, KD 700, was awarded to Abdulrahman Al-Terkeit, and second prize of KD 500, went to Abdelwahab Al-Asbehi. Third place and a prize of KD 300 went to Rawyah Al-Ansari. There were also another 10 prizes of KD

200 each for works of distinction.

As for the drawings, there was a selection of winners from each of the three age groups: 6-9 years, 10-12 years, and 13-16 years of age. In the first group, the top winner was Amena Rashid Hajji, Rahaf Al-Azmi took first place in the second group and Badriyah Hajji Mohammad won first place in the 13-16 group. There were 10 prizes of KD 50 for additional works of merit. — KUNA

Woman beaten, detained by official for traffic citation MP’s daughter sent on wild goose chase KUWAIT: Security sources said that a Kuwaiti man reported to Shuwaikh police station yesterday to accuse Assistant Undersecretary for Traffic Affairs, Lieutenant General Mustafa Al-Zaabi, of beating his daughter and wrongly detaining her.

He reported that his daughter was driving, with a shade near her window, when the official flashed his lights at her car, indicating that she should stop. A male official introduced himself as Lieutenant General Mustafa Al-Zaabi before aggressively removing the shade from her window. According to the report, he then attacked the driver and placed her in the backseat of a patrol car. The man reported that Al-Zaabi had his daughter taken to the traffic department and detained before being issued a traffic citation. The victim then called her father, who took her from the traffic department to the hospital to get a medical report. They proceeded to Shuwaikh police station where the father of the victim filed a case against Al-Zaabi. A case was registered.

Wild goose chase The daughter of an MP has spent the last three days struggling with an unknown suspect who has set an endless hunt for her to attempt to recover her hand bag, which was stolen from her workplace. The victim first reported that her hand bag was stolen from her workplace in Ahmadi. It contained KD 150 in cash, her car keys, Civil ID and cosmetics. She reported the theft to Ahmadi police, but did not suspect any one. The next day, the victim reported that she received a call from an unknown num-

ber. The caller said that she had found her bag, and added that she wanted to return it to her personally. The victim agreed to meet with the caller near the Marina complex but, when she arrived at their agreed upon time and place, no one showed up.

The victim called the mystery caller, who apologized and set a new time and place to meet, this time in front of Salmiya police station. When the victim rushed to the new location, she was left waiting with no sign of the caller. She called the woman, but her phone had been switched off. On the third day, upon returning to her car after work, she saw the door wide open. It didn’t appear to have been forced open, suggesting that it had been opened with a key. The victim once again reported the matter to Ahmadi police, who in turn registered a new case and added it to her original report. They fingerprinted her car and are continuing to investigate the matter.

Asian maid arrested An Asian maid, who had been registered as absent by her sponsor, was arrested in Salwa by patrol officers. She claimed that she did not have her ID on hand, but provided identification when she was taken to the patrol car. The police investigated and found that an absentee case had been filed against her by her sponsor in Farwaniya and that she was wanted by Farwaniya police. The maid was sent to the police station and revealed during interrogation that her sponsor had been beating her continuously, thus forcing her to run away. She was taken to the hospital for a medical report and a case was registered.

Local FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Cabinet chairs meeting over Court verdict KUWAIT: Kuwaiti Cabinet held yesterday an extraordinary meeting at Seif Palace, under His Highness Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, to mull the repercussions of the Supreme Constitutional Court’s verdict to annul February 2 parliamentary elections. The Cabinet continued discussions over the optimal way to implement the unprecedented ruling. It also reviewed legal experts and relative government bodies proposals about verdict implementation. The court on Wednesday annulled the legislative elections held on February 2, 2012 and cancelled the membership of MPs who were declared winners.

The court based its decision on the grounds that two decrees dissolving the previous Parliament and calling for a fresh election were illegal. The ruling also stipulated that “the previous Parliament regains its constitutional powers

as if it had not been dissolved”. The Cabinet underscored the need for a thorough study for the best ways to tackle the verdict to avoid any mistakes that could be used for legal action against it.

For this reason, the Cabinet formed a ministerial committee to study the court ruling and to put it into effect. The committee includes Minister of Justice and Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Jamal Al-Shihab, Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, and Minister of Commerce and Industry Anas Khalid Al-Saleh, Minister of Communications Salem Mutheeb Al-Utheina and Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Ahmad Abdullatif Al-Rujeib.

The Kuwaiti Parliament has been dissolved four times since 2006, but this is the first time in Kuwait’s history that a Parliament was dissolved by a ruling from Constitutional Court. — KUNA

KUWAIT: His Highness Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah is pictured during the meeting at Seif Palace yesterday. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Several MPs are seen at a forum hosted at Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun’s diwan in Khaldiya yesterday. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Al-Muaiziri announces resignation ‘Public shocked at sudden changes’: Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Several MPs continued to comment on the unprecedented court verdict which reinstated the 2009 National Assembly Council and deemed the dissolution decree void. Remarks were made at a forum hosted at Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun’s diwan in Khaldiya yesterday. Meanwhile, State Minister for Council Affairs and Housing, Minister Shuaib Al-Muaiziri, had officials announce his resignation from the Government and also resigned from 2009 NA Council. Al-Muaiziri

told reporters that he tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister and gave his resignation from the NA Council to the NA Speaker. He further announced that he will not stand for the upcoming elections. He addressed his talk to the Kuwaiti public, asking them to forgive him for any shortfalls, adding, “I ask Almighty Allah to protect Kuwait and its people from negativity.”

NA Speaker, Ahmad Al-Saadoun, said that the public is shocked at the sudden changes.

He listed other examples in Kuwait’s history of violations to the constitution and said that demands for a real Parliamentary system have been ongoing since 1962. He said that the recent events are a coup against the constitution and warned the government against interfering in cases that the council has defended. He said that the authority was, and still is, afraid of any Constitution amendments that may lead the state towards the Parliament system. Al-Saadoun addressed

Government directly, saying: “We shall have action and not reaction, and we warn you from playing in the case of “deposits” in MP’s accounts and transfers abroad. All documents are in our hands. On his part, ex-candidate Mohammad Al-Dalla said that it is time to stop playing and proceed to reform laws. MP Jumaan Al-Harbash said that the fight has now become one between the authority and people, adding that the nation shall emerge victorious.

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Obama faces growing GOP super PAC financial power

2 S African hostages freed in Somalia raid

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Pakistan’s govt nominates new PM

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CAIRO: Egyptian supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi hold his portrait as they wave the national flags during a demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir square yesterday.—-AFP

Egypt showdown after election result delayed Ruling military grants self sweeping powers CAIRO: Egypt yesterday braced for a showdown between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood as the electoral commission delayed announcing the winner of a presidential poll claimed by the Islamists. A delay in announcing the results from the run-off, which had been due yesterday, heightened Brotherhood fears of a “soft coup” by the ruling military, which has already disbanded the Islamist-led parliament and granted itself sweeping powers.

A senior Brotherhood official warned the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that it risked a “confrontation” with the people if Hosni Mubarak’s last premier Ahmed Shafiq was declared the winner over Mohamed Morsi. Another Brotherhood leader, Khairat El-Shater, said Islamist supporters would rally “peacefully” if Shafiq was declared the winner, because the Brotherhood had evidence that Morsi won, the group’s website reported.

Returning officers had handed stamped results to representatives of the rival candidates after completing their tallies, which Morsi’s campaign has made public. But only the electoral commission can declare the

official result. The commission said late on Wednesday it would delay its announcement while it studied allegations of fraud from both candidates that might affect the final outcome of the June 16-17 run-off.

Shafiq’s campaign team, which insists he won despite the Brotherhood claims of victory within hours of polls closing, accuses the Morsi camp of printing almost a million false ballots, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

Morsi’s campaign, which has published the results from counts across the country, denies the allegation and accuses Shafiq’s team of bribing voters. The newspaper of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), ran a large red banner on its yesterday edition saying: “Sit-in,” above an announcement of an open-ended protest until Morsi is sworn in.

The military has pledged to transfer power to the winner by the end of the month, but Brotherhood members who set up tents in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the hub of protests that overthrew Mubarak last year, say they are not convinced. They cite the military’s assumption of legislative powers after a

court ordered parliament dissolved, and decrees giving the army powers of arrest and a broad say in government policy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday it was “imperative” that the military follow through on its promise of a swift handover to civilian rule. Some of the actions by the military leadership in recent days were “clearly troubling,” said Clinton, whose government gives Egypt more than one billion dollars a year, mostly in military aid. The generals say they have no intention of remaining in power after a civilian president takes office for the first time since the February 11, 2011 overthrow of Mubarak.

The ousted strongman is currently in a coma in a military hospital after suffering a stroke that prompted his transfer from a Cairo prison where he was serving a life sentence, military and medical sources said.

“This is a constitutional coup,” said Brotherhood member Abdel Rahman alSaoudi, a protester camped out in Tahrir yesterday morning, adding that he would not leave the square until Morsi’s inauguration.

The protesters are also demanding that the military repeal an updated interim constitu-

tion that allows it to assume parliament’s powers and gives it a say in drafting Egypt’s next constitution. The sit-in comes after the Brotherhood held a large rally in Tahrir Square on Tuesday. “We insist on remaining in the square until we achieve the goals of the revolution and the demands of (the rally) — confronting the military coup against legitimacy,” the FJP website quoted senior leader Essam al-Erian as saying. It also quoted Mahmud Ghozlan, a member of the Brotherhood’s politburo, as warning there could be “a confrontation between the military and the people,” should Shafiq be announced the election winner.

“The insistence by Shafiq’s campaign that he won indicates bad intentions from the military council and the electoral commission,” Ghozlan said. Human Rights Watch said military decrees issued over the past month cast doubt on the genuineness of repeated pledges to hand over power.

“These decrees are the latest indication yet that there won’t be a meaningful handover to civilian rule on June 30,” the New Yorkbased watchdog’s Middle East director Joe Stork said.—AFP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Bahrain police arrest 5 over ‘terror attacks’ DUBAI: Bahraini police said yesterday they had arrested five of a group of 20 people wanted over “terror attacks”, including for alleged bombings and causing harm to civilians and security personnel. The five were identified as Hasan al-Muallem, Ibrahim Ali, Ali Abbas al-Asfur, Ibrahim Mohammed al-Asfur and Hussein Zaed, in a statement to BNA state news agency by General Tareq Hasan,

the head of General Security.

Security forces “arrested five of those accused of terror crimes which included making and detonating bombs, and carrying out criminal acts that resulted in wounding civilians and police,” he was quoted as saying, without indicating when the arrests were made. Hasan said police had circulated photographs of the wanted men through the media, which had facilitat-

ed their capture. The detainees, who appear to be from the Shiite majority, have been referred to the public prosecution while police hunt for the other fugitives, Hasan said in the statement, which did not provide any details of the attacks. Bahraini authorities accuse Shiite youth protesters of using petrol bombs against security forces during frequent demonstrations in villages outside the capital Manama.

Sporadic and small demonstrations have intensified in the villages since a brutal crackdown in March 2011 ended month-long protests in Manama’s main Pearl Square demanding democratic reforms in the Gulf kingdom ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International says 60 people have been killed since the protests first erupted in February last year.—AFP

Syria fighter pilot defects to Jordan New blow to Assad BAGHDAD: In this Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012 file photo, Iraq’s Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi attends a meeting for the main Sunni-backed bloc in Baghdad, Iraq. —AP

Iraq parliament speaker threatens to oust premier BAGHDAD: The speaker of Iraq’s parliament declared yesterday that lawmakers are prepared to oust the nation’s prime minister if he refuses to share authority with his political opponents and break a deadlock that has all but paralyzed the government. The threat by the speaker, Osama Al-Nujaifi, a leader in the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political coalition, counters a claim last week by Iraq’s president that there is not enough support in parliament to call a vote to push Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki from power.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, al-Nujaifi said he personally believes Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, should step down from the job that he barely won after national elections in 2010 failed to produce a clear winner. Since then - and particularly after US troops left Iraq last December - critics have accused al-Maliki of sidelining his political opponents and violating agreements to share power within a unity government.

The political deadlock has all but brought Iraq’s government to a standstill so far this year. Bickering between the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad and the self-rule Kurdish region in Iraq’s north threatens to stunt vital foreign investment in the country’s lucrative oil industry. Provinces with majority Sunni populations have threatened to create their own autonomous regions. Political lethargy, combined with red tape, has delayed improvements in many areas, including the nation’s electricity system, job creation and rooting out government corruption.

The deadlock has continued against a backdrop of sporadic but deadly bursts of violence: 120 Iraqis have been killed over the last 10 days alone in bombings mostly targeting Shiite pilgrims and security officials across Baghdad and beyond. “This is a dangerous matter that if continued would lead to catastrophic consequences,” Al-Nujaifi said as parliament prepared to return to work after a six-week recess.

He said Al-Maliki would be summoned for questioning in front of parliament within days. “And if there is a parliament majority that is not convinced with the results of the questioning, then the no confidence vote will take place,” al-Nujaifi said. He called the process “an attempt to put the country on the right track again.” In April, heeding complaints from his followers, hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met with Sunni and Kurdish leaders in what was widely viewed as a summit to plot al-Maliki’s ouster. But yesterday, al-Sadr released a statement on his website saying “he tends not to intervene” in such matters.—AP

DAMASCUS: A Syrian pilot sought political asylum after landing his MiG fighter jet in neighboring Jordan yesterday, in the first such defection of a revolt a watchdog says has killed more than 15,000 people.

“The pilot asked for political asylum in Jordan,” Information Minister Samih Maayatah told AFP, after a government official said the MiG-21 had made an emergency landing at a base in Mafraq in northern Jordan, near Syria.

Syria’s state television said the warplane, flown by Colonel Hassan Merei alHamade, was flying near the border when contact was lost around 0734 GMT, and Jordan said it landed across the frontier minutes later. Tens of thousands of soldiers have defected from Syria’s armed forces since a revolt erupted in March last year, thousands of them joining the rebel Free Syrian Army, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Diplomats stepped up efforts to stem the bloodshed, with Arab states demanding that Russia stop supplying arms to Syria and the United States and Britain reportedly working on a power transition plan. “Any assistance to violence must be ceased because when you supply military equipment, you help kill people. This must stop,” Arab League deputy chief Ahmed Ben Hilli told Interfax news agency. Ben Hilli also called for the mandate of United Nations and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to be revamped, and for Iran’s inclusion in talks on ending the conflict.

“To make (the Annan) plan work, we need to find a new mechanism and the mandate of the special envoy must be reassessed, so we can be sure that all the sides are observing the plan,” he said without elaborating. His remarks came as British newspaper The Guardian reported that Washington and London were working on an initiative for regime change in Damascus based on Annan’s UN-backed plan that calls for a “Syrian-led political transition.” But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said any peace plan for Syria that calls on President Bashar al-Assad to leave power and go into exile would not work because he would not quit. “A scheme according to which President Assad should leave somewhere before something happens in terms of a cessation of violence and a political process, this scheme simply does not work from the very start,” Lavrov said. “It is infeasible because he will not leave.” Lavrov, whose country remains in close contact with Assad’s government, indicated that the

DAMASCUS: A photo released by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian government troops carrying the coffin of a comrade killed in the ongoing fighting across Syria during a funeral procession outside the Tishrin military hospital in Damascus yesterday.—AFP Syrian leader was not ready to negotiate his removal from power because he still enjoyed popular support.

“I do not think Assad will be sitting down at the negotiating table,” said Lavrov, adding that May 7 legislative polls showed a majority still backed the Syrian leader. Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria, called on Syria’s military, from foot soldiers to senior officers, to reconsider their support for Assad, warning those committing atrocities will be hunted down and prosecuted. The US and global community “will work with the Syrian people to locate the military members responsible for this violence and hold them accountable. And we will support the future Syrian government’s efforts to bring those people to justice,” Ford said in a message on his Facebook page.

‘More blood will flow’- In the latest bloodshed, at least 77 people were killed in violence across Syria yesterday, among them 49 civilians, 26 soldiers, and two rebels, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 13 civilians were killed in the flashpoint central city of Homs and another two unidentified people died in nearby Quasyr, the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. Streaming video from Homs on the bambuser.com website showed smoke billowing from a residential district as the staccato of automatic gunfire was punctuated by the thud of mortar blasts.

Elsewhere, eight soldiers and a rebel were

killed in heavy fighting at Armanaz, near Turkey in the northwestern province of Idlib, following a rebel attack on an army barracks, said the Observatory. In the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising, at least 18 people were killed as the town of Inkhel was shelled and stormed by troops who then carried out a series of raids.

“If the international community remains silent and happy to just observe the situation, more blood will flow in Syria,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. “The violence has only become worse in the past two months, and will become more bitter,” he added.

According to a new toll given yesterday, the Observatory said at least 10,480 civilians, 3,715 soldiers and 830 army defectors have been killed in the crackdown and in clashes since March last year. The fresh bloodshed has halted a planned evacuation of hundreds of stranded civilians from the Homs area by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. “Negotiations are still underway with the parties concerned to evacuate civilians, in cooperation with the ICRC,” Khaled Erksoussi, the Red Crescent operations chief in Syria, told AFP. “The teams on site are awaiting the green light to evacuate civilians from the parties who control the dangerous neighborhood. We need to reach an agreement with them to ensure our security,” he said, referring to the rebels.—AFP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Snatched and detained: Libya’s ‘jungle law’ TRIPOLI: Abdulnasser Ruhuma was asleep in his bed when the militia fighters barged into his Tripoli home.

The shouting woke the Libyan bank worker and he rushed downstairs to find around 40 men pointing their rifles at him. Moments later they started beating him. Ruhuma’s wife and relatives begged the intruders to stop but they dragged him and his uncle away. Punched, hit with rifle butts and cut with knives, Ruhuma was taken to a makeshift detention centre in the middle of the night.

In a stark reminder of the lawlessness that prevails in Libya eight months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the gunmen never told Ruhuma why they abducted him.

He says it stems from a family issue - a relative wanted revenge, so he called on the help of an armed brigade. “We weren’t told anything, we were just beaten - our hands, our legs, our bodies,” the 42-year old father-of-two said.

“I thought I would never make it out alive.” Libya’s aspirations to replace Gaddafi’s repressive rule with an

ordered, democratic nation are being undermined by increasingly wayward volunteer militias who operate outside the control of fragile state institutions.

The militias attract most attention when, mounted on their battered pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns welded to the back, they fight pitched battles in city streets against rival groups, usually over some perceived slight or a dispute over territory. But it is their less visible activities that have done the most to puncture the sense of euphoria and freedom that followed Gaddafi’s downfall. Human rights groups have documented a series of cases of militias going to people’s houses, spiriting them away and, often, beating and torturing them.

Ruhuma was released only after his relatives called government security forces for help. They found him a few hours later. “We hear on television that Libya is secure, but after what I have seen, there is no security. How is this possible? There are armed gangs pretending to be revolutionaries,”

Ruhuma said. “This is some kind of jungle law.” Militias spearheaded the rebellion that ended Gaddafi’s rule.

While many have scaled back their activities, gone back to their home towns or merged into national security services, others have yet to lay down their arms. The lack of an effective national police force and army mean many of the militias have more power on the ground than Libya’s official rulers. In the last few weeks, Reuters reporters have heard of cases of Libyans taken from their homes or from the street by armed groups. One of Reuters’ Libyan members of staff was briefly detained and beaten following a dispute over a parking space.

“We have received complaints about people being tortured - taken, detained for a few hours,” said Abdelbaset Ahmed Abumzirig, deputy head of the national council for freedom and human rights. “Some have been passed on to the police and prosecutor general and we are following them up. We know that the authorities are weak.” International

campaign groups have identified armed militias as one of the biggest challenges to stability as Libya’s new rulers try to build new institutions and prepare for the first election in a generation on July 7.

In the last month, Tripoli’s international airport was seized by an armed group for several hours. One person was killed and several injured when militiamen protesting outside the prime minister’s office started shooting. Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour told Reuters the government planned to increase security on the streets and set up more checkpoints to stop people bringing heavy weapons into cities. “This revolution came to eliminate the era of human rights violations, but unfortunately these incidents have happened, these are crimes,” he said.

On top of the rise in abductions, rights groups say they are also concerned about the fate of thousands of people captured by the authorities and militias during and immediately after the uprising. — Reuters

Israel: Clock ticking after Iran talks fail Tougher sanctions take effect soon

GAZA STRIP: Palestinian mourners carry the body of Hamas militant Thair Mohammed AlBik, 30, during his funeral in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday after he was killed along with another militant by gas fumes as they carried out an inspection of a tunnel hit by an Israeli air strike. —AFP

Hamas: Two fighters found dead in bombed Gaza tunnel GAZA CITY: Palestinians said yesterday they had recovered the bodies of two militants from a tunnel damaged by an Israeli air strike on Gaza, raising to 10 the death toll in the territory since Monday. Thaer Mohammed al-Bik, 30, and Mohammed Zuhair al-Khaldi, 26, were killed by gas fumes as they carried out an inspection of the tunnel hit by Israeli fire on Tuesday, the military wing of Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement said. Gaza militants continued to fire across the border into Israel yesterday but the intensity was sharply down on the previous day, as a truce declared by Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades military wing appeared to be taking hold. By midafternoon, nine rockets had hit southern Israel, causing no casualties, a military spokeswoman told AFP. Another was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket defence system.

There had been no Israeli raids. On Wednesday, police logged 58 rocket and mortar strikes during the day. Late that evening, the Hamas military wing said it had agreed to

an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel, after three days of bloodshed in and around Gaza. The latest round of Israeli attacks and Palestinian retaliation began with air strikes on Monday morning, just hours after gunmen from Sinai carried out an ambush along Israel’s southern border with Egypt, killing an Israeli civilian.

Israel has said that its sudden spike in Gaza operations-three deadly air raids in just over 12 hours-was “in no way related” to the border incident, with the military saying the air force was targeting militants about to attack the Jewish state. Since Monday, 130 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel, of which three have been brought down by Iron Dome, an army spokeswoman told AFP. One rocket slammed into an Israeli border police post, wounding four people. The Hamas military wing said in its statement yesterday that it had fired 120 rockets, a rare show of force from the Islamist group that had been observing a de facto truce.—AFP

JERUSALEM: Israel has responded to the failure of the latest nuclear talks between world powers and Iran with a familiar refrain: sanctions must be ramped up while the clock ticks down toward possible military action. With diplomacy at an impasse, there is satisfaction among Israeli leaders at what they see as a tough line taken by the West in the negotiations on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israeli political sources said yesterday.

A member of the British negotiating team quietly visited Israel on Wednesday to brief officials on this week’s Moscow talks, the sources said, and new US and European sanctions against Iran are due to come into effect in the next two weeks. Defence Minister Ehud Barak stuck closely to his stated line, without offering any new sense of urgency, when asked by the Washington Post how much more time Israel can allow for diplomacy to work.

“I don’t want to pretend to set timelines for the world,” he said, “but we have said loud and clear that it cannot be a matter of weeks but it (also) cannot be a matter of years”. Preparations for any strike against Iran, which Israel and Western powers suspect is trying to develop the capacity to build a nuclear bomb, are closely guarded in Israel. But Barak said that even in the United States, which has counselled against jumping the gun while a diplomatic drive with Iran is under way, “at least on a technical level, there are a lot of preparations”.

Iran and six world powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - failed to secure a breakthrough in Moscow at what was the third round of the latest diplomatic initiative, and set no date for more political talks. Last month, and again in Moscow, the powers asked Iran to close the Fordow underground facility where uranium is being enriched to 20-per-

cent fissile purity, and to ship any stockpile out of the country, demands that come close to Israel’s. Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz held talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on Wednesday. “I explained that after the failure of the ... talks in Moscow, the West must impose a full oil embargo on Iran and tough financial sanctions,” Mofaz said on his Facebook page, adding: “In parallel, preparations for other options must continue.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented publicly on the Moscow talks.

He had complained that the months of talking had given Iran a “freebie” to continue enrichment. The right-wing leader has been cautioned by former Israeli security chiefs against ordering attacks on Iran, amid scepticism about how effective Israeli air strikes would be. Iran, which has called for Israel’s demise, says its nuclear programme is designed for energy production alone.

Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, says a nucleararmed Iran would pose a threat to its existence. Barak, in the newspaper interview, held out little hope that diplomacy would persuade Iran to bend. “By the third meeting in a negotiation, you know whether the other party intends to reach an agreement or, alternatively, whether he is trying to play for time to avoid a decision,” he said. “It seems to me that the Iranians keep defying and deceiving the whole world. But it’s up to the participants in the negotiations to reach this conclusion. We cannot afford to spend another three rounds of this nature just to allow the Iranians to keep manoeuvring.” Weighing into the debate, Israeli President Shimon Peres told an audience in Jerusalem: “There’s not much time. If the Iranians ... don’t heed the warnings, the calls and the economic sanctions, the world will look to other options.”—Reuters

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Ex-Romania PM who shot himself has surgery BUCHAREST: A former Romanian former prime minister who shot himself in the neck hours after being sentenced to prison successfully underwent surgery yesterday, bringing more high drama to a case that has sent shockwaves through this Eastern European nation. Adrian Nastase was rushed to the hospital Wednesday after shooting himself in apparent reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision that he must serve a two-year prison sentence on corruption charges. The ruling made him the most senior Romanian politician to be sentenced to prison since the 1989 end of communism.

One of the most prominent politicians of the past two decades, Nastase had appealed a March 30 court ruling that sentenced him to prison for illegally raising funds for a failed presidential campaign. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence on Wednesday. The trial sent a signal to the European Union, which had urged Romania to crack down on endemic corruption, that the country was finally tackling high-level graft.

The Eastern European nation’s legal system has often been criticized for being under political influence.

Surgeon Serban Bradisteanu said

BUCHAREST: Former Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase is wheeled out of an ambulance by emergency services workers after he tried to commit suicide in his house in Bucharest late Wednesday.—AFP

doctors successfully performed surgery yesterday on Nastase’s gunshot wounds, and he will remain in intensive care. The former prime minister’s condition is complicated by diabetes and cardiac problems, Bradisteanu said. Prosecutors went to Nastase’s home yesterday and took away his gun collection, which he was licensed to have. Nastase’s lawyer Ion

Cazacu said he would apply yesterday for a three-month delay, the legal limit, to the start of Nastase’s sentence.

Nastase’s sentencing and his apparent suicide attempt stunned Romania. Dramatic details emerged from friends and politicians, who cited eyewitnesses. When police came to arrest Nastase late Wednesday,

Greece names new cabinet as bailout battle looms ATHENS: Greece named a new cabinet to end two months of deadlock yesterday which will face the immediate challenges of trying to revise an unpopular EU-IMF bailout deal and escape a punishing recession. The announcement came a day after conservative leader Antonis Samaras was sworn in as prime minister following a narrow victory over radical leftists with his promise to keep Greece in the euro at landmark elections on Sunday.

The most closely-watched appointment was that of Vassilis Rapanos, chairman of Greece’s biggest lender National Bank of Greece, who will spearhead efforts to rescue an economy on life support as the new finance minister.

Rapanos was a key player at the economy ministry when Greece joined the euro in 2001 and is seen as close to the socialist Pasok party, one of two junior partners in the coalition with Samaras’s New

Democracy agreed Wednesday.

The government will also have the backing of the moderate Democratic Left but both it and Pasok did not contribute their own lawmakers to the cabinet.

The new foreign minister will be Dimitris Avramopoulos, a former diplomat and ex-Athens mayor who was previously defence minister.

Most new ministers were expected to be formally sworn in later yesterday. The Eurogroup of finance ministers meanwhile gathered in Luxembourg, for what is expected to be a battle on the Greek and Spanish fronts as well as a huddle on runaway borrowing costs for Italy and a last-minute Cypriot cry for help. Greece is hoping for a two-year extension to 2016 for its recovery plan and a further loan of up to 20 billion euros ($25 billion), a finance ministry source said on Wednesday, according to the staterun Athens News Agency. —AFP

ATHENS: Democratic left party leader, Fotis Kouvelis (C) leaves the prime minister’s office after a meeting of the political leaders with newly appointed prime minister Antonis Samaras in Athens yesterday.—AFP

they said, he told them he wanted to take some books with him. In fact, Nastase went to get a gun. He tried to shoot himself in the head, but was prevented by a police officer, said former Education Minister Ecaterina Antonescu.

Former President Ion Iliescu, a close ally, said that the police attempt to execute the court order was “inhumane.” He said Nastase, who will turn 62 today, considered himself innocent. Senior opposition member Vasile Blaga called the shooting “shocking” and “a tragedy.”

Prime Minister Victor Ponta visited Nastase after the shooting and darkly pointed the finger at Romanian President Traian Basescu. “Nastase looks terrible” he said.

“I wonder if Basescu is happy now?” Nastase has insisted that he is innocent and says the case is politically motivated. Nastase was prime minister from 2000 to 2004 and headed the Social Democracy Party from 2000 to 2005. He also served as foreign minister from 1990 to 1992, and was also parliamentary speaker.

A former law professor, he is known for his love of hunting, fishing, classical music and collection of paintings and antiques. — AP

Sweden on alert, explosives found near nuclear plant Dogs detect explosives during routine check STOCKHOLM: Sweden raised the security alert for the country’s three nuclear power plants yesterday after explosives were found on a truck at the southwestern Ringhals atomic power station. Police said they were investigating possible sabotage.

Bomb sniffer dogs detected the explosives during a routine check Wednesday afternoon by security staff while the truck was in the power plant’s industrial area near its high security enclosure. Police declined to describe the amount or type of explosive material found.

Bomb technicians said the material lacked a detonating device, meaning there was no danger of an explosion. Police spokesman Tommy Nyman said officers were investigating possible sabotage but had no suspects. He said the driver of the truck had been unaware of the explosives placed in the vehicle and was not suspected of being involved. “An outsider has obviously placed them on the truck,” Nyman said. “We’re talking to the truck driver and are trying to map out her movements within the (Ringhals) premises throughout the day.” The area surrounding the truck was evacuated and cordoned off.

Four nuclear reactors are at Ringhals, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Sweden’s second-largest city, Goteborg. The plant is controlled by energy companies Vattenfall and E.ON. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said the explosive material was found on the truck “en route from the Ringhals industrial park into a protected

area ... and did not enter the facility.”

Ringhals officials said an explosion on the truck would not have caused “any serious damage” to the site but did not elaborate on how they came to that assessment.

Sweden has 10 nuclear reactors at the country’s three power plants: Ringhals, Forsmark and Oskarshamn - providing about half of the country’s electricity. The country also has a four-stage security risk scale, with four representing the highest security alert. Ringhals was rated at one situation “normal” - but after the incident, the nuclear authority said it raised the security alert by a notch to 2. In 1980, Sweden decided to phase out the use of nuclear energy after Swedes voted that way in a referendum. But two years ago, the center-right government overturned that decision, citing the lack of viable longterm environmentally friendly alternatives, a move that paved the way for old reactors to be replaced by new ones.

Security at Swedish nuclear plants has been criticized on several past occasions.

In 2010, Greenpeace activists managed to break into the Forsmark power plant site by climbing a fence, and staging a demonstration there. Twenty-nine Greenpeace activists from Germany, Poland, Britain, France and the Nordic countries were convicted and fined for that incident. The Swedish nuclear industry has also been under fire for the lack of some safety precautions while operating the reactors. —AP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

News

in brief

Spain Supreme Court judge resigns over beach trips MADRID: The chief justice of Spain’s Supreme Court has resigned amid allegations he billed the government for dozens of private trips to seaside resorts. Carlos Divar, 70, announced his resignation yesterday at a meeting of a 20member judicial oversight board of which he is also the chairman. A board official who attended said Divar denied any wrongdoing, and said was stepping down after a month of headline-grabbing pressure to avert further damage to the image of Spain’s judicial branch. The complaint was filed by another member of the oversight board. It asserted Divar filed for reimbursement for trips to resorts like Marbella when they were personal in nature. Divar says they were work-related. The board official said the body’s practice is that judges don’t need to justify their travel expenses.

Prosecutors ask for psychiatric care for Breivik OSLO: Prosecutors yesterday asked a court to send confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik to a mental institution instead of prison for his massacre of 77 people in a gun and shooting rampage. If the court comes to the same conclusion when it issues its ruling, expected next month, it would mean that Breivik will avoid criminal responsibility for Norway’s worst peacetime massacre. The attacks at Norway’s government headquarters and a youth summer camp would then not be considered acts of political terrorism, but the work of a blood-thirsty madman. “We request that he is transferred to compulsory psychiatric care,” prosecutor Svein Holden told the court in closing arguments. The defense is likely to refute the insanity finding today, the last day of the 10-week trial. Breivik, who styles himself as an anti-Muslim militant, claims he is sane and that his attacks were motivated by his political views. Just like when the trial stared in mid-April, the 33-year-old Norwegian flashed a clenched-fist salute with his right arm before he was led out of the court yesterday.

Bosnia: 2 detained over wartime killing of 1,000 SARAJEVO: Prosecutors say police have detained two men suspected of involvement in the killing of some 1,000 male Muslim Bosniak residents of Srebrenica at the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. A statement from the prosecutor’s office said yesterday that former Bosnian Serb commander Ostoja Stanisic, 60, and his deputy Marko Milosevic, 58, were detained yesterday in the area of Zvornik, in eastern Bosnia.

They are accused of participating in the killing of some 1,000 of the 8,000 Muslim men and boys, who were executed over a few days after Serb forces overran the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995, in what was the worst massacre of civilians on European soil after World War II. An international court said the massacre was an act of genocide.

2 S African hostages freed in Somalia raid Raid a joint operation by security forces, army MOGADISHU: Somali security forces have rescued a South African couple kidnapped by pirates in the Indian Ocean and held for 18 months, Defense Minister Hussein Arab Isse said yesterday. “The rescue started last night (Wednesday) and lasted until this morning and you can see that the pair were freed safely,” Isse told a joint press conference with the couple, Debbie Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari, who appeared with sunken eyes and ashen faces. Isse said the raid was a joint operation by security forces and the army and that the couple had been freed from “Al-Qaeda-affiliated” insurgents.

It was not immediately clear whether this meant that the pirates who captured the couple had sold them on to Somalia’s Shebab rebels, a group linked to Al-Qaeda. Sources said the operation took place in the lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia, close to Mogadishu. Calitz and Pelizzari were sailing in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya in 2010 when their yacht was hijacked by 12 pirates who set course for Somalia and took the couple ashore at Baraawe.

South Africa welcomed the news of the couple’s rescue.”The South African government wishes to express its sincere gratitude to the transitional federal government of Somalia following the release on Wednesday... of the couple,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Pretoria said Italy was involved in the rescue operation and thanked it for its role. “The couple is in good health and eager to be reunited with their loved ones,” said the statement.

It did not give details on the rescue operation. Asked if any ransom was paid, foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela said in a text message: “It is not the policy of government to pay ransom.” The Somali defence minister made no mention of any ransom payment. He told journalists that more such raids may be staged. “We know the whereabouts of the rest of the hostages,

MOGADISHU: South African couple kidnapped by pirates in the Indian Ocean and held for 18 months, Bruno Pelizzari (R) and Deborah Calitz, raises their arms yesterday outside the presidential palace in Mogadishu following their rescue. —AFP including the French agent, and if the ransom demand came down to kidnappers fail to free them, we will $500,000, according to the site, but after forcefully rescue them,” he said, refer- “interference with negotiations” the ring to a French intelligence agent pirates again raised the amount to $4 seized in Mogadishu in July 2009 and million.

Somali pirates have reportedly detained since.

Calitz, aged around 50, and Pelizzari, received large ransoms in the past to in his early fifties, were working as crew free hostages seized from yachts. In on the yacht Choizil as it sailed from Dar September 2011 pirates released a es Salaam in Tanzania toward South Danish family, including three teenage Africa when the hijacking occurred on children, and their two crew, also from October 26, 2010. The yacht’s skipper, Denmark, after kidnapping them from Peter Eldridge, refused to leave with the their yacht six months earlier. Maritime pirates and was eventually rescued by a monitoring group Ecoterra International vessel from EU NAVFOR, the European said a ransom-which local Somali Union’s anti-piracy mission, on sources said amounted to up to $4 million-had been air-dropped to the pirates November 7.

Calitz’s brother Dale van der Merwe to secure the family’s release.

A British yachting couple, Paul and said in January 2011 he had been contacted by people claiming to be the Rachel Chandler, were freed by their pirates who demanded a ransom of 10 pirate captors in November 2010 after million dollars (7.9 million euros). more than a year in captivity. According Friends and family members of Calitz to Somali elders and sources close to the and Pelizzari set up a website to raise negotiations that led to their release, a money to free the pair. After the couple total ransom of at least $750,000 was had spent five months in captivity the paid. — AFP

Nigeria works to restore calm after 106 killed KADUNA: Nigerian security forces sought to restore calm in parts of the country’s north yesterday after fresh clashes rocked an area already under curfew following days of violence that left 106 people dead. The new clashes late Wednesday between Christians and Muslims hit areas in and around the city of Kaduna, leaving at least five people dead, according to residents. Police confirmed more rioting, but did not provide casualty figures.

Factors said to have led to the new clashes included the circulation of inciteful SMS messages, an argument at a market that escalated into violence and residents’ reactions after claiming the mangled bodies of relatives. “The clashes started from unfounded rumours being bandied about on text messages of attacks and counter-attacks in the city, which provoked so much sentiment,” said police spokesman Aminu Lawan.

Kaduna state, where the violence began on Sunday, remained under a round-the-clock curfew

as troops and police patrolled the area. Kaduna city, the capital of the state of the same name, is a major city in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and has a large Christian population. “Soldiers and policemen have deployed in the town, but five people have already been killed in the violence on both sides,” said a resident of Kujama, outside of Kaduna. “I saw five dead bodies from the clash.”

The 24-hour curfew was however relaxed in the northeastern city of Damaturu, where clashes between security forces and suspected Islamists Monday and Tuesday killed at least 40 and stranded residents unable to return home or access food.

Damaturu residents will now be allowed to move around between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm, the state government announced.

The violence has sparked fears of further reprisals and wider conflict in the country of some 160 million people, roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian

south. Frustration over the government’s inability to stop attacks by Islamist group Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed hundreds, has led to warnings that there could be more cases of residents taking the law into their own hands. This week’s violence began on Sunday with suicide attacks at three churches in Kaduna state, which left at least 16 people dead and sparked reprisals

by Christian mobs who burned mosques and targeted Muslims, killing dozens.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the church attacks. While a curfew and heavy security patrols stopped rioting that broke out on Sunday, flare-ups hit the area in the days after. Separately on Monday and Tuesday, gun battles broke out between suspected Boko Haram members and security forces in Damaturu, previously hit by heavy violence blamed on the Islamists. Government officials were said to be consulting with religious leaders in Kaduna in an effort to ease tensions. —AFP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Obama faces growing GOP super PAC financial power Main pro-Romney super PAC report 8m raised in May

BELLVUE: In this June 12, 2012 file photo Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, right, speaks to reporters during a news briefing in Bellvue, Colo., about the efforts of firefighters battling the wildfire west of Fort Collins, Colo.—AP

Crews seek upper hand on raging Colorado wildfires BELLVUE: Colorado firefighters are ramping up their attack on a lightning-sparked blaze that has spread across more than 100 square miles of tinder-dry terrain and left officials to believe it could be weeks, or even months, before the fire is finally controlled. The offensive that started Wednesday on the massive wildfire west of Fort Collins comes after gusty winds fanned flames during three straight days of heat that saw temperatures reach into the 90s. The fire started June 9 and was 55 percent contained.

“Mother Nature has allowed us this window, and we have responded very aggressively,” said Brett Haberstick, a spokesman for fire managers. Area temperatures dipped into the 70s on Wednesday and were expected to hit 80 degrees Thursday. The fire burning on more than 68,000 acres destroyed at least 189 homes, making it the most destructive in Colorado history. The Denver Post reports the estimated $19.6 million in damages caused by the fire also marks a state high (http://goo.gl/kmcYc ).

Firefighters battling another blaze in central Colorado saw conditions improve Wednesday as well. That blaze, near Lake George, is more than 20 percent contained, despite a meteor warning that led authorities to temporarily ground firefighting aircraft. The temporary move came amid several reported sky sightings near the nearly 2-square-mile fire west of Colorado Springs. Chaffee County Sheriff W. Peter Palmer said his office received multiple reports, including one person who thought a meteorite might have landed in a wooded area north of Buena Vista. Palmer said officials could not confirm that report.

Meanwhile, the crew of a heavy air tanker spotted something while making a slurry run on the blaze, said Steve Segin, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

“They landed as they normally do to reload and, for safety reasons, they grounded themselves until they could figure out what it was they saw,” he said.

The Colorado sightings corresponded with a report of a possible meteor filed by the crews of two commercial aircraft over Liberal, Kan., as well as another from Raton, N.M., near the Colorado state line, said meteorologist Scott Entrekin of the National Weather Service in Boulder.

Ian Gregor, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration, said he had no such reports. He also said there were no reported disruptions to commercial airline traffic. In Arizona, dense smoke from a wildfire near Payson prompted a

health watch in the Phoenix area on Wednesday. Residents were asked to avoid using gas-powered lawn mowers and to limit driving or carpool.

A New Mexico fire also prompted Albuquerque officials to issue a health advisory as a thick plume of smoke rose from the wooded area along the Rio Grande on the northern edge of the state’s largest city. Crews worked to put out flames burning on both sides of the river and appeared to be gaining the upper hand by nightfall. The Romero fire was declared 70 percent contained on the west side of the Rio Grande. On the east side of the river, the Sandia Lakes recreation area managed by Sandia Pueblo was being evacuated and authorities were trying to move livestock from the area.

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Elsewhere: In California, firefighters have gotten the upper hand on a 385-acre fire near Sequoia National Park in California and evacuees from were allowed to return to their homes and cabins Wednesday evening.

In Wyoming, cooler temperatures and calmer winds helped quell a 4square-mile wildfire burning in a remote and mountainous area of the Medicine Bow National Forest, giving firefighters time to reposition helicopters and other equipment before hot, dry conditions return this weekend. An 800-acre wildfire that began Tuesday in Wyoming and crossed over into Colorado is 90 percent contained.

In New Mexico, a fire that has destroyed 242 homes and businesses in southern New Mexico was 60 percent contained. A fire in the Gila Wilderness, the largest in state history, is at 463 square miles and is 80 percent contained. In Arizona, the wildfire that caused haze in Phoenix made a rapid run to the east, spreading under twin transmission lines that send power to the state’s major metropolitan areas. Firefighters reinforced containment lines to the north Wednesday to keep the 8,100-acre blaze from reaching two small communities about three miles away.

In Hawaii, the largest wildfire of the season has scorched at least 5,200 acres on the Big Island. Two separate fires have been burning there since Monday. One came dangerously close to a hospital and forced the closure of its emergency room. — AP

WASHINGTON: The national campaigns backing President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are drawing even in their fundraising prowess, but new financial filings released show that the “super” political committees supporting the GOP candidate and his party are widening the money gap over struggling pro-Democratic party organizations.

The main pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, on Wednesday reported raising $8 million in May, giving it a total of $64 million so far. The group spent more than $55 million to defeat Romney’s opponents during the GOP primary, and it is now reaping high-dollar financial aid from both veteran Romney supporters and from donors who once backed his rivals.

A political committee backing Obama, Priorities USA Action, posted its strongest one-month total by raking in $4 million in May, a sign that Democrats had begun digging deep into their wallets after months of hesitance. But the pro-Obama group was still left in the dust - not only by the Restore committee’s strong performance but also by the latest tally from American Crossroads, a Republican super PAC formed by GOP strategist Karl Rove. It raised $4.6 million in May. After early months that saw Obama reach impressive fundraising totals echoing his campaign’s record-breaking $750 million haul in 2008, the changing calculus raises the prospect that he could become the first incumbent president outspent by his challenger. Romney’s national campaign joined with the Republican Party in May to raise more than $76 million, outpacing Obama and the Democrats’ $60 million haul during the same period.

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash but are not allowed to coordinate their efforts with the candidates they support. The national presidential campaigns can devote their cash both to media and Web ads and to turn out party faithful, but the super PACs tend to spend most of their war chests on media campaigns. The new super PAC filings show not only the sweep of big-money donors, but also hint at the private interests motivating their largess.

The latest financial filings for the pro-Romney Restore committee show that while he was consolidating his position as the GOP favorite, backers of some of his opponents were shifting their financial allegiance to his cause - even as some of his loyal super PAC backers dug deeper to bankroll the committee’s tough media ads now targeting Obama.

The biggest contributions to Restore Our Future in May came from a trio of firms linked to a Houston-based businessman who previously supported a Romney rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The disclosures show that three companies based at the same post office box office in Dayton, Ohio, each gave $333,333 to the pro-Romney super PAC. Corporation records show the firms are headed by Houston businessman Robert T. Brockman, who missed giving the super PAC a rounded-off $1 million donation by a single dollar. Brockman heads the Reynolds and Reynolds Co., an Ohio-based firm that provides computer and software systems for auto dealerships. Brockman’s personal website lists him only as chairman and CEO of the Reynolds and Reynolds Co., but his name is not listed with any of the Dayton donations. Calls to Brockman at his office in Houston were not immediately returned to The Associated Press.

Although super PACs are required to divulge all their donations, loose disclosure rules allow contributors to withhold their names and mask their donations by setting up limited liability corporations or other front companies. One of Restore’s first donors, Edward Conard, made a $1 million contribution last year behind a front company, W Spann LLC, until public pressure forced him to acknowledge his name and affiliation with Romney’s former private equity firm, Bain Capital.

Brockman’s firm, Reynolds and Reynolds, was one of more than 60 companies that wrote to three Obama administration Cabinet officials last October, urging them not to overburden employers with “unnecessary expenses” as part of the new health care law. In the Oct 21, 2011, letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Reynolds and Reynolds and the other firms - they

included the US Chamber of Commerce - also urged an extension of a deadline for them to provide health benefit summaries to US agencies.

Before his companies donated to the pro-Romney group, another firm linked to Brockman had previously given $50,000 to Perry. The $50,000 donation to the pro-Perry Restoring Prosperity Fund came from Dealer Computer Services Inc., another Reynolds and Reynolds subsidiary.

Brockman also gave more than $280,000 to Perry during his statewide races in Texas over the past decade, according to contribution files posted by the Texas Tribune.

Another top Restore donor was Rocco Ortenzio, who gave $750,000 to the committee. Ortenzio, who previously gave $250,000 to Romney, heads a Pennsylvania-based health care empire that includes private hospitals, rehab centers and clinics. Ortenzio has given to numerous Republican and Democratic officeholders, but donated regularly to Romney rival Rick Santorum when he served in Congress.

MICHIGAN: In this June 19, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Holland, Mich.—AP The filings show a $500,000 donation to the pro-Romney group by a first-time contributor, Warren Stephens, an Arkansas investment banker. And $67,500 was donated by another new Restore donor, Richard Mellon Scaife, a longtime conservative fundraiser who publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Scaife has funded conservative and libertarian causes for decades and aided conservative efforts to impeach former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

There were also new large donations to Restore from several prominent Romney supporters who previously funded the super PAC. William Laverack, a New York investor who previously gave the committee $350,000, added another $150,000 in April. Like Conard, Laverack had masked an earlier $200,000 contribution through a Connecticut limited liability corporation called Paumanok Partners. And two Florida super PAC contributors, developer H. Gary Morse and his wife, Renee, each gave $100,000 to Restore in May. That $200,000 figure added to $500,000 donated previously to the committee by Morse’s wife and the Florida retirement community he runs, Villages of Lake Sumter.

The pro-Romney committee’s roster of veteran GOP fundraisers was matched in May by Rove’s super PAC, whose funders included some donors who have given copiously to both groups. According to filings released by Rove’s committee late Wednesday night, Alliance Coal President Joseph Craft gave $1.25 million to American Crossroads in May after donating $500,000 to the pro-Romney super PAC. And Crow Holdings LLC, a holding company tied to Texas businessman Harlan Crow, gave American Crossroads $1 million in May after previously handing over $300,000 to the pro-Romney committee.

The super PAC supporting Obama showed new signs of life after months of subsistence funding. The group posted three donations of $1 million - from Houston personal injury trial attorney and longtime Perry foe Steve Mostyn, from Washington, DC, developer and veteran Democratic Party insider Franklin Haney and from south Florida philanthropist Barbara Stiefel.—AP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Chavez foes want audit of Venezuela’s voter rolls CARACAS: Opponents of President Hugo Chavez demanded an audit of Venezuela’s voter registry on Wednesday, claiming they have discovered that voter rolls include thousands of people that share the same names and birthdates but have different identification numbers. Enrique Marquez, an ally of opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, said government adversaries have uncovered approximately 60,000 irregularities within the registry, which contains basic information regarding more than 19 million voters.

Chavez’s foes have also discovered the registry includes the names of Venezuelans who have died and voters whose ages, ranging from 111 to 129 years, have raised concerns, he added. Marquez said that numerous other Venezuelans have unexplainably have been authorized to vote only at polling stations far from their homes, not the stations where they have cast their ballots in the past and many of them have not been informed of the changes.

Without responding specifically to the concerns expressed by Marquez, Socorro Hernandez, one of the election council’s directors, said Wednesday that “any problems will be resolved” and defended the transparency of Venezuela’s electronic voting system. Chavez’s campaign manager, Jorge Rodriguez, accused government foes of waging a smear campaign against the council. Politicians on both sides of Venezuela’s political divide are preparing for the country’s Oct. 7 presidential election.

Chavez, a former paratroop commander who is seeking re-election to another 6-year term, has vowed to win the vote in a landslide. In the past year, Chavez has undergone two surgeries that removed tumors from his pelvic region, most recently in February. Both during and after his cancer treatments, Chavez has appeared in public less frequently than he used to, a dramatic shift for a leader who for much of his 13year-old presidency has kept a busy schedule of televised talks and rallies.

Capriles, a popular state governor who has been trailing in the polls, is traveling across the country to drum up support for his candidacy. Many opposition leaders distrust the election council because they perceive the majority of its five directors as Chavez’s confidants.

The institution’s directors have repeatedly rejected allegations the council is tilted in the president’s favor. — AP

Uruguay mulls marijuana sales Buyers would register on government database MONTEVIDEO: Peaceful Uruguay is planning a novel approach to fighting rising crime: having its government sell marijuana to take drug profits out of the hands of dealers. Under the plan backed by President Jose Mujica’s leftist administration, only the government would be allowed to sell marijuana and only to adults who register on a government database, letting officials keep track of their purchases over time. Profits would reportedly go toward rehabilitating drug addicts.

“It’s a fight on both fronts: against consumption and drug trafficking. We think the prohibition of some drugs is creating more problems to society than the drug itself,” Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro told reporters late Wednesday.

Fernandez said the bill would soon be sent to Congress, which is dominated by Mujica’s party, but that an exact date had not been set. If approved, Uruguay’s national government would be the first in the world to directly sell marijuana to its citizens. Some local governments do so.

The proposed measure elicited responses ranging from support to criticism to humor.

“People who consume are not going to buy it from the state,” said Natalia Pereira, 28, adding that she smokes marijuana occasionally.

“There is going to be mistrust buying it from a place where you have to register and they can typecast you.” Media reports have said that people who use more than a limited number of marijuana cigarettes would have to undergo drug rehabilitation. “I can now imagine you going down to the kiosk to buy bread, milk and a little box of marijuana!” one person in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, wrote on their Twitter account.

Behind the move is a series of recent gang shootouts and rising cocaine seizures that have raised security concerns in one of Latin America’s safest countries and taken a toll on Mujiica’s already dipping popularity. The Interior Ministry says that from January to May, the number of homicides jumped to 133 from 76 in the same period last year. The

crime figures are small compared to its neighbors Argentina and Brazil but huge for this tiny South American country where many take pride in being able to leave their doors open and gather in the streets late at night to sip traditional mate tea.

To combat rising criminality, the government also announced a series of measures that include compensation for victims of violent crime and longer jail terms for traffickers of crack-like drugs. The idea behind the marijuana proposal is to weaken crime by removing profits from drug dealers and diverting users from harder drugs, according to government officials.

“The main argument for this is to keep addicts from dealing and reaching substances” like base paste, a crack cocaine-like drug smoked in South America , said Juan Carlos Redin a psychologist who works with drug addicts in Montevideo. Redin said that Uruguayans should be allowed to grow their own marijuana because the government would run into trouble if it tries to sell it. The big question he said will be, “Who will provide the government (with marijuana)?”

During the press conference, the defense minister said Uruguayan farmers would plant the marijuana but said more details would come soon. “The laws of the market will rule here: whoever sells the best and the cheapest will end with drug trafficking,” Fernandez said. “We’ll have to regulate farm production so there’s no contraband and regulate distribution ... we must make sure we don’t affect neighboring countries or be accused of being an international drug production center.”

There are no laws against marijuana use in Uruguay. Possession of marijuana for personal use has never been criminalized here and a 1974 law gives judges discretion to determine if the amount of marijuana found on a suspect is for legal personal use or for illegal dealing.

Liberal think tanks and drug liberalization activists hailed the planned measure. “If they actually sell it themselves, and you have to go to the Uruguay government store to buy mari-

juana, then that would be a precedent for sure, but not so different than from the dispensaries in half the United States,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of US -based NORML, an organization that advocates decriminalization of marijuana use.

St. Pierre said the move would make Uruguay the only national government in the world selling marijuana. Numerous dispensaries on the local level in the US are allowed to sell marijuana for medical use. Some drug rehabilitation experts disagreed with the planned bill altogether. Guillermo Castro, head of psychiatry at the Hospital Britanico in Montevideo, said marijuana is a gateway to stronger drugs. “In the long-run, marijuana is still poison,” Castro said, adding that marijuana contains 17 times more carcinogens than tobacco has, and that its use is linked to higher rates of depression and suicide.

“If it’s going to be openly legalized, something that is now in the hands of politics, it’s important that they explain to people what it is and what it produces,” he said.

Overburdened by clogged prisons, some Latin American countries have relaxed penalties for drug possession and personal use and distanced themselves from the tough stance pushed by the United States four decades ago when the Richard Nixon administration declared the war on drugs.

“There’s a real human drama where people get swept up in draconian drug laws intended to put major drug traffickers behind bars, but because the way they are implemented in Latin America, they end up putting many marijuana consumers behind bars,” said Coletta Youngers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. “There’s a growing recognition in the region that marijuana needs to be treated differently than other drugs, because it’s a clear case that the drug laws have a greater negative impact than the use of the drug itself,” Youngers said. “If Uruguay moved in this direction they would be challenging the international drug control system.”— AP

US congressman riles Mexican candidate MEXICO CITY: The front-runner in Mexico’s July 1 presidential elections has angrily rejected comments by US Rep. James Sensenbrenner that his party was soft on drug trafficking. Candidate Enrique Pena Nieto says Sensenbrenner is ill-informed about whether he will continue to vigorously fight drug cartels if elected.

Sensenbrenner said at a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing Wednesday that Pena Nieto’s party “minimized violence by turning a blind eye to the cartels” in the past. Sensenbrenner said Pena Nieto’s proposal to reduce violence “sounds like a reversion” to the policies of old.

Pena Nieto’s campaign countered in a statement that the candidate has an “unwavering” commitment to combat organized crime. The statement said reducing violence “is the only way to assure the support of society in the fight against organized crime.” — AP

NUEVO LEON: Mexican presidential candidate for the leftist coalition Progressive Movement of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers a speech during a campaign rally, before the upcoming elections on July 1, in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon State, Mexico.—AFP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

News

in brief

10 hurt as land mine explodes in Vietnam HANOI: State media and a witness say 10 people were injured in downtown Hanoi when homemade land mines exploded on one of the capital’s busiest streets after a botched heist at a gold shop. An employee at Hoang Tin gold shop says a man entered yesterday wearing a helmet and mask, and carrying two black plastic bags. The employee says the masked man handed staff a note saying he would detonate a land mine if he didn’t receive gold. He says one of the shop staff threw the bags into the street, causing the explosion. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The Laborer Newspaper said in a report that a suspect has been arrested. Vietnam prohibits citizens from owning weapons.

Major fire in govt building in India MUMBAI: Hundreds of employees have been evacuated from a seven-story government building as nearly two dozen fire engines battle a major fire in India’s financial and entertainment capital. There are no immediate reports of casualties. Television images showed the blaze and the smoke engulfing the upper three floors of the building in southern Mumbai yesterday. The building houses the offices of several Maharashtra state ministers. The Press Trust of India news agency says no casualties have been reported so far. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Karzai calls for anti-graft push KABUL: Afghanistan’s president appealed yesterday to Afghan lawmakers and to his international allies to do more to help him stamp out the corruption that pervades the country’s government, and pledged personally to stop “deals” that undercut reforms. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly promised to clean up corruption in his administration without much result. In his address to a special session of parliament that comes weeks before an international donor conference, he said he would make a new push.

“You should cooperate with me on these reforms. You have accused me of making deals. Yes, I have done so, but I had reasons. And now I am changing this. I am bringing reform from the inside,” Karzai told the lawmakers who he had called in from their summer recess for the speech. It was unclear what he had meant by “deals,” although the president is frequently accused of letting allies keep powerful posts despite allegations that surround them. Highly placed government officials have been investigated but seldom prosecuted.

Some of the graft investigations have come close to the president himself, implicating either family members in government posts or close Karzai associates. The president spoke ahead of an international conference in Tokyo next month in which donors are expected to pledge billions for Afghan reconstruction and governance programs. Many of the country’s international allies have struggled to justify donations to their own constituencies given the notorious corruption in the Afghan government.

Karzai appeared to be trying to allay fears that money would be misspent, even as he pointed fingers at others in the Afghan government and at the countries bankrolling his administration for enabling graft. He told lawmakers that he needed their cooperation in cutting through alliances of tribe, political factions and personal relationships to establish good governance. And he blamed the US for enabling graft by giving contracts to Afghan government officials, apparently referring to reconstruction tenders awarded to private firms that they operate.

“If the United States wants to stop corruption, they should stop that,” Karzai said, referring to the contracts. Karzai also repeated a call to the US to hand over the former head of the Afghan Central Bank, who fled to the United States earlier this month in June after claiming he received threats to his life in connection with the scandal. The institution nearly collapsed last year because of mismanagement and questionable lending practices. The Afghan government has issued an arrest warrant for Abdul Qadr Fitrat.—AP

Pakistan’s govt nominates new PM Nominee immediately hit with arrest warrant ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ruling party chose yesterday its candidate to replace a prime minister ousted by the Supreme Court, but the nominee was immediately hit with an arrest warrant linked to a drug importation scandal in a sign that political turmoil may continue.

Makhdoom Shahabuddin, the outgoing textile minister who is considered a Pakistan People’s Party loyalist, filed his nomination papers at parliament, ending speculation that the government may have been planning to defy Tuesday’s court ruling against ouster Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for contempt of court.

The PPP’s coalition has a majority in the house. But in an indication his nomination - and his premiership if elected by lawmakers - may not be smooth, an anti-narcotics court judge in the northern city of Rawalpindi issued an arrest warrant for Shahabuddin, officials said, citing his alleged role in scandal involving the import of a drug that can be used to make methamphetamine. The PPP said that a “covering candidate” for the party, lawmaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, also filed papers in the event that Shahabuddin was not elected. Horse trading as well as the arrest warrant could complicate the process.

Gilani was dismissed because he refused to initiate a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari, the head of the PPP. That was an escalation of a power struggle between the government and activist judges. PPP politicians quickly circulated Shahabuddin’s name as a replacement. The next prime minister will likely also face the same order from the Supreme Court to investigate Zardari, meaning political instability will continue until the government’s term ends in March 2013. The Gilani government has been widely criticized for exacerbating or doing nothing to address the massive economic and security challenges in the country. The court has been accused of unfairly targeting the government.

Speaking to reporters after filing his papers, Shahabuddin was asked about the arrest warrant. He replied quoting a

ISLAMABAD: Real estate tycoon Malik Riaz waves as he leaves the Supreme Court on his contempt of court case in Islamabad yesterday.—AFP line from a poem about not being afraid of “hostile winds.” It’s unclear whether the development could derail his nomination. Legal cases are routinely filed against Pakistani politicians by rivals as a means of weakening them. Often, the cases drag on for years, and the politician’s career is unhindered. In Shahabuddin’s case, any arrest warrant may automatically be dropped if he became prime minister because he has immunity from prosecution.

Shahabuddin was health minister when the scandal broke. Gilani’s son has also been linked has also been linked to the case. It revolves around two Pakistani pharmaceutical companies that allegedly used political connections to obtain huge amounts of ephedrine in 2010. They are suspected of diverting it to people in the drug trade who could have used it to make methamphetamines worth billions of dollars. The companies have denied any wrongdoing, as has Gilani’s son. An official at the antinarcotics force and an official at the law ministry confirmed Judge Shafqatullah Khan had issued the warrant for the arrest of Shahabuddin, as well as Gilani’s son, which the force has been pursuing

for several months. They said the men would not be able to post bail. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media. Stability in Pakistan is seen as vital to American goals of withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2014 and long-term victory against international jihadist terrorism. But relations between Washington and Islamabad are strained over a host of issues, including blocked war supply lines to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s alleged support for the Afghan Taleban . The dismissal of Gilani has made it more likely that polls will now be held before next year, possibly as early as November. Elections in Pakistan must be held under a supposedly neutral caretaker government in place three months before polling day, meaning the current government could be dissolved as early as August.

Shahabuddin, 65, comes from a wealthy, landowning family based in the central Pakistani district of Rahim Yar Khan. His father had served as minister in the cabinets of two Pakistani governments. He also served as minister for finance and health in the current government.—AP

Philippine police kill 1, hold 5 alleged assassins MANILA: Philippine policemen killed a retired officer and arrested five other suspected hit men yesterday in a crackdown aimed at preventing violence in next year’s congressional and local elections, officials said. Police intelligence agents and members of the Presidential AntiOrganized Crime Commission raided five hideouts of a syndicate in the northern provinces of Bulacan and Nueva Ecija and arrested five alleged members and killed one suspect, who had fired at them, national police intelligence director Charles Calima said.

The arrests “nipped in the bud plans to liquidate candidates for local elections

this coming 2013 elections,” a police statement said. The guns-for-hire syndicate is also suspected of involvement in unsolved political killings in the Philippine capital and in northern provinces, including the murder of a Nueva Ecija town mayor in February, Calima said, citing statements of witnesses.

Among those arrested was a police intelligence officer assigned in the northern Philippines. Officers seized five pistols, a rifle, a grenade, ammunition and a motorcycle. The guns would be tested to check if they had been used in past attacks, Calima said. A recent raid by police commandos on a suspected den of

hit men in Nueva Ecija’s San Antonio town led to the seizure of 15 firearms, including assault rifles, but there were no arrests, police said.

More than 18,000 congressional and local positions will be decided in the elections next May, and violence and fraud are an ugly hallmark of past Philippine elections. The Philippines began to use optical scanning machines to count votes for the first time in the 2010 presidential elections to produce results more rapidly and prevent violence and fraud from arising during the slow hand-counting of votes that took months to complete in the past.—AP

International FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Indonesia plane crashes into houses, kills ten Children, elderly woman among dead

JAKARTA: Indonesian terror suspect Umar Patek arrives at a Jakarta court to hear the judge’s verdict yesterday.—AFP

Indonesian court to rule on Bali bombing suspect JAKARTA: Scores of police surrounded a Jakarta courthouse as judges read details of their ruling yesterday on a terror suspect known as “demolition man” who is accused of helping to build the car bomb used in the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks. Prosecutors have sought a life sentence for militant Umar Patek, 45, a leading member of the Al-Qaeda-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah, and a verdict was expected later yesterday.

He is accused of illegal weapons possession, concealing terrorist acts, immigration violations and premeditated murder in the bombings that killed 202 people on the resort island. Most of the victims were foreign tourists, including 88 Australians and seven Americans. More than 240 police, including a team of snipers, were deployed in and around the court building yesterday for the last session of Patek’s trial, which began in February.

Several sharp shooters were seen atop nearby buildings.

Judges took turns reading lengthy documents summing up the trial ahead of their expected verdict and sentencing. Except for a few relatives, the courtroom was packed mostly by reporters, photographers and cameramen instead of the defendant’s supporters. His Filipino wife, Ruqayyah binti Husein Luceno, 28, was sentenced in January to 27 months in jail for immigration violations.

Patek, who was arrested last year in Pakistan in the same northwestern town where Osama bin Laden was killed several months later, was the last main suspect to be tried in the attacks.

He has argued that he did not play a major part in building the car bomb, which was the biggest explosive used in the attacks.

Instead, he said bomb-making masterminds Azahari bin Husin and Dulmatin were in charge of that job. Both have since died in police raids.

Patek, whose real name is Hisyam bin Alizein, has apologized to the victims’ families, Christians and to the government, saying he was not in favor of going through with the attack against partying tourists, but that he could not speak out against other senior members of the group. The mission was supposedly meant to avenge Western policies in the Palestinian territories, but Patek has argued that he never saw the connection.

Patek could face a maximum penalty of death by firing squad for various terror-related and criminal charges. Patek has said the life term prosecutors are seeking is too heavy a penalty and asked for a lighter sentence. Clad in a white cotton robe and matching pants, the defendant sat quietly for hours as the judges read out their 273-page ruling, which included testimony from Patek and more than 40 witnesses. Their verdict and sentencing was expected at the end.

The five-member judge panel at the West Jakarta District Court also deliberated over Patek’s alleged involvement in other terror acts in the country, including church attacks on Christmas Eve 2000 in Jakarta that killed 19. But the Bali bombings marked Indonesia’s deadliest terror strike. On Saturday, Oct 12, 2002, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a nightclub jammed with tourists at popular Kuta beach, killing many instantly and forcing others to run outside. Another suicide bomber detonated the massive bomb loaded in the car parked on the street in front of two clubs.

Patek has admitted he helped make the bombs, but said he did not know how they would be used. Prosecutors argued he helped assemble the suicide vests as well as detonating cords and boosters connected to the explosives. He left Bali just before the attacks and spent nine years running from the law, traveling in the Philippines and Pakistan. He had a $1 million bounty on his head and was considered one of Asia’s most wanted terror suspects.—AP

JAKARTA: An Indonesian air force plane crashed into a military housing complex in Jakarta yesterday, killing all seven crew on board and two children and an elderly woman on the ground, officials said. The ageing turboprop Fokker 27 split in two as it smashed into the military airport compound while on routine training, igniting a blaze that ripped through homes and sent thick smoke into the sky. An AFP correspondent saw dozens of firefighters battling the blaze at the Halim Perdanakusuma compound, and what appeared to be the plane’s wing sticking out from the roof of a house.

“All seven crew and three people on the ground were killed,” air force spokesman Colonel Agung Sasongko Jati told reporters. “The plane has split into two.” The three who died on the ground were two cousins, aged two and six, and an elderly woman, Jati told AFP, adding the six-year-old’s mother was in critical condition. There were no immediate reports of other victims. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago, relies heavily on air transport but has one of the world’s poorest aviation safety records, and military plane crashes are relatively common.

In early May, a Russian Sukhoi jet crashed into a dormant volcano in Java when it was on a promotional demonstration, killing all 45 aboard. Yesterday’s crash happened at 2:45 pm, after the plane took off from Halim at around 1:10 pm. Mukhlis, 42, was at home in the complex and said she heard the plane flying low seconds before it crashed 700

JAKARTA: Emergency personnel look through the rubble after an Indonesian military aircraft crashed in Jakarta yesterday—AFP metres (2,300 feet) from her home.

“A few seconds after I heard the plane flying low, I heard a loud boom. I quickly ran outside and saw a column of smoke and flames in the distance behind my house where it crashed,” said Mukhlis, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name. A rescue team with torches was helping military personnel search for more victims on the ground in the dark early evening. “The aircraft was conducting training and there were no passengers aboard,” another air force spokesman, Asman Yunus, told AFP.

Yunus said the military would look into the cause of the crash. Military spokesman Iskandar Sitompul said the plane was more than 20 years old.

Indonesia is in the process of updating its ageing military aircraft and equipment, procuring Russian and American warplanes, boats for its navy and parts for its transport planes. Another recent crash saw a New Zealand pilot and two Indonesians killed in March after a helicopter chartered by the Indonesian arm of US mining company FreeportMcMoRan went down in remote Papua province.—AFP

Boat with 200 aboard capsizes off Indonesia CANBERRA: A boat carrying about 200 people capsized south of Indonesia and scores were feared drowned yesterday in an apparent attempt to reach Australia to seek asylum. Indonesian and Australian navies launched efforts to rescue survivors.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. cited the Australian Maritime Safety Authority as reporting that an Australian navy ship and a cargo ship had rescued 73 survivors. The authority’s spokeswoman could not be immediately contacted for comment.

“We’re doing all we can to get as many vessels and aircraft to the scene to assist as possible,” AMSA spokesman Jonathan Wills told ABC. The boat capsized about 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of the Australian territory of Christmas Island - and about the same distance south of Indonesia - with “up to 200 people” on board, the Australian Customs Service said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear where the passengers were from. Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, is closer to Indonesia than the Australian main-

land. It is a popular target for a growing number of asylum seekers, many from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, who attempt to reach Australia on overcrowded fishing boats from Indonesia - sometimes with deadly consequences. “There’s about 40 on the hull and the rest are in the water,” Western Australia state Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said earlier. “Some of the very early reports suggest that up to 75 people may have drowned, but I do stress that they’re unconfirmed at this stage.”

O’Callaghan said bodies had been seen in the water. “We can’t confirm that they’ve died, but it’s likely,” he said. Western Australian police were being sent to Christmas Island to attempt to identify bodies, he said.

Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, said two Indonesian warships have been dispatched to scene. He said Indonesia has sent notice to all cargo ships passing near the area to help, but he was not sure whether any had reached the disaster scene.

Prakoso said the boat was reported-

ly carrying 206 people, but added that he could not yet say their country of origin or from where they departed.

Australian aircraft and navy ships were helping with the rescue, the Customs statement said. They include a defense aircraft equipped with life rafts, a Customs surveillance aircraft and two navy patrol boats.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who is seeking ways to stem the flow of asylum seekers to Australia, discussed the apparent tragedy with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Brazil where they are both attending a United Nations environment summit. “At this stage, details are sketchy but what is apparent is there has been a large loss of life at sea,” she said. “This is a very distressing and tragic incident.”

In December 2010, an estimated 48 people died when an asylum seeker boat broke up against Christmas Island’s rocky coast. Last December, about 200 asylum seekers were feared drowned after their overcrowded ship sank off Indonesia’s main island of Java.—AP

Business FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

UAE banking sector to see slow, sustainable growth

Eurogroup faces fresh Greek battle as Spain request looms

PAGE 20

PAGE 21

Iranian Army is engaged in naval exercises in Strait of Hormuz. — File photo

First oil flows through Hormuz bypass Pipeline capacity 1.5m bpd vs UAE total exports of 2.4m bpd ABU DHABI: One million barrels of Gulf oil is expected to flow through a new pipeline crossing the United Arab Emirates to the Gulf of Oman yesterday as the UAE moves to complete the Strait of Hormuz bypass next month. The pipeline ends the OPEC producer’s total dependence on the vital Gulf shipping artery which Iran has threatened to block as Western sanctions on its oil exports have tightened.

Escalating tensions in the Gulf region over the last year have spurred the UAE to speed up work on the long-delayed pipeline while other Gulf OPEC producers Kuwait and Qatar will continue to rely on shipping through the Strait to export fuel. “This is a great solution for the UAE but it’s not a 100 percent solution for the whole problem,” said Theodore Karasik, research director at Dubai-based security consultancy INEGMA Group.

The new pipeline has a stated capacity of around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) while UAE exports total around 2.4 million bpd. Some sources say the pipeline could carry around 2 million bpd of the UAE’s biggest export at a push. The 370-km (231-mile) Abu Dhabi Crude Oil

Pipeline carries oil from fields in the UAE’s western desert to the east coast port of Fujairah, a major oil storage and fuel bunkering hub. “Today oil has been received at the main oil terminal in Fujairah and 1 million barrels is coming in,” a source directly involved in the project said. “The plan is to load the first oil tanker around July 1... We will slowly increase it to 1.5 million bpd.” A source at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) said the first oil pumped over the desert to the terminal outside the Strait is likely to be loaded in the first week of July but that the first test cargo would not be exported. A European Union ban on Iranian crude imports is due to come into effect on July 1. Iranian threats over Hormuz shipping have intensified since December as EU lawmakers have prepared for the ban. Flows through the Strait last year accounted for about 35 percent of all seaborne traded oil, or almost 20 percent of oil traded worldwide. Almost 17 million barrels of oil were shipped between the northern tip of Oman and the southern coast of Iran in 2011, according to the US Energy Information Administration. — Reuters

Kuwait stocks drop; Egypt resumes fall MIDEAST STOCK MARKETS DUBAI/CAIRO: Gulf bourses ended mixed in a muted session yesterday that saw investors little moved by index compiler MSCI’s decision to keep frontier market status for the UAE and Qatar, while Egypt’s bourse resumed its decline on political woes.

In Kuwait, the benchmark ended 0.3 percent lower, falling for the last seven sessions in eight as the country suffers from political upheaval. A court ruling on Wednesday dissolved the parliament elected earlier this year and reinstated the previous assembly. Volumes slumped to their lowest since May 13, as investors stuck to sidelines amid the uncertainty of political direction. But there was no apparent panic because tensions between the cabinet and parliament are a longstanding feature of Kuwaiti politics.

Some investors hope the dissolution of parliament could actually improve economic policymaking and allow normal planning to resume.

Mainly Islamist lawmakers elected early this year have been summoning ministers to parliament for

aggressive questioning, and the attacks have prompted resignations of officials including the finance minister.

“This has never happened before - there is so much uncertainty that everyone has taken a wait and see approach,” a Kuwait-based trader, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities, said of parliament’s dissolution.

This was the fourth time Qatar and UAE failed to obtain emerging market status, an upgrade which could attract renewed interest from longterm investors and global fund managers.

For the UAE, MSCI said it meets all the requirements for promotion but there are specific market “accessibility issues” related to custody, clearing and settlement. Meanwhile, it said the “very low foreign ownership limit levels imposed on Qatari companies is expected to be the only remaining impediment to the reclassification of the MSCI Qatar Index to emerging markets.” MSCI had previously denied both Qatar and the UAE promotions in 2009, 2010 and 2011. —Reuters

Business FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

UAE banking sector to see slow, sustainable growth SICO says CB regulations to impact sector growth

SAINT-PETERSBURG: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen as he speaks at the annual Economic Forum in Saint-Petersburg yesterday. — AFP

Saudi Aramco, Sumitomo to sign Rabigh deals soon KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia: State oil giant Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical are close to signing multi-billion-dollar contracts to expand their petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia, industry sources said.

Aramco and Sumitomo have taken longer than expected to pick contractors for the Rabigh II petrochemical expansion project, which is expected to cost around $7 billion, but three sources in Saudi Arabia said they now expect the deals to be signed next week after some contractors lowered their bids for the work.

The successful bidders include Britain’s Petrofac, South Korea’s GS Engineering and Construction, Italy’s Saipem and Japan’s JGC, sources said. Under Rabigh II, an existing ethane cracker will be expanded and a new aromatics complex will be built using around 3 million tons per year of naphtha to make higher-value petrochemical products. JGC is to expand the existing ethane cracker at the complex located at Rabigh on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. Sumitomo, Petrofac, Saipem, and JGC declined to comment, while Aramco was unavailable for comment. — Reuters

Dubai bond yields compress as investors return DUBAI: Dubai’s sovereign bonds have rallied this week, benefitting from good liquidity in the market as well as a rise of investor confidence in the high-flying emirate’s ability to repay debts and sustain growth. Traders cited a general improvement in investor sentiment towards Dubai over the last several months, thanks to its progress in restructuring corporate debt and its image as a safe haven amid regional instability.

Dubai’s most recent sovereign issue, a two-tranche, $1.25 billion Islamic bond, or sukuk, has tightened substantially since its launch at the start of May. The 4.9 percent, five-year, $600 million portion was yielding just over 4.00 percent on Thursday, about 10 basis points tighter since the beginning of this week.

The yield on the 10-year, $650 million tranche has tightened about 20 bps since June 18, and over 70 bps since issue. “All three major debt milestones for Dubai Inc this year, Dubai Holding, Jebel Ali Free Zone and DIFC Investments, have been firmly ticked off the list,” said Chavan Bhogaita, head of markets strategy unit at National Bank of Abu Dhabi. “I expect investor appetite for Dubai credits to remain strong in the near to medium term as the fundamentals recover and international investors find opportunities giving them yield and a low correlation to the challenging situation in Europe.” Government-owned Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), an industrial park, and DIFC Investments, owned by the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, have both arranged repayment of their 2012 maturities, and without the need for direct state support.

The two Islamic bond redemptions, JAFZA’s $2 billion-equivalent deal and DIFCI’s $1.25 billion sukuk, were considered a major test of Dubai’s global credibility after its 2009 corporate debt crisis shocked markets. Along with a $550 million sukuk repayment earlier this month by Emirates airline, the debt repayments have created a liquidity boost in the secondary bond market. —Reuters

ABU DHABI: The banking sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will experience slower but more sustainable growth due to tough central bank regulations aimed at controlling excessive lending, SICO Investment Bank said. “A retail lending cap intended to lower retail clients’ leverage will narrow banks’ spreads and moderate retail lending at 2 percent to 3 percent year-over-year in 2012,” the brokerage said in a note to clients.

Though the banks reported strong margin improvement last year, increased

liquidity and corporates’ low borrowing appetite might pressurize lending spreads in the future, SICO said.

“The rise in lending duration is also pushing banks to go for longer period fixed-income liabilities, which will negatively impact margins,” the brokerage said. However, SICO notes that the UAE banking stocks now provide value-buying opportunities for long-term investors as asset quality concerns led to overselling of the stocks.

The brokerage initiated coverage of the emirate’s third-largest lender by mar-

ket value, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank , with a “neutral” rating and said the bank’s non-performing loans in the first quarter have remained at a healthy level of 82 percent but a further rise in delinquencies might put pressure on its profitability. SICO maintained its long-term “buy” rating on First Gulf Bank as it expects the lender’s low operating costs and deployment of liquid assets to help sustain its profitability.

It also maintained its long-term “add” rating on Union National Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi. — Reuters

Investors to buy Bahrain despite deficit, unrest DUBAI: Running a state budget deficit and facing a prolonged period of civil unrest, Bahrain is not in the same league for investors as the Gulf’s wealthier oil exporters. But good timing and strong demand for regional assets in general mean a planned bond issue by the tiny kingdom is likely to go well.

Bahrain is sounding out investor appetite at roadshows this week for a possible issue of an international, conventional bond. Bankers said Bahrain’s first conventional debt offering since 2010 would be open to qualified investors in the United States and elsewhere, and might be as large as $1.25 billion. Bahrain last tapped the international market in November with a $750 million, seven-year sukuk (Islamic bond), which was largely sold to investors in the Middle East. The upcoming issue will not be able to count on interest from a deep pool of Islamic investment money in the Gulf, so it will be a tougher test of market confidence in Bahrain.

Bankers said Bahrain was eyeing a seven- or 10-year issue, which should appeal to institutional investors in the West, who have been showing interest in Gulf debt as a safe haven while the financial crisis has hurt other markets around the world.

“The timing is very good for Bahrain; this issue has been rumored for a long time now and we are seeing GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) credit markets trading at some of the tightest yields for years,” said Thomas Christie, sales trader at Rasmala Investment Bank in Dubai.

“Combined with the fact that the market is very liquid currently and searching for yield, we should see any Bahrain issue do well.”

With oil prices sliding, Bahrain’s state finances may come under pressure. Brent crude oil fell to an 18-month low of $91 a barrel yesterday, from above $120 early this year; the oil price which Bahrain needs to balance its budget jumped to $114 in 2011, the highest level in the Gulf, from just $80 in 2008, the International Monetary Fund said in April.

The government’s budget deficit shrank to $83 million in 2011, the lowest shortfall in three years and well below a projected gap of $3.3 billion, because oil prices were higher than expected. But

with oil now sliding, this year’s deficit may be larger than last year’s.

Another issue for investors is protests

by Shiite majority Muslims against the Sunni-dominated government, which have continued for over a year. They have not prevented the economy from resuming growth after a brief contraction early last year, but it is not clear how the political problem may be resolved in the long term. For now, however, the signs are that investors will happily accept these risks.

One positive is that the country’s absolute level of external debt is still very low, at 14 percent of gross domestic product, according to Bahrain’s bond prospectus.

Perceptions that Saudi Arabia’s Sunni rulers will do what is necessary to support Bahrain’s government, fuelled by a Saudi proposal in recent months for a closer union of Gulf states, are also important. The bond prospectus said that although a $20 billion fund planned by wealthy Gulf Arab states last year to aid Bahrain and Oman had not yet been capitalized, Bahrain expected to receive an allocation soon, which would come in

addition to money already earmarked in its budget for priority projects.

Bahrain already relies on output from Saudi Arabia’s Abu Safa oil field for some 70 percent of its budget revenue.

Analysts have said Riyadh might give Manama more oil from the field if its budget runs into trouble. These factors, along with a general tightening of Gulf bond spreads, have helped to cause an impressive drop in the cost of insuring Bahrain’s debt against default over the last several months. Its seven-year credit default swaps were at 353 basis points yesterday, compared to 394 bps at the end of last year.

Analysts said the need to attract conventional investors with the new bond, rather than Islamic investors facing a very limited supply of sukuk, meant Bahrain would have to be fairly generous in pricing the debt. “They will have to price more competitively, given it’s a conventional; a sukuk would probably be cheaper,” said Raza Agha, senior economist for the Middle East at RBS in London. —Reuters

KHARTOUM: A Sudanese man fills his vehicle with fuel at a petrol station in the capital Khartoum yesterday. Sudan announced details of planned austerity measures contained in a new budget that are expected to save the government $1.5 billion in the face of ailing finances as economy is reeling, hit by soaring inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency, with the cash-strapped government scrambling to make up for the heavy loss of oil revenues after the secession of the South last year. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Eurogroup faces fresh Greek battle as Spain request looms EU’s Big 4 to detail rescue fund

PARIS: Air France CEO Alexandre de Juniac answers to journalists questions before a meeting with representatives of the Central Works Council. — AFP

Air France to shed 5,000 jobs by 2014 PARIS: Air France said yesterday it is to slash over 5,000 jobs or around 10 percent of its workforce in voluntary departures by 2014 as part of a vast plan to make the struggling French airline profitable. A total of 5,122 jobs will be shed and the carrier said in a statement that all departures would be voluntary provided a new framework agreement can be signed with unions.

“Air France has chosen to work in complete transparency and to privilege social dialogue to find structural and sustainable solutions, included in corporate agreements,” it said.

If new agreements are signed by staff then “Air France has pledged not to make redundancies and to implement various measures to support the necessary reduction in staff numbers,” it said. The Franco-Dutch carrier Air France-KLM has launched a major cost-saving program after posting a loss of 809 million euros ($1.0 billion) for 2011 and a first quarter net loss in 2012 of 368 million euros.

Shares in Air France-KLM, in which the French state holds a 15 percent stake, shot up by over 7.0 percent after the job cuts announcement. The company said that the new framework agreement is “a major condition of the company’s recovery” and the carrier needs to increase economic efficiency by 20 percent by the end of 2014. Air France said the Central Works Council would have draft agreements for signing by unions on June 28.

“If the agreements are signed, the accompanying measures to reduce staff numbers will exclude the use of forced departures before the end of 2013,” Air France said.

The efficacy of the plan will be evaluated in the second half of 2013 and if the 20 percent improvement is achieved “the use of forced departures will also be avoided in 2014,” the company said. If the agreements are not signed then the improved efficiency would be achieved “in a much more economically constrained context.”

“Given the impact of the necessary reductions in activity and routes closures, forced departures may therefore not be avoidable,” Air France said. French Employment Minister Michel Sapin said ahead of Air France’s announcement that “dialogue should allow the company to return to financial balance.” — AP

LUXEMBOURG: Euro-zone finance ministers met yesterday with budget hardliners demanding more from Greece, Spain set to request a rescue of its banks, and Cyprus the latest victim of Europe’s debt crisis.

As the two-year drama gathers pace, the Eurogroup meets in Luxembourg from 1400 GMT for a probable late-night battle on the Greek and Spanish fronts, as well as talks on Italy’s soaring borrowing costs and a Cypriot cry for help.

The talks come on the eve of a minisummit of the leaders of the euro-zone’s big four-Germany, France, Italy and Spain-in Rome, where they are expected to elaborate a plan for the euro-zone rescue fund to intervene more easily on bond markets. It was “a mystery” that governments had not yet opted to use the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to buy the bonds of the likes of Italy and Spain to relieve them of market pressure, Benoit Coeure, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board, told the Financial Times.

The pressure intensified against Spain yesterday as the interest demanded by investors soared in a new bond sale, leaping to 4.706 percent for twoyear bonds, more than double the rate charged in a March sale. But Madrid showed it can still tap the market at a pivotal time, with the Treasury raising 2.22 billion euros despite a euro-zone rescue loan of up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion) in the works and fears mounting that a state bailout could follow.

The Spanish government was due to release at 1530 GMT two audits of the banks, one from the German firm Roland Berger, the other from the US firm Oliver Wyman, upon which the size of the banking rescue will depend.

With those audits in hand, Spain was to officially request a banking sector rescue at the euro-zone meeting.

Yesterday’s talks, which will widen the next day to include the finance ministers of Britain and other non-euro states in another tough fight over calls to introduce a tax on financial transactions, are part of a marathon series leading up to a full European Union summit next week.

By Thursday and Friday next week, the euro-zone is expected to have

VALENCIA: Men eat at the San Joan de Deu charity dining hall in Valencia, Spain on Wednesday. More than one hundred people are fed every day in San Juan de Dios charity center as part of a program created to help unemployed and people without financial resources. — AP agreed the short- and long-term shape of a banking or financial union and steps towards closer political integration that economists see as essential to getting to the root of the debt crisis. The United States, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank have all urged greater banking integration in Europe, as the debt crisis boomerangs from financial sectors to sovereigns.

As ever, Greece looks set to dominate talks, a day after conservative leader Antonis Samaras was sworn in as prime minister of a pro-euro coalition government bent on negotiating changes to its own bailout program.

Greece prepared Thursday to name a coalition government to renegotiate its onerous EU-IMF bailout terms, with Greek news reports saying the country will be be represented at the Eurogroup by outgoing finance minister George Zannias.

His successor will reportedly be the chairman of the country’s biggest bank, National Bank of Greece, Vassilis Rapanos, a former economics professor who served in the economy ministry when Greece joined the euro in 2001.

Germany, the Netherlands and Finland are again playing tough on

Greece. While willing to bend on some of the roads taken, they are likely to insist that the destination remain the same: the key bailout terms and conditions agreed in March after months of bickering.

Thomas Wieser, who chairs preparations for the Eurogroup meetings, told AFP in an interview that the choice facing currency partners was stark. Either you “stick to the fiscal targets and then you need additional measures” from Greece, the Brussels-based official said, or you change deadlines, in which case “you need extra money.”

Wieser, who chairs preparations for politically-charged meetings of the Eurogroup, said a deal worth 130 billion euros ($165 billion) in new loans agreed in March was no longer workable.

“The economic environment has turned out to be even worse than assumed,” he said, warning that by August, the 17-nation euro-zone and the IMF will have to “seriously re-negotiate how to get the thing back on track.”

Cyprus is also set to seek euro-zone aid for its ailing banks, probably next week, after securing a separate bilateral loan from Russia, an EU diplomat said Wednesday. — AFP

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison buys Hawaii’s sixth-largest island HONOLULU, Hawaii: Billionaire Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bought 98 percent of Hawaii’s sixth-largest island, Lanai, the state’s governor announced. Ellison, ranked in 2012 as America’s third-richest man, is purchasing the property from fellow billionaire David Murdock.

Murdock’s Castle and Cooke Inc, which owns all but 2 percent of Lanai’s 141 square miles (365 square km), filed a transfer application with Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission.

Previous media reports put the price tag at between $500 million and $600 million, but the price was not revealed in Wednesday’s filing. “It is my understanding that Mr. Ellison has had a long standing interest in Lanai. His passion

for nature, particularly the ocean, is well known specifically in the realm of America’s Cup sailing,” Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie said in a statement.

“We look forward to welcoming Mr. Ellison in the near future.” Once known for its pineapple fields, Lanai is now visited for its two Four Seasons resorts, golf courses and luxury housing.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates booked every hotel room on the island for his 1994 wedding.

In March, Forbes listed Ellison, 67, as the world’s sixth-wealthiest man, with a net worth of $36 billion. A yachting enthusiast, he won the America’s Cup in 2010 and brought the 2013 America’s Cup Finals to San Francisco. —Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld Keynote in San Francisco. Ellison has reached a deal to buy 98 percent of the island of Lanai from its current owner, Hawaii Gov Neil Abercrombie said. — AP

Business FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

China’s manufacturing hits seven-month low HSBC: Pressure on Beijing to rev up growth BEIJING: Chinese manufacturing activity hit a seven-month low in June, data from HSBC showed yesterday, putting pressure on Beijing to do more to boost the world’s second-largest economy.

The banking giant said preliminary figures from its closely watched purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which gauges the

will move again to boost its slowing economy, after cutting interest rates earlier this month and encouraging more government investment. “China’s manufacturing sector continued to slow in June,” HSBC’s co-head of Asian economic research, Qu Hongbin, said in the statement. “With external headwinds remaining strong, exports are likely to

NINGBO PORT: Workers are seen at the Ningbo Port getting ready to load a container ship wating in Ningbo yesterday. China’s manufacturing activity hit a sevenmonth low in June as shrinking exports and weak domestic demand shook the world’s second largest economy, British bank HSBC said. — AFP manufacturing sector, fell to 48.1 in June from 48.4 in May on shrinking exports and weak domestic demand. The June figure also marked the eighth consecutive month that manufacturing has contracted. A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 points to contraction.

Analysts said the results suggest China

decelerate in the coming months.”

New export orders, a component of PMI, recorded their sharpest decline since March 2009, HSBC said, but did not give a figure.

The bank will release the final data for June next month.

China’s commerce minister said earlier this month that the country faces a “severe”

Gold below $1,600 as Fed disappoints LONDON: Gold fell below $1,600 an ounce in Europe yesterday after the Federal Reserve disappointed gold bulls by failing to announce more aggressive monetary stimulus, though positioning ahead of the event prevented a sharper fall.

After a policy meeting ending Wednesday, the Fed said it would extend an existing bond program aimed at bringing down long-term borrowing costs and stimulating growth, dubbed Operation Twist, but held fire on a new round of quantitative easing that some investors had hoped for.

Gold had risen as high as $1,640.50 an ounce earlier this month on hopes that the Fed would unveil fresh quantitative easing measures to stimulate growth after a spate of disappointing economic data. Further monetary easing would maintain pressure on long-term interest rates, keeping the opportunity cost of holding gold at rock bottom as well as weighing on the dollar, which would stoke demand for the metal as an alternative store of value.

Prices had retreated sharply ahead of the Fed statement as speculation grew that full QE was off the table, but more light selling was seen on Wednesday. — Reuters

trade situation this year, as weak demand in key exports markets such as the United States and Europe hit the economy.

In May, exports were better than expected, rising 15.3 percent year-on-year to $181.1 billion, but analysts say such growth may be short-lived. In a further worry for the economy, weaker prices and a contraction in new orders suggested domestic demand is also flagging, Qu said. “We expect more decisive policy stimulus to reverse the growth slowdown,” he said. China on June 8 cut interest rates for the first time in more than three years in a bid to boost the economy, while the government has also trimmed the amount of cash banks must keep in reserve three times since December, most recently in May. “China will likely speed up loosening monetary policy in the future, with the magnitude depending on the situation with the euro-zone debt crisis and the recovery in the US economy,” Liao Qun, chief economist at Citic Bank International in Hong Kong, told AFP. China’s economy grew an annual 8.1 percent in the first quarter of 2012 — its slowest pace in nearly three years. The government will release the gross domestic product figure for the second quarter on July 13. The government has reduced its economic growth target for this year to just 7.5 percent, down from growth of 9.2 percent for all of last year and 10.4 percent in 2010.

Japan’s Nomura yesterday repeated its forecast that China’s GDP growth will slow to 7.8 percent in the second quarter this year.

“Underpinned by increasingly accommodative monetary and fiscal policies, China’s economy is in the process of bottoming out,” Nomura’s Hong Kong-based economist Zhang Zhiwei said in a research report.

Chinese stocks fell after the release of PMI, with the benchmark Shanghai index down 1.59 percent in the afternoon. — AFP

Can ‘Mediator Monti’ help save crisis-hit euro-zone?

ROME: Mario Monti’s diplomatic skills will be put to the test today, as he is called to mediate between the euro-zone’s biggest economies as they race to find common solutions to the fierce debt crisis. The talks in Rome between Germany, France, Italy and Spain come ahead of a crucial EU summit in Brussels on July 28-29 and the leaders are under intense pressure from international partners for greater unity on divisive issues.

The 69-year-old Italian premier will be drawing on both a 10-year stint in Brussels as a former European Union commissioner and his experience as professor at Italy’s training ground for financial elites, the Bocconi University in Milan. “In football terms, Monti is the one who makes decisive passes,” Jean-Pierre Darnis, an expert at Italy’s International Affairs Institute, said. “With his skills, and the respect of both the right and left wing in Europe, he can grease the wheels and help bring about a compro-

mise,” he added. Economic observers in Italy appear convinced that Rome is best placed to adopt a position as negotiator between France and Germany in particular and speed up integration to prevent any more countries succumbing to the euro-zone debt crisis.

“Italy is the ideal country to mediate because it is the smallest among the big European countries and the biggest among the small ones. It is also both ‘northern’ and ‘southern’,” commentator Mario Deaglio wrote in La Stampa daily. “It has a high level of debt but has been the quickest to carry out steps over the past months to get out of the crisis,” he said, adding that Italy may be able to ensure real agreements at the talks “and not the umpteenth delay.”

Monti is also seen by some as an initiative taker, after relaunching an idea to use euro-zone rescue funding to lower borrowing costs at a G20 summit this week-though Germany has yet to be convinced on a burden-sharing system.—AFP

BERLIN: Faction leader of the oppositional German Social Democrats, SPD, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (right) and Head of the SPD Sigmar Gabriel (left) speak to the media after their negotiations with the coalition government in Berlin yesterday. — AP

German MPs end row over EU fiscal pact BERLIN: The German government and opposition overcame differences yesterday to seal a deal paving the way for parliament to ratify the EU fiscal pact and new bailout fund, both sides said. Leading members of the main opposition Social Democrats (SPD) welcomed the agreement after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which hinged on opposition demands in return for its support for the fiscal pact.

“Government and opposition agree on (a) pact for growth and employment and therefore to ‘Yes’ to the fiscal pact in parliament,” said Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert via microblogging site Twitter.

The accord includes “a package of measures for growth and jobs”, SPD head Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. “Overall, a result that I can take to my group with some confidence and recommend agreement of the whole package,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the head of the SPD’s parliamentary group, told reporters. He said the talks had pinned down an agreement over the introduction of a tax on financial transactions which Germany would be ready to back based on a core of “at least nine countries” taking part. Berlin has argued that such a tax should be introduced at EU level but has run into fierce opposition, notably from Britain, which fears it would hurt London’s status as a financial hub.

The deal, which followed several weeks of negotiations between Merkel’s centre-right coalition and the opposition SPD and Green party, should allow parliamentary ratification on June 29. The German parliament must pass the draft laws on the fiscal treaty, a new European budgetary rule book, with a two-thirds majority, meaning Merkel needed to secure opposition backing. However its quick passage, which the government aimed to see completed by the start of the summer recess on July 6, had been thrown into question by squabbling between the ruling parties and the opposition.

Opposition lawmakers had demanded pledges that Berlin would push for the financial transaction tax and use the revenues from the levy to fund more growth-boosting measures.

The leader of the ecologist Greens, Cem Ozdemir, said the introduction of a tax on financial transactions would be “immediately tackled” following the agreement. Even before all their differences had been ironed out, the government and opposition already agreed that parliament would vote on ratifying the fiscal pact and new bailout fund on June 29. Driven through by Merkel and signed by 25 of the European Union’s 27 member states, the fiscal pact aims to enforce stricter budgetary rules in the bloc and prevent the high public deficits that touched off the euro-zone turmoil.—AFP

Business FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

With Siri and new alliances, Apple takes on Google search Apple’s success in search seen hinging on Siri uptake SAN FRANCISCO: When Apple Inc sends out its coveted invitations to major events, one CEO has always been making the guest list of late: Jeremy Stoppelman. The co-founder and chief executive officer of consumer review website Yelp Inc has never taken the stage at these gatherings, but his company has become an important weapon in Apple’s arsenal as it steps up its assault on ally-turned-rival Google Inc. Yelp and a handful of other major consumer content sites, including movie reviewer Rotten Tomatoes and restaurant reservation service OpenTable, will be helping to power Apple’s Siri, the voice-activated iPhone personal assistant, in the new mobile operating system iOS6.

The relationship between Apple and Yelp

illustrates the power struggle over how people find what they are looking for on the Internet.

Much more than just a clever feature, Siri is emerging as a key tool for what some in the industry call “casual search” - quickly finding routine information such as a restaurant location. This can bypass Google and other traditional search engines. That serves the interests of Apple, which sees an opportunity to muscle in on its rival’s core business and build related advertising revenue.

Siri is also a potential lifeline for Yelp and other content companies, which have found themselves competing with Google. “Google is a direct competitor to Yelp, and I am sure Yelp is aware of that,” said Larry Cornett, founder of product strategy firm Brilliant Forge and former

head of consumer products at Yahoo Inc. Yelp, which depends a lot on Google for traffic, will probably be “ecstatic” about the direct traffic it will get through Apple’s upcoming version of Siri. Google still reigns supreme in search, loved by consumers for its relevant results and advertisers for its reach. Deep-pocketed rivals, particularly Microsoft Corp with its Bing search engine, have tried in vain for years to reduce Google’s dominance.

Rather than compete with Google on keyword search - which would mean battling algorithms refined by the millions of searches performed every day - Apple is taking a different tack by focusing on a subset of the search universe that users are mostly likely to scour while they are out and about. — Reuters

THEY ARE THE 99!

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

THE STORY SO FAR : Rafie the Lifter is visiting his parents in Istanbul, when a criminal in a clown costume attempts to rob a restaurant. But instead of stopping the clown, Rafie finds himself paralyzed with fear!

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

www.the99.org

Opinion FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Summer of discontent looms for Lebanon Gulf states urge citizens not to visit Lebanon, cancelations abound

By Arieh O’Sullivan

D

espite appeals from Lebanese leaders, Gulf states are advising their citizens not to travel to Lebanon and those already there to leave, thus boding ill for this summer’s tourism industry. Beirut, once known as the Riviera of the Levant, has thrived through turmoil as a place where visitors from the oil-rich states like to spend their summers and a few billion dollars on everything from renting luxurious apartments on the waterfront, to fancy cars, restaurants, clubs and hotels. But current political turmoil and security developments in Lebanon have forced many Gulf Arabs to cancel their summer bookings or put them off until the situation in the country stabilizes.

On top of that, Beirut has now replaced Abu Dhabi as the most expensive city in the Middle East, according to the new Mercer’s 2012 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey released this week. To make matters worse, swaths of the country including Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon plunged into darkness as one of the country’s major electric power plants broke down this week. The perpetual electricity crisis caused tempers to boil over this time and protestors blocked main highways across the country with burning tires. And to add pain to misery, Foreign Policy released a study Monday saying Lebanon was “one of the least stable states in the world.” The country was ranked 45 on the list of most failed states in the world, which is better than the 18th position it received in 2008, but not yet up to its post-2006 war level of 65.

The index ranked countries around the world by their potential for failure based on 12 indicators of state stability, including human flight, security apparatus, and public services. The Lebanese Ministry of Tourism advertises the country as the “land of golden beaches and stunning mountain landscapes.”

That may be, but their Internet page hasn’t been updated since last year. Still, last week they launched a media blitz on international television stations to promote Lebanon. The UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, citing security concerns, have urged their citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, where clashes linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria have left several people dead in recent weeks. Emiratis who were currently in Lebanon were also advised to leave.

Evidence of the rebellion in Syria spilling over into Lebanon was again seen this weekend when gun battles broke out between the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Bab Al-Tabbaneh and the majority Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli. In the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr AlBared, two Palestinians were killed on Monday in clashes with the army. These incidents threaten to drag the country into a deepening security crisis and further summer chaos. The British Foreign Office issued an advisory back in May against all but essential travel to most parts of the country, but not Beirut. The US State Department has also

urged its citizens to completely avoid travel to Lebanon.

But the country long ago gave up on European and Western visitors, relying mainly on the wealthy, jet-setting Gulf Arabs, who appear to be heeding their governments’ advice and quit the country. Kamal Mohammad, manager of the Dubai-based

they have time to spend with their families. It is seasonal. It is like the Christmas season,” he said.

Lebanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Adnan Mansour has urged the Gulf countries to review their decisions because the security situation in Lebanon does not require such steps. Furthermore, the Lebanese daily Al-

Lebanese are pinning high hopes on the visits home by wealthy expatriates and Gulf Arabs.

“Gulf citizens mainly travel to Lebanon during the festive season which is after the end of the month of Ramadan so during this three day holiday there will be a whole spectrum of activities night and day so the Gulf region inhabitants usually go to that place to have a

Partygoers dance at a club in downtown Beirut in this Aug 12, 2009 file photo. — AFP travel agency Dan Travel, confirmed to The Media Line that bookings to Lebanon were down and trips were being cancelled due to the travel warnings. “It is only a general trend that usually happens when there is political unrest in the area and this is usually an upand-down situation,” Mohammad said.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said that there was no reason for Arabs to avoid visiting his country and called on Arabs to come and fast during the holy month of Ramadan in Lebanon because “we have to cooperate together to shake up this summer. It’s going to be full of festivals and events that we must support.” The holy month of Ramadan is expected to start in the third week of July and Mohammed said that most of the bookings were Lebanese citizens who wanted to see their families for the holidays. “Ramadan time is an event for social interaction with family and friends and usually people prefer to postpone their travel plans until Ramadan so that

Akhbar reported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia and Hizbullah have struck a deal to shield Lebanon from regional tensions and attempt to preserve tranquility, despite the rising social tensions. In the southern ancient resort town of Tyre, there was a cautious optimism with the opening of the summer season with crowds swarming the beaches. But many restaurants and cafes have reportedly caved into threats and have decided not to serve alcohol. The popular beaches are still smarting from a series of bombings last year targeting establishments that serve liquor. This predicament certainly isn’t a positive incentive for tourists. An annual international festival has been cancelled this summer.

As it is, beach access in Lebanon is not gratis, and to make matters worse, entry fees have risen by about $3.30 this year. The Daily Star reported that entry to beaches costs between $13 to more than $30 per person, which shows that despite everything, the

sort of vacation after the end of Ramadan,” said Mohammed. Mohammed said that the political and security unrest was affecting tourism to Lebanon, but he didn’t think it manifested a “major change”. Teacher Ahmad Aladdine said he and his family are heading to Beirut on July 6 - despite everything.

“Everybody I speak to in Beirut says the situation is ordinary although the country is empty of tourists, unlike the last few years,” Aladdine told Gulf News. — Media Line

A

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FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Years

www.kuwaittimes.net

Carla Creagan wears a multi-coloured hat as she poses for the photographers on the third day of Royal Ascot horse race meeting at Ascot, England, yesterday. —AP

Food

Everyday cooking

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

By Sawsan Kazak

W

e are all aware of the nutritional benefits of snacking on dried fruit. But I have to admit it can get a little boring, not to mention dry when munching on the dehydrated fruits. I always have dried fruit lying around, and what better way to capitalize on their rich flavors and health benefits than to use them in everyday recipes. The following recipes are easy, healthy and will allow you to use up your leftover dried fruit.

Send your suggestions to: sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

Dried fruit nutritional facts

W

hile most dried fruits contain a similar high percentage of calories from carbohydrates and sugar, they do contain varied amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Figs, apples, peaches, apricots and cranberries are some of the most widely consumed dried fruits. Eating dried fruits is a convenient way to meet the nutritional daily requirement.

Calories and Carbohydrates Peaches and figs are at the higher end of the calorie range, with 1 serving (1/2 cup) containing more than 175 calories. One serving of dried apples contains 157 calories and 1 serving of apples contains 105 calories. Cranberries are the lowest in calories with only 62 per serving. Peaches contain high amounts of carbohydrates at 49g per serving, while cranberries contain the lowest, at 16.5g per serving.

Sugar While peaches, figs and apricots all contain more than 30g of sugar per 1/2-cup serving, apples contain slightly less, at 25g per serving.

Cranberries contain the least amount of sugar, at only 13g per serving.

Fiber Figs and peaches are also higher in fiber, with 7.3 and 6.5g respectively per 1/2-cup serving. Apricots contain 4.8g, apples contain 3.8g and cranberries contain only 1.2g per serving.

Fat and Protein All five dried fruits are low in fat. Each contains less than 1g per 1/2-cup serving. While peaches, figs and apricots all contain more than 2g of protein per serving, cranberries and apples each contain less than 1g per 1/2-cup.

Minerals While cranberries contain fewer calories

and sugar than other dried fruits, they are also much lower in minerals. One serving provides only 3 percent or less of the recommended daily intake (DRI) of any essential mineral. Apples are also low in many minerals, but do provide 28 percent of the DRI for potassium. Figs, apricots and peaches are also high in potassium. All three provide more than 25 percent of the DRI, as well as

more than 20 percent of the DRI for copper.

Figs supply more than 10 percent of the DRI of calcium, magnesium and manganese, while peaches provide 40 percent of the DRI of iron for men and 18 percent for women.

Figs and apricots also contain iron, supplying approximately 20 percent of the DRI for men and 10 percent for women.

Vitamins Cranberries and apples are also lower in vitamins than the other three fruits. Neither of these fruits supplies more than 6 percent of any vitamin per serving. While figs are also just as low in water-soluble vitamins, 1 serving does provide more than 10 percent of the DRI of vitamin K. Peaches, on the other hand, do provide significant amounts of some water-soluble vitamins.

One serving provides more than 20 percent of the DRI for niacin and 15 percent for riboflavin.

Apricots also provide more than 10 percent of the DRI for niacin. Apricots and peaches contain some fat-soluble vitamins as well. One serving of apricots provides more than 10 percent of the DRI for vitamin A and nearly 20 percent for vitamin E, while peaches provide approximately 10 percent of the DRI for vitamin A and more than 10 percent for vitamin K. — (www.livestrong.com)

Food FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Baked fish with dried fruit

3 tbsp canola oil 5 green onions, thinly sliced 2 large cloves garlic, minced 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves 1/4 cup chopped mint leaves 2 tbsp chopped tarragon leaves 1 tbsp chopped cilantro leaves 1 cup walnut pieces 1/4 cup dried barberries or dried cranberries 1/4 cup raisins 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1 tsp kosher salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper 1-1/2 lb (675 g) boneless, skinless fillets white fish (such as pickerel, cod or tilapia), washed, patted dry, cut in portion sizes

4 1/2 cups dried fruit 2 tbsp. cornstarch 4 1/2 cups water 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 1/2 cup sifted flour 2 tsp baking powder 3 tbsp sugar 3/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup butter 3/4 cup milk

2 cups chopped dried fruit 1/2 cup honey 1 cup graham cracker crumbs Coconut or chopped nuts

C

ombine chopped dried fruit and honey.

Add enough graham cracker crumbs to make mixture hold together. Form into balls and roll in coconut or chopped nuts.

Dried fruit balls

1/2 tsp saffron threads, ground, dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water

I

n medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium. Add onions, garlic, parsley, mint, tarragon and cilantro. Cook, stirring, 7 minutes. Stir in walnuts, barberries or cranberries, raisins, lime juice, salt and pepper. (Makes about 2 cups.) Transfer to greased casserole dish. In separate casserole dish, arrange fish in single layer. Drizzle with saffron water and remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Bake nut and herb mixture and fish at same time in preheated 400F oven until fish flakes easily with fork, about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on fillet thickness.

Divide nut and herb mixture evenly among 4 plates. Lay equal portions fish over each.

DRIED FRUIT

COBBLER

C

ut up dried fruit. Place fruit and water in 3-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil and just simmer 15 minutes or until tender. Combine cornstarch (use 1 tablespoon if you like it runnier), 3/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Stir into hot fruit mixture. Pour into an 11 x 7 x 1 1/2inch baking dish. Sift together flour, baking powder, 3 tablespoons sugar and salt. Cut in butter until crumbly. Add milk and stir until moistened. Drop by spoonfuls over the top of the fruit mixture. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 4-6.

Skillet chicken with

lemon and dried fruit

2 tsp olive oil 3 lb bone-in chicken pieces, skinned & trimmed of fat Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 1/2 cup mixed dried fruits (pears, pitted prunes, apricots, apples, peaches) 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (1/2 lemon) 3/4 tsp dried thyme 2 lemons, thinly sliced & seeded

I

n a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add chicken and cook for about 6 minutes per side, or until the chicken is browned. Remove the chicken, season lightly with salt and pepper and set

aside. Add 1/3 cup water to the skillet, and stir to loosen and dissolve any brown bits stuck to the pan. Stir in the dried fruit, lemon juice and thyme. Place the chicken over the fruit in the pan and baste with the sauce.

Arrange the lemon slices over the chicken.

Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink inside and the fruit is tender. Remove the lemon slices and place around the edge of a serving platter. With slotted spoon, transfer the chicken and fruit to the platter.

Add 1/3 cup water to the skillet and boil for 1 minute. Taste and adjust seasonings. Pour over the chicken and serve immediately.

Relationships FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Just don’t call me ‘granny’ Sixty is the new 40 for the ‘grandboomer’ generation

Adair Lara, or Bobbi as her grandkids call her, is seen in her San Francisco, California home and has a new book on the market, “The Granny Diaries,” addressing the hip side of being a grandparent. — MCT

I

t wasn’t that Adair Lara wasn’t thrilled about her daughter’s pregnancy. It’s just that at age 52, Lara was, well, way too hip and young to be a grandmother. And she spent the next nine months trying to avoid the name “Grandma” - a word, she says, “that lay in wait for me like a pair of dentures in a glass.” Actually, the San Francisco author was four years older than the average first-time grandmother, according to an American Association of Retired Persons survey - and the exact same age her own grandmother was when Lara was born.

But times have changed. “It used to be at age 60 you were old,” says Matt Thornhill, founder of the Virginia-based Boomer Project, a marketing research firm that specializes in the “grandboomer” generation. “This generation has gotten to that age and it’s considered midlife. Boomers today, knowing - or thinking - they’re going to live to be age 85 or 90, (say), ‘I’m not old yet at 60. And I don’t want to be called the name that signifies I’m old.’”

That was the issue for Lara, author of the new “Granny Diaries: An Insider’s Guide for New Grandmothers.” “We’re often the same

age as our mothers and their mothers were when they became grandmothers,” says Lara, “but it looks different and feels different on us. We’re in our forties and fifties, in the middle of our lives and careers.”

Plus, there’s that whole boomer zeitgeist thing.”We all think we’re still 19 years old and we don’t want any titles actually used for older people,” says Lara, now 56 and grandmother to Ryan, age 5, and Maggie, 3.

“The connotations in this culture have a lot of baggage - you should get an apron and learn to bake cookies.”

So, Lara tried on “Nana” for size, vetoed it, and finally dubbed herself “Bobbi,” a twist on “Baba,” the Russian word for grandmother. That’s not to say there was ever any question about Lara’s excitement and delight at the thought of having grandbabies to hold and love. Lara was and is - absolutely smitten. The Landaverdes can relate. “My mom is called Nana and gets mad if strangers call her a grandma,” says Noreen Landaverde, a Pittsburg, Calif., mother of two. “It is an age thing. She does not want to be old enough to be ‘grandma.’”

Sixty is the new 40, says Jerry

Shereshewsky, CEO of Grandparents.com, a Web site devoted to first-time grandparents. “They’re certainly not their own grandparents and they’re barely their own parents,” he says. “Instead of being an old person dealing with your grandchild, you’re a young person - younger and fitter and richer.”

And the most popular segment of Shereshewsky’s Web site, he says, is the section devoted to cool things to do with your grandkids: Alaskan cruises, whitewater rafting, and adventures keyed to different cities. The Bay Area guide, for example, includes ghost walks, sailing excursions, teddy bear-building and exotic, ethnic restaurants. The bottom line, says Lara, is that today’s grandparents are more than a label, unless that label is Grandma 2.0.

“Baby boomer women, in their forties and fifties, with busy lives and careers, are wrestling with their new identity as grandmothers in a world where Mom, Dad, and Nana all work,” she says. “These new grandmothers are the urban, marginally hip, accomplished boomer who’s too busy getting her Website up and running to take up needlepoint.”

And “grandma” is just a word, anyway, says Merrilee Miller. Her mother-in-law, Joyce Miller, may be “Grandma Joyce,” but she not only sews quilts but she also also does yoga and celebrated her 70th birthday by climbing Mt. Whitney. This year, the retired Sunnyvale nurse is headed for Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“When she comes over to visit, she says ‘OK, put me to work,’” Miller explains. “The other day we were redoing our side yard with half a ton of river rocks. Joyce and I put all the rocks in.” As for Lara, children have a way of reinterpreting names anyway. Lara may have settled on a “Baba” variant, but 3-year-old Maggie calls her “Bob.” — MCT

Books FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Tell Me Your Dreams Tell Me Your Dreams centers around Ashley Patterson. Ashley works at a company in Silicon Valley. She feels that something is missing from her life. She also has the sneaking suspension that someone is stalking her.

Toni Prescott and Alette Peters are also in the book. They reluctantly team up with Ashley after people begin to turn up dead.

This book is full of good looking women and do-gooding men. The book is based on actual cases also. Beware you may figure this one out faster than the Sheldon anticipated.

Nothing Lasts Forever With Nothing Last Forever Sidney Sheldon returns to what he does best. He writes about women who have to deal with amazing circumstances. In this book the women are all doctors working in a hospital. Each woman has to deal with working in a man’s world. But soon the ladies face greater challenges. One will face a big hurdle, while another must deal with the hospital itself and the last is fingered for a murder. This one is another suspense filled novel.

There are no sweeping destinations. But he returns with everyday tough women.

Other Side of Midnight In the other Side of Midnight we meet Noelle Page and Catherine Alexander. During WWII Noelle meets a pilot named Larry Douglas. They fall in love but once the war is over he abandons her. While back in the States Larry meets Catherine. He marries her but Noelle has not forgotten him. Once Noelle has become a famous actress and marries a rich man she decides to hire Larry has her private pilot. It seems that Noelle has achieved her goal. She has Larry back in her life and the two plots to be together forever. While it seems these two are in control it is actually Noelle’s husband Constantin Demiris who is making all the moves. This book is like most Sidney Sheldon Novels. It has suspense and tough women. It was also made into a movie with John Beck and Susan Sarandon in 1971.

The Sky is Falling In Sky is Falling Sidney reintroduces us to Dana Evans. She is a TV reporter in Washington DC. She has recently adopted an orphan. She notices that a Washington DC family has been dying in the past year. Dana heads off around the world to investigate. She hits up Russia, Aspen, France, and Germany. But her life at home is falling apart. Her boyfriend has been called to his ailing ex-wife’s side and her son is falling ill. You can follow Dana around the globe while she investigates the Winthrops murders. It is another capable suspense novel from Sidney Sheldon.

Memories of Midnight In The Other Side of Midnight we met Catherine, Larry, Noelle and Constantin Demiris. In that novel the characters were motivated by intense love. The main characters had little regard for the ones they hurt in the process. Many people’s lives fell apart.

Now in Memories of Midnight people return to battle it out one more time. This time the story centers more on Catherine. Catherine and Constantin’s past are about to come roaring back. Some find this book a bit over the top and not in touch with reality. But if you want a book that will allow you to escape the world, Memories of Midnight is the book for you.

Rage of Angels Rage of Angles places us in the middle of New York City. We become involved in politics, law and the Mob. The story centers on Jennifer Parker, Michael Moretti, and Adam Warner.

Jennifer is a lawyer who becomes tied to the mob. After a trail she faces disbarment. Adam Warner is asked to investigate the circumstances of the trial. In the process he falls in love with Jennifer. He wants out of his marriage but he is running for the senate and his wife becomes pregnant. Their lives become further complicated when Michael asks Jennifer if she will be consigliere to the crime family. The story sweeps through New York to Capitol hill.

Health FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Gain some

weight, throw it around I

f you have been trying to put weight on, for whatever reason, there are some things you should keep in mind. While you can gain weight by laying around on the couch, watching TV and eating junk food, this may not be the kind of weight you want to gain. Your goal should be to gain muscle, not fat, and to do so you must come off with a diet plan and exercise routine that will help you to accomplish that. There are many foods that you can eat which will help you to build muscle and gain good weight when they are eaten in conjunction with a good exercise program. In addition, the type of exercise you do will also have an impact on whether or not you simply burn fat or actually bulk up. The of the following suggestions may help you to become aware of some of the ways in which you can gain good weight, without putting on an excess of hard-to-get-rid-of fat.

Increasing caloric intake Obviously, if you are trying to gain weight, the first thing you will want to do is up the amount of calories you eat every day. However, it is important that you eat the right foods and that you get your calories from “clean foods” and not from greasy, high fat foods with poor nutritional value.

Increasing calories in itself is quite easy but increasing your caloric intake with foods that will actually help you to gain good weight can be a bit more challenging. Keep in mind that just because you are trying to gain weight, you will not want to take on the attitude that you can eat anything and everything you see. Some foods will work against you meeting your goal and some will land in all the wrong places, offering you nothing that could even be considered close to beneficial.

Up the protein Rather than increasing the amount of fats you eat in order to gain weight, focus on eating higher protein containing foods such as lean meats, beans, legumes and nuts. When you are trying to gain muscle mass, you will want to increase the amount of protein you are consuming by quite a bit as high protein foods are needed for building healthy muscle.

Obviously, if your BMI is alarmingly low for some kind of medical reason then you will also need to incorporate fats into your weight gain plan as well but that will be up to whatever doctor is supervising you, and your diet plan.

Most of the time when people are trying to gain weight it is because they are unhappy with their appearance, either they are too skinny or do not possess enough muscle tone. In either case, protein will help you to achieve a healthier weight gain and a higher muscle mass.

What happens if you are not hungry?

Some people have trouble gaining weight because they just do not seem to have a good appetite. This can be for a number of reasons, such as stress, depression or a variety of other reasons. If you are trying to gain weight but find that you cannot seem to build an appetite, you may want to begin drinking food supplement shakes.

These shakes come in many different flavors such as chocolate, vanilla and strawberry and offer an excellent boost in caloric intake for people who

are not very interested in food. There are several brands of supplemental shakes that are available on the market and your doctor may be able to suggest one that is right for you. These shakes seem to work as it is much easier to force yourself to drink something that it is to force yourself to eat when you are not hungry. In addition, research suggests that drinking one of these shakes the first thing in the morning may help to stimulate your appetite throughout the day. There are also many herbs that can be administered to help stimulate your appetite. Depending on what region you are located in, medicinal marijuana is a great appetite stimulant, provided it is legal where you live.

Avoid too much cardio exercise Everyone needs a fair amount of cardio exercise in their daily routine but someone who is trying to gain weight may want to minimize the amount they get each day. Rather than doing aerobic exercises that burn fat, a better choice for someone who is trying to bulk up and build muscle mass would be a good weight training program. Rather than spending 30 minutes walking on a treadmill each day, start doing reps with free weights.

If your goal is to gain weight you want to stay away from anything that will increase your metabolism further, such as stringent cardio exercise.

Joining a gym and beginning a program under a reputable exercise therapist is a great way to come up with a

routine that has been tailored specifically for someone with your needs.

Caloric intake guidelines Depending on your age, gender, height and weight, you will have a certain caloric requirement. In order to gain weight you must exceed the amount of calories that are needed in order for you to maintain your weight.

For example, a man, who is 5 foot 10 inches tall, weighing about 200 pounds will require about 2,400 calories a day just to maintain his weight. If he wishes to gain weight then he will want to increase to at least 4,000 calories a day. There are many calorie calculators that are free and available online to help you get a better idea of how many calories you should be consuming in order to reach your goal weight.

Some people believe that gaining weight is easier than losing weight. In some cases this is true but for many people gaining weight is just as much of a struggle as losing weight is for others. There are many people who have over active thyroid glands or super high metabolism and just cannot seem to put weight on no matter how hard they try. If this sounds like you, remember there is hope and with diligence and patients, everyone can gain good weight.

— www.healthguidance.org

Beauty FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

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ou will not know unless you experiment with a variety of fragrances. It is the longterm impression that a fragrance gives you that really counts, not what you think of it at first.

Everyone’s skin is different and that is why some fragrances last longer on some people’s skin than others.

Every individual has their own unique skin chemistry. In fact, your skin chemistry can even change now and again and the changes are not always apparent. When these changes occur, your fragrance may go from smelling wonderful on you, to not being a very pleasant smell at all.

There are a variety of reasons that can contribute to and or cause your skin chemistry to change.

Stress The number one reason tends to be stress. If you are feeling a large amount of anxiety it will often affect your heart rate, and cause your hands to become clammy and you might start to sweat. All of this will factor into a change in your body chemistry and result in your fragrance smelling different.

Diet What you eat is very closely related to how a fragrance may smell on you. Your diet can radically change the smell of fragrances on your skin.

For example, too much garlic consumption can cause a slight aroma of garlic to permeate from your skin when you sweat. This aroma may not mix well with your fragrance. Onions as well as other foods that can bring about gas can also alter the aroma of your fragrance.

Age Age is something else that can factor into your skin’s chemistry. This is because there are a number of significant hormonal changes for men and women. The first change is the shift from child to teen. Puberty can be a hard time on a teenager’s body and skin.

Pregnancy Pregnancy is another event that can cause a major hormonal upheaval. Pregnancy hormones can cause fragrances to smell different to you; a scent you liked before may be something you do not like when expecting.

Perfume and Menopause Lastly, menopause can bring on changes to your hormones and affect your body chemistry.

During this time, your skin can become thinner and drier. Also, testosterone and oestrogen levels fluctuate and night sweats often occur.

There are also certain medications and even medical conditions that can play a role in how a

fragrance will be altered by your body chemistry.

For example, individuals with diabetes will have a harder time finding a fragrance that works well for them.

This is due to the fluctuation in their blood sugar levels. As their sugar levels change, so does the scent of the fragrance they are wearing.

Some people have skin that attracts essential oils, this means that their skin may absorb certain oil from a fragrance while other oils dissolve quickly.

There is often a lot of testing involved to decide which essential oils work best with your skin chemistry.

To help you in deciding which fragrances will work the best with your skin chemistry; scents should always be applied to your pulse points.

Pulse points are where the blood vessels are closest to the surface and therefore give off more warmth. You should never test more than two or three scents at once.

Off and on throughout the day, smell the fragrances you are trying and even apply more on the same pulse point but on a different day for comparison. If the fragrance has a scent that you enjoy each time you test it, you may have just found a new perfume for your collection. It may take some time to work out how your skin chemistry works with fragrances, but it is definitely worth the effort.

— www.beauty-and-the-bath.com

D

ip only a small amount of your sample fragrance. If you’ve wet your test strip only 1/8”, that’s just fine.

Mark all your test blotters with the name of the fragrance you dipped plus the time and date on which you dipped it. If necessary, develop a simple coding system for your bottles of fragrance to be tested so that you can place a matching code on your test blotters.

Hold your test blotter about an inch from your nose and mouth when smelling. Open your mouth and breath with both your mouth and your nose.

Take only a small whiff from the test blotter.

Then hold it away from your nose and ask yourself, “What have I just smelled?”

Take written notes on each smelling. This forces you to be analytical. You will also find it very helpful a day or two later when you can no longer remember what you had smelled. If necessary, make up your own language to describe what you have smelt. Don’t hesitate to be colorful. There are no fixed rules for describing scents.

— www.bio-byte.com

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

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South Korea’s K-pop spreads to Latin America

ews of the arrival of South Korean boyband JYJ prompted hundreds of fans to camp out on the streets recently to get closer to the trio. This wasn’t in Seoul or even Tokyo: it was in Lima. Having taken Asia by storm over the past decade with bubblegum hooks and dance moves infused with military precision, South Korea’s K-pop phenomenon continues to defy language barriers and find fans around the world.

As South Korea continues to export its culture, K-pop’s polished fusion of influences ranging from hip-hop to dubstep is winning a growing number of passionate followers in Latin America. JYJ has held sellout concerts there and a Colombian TV station is airing a K-pop talent show. Latin American fans have posted hundreds of videos on YouTube showing flash mobs emulating K-pop dance moves and urging their favorite stars to visit the continent, despite many not having officially released songs outside Asia Promoters are using the power of the Internet to lure distant fans and organize concerts in Europe and North and South America.

“Korean acts are not only monitoring but also monetizing their Twitter trends, Facebook likes, and YouTube views,” said Bernie Cho, president of DFSB Kollective, a Seoul-based creative agency providing digital media solutions to more than 350 K-pop artists. “More Korean bands have multilingual members who can sing verses, carry choruses, and conduct interviews in English, Chinese, and Japanese. Language is no longer a barrier, it is now the carrier.”

Music videos and footage of the stars’ private lives are posted on Facebook and YouTubeoften live or before being released on TV and elsewhere. “They’ve got the sound right, they’ve got a supportive government that invests very heavily into the development of the arts, and they are all very good looking,” said Ruuben van den Heuvel, executive director of GateWay Entertainment, a music consultancy firm.

“They’re a complete pop package.”

The popularity of the genre in Asia remains undiminished — 7,000 Japanese fans will flock to Seoul this month to “meet” JYJ at a major event that has booked out 3,500 hotel rooms around Seoul. But in Latin America, fans are taking note: JYJ in March performed in both Chile and Peru as part of a world tour of 15 venues including Berlin and Barcelona. Hundreds camped out for days in Santiago and Lima as they tried to get closer to the trio during their first concerts in the region, said June Oh, a spokeswoman for the band’s agent C-JeS.“We were so stunned seeing hundreds of tents lined up in front of the Explanada Sur del Estadio Monumental,” she told AFP, referring to the venue in the Peruvian capital where JYJ performed.Savvy marketing and production tie-ups have also helped. JYJ broke away from another K-pop act TVXQ in 2009 and the following year released an English-language album in collaboration with US rap star Kanye West. “Since then we started to get more fan letters from Latin

This handout photo released by C-JeS Entertainment on May 25, 2012 shows South Korea’s popular boyband JYJ performing in Santiago, Chile on March 9, 2012.—AFP photos

This handout photo shows South Korea’s popular boyband JYJ performing in Lima, Peru.

America and to see more Spanish-language sites (dedicated to JYJ). Now they are the most active and passionate ones in the band’s global fan base,” Oh said.

She acknowledged that attendance at the concerts — 5,000 in Chile and 6,000 in Peru-was small compared to the tens of thousands whom JYJ attracts in South Korea or Japan. “But it’s too early to try to stage such a mega-concert in Latin America,” she said. JYJ member Kim Junsu has described the response to the Latin American concerts as “utterly surprising, and the most enthusiastic”.

Seoul’s top music talent agency SM Entertainment has held concerts featuring its flagship groups such as the 13-member boyband Super Junior and the nine-strong Girls’ Generation in Paris, New York and California since 2010. Colombian TV network Caracol has since April aired a talent show for K-pop fans.

Winners were offered a six-day trip to Seoul to meet their idols. —AFP

Sonny Rollins is triple winner at Jazz Awards

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enor sax legend Sonny Rollins was a triple winner Wednesday at the annual Jazz Awards, garnering musician of the year honors for the second straight year. Rollins also repeated as the top tenor saxophonist. His latest CD, “Road Shows, Vol. 2,” consisting of

live recordings from concerts in Japan and his September 2010 80th birthday concert in New York highlighted by a first-ever public performance with free jazz visionary and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, was chosen the year’s best jazz recording. “I was born with

File photo shows jazz great Sonny Rollins perform during a concert in Tokyo. — AP

some talent for which I am grateful,” Rollins said in a statement read from the stage at the Blue Note jazz club by emcee Josh Jackson, host of WBGO’s jazz music magazine “The Checkout.”

“I copied and learned from my predecessors and I’m grateful to them, and I gratefully accept this award,” said Rollins, who could not attend the ceremony because he was moving to a new home in upstate New York. Saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Us Five, featuring Grammywinner Esperanza Spalding on bass and James Weidman on piano, was chosen the best small ensemble for the third consecutive year. The large ensemble honors went to the Mingus Big Band, dedicated to playing the compositions of the late bassist Charles Mingus.

Israeli-born Anat Cohen was a double winner as top clarinetist and multi-reeds player. Cohen said, “It’s an immense pleasure and a never-ending journey to be making music with some of the most adventurous, creative, passionate people we call jazz musicians.” Two IndianAmerican musicians also took home

awards in their instrumental categories pianist Vijay Iyer and alto saxophonist Rudresh Manhanthappa. Bassist Ben Williams, who released his debut album “State of Art” last year after winning the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Competition, was honored as the top up-and-coming artist. Hard bop pianistcomposer Horace Silver; known for creating such standards as “The Preacher,” “Sister Sadie,” and “Song For My Father,” received the award for lifetime achievement in jazz. Poet and political activist Amiri Baraka was recognized with the award for lifetime achievement in jazz journalism.

Other winners, chosen in voting by members of the Jazz Journalists Association, included Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Bill Frisell (guitar), Regina Carter (violin), Christian McBride (bass), Gretchen Parlato (female singer), Kurt Elling (male singer), Roy Haynes (drums), Maria Schneider (composer/arranger), Gary Smulyan (baritone saxophone) and Jane Ira Bloom (soprano saxophone). — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Iraqi Adil Hamid Khalaf, or Abu Wassan, arranges his display of Indian movies and music albums, in his bookshop in the capital Baghdad.— AFP

Iraq film seller laments Bollywood decline A

dil Hamid Khalaf is like many Iraqi traders, with his tiny store stocked to the brim with VCDs and DVDs. What sets him apart is he can extol, in halting Hindi no less, the glory of 1950s Bollywood classics. Khalaf’s high prices for new movies-he charges as much as $10 whereas others offer knock-offs for 40 cents-and passion for Indian films from a bygone era mean sales are fewer than ever. Unfazed, however, the 65-year-old wistfully recalls what he believes was a better era for Bollywood cinema, and life in Iraq, while excitedly relaying anecdotes from his latest meeting with Indian film legend Amitabh Bachchan, whom Khalaf refers to as a “good friend”.

“Lambu! Lambu!” Khalaf exclaims, using the Hindi word for tall to describe the six-foot, two-inch (1.88-metre) actor, with blown-up photographs of their nearannual meetings at Bachchan’s Mumbai home plastered across the walls of the three-metre (10-foot) by one-metre shop in Baghdad’s Najah cinema complex. He shows off a Rado watch he says was gift-

ed to him by Bachchan on a recent visit, and quickly pulls out a fading photograph of him standing alongside the actor and his then-young son Abhishek, now 36 and a film star himself. Khalaf originally met Bachchan in 1978, after convincing an acquaintance who worked in another actor’s offices to take him there.

He now visits Bachchan as often as he can and speaks to him in Hindi, which he has learned by watching Bollywood films countless times over the years. But after recalling his meetings with Bachchan and other age-old Indian movie stars-photos alongside Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Mithun Chakraborty and Amrish Puri also adorn the walls of his shop-he returns to his lament that Indian cinema has suffered by becoming too Westernised. “Old Indian movies taught you how to behave with others-they taught you manners, they built your character,” he says, speaking in Arabic. “They taught the viewer how to be good to their parents, to touch the feet of their mothers and fathers.”

“Nowadays, Indian movies are filled

Adil Hamid Khalaf, points to a picture of himself posing with Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan. —AFP

with action, drugs, knives, pistols, bullets.

They are teaching people to kill, not teaching people to behave well.” His complaints over Indian cinema mirror those he, and many of his customers, have of modern Iraq. Khalaf’s business began as a venture with four friends who, after enjoying Indian films at Baghdad’s cinema halls in the 1960s, began selling cassettes of movie songs. At the time, movie theatres in the capital did good business broadcasting Arab, Indian and Western films, with some cinema halls dedicated solely to showing Bollywood flicks. Now, no halls dedicated to Indian movies remain and the capital’s movie theatres are widely derided by Baghdad’s residents as dens showing pornographic movies and places for gay men to meet, a reputation the industry has struggled to shed in a country where pornography and homosexuality are taboo.

Khalaf branched out on his own in 1978, setting up his shop, which he named Wassan after one of his daughters whose picture he has also posted on his shop wall. It features her standing alongside, predictably, Amitabh Bachchan. Ever since, he has made regular trips to India to buy music and movie cassette tapes, before moving on to video CDs and DVDs. Khalaf says he cannot count how many films he has in his shop, with movies dating from the 1920s to ones as recent as 2011’s “Don 2” starring superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

He now visits India once a year, mostly to Mumbai-he explains in Hindi, “Koi faidha nahin hai, Delhi ko janay kai liye”, meaning there is no point in visiting the capital, New Delhi, because all he wants to do is buy movies and see Bachchan.

“We used to sit and listen to Indian film songs through the night,” Khalaf, who has lost touch with the friends he set up the first store with, says of life in Baghdad in the 1970s and 1980s. “Not anymore.”

“Back then, people knew how to behave in cinema halls-You could take your family there, you could take your daughters there,” he says. “Now, you cannot do that anymore.” Khalaf also laments the decline

in security in the Iraqi capital which, though much improved from its worst in 2006 and 2007, remains tenuous and violent.

As a result, he can no longer keep his store open until midnight as he used to, and is keen to get home soon after closing the shop at around 4:00 pm. “There was always good business,” he says of his sales before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein. Now, he reckons he has around a third of the customers he used to, victim to lower prices from competitors and the fact that many of his clients, mostly older men, have died over the years. As a result, he spends much of his day idle in his shop, chatting and sipping tea with customers, who sit with him and re-watch old Bollywood films on his 14-inch CRT television.

They eschew newer movies that Khalaf says he rarely watches. His favourites instead are the 1959 black-and-white movie “Kali Topi Lal Rumal” (Black Cap, Red Handkerchief), and 1957’s Oscarnominated “Mother India”, along with song compilations that blare out as he sits behind his desk, smoking. Many of those who still come to the store share his view of decades passed. “When I am longing for a film from the 1960s or 1970s, I come here to get it from Abu Wassan (father of Wassan),” says Bassim Mohammed Jassim, a 61-year-old cigarette vendor.

“I watch the film, and I feel comforted,” he adds. “When I watch it, I am reminded of the good old days, when the situation was nice, when there were no problems.” — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

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ndrew Sarris, a leading movie critic during a golden age for reviewers who popularized the French reverence for directors and inspired debate about countless films and filmmakers, died Wednesday. He was 83. Sarris died at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell. Sarris was best known for his work with the Village Voice, his opinions especially vital during the 1960s and 1970s, when movies became films, or even cinema, and critics and fans argued about them the way they once might have contended over paintings or novels. No longer was the big screen just entertainment. Thanks to film studies courses and revival houses, movies were analyzed in classrooms and cafes. Audiences discovered such foreign directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, rediscovered older works by Howard Hawks, John Ford and others from Hollywood, and welcomed new favorites such as Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese.

Filmmakers were heroes and critics were sages, including Sarris, Pauline Kael, Stanley Kauffmann and Manny Farber.

“Andrew Sarris was a vital figure in teaching America to respond to foreign films as well as American movies,” fellow critic David Thomson said Wednesday. “As writer, teacher, friend and husband he was an essential. History has gone.”

Sarris started with the Voice in 1960 and established himself as a major reviewer in 1962 with the essay “Notes on the Auteur Theory.” Acknowledging the influence of French critics and even previous American writers, Sarris argued for the primacy of directors and called the “ultimate glory” of movies “the tension between a director’s personality and his material.” He not only helped draw up the rules, but he filled in the names.

US singer Madonna performs during her ‘MDNA concert’ on June 20, 2012 at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. — AFP

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This July 2, 2009 image shows film critic Andrew Sarris in his apartment in New York. — AP He was a pioneer of the annual “Top 10” film lists that remain fixtures in the media. In 1968, he published “The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968,” what Sarris described as “a collection of facts, a reminder of movies to be resurrected, of genres to be redeemed, of directors to be rediscovered.” Among his favorites: Ford, Hawks, Orson Welles and Fritz Lang. Categorized as “Less Than Meets the Eye”: John Huston, David Lean, Elia Kazan and Fred Zinnemann. The critic himself would be criticized, especially by his enduring rival, Kael, a West Coast-based reviewer who in 1967 was hired by The New Yorker. In the 1963 essay “Circles and Squares,” Kael mocked Sarris’ ideas as vague and derivative, trivial and immature. She later wrote off the auteur theory as “an attempt by adult males to justify staying inside the small range of experience of their boyhood and adolescence.”—AP

illennium Entertainment has set an October 5 theatrical release date for “The Paperboy,” meaning that as the trees start shedding their leaves, American audiences will be treated to the spectacle of Nicole Kidman urinating on Zac Efron.

Directed by the Oscar-nominated Lee Daniels (“Precious”), the idiosyncratic and steamy thriller was a real love it or loathe it entry at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The peeing scene attracted the lion’s share of the media attention, as did Daniels’ penchant for shooting Efron in various stages of undress. For the record, Kidman only urinates on the “High School Musical” star to take care of a nasty jellyfish sting, the efficacy of which is the subject of some debate among medical researchers.

Set in a small town in Florida in 1969, “The Paperboy” tells the story of a young man (Efron) helping a reporter (Matthew McConaughey) uncover the truth about a death row inmate (John Cusack), who might have been wrongly convicted. In the process, he falls for the convict’s lover (Kidman). Enough Southern baked erotica ensues to make Tennessee Williams blush.The film is produced by Daniels, Avi Lerner, Ed Cathell III, Cassian Elwes and Hilary Shor.

Executive producers are Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, John Thompson, Boaz Davidson, Mark Gill and Jan DeBont. The screenplay is written by Pete Dexter and Daniels, based on Dexter’s novel.

“I’m delighted by the extraordinary audience response at Cannes to Lee Daniels’ film and we’re thrilled to release ‘The Paperboy’ this fall,” Millennium Entertainment CEO Bill Lee said in a statement. “Lee’s unique filmmaking voice combined with this high profile cast makes for a must-see movie.”— Reuters

Nicole Kidman is seen in the movie ‘The Paperboy’.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

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wo Hollywood unions were scrutinizing worker safety and welfare on Lindsay Lohan’s TV movie “Liz & Dick” after the actress tweeted that she was exhausted because of long production days. Larry A. Thompson, producer of the Lifetime movie starring Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor, said Wednesday that no violations were found in one union’s review. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists confirmed its representatives visited the production. It said it “will continue to visit” to enforce guild rules. “We have spoken with representatives from the company, and they are fully aware of their contractual obligations. We will ensure that all applicable penalties will be paid,” the guild said in a statement.

SAG-AFTRA would not elaborate, spokeswoman Pamela Greenwalt said. IATSE, the stage employees union, also was examining production conditions, including the crew’s work hours, a person familiar with the review said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the person lacked authorization to discuss the issue publicly. A SAG-AFTRA representative “was totally fine with everything” she found during shooting Tuesday at a Los Angeles estate, Thompson said in a statement. He was told there had been no complaints from guild members and that the visit was prompted by “tweets and comments in the media,” he said.

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braham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”: Those four words, strung together in that order, sound like a lot of fun, don’t they? It’s a totally ridiculous premise, this notion that the 16th U.S. president lived a whole ‘nother secret life, prowling about at night, seeking out bloodsuckers. But it’s a creative one, and it should have provided the basis for a freewheeling, campy good time. Unfortunately, director Timur Bekmambetov and writer Seth Grahame-Smith, adapting his own bestselling novel, take this concept entirely too seriously. What ideally might have been playful and knowing is instead uptight and dreary, with a visual scheme that’s so fake and cartoony, it depletes the film of any sense of danger.

This film image released by 20th Century Fox shows Benjamin Walker portraying Abraham Lincoln in a scene from ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.’ — AP Bekmambetov, the Kazakhstan-born director whose 2008 action hit “Wanted” was such a stylish, sexy thrill, weirdly stages set pieces that are muddled and hard to follow - a horse stampede, for example, or the climactic brawl aboard a runaway train. The

Lohan was treated last week by paramedics for exhaustion and dehydration. She posted on Twitter: “Note to self... After working 85hours in 4days, and being up all night shooting, be very aware that you might pass out from exhaustion & . 7 paramedics MIGHT show up.” News reports that two crew members also sought treatment for exhaustion were incorrect, said Stan Rosenfield, Thompson’s spokesman.

“Liz & Dick,” about the romance of Taylor and Richard Burton, is expected to wrap principal photography at the end of June after about four weeks of shooting at Southern California locations standing in for Europe. The house used Tuesday is serving as the Italian villa Taylor occupied while filming “Cleopatra,” Thompson said. Filming has been rocky for Lohan. She was involved in a June 8 car crash on her way to the set but resumed shooting later that day. — AP

File photo shows actress Lindsay Lohan at the A&E Networks 2012 Upfront at Lincoln Center in New York. — AP

murky (and needless) 3-D conversion doesn’t help matters, and it’s a waste of what was probably some lovely cinematography from five-time Oscar nominee Caleb Deschanel. He also keeps going back to some of the same gimmicky uses of 3-D, including slo-mo slashings and beheadings that send black vampire blood spurting from the screen; the repetition of this trick produces the same numbing effect that it had in Tarsem Singh’s “Immortals” last year.

The tall, lanky Benjamin Walker certainly looks the part as the title character (he also looks distractingly like a young Liam Neeson, and actually played a younger version of Neeson in 2004’s “Kinsey”) but there’s no oomph to his performance, no “there” there.

He doesn’t exude any confidence or charisma, either as he becomes increasingly skilled in vanquishing his foes or as he succeeds in wooing the sophisticated (and engaged) Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). And once he becomes the Lincoln we actually know - with the beard and the hat and that big, famous speech - it merely feels like he’s playing dress-up rather than embodying the spirit of a towering historical figure.

His story begins in childhood when, according to this revisionist lore, Lincoln’s mother was killed by a vampire before his very eyes. He seeks revenge as an adult, but doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing or whom he’s dealing with. Enter veteran vampire hunter Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), a debauched and flamboyant Brit who helps him hone the tools he’ll need but who has an ulterior motive of his own. (Even the training montage, a staple of any movie about a warrior’s transformation, feels oddly restrained.)—AP

R

ichard Lynch, who employed his platinum hair and scarred face to play villainous characters in such films as “Bad Dreams” and “The Sword and the Sorcerer,” has died. He was 76. Lynch’s representative, Mike Baronas, said the actor’s body was found Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., by Lynch’s friend, actress Carol Vogel.

Baronas said Vogel found him on the kitchen floor, and that “from what I currently understand, no investigation into the cause of his death will be made as his body was sent directly to a funeral home.” The actor appeared in dozens of horror and sci-fi films in a career spanning four decades. He played serial killer Michael Myers’ principal in director Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” remake in 2007. His most recent role was in Zombie’s upcoming movie, “The Lords of Salem.” “I woke up this morning to the news that our friend Richard Lynch has passed away,” Zombie posted Wednesday on Facebook. “Richard was great to work with and really gave it his all. I will never forget the way he scared the crap out of the kid actors in ‘Halloween.’”

Other movies featuring Lynch included “Scarecrow,” “The Ninth Configuration,” “Invasion U.S.A.” and “Little Nikita.” He appeared in such TV series as “Battlestar Galactica,” “The A-Team,” “Six Feet Under” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Lynch had said he suffered scarring in 1967 after he set himself on fire while under the influence of LSD. — AP

(From Left) Indian Bollywood actors Sharman Joshi, Amitabh Bachchan, producer Vidu Vinod Chopra, and director Rajesh Mapuskar pose during a party for the Hindi film ‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’ in Mumbai on June 20, 2012. — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

The False Mirror by Rene Magritte

B

elgian artist Rene Magritte was the star of the night at Christie’s auction of impressionist and modern art in London late on Wednesday, underlining the strong appetite for surrealist art among collectors. While not the top lot in terms of value, Magritte’s “Les jours gigantesque” painted in 1928 fetched 7.2 million pounds ($11.3 million), several times its pre-sale estimate of 800,000-1.5 million pounds and the second highest price for the artist at auction.

Christie’s, the world’s largest auctioneer, said the depiction of a woman and her attacker sparked a “fierce” bidding war between 10 people. The New York Times reported that the buyer was New York financier Wilbur Ross. The most expensive work of the sale was Pablo Picasso’s “Femme assise” (1949) which fetched 8.6 million pounds compared to expectations of 5.0-7.5 million. Pre-sale estimates do not include buyer’s premium, but final prices do. The commission to Christie’s is 12 percent on everything above 500,000 pounds.

Another Picasso, “Femme au chien” (1962), raised 7.0 million pounds, towards the lower end of its pre-sale estimate, and Paul Signac’s “La Corne d’or. Les Minarets”, painted in 1907,

Femme au Chien

sold for 6.2 million pounds. One of the star lots of the night, a female nude by Pierre-Auguste Renoir entitled “Baigneuse”, was withdrawn from the auction after a private deal was struck. It had been expected to raise 12-18 million pounds.

Overall the auction raised 92.5 million pounds ($145.5 million), compared with pre-sale expectations of 86.5-126.7 million.

While the final total falls short of the low estimate when commission is taken into account, the inclusion of the Renoir could well have lifted the sale to fall comfortably within range.

Of the 70 lots on offer, 14 failed to sell. On Tuesday, Christie’s rival Sotheby’s raised 75.0 million pounds at its equivalent auction, at the low end of expectations. Despite setting a new auction record for Joan Miro of 23.6 million pounds, the sale elsewhere was lackluster. The two sales kick off three weeks of major auctions in London where up to $1 billion of art is on offer. — Reuters

John Cena grants 300th Make-A-Wish W WE superstar John Cena granted his 300th wish to a 7-year-old Pennsylvania boy with a spinal condition, continuing his streak as the most popular celebrity granter in Make-A-Wish Foundation history.

Jonny Littman wanted to meet his hero, and the WWE accommodated that wish Monday night before an episode of “Raw” live from New York’s Long Island. But Jonny got a bonus to his wish. On Wednesday morning, Jonny was being interviewed on “Good Morning America” when Sam Champion asked him about his green T-shirt.

After Jonny told him it was John Cena, Champion asked if anyone knew the WWE Superstar. The pro wrestler and actor walked out to Jonny’s surprise and presented him with another gift. This time it was tickets for him and his family to attend the 1,000th episode of the WWE show. To put Cena’s 300 granted wishes in perspective, Michael Jordan has granted around 200 and Kobe Bryant is in the 100-wish range.

“I truly give hats off to Make-A-Wish for keeping statistics,” Cena said Monday before the show. “They had a nice

little celebration for me at 200, and I humbly said we should do it at 1,000. “We’re just getting started,” he said enthusiastically. But Cena was clearly touched by the latest one. “I’m just flattered completely that I could be the wish,” he said. Jonny, from Hop Bottom, Pa., has severe congenital malformation and spinal bifida and uses a wheelchair. He spoke to his hero for a few minutes and took some pictures with him. He even put on his WWE Championship belt. His mother, Ruth, says his surgeons wore it during his last surgery.

After signing T-shirts and WWE merchandise and presenting him with a videogame system, the superstar graciously walked out of the room. Cena prepared for his featured match, and Jonny and his family waited to go into the Nassau Coliseum for a live televised weekly show, “Raw.” After he left the room, Jonny chanted: “Cena. John Cena. Cena.” —AP Photo shows seven-year old, Jonny Littman, poses with WWE superstar, John Cena, at the 300th Make-A-Wish. — AP

Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

The howl of a motor or the rattle of a sabre?

Dirt Showdown is all about squeaky tires and body damage o you want to be a trader or a pirate? Would you rather visit the sunny Caribbean or New York’s underground? What’s your preference: man or machine? One thing is for sure: PC gamers have no grounds to complain about lack of distractions in June. New titles cover everything from strategy games to dark adventures, with titles ranging from Port Royale 3 to Krater to Yesterday. Pirates, pitched sea battles and the beautiful daughter of a governor: that’s the stuff from which Port Royale 3 is crafted. This strategy/building simulator focuses on the Caribbean, with a special emphasis on the trade in all kinds of goods.

Right at the start, players have to decide whether they’d prefer to play as an adventurer or trader. The former must master wild marine battles, and set up trade blockades.

Traders stick to quieter waters as they try to build up a trading metropolis and keep its citizens happy. Players view the world of Port Royale from two perspectives. Coasting across the Caribbean, players experience a 2D world from a bird’s-eye perspective. But, once they enter a city or engage in a maritime battle, the view shifts to a more detailed 3D one.

Port Royale 3 is recommended for players aged 12 and up and costs about 35 euros (44 dollars). Publisher Kalypso plans a console version for the end of August. If the Caribbean is too colourful for you, then consider Yesterday, from Spain’s Pendulo Studios. Usually known for more upbeat and colourful titles like Runaway, Pendulo has opted for a darker tone with Yesterday.

Players find themselves in the role of an amnesiac patient, dealing with a twisting story revolving around a satanic sect and a series of murders in New York.

The look of the game is comic book style, but the darkness and melancholia still seep through. To make progress, players need to figure out a series of puzzles, as is common in so many other games. A helper function is available for players who get stuck.

Distributor Crimson Cow says there are up to three alternate endings, depending on how the player handles the action. The

D

point-and-click adventure costs 28 euros, and is only recommended for players aged 16 and up due to some gory scenes.

The tactical shooting game Binary Domain from Sega is set in the distant future. Humanoid robots walk among humans. Players take on the role of members of the international militia group RUST trying to track down the creator of the androids in Japan. Gameplay resembles other shooter games like Mass Effect or Gears of War. However, players in Binary Domain have more influence on their team than in other games: a touch of the button can get them to take cover, return fire or advance. The PC version costs 35 euros and is recommended for players aged 16 and up.

Squeaky tires, the roar of motors and all kinds of body damage: in Dirt Showdown, from Namco Bandai, players aren’t tasked with racing one another, but with competing in wild show races. That means acci-

dents are routinely provoked, since the greater the damage, the greater the cheer from the crowds. There are other modes aside from crash races. In demolition derby, players try to wreck the cars of other drivers, sometimes with jumps and ramps. Designed for players aged 6 and up, the PC game costs 46 euros. A slightly more expensive version is planned for consoles.

The action role-playing game Krater has designer Fatshark taking players through a post-apocalyptic world.

A giant crater has formed after a bomb.

Cities and entire civilizations have formed on its rim. But, in the middle of the crater, many valuable remains of the past remain for brave seekers. Players take the lead of a three-man group of adventurers, heading into fights with monsters and mutants. The fighting system hearkens back to other games, like Diablo.

Players can build new weapons and add bio-implants with the treasures they find in the crater, increasing their potential. Krater went on sale last week, on the Steam platform, and costs 15 euros. —dpa

Stars

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Aries (March 21-April 19) As a natural peacemaker, sometimes superficial, you try to avoid all harsh and crude actions, people or things. With direct drive, you always head straight to the heart of a matter. You are candid, even blunt at times. You will, however, get much accomplished for you and others today. Continued hard work with no time for play may make for a bit of stress. This afternoon you will find it easy to leave work behind.

There are no bells or whistles needed with you and what others see is what they get. You enjoy simple living and could be an outdoor type of person. Invite a friend or family member to enjoy the out-of-doors with you this afternoon. Emotional security and a sense of belonging and nurturing are felt instinctively.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Your burning zeal for the ideal world and your need to be part of a group of like-minded souls are major factors in your makeup. You learn and grow through your efforts to help others and to make your inner vision into a reality. This could be a time when everything around you and your living situation has an order; and you are appreciative. You may feel challenged by others occasionally but most of all you compete with yourself to be the best you can be and today you see the positive results of your work. You have a high degree of motivation when it comes to giving and to personal sacrifice. You are understanding and accepting and are easily moved by others’ problems. Psychology in all of its forms can be a consideration for further education.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) You may find that both your personal growth and your career will depend on how you handle some sensitive psychological material coming up. You will benefit from analytical insights and getting to the heart of things: penetrating. Emotional situations at work are practical if you just go about your business as usual. You are very sensitive about the work you do and may want to speak about the technical side of your work to schools or agencies. This could be a very lucky day for making plans or decisions and finding your way through just about any problem you may discover. You feel successful and able to cope with whatever comes your way. Good advice from a guide or older person may be available. This is a good day.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) There could be challenges today, but you are able to handle them as long as you do not expect others to agree with your advanced thinking right away. You may not find much support for your particular ideas. There are priorities, as well as additional activities that could slow your progress. You have a lot of motivation, however, for improving a difficult situation. You are very motivated as well. Your ability to respond to life—to possess and nurture your own ideas—is a positive in the workplace as much as on the home front. Relax as much as possible this evening and enjoy a little stress relief with the animals of your household . . . pet or human. Later, after the evening meal, you and a family member or friend might enjoy a little walk under the stars.

Leo (July 23-August 22) This is a great time to be with others and to work together.

Your insight and vision into what unites people and into the dreams and mystical regions of our mind is profound. You have an enchanting way of working and communicating with others in these matters and with music and the arts. New paths to world or personal unity are of major interest—you have a very practical sense of how to make your dreams real. A desire to purchase something that could become a prized possession is strong this afternoon. Perhaps this evening would be a good time to think and study—you have a real appreciation for ideas and thoughts. You may find yourself enjoying a long conversation, writing a letter or making a special phone call. Compose a little poem.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You will have opportunities to improve your earning potential and family security. Do not spend money frivolously today— there could be some unexpected expenses tomorrow. You are very career-oriented and your personal reputation and honor is of the utmost importance. You possess a natural sense of organization and practical insight and might consider managing or supervising others. When it comes to business and career, you have a mind that is motivated to take care of business. Your thoughts and ideas are practical. Your clear-sightedness makes some form of management or supervision almost unavoidable. You may enjoy some form of physical and creative expression this afternoon—sports, theatrics, arts and crafts, etc.

COUNTRY CODES Libra (September 23-October 22) There is a big push to make phone calls and write, dictate or type letters and schedule appointments. Business dealings may be particularly fruitful. You are never happier than when working with others.

You will tend to find yourself responding to others quite often. You can always put your ideas into words and describe or analyze situations for yourself and others. Your mind and caring attitude are what others find attractive in you. You could be much more sensitive and concerned about what others think than is necessary. Work on bringing these two personalities together into a balance. The satisfaction of a job well done is one of your greatest incentives. Everyone does his or her own thing this evening—relax.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Always going beyond the standard into whatever is new, exciting and spicy, you are happy when caught up in the variety and complexity of life. Connections with people on a large scale— for example, at a distance or en masse—play a bigger part in your life.

Education, advertising and travel could play a part in this. Law and philosophy or religion have much potential to impact your lifestyle. You enjoy deliberation and have a very methodical mind. You are able to develop sound logic and good arguments—you are practical and seldom vague.

You manage to end up in the limelight today with much support from your co-workers. A financial opportunity you once thought was lost forever may come to your attention again this evening.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Your tendency to compromise and settle for less than you dreamed can eventually become a problem for you. Think before you give up your focus. People will understand if you have some previous plans. Get a vision of your goals and begin to activate yourself toward the involvement of the outcome. Given the opportunity, you may choose the path of least resistance, willing to bypass some of the things you always wanted in favor of expediency. Career moves or advances within your present job must be given special attention. Now is for planning. This may mean you take little steps but many little steps bring forth the end of one path; evolve. You will have plenty of time to become happily lost in fun conversations this evening.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Your very organized self tends to hide behind duties and responsibilities. This no-nonsense approach manages to push aside many opportunities for others to reach out to you and get close. You could resist getting personal and avoid issues that are touchy.

Let others know you want time to think about some particular issue before giving an answer. This will discourage pushiness. You will find that you are able to gain a better focus on your words and how they influence others. Pace yourself and take your breaks—this day will end more successfully than you think. A lot can be accomplished by this afternoon’s end. A romantic relationship deepens this evening because each of you listens carefully to what the other one is trying to say.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) How you manage difficulties, find that diplomatic solution, or come up with the right approach are all built around your special talents. Your outward charm and ability to be all things to all people are most central to your personality most days. This ability to solve problems and help others is a key for understanding you. Your mind cuts right through all the window dressing and gets right down to the quick. Before much time escapes, you have the most noteworthy matter out front for all to see. You would make a great investigator, either in scientific research or in undercover work. Your ability to get to the point is all but phenomenal. All partnership transactions are favored. Follow your hunches regarding monetary affairs.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Emotional security is on your mind and bringing home the bacon has never been so important. Your ideas may not agree with the direction your career is taking, however. Concentrate on working productively—during your time away from work write down the roadblocks that keep you from moving toward your own destiny.

Consider what you might be able to do to move yourself into the most positive direction. Change may not be immediate but soon. Someone may become a mentor to you without realizing it—you are encouraged.

In many cases it is good to have a mentor or two so that the results of the hard work of others will help to give you a good direction. This evening is a harmonious time, particularly in relation to loved ones.

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

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

Stars

C R O S S W O R D

7 1 3

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday始s Solution

ACROSS 1. Hormone secreted by the posterior pituitary gland (trade name Pitressin) and also by nerve endings in the hypothalamus.

4. Any of numerous trees of the family Cupressaceae that resemble cedars.

9. (Greek mythology) Goddess of the earth and mother of Cronus and the Titans in ancient mythology.

13. A unit of length of thread or yarn.

14. 100 agorot equal 1 shekel.

15. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

16. Family based on male descent.

18. The dialect of Albanian spoken in northern Albania and Yugoslavia.

19. Serving as or forming a base.

20. Type genus of the Ardeidae.

22. The region of the body of a vertebrate between the thorax and the pelvis.

24. (law) The seat for judges in a courtroom.

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

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

29. Oval reproductive body of a fowl (especially a hen) used as food.

33. One of the three Furies.

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

35. A state in midwestern United States.

36. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

40. A master's degree in fine arts.

41. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

44. Mentally or physically infirm with age.

46. A coffee cake flavored with orange rind and raisins and almonds.

50. United States writer of poems and plays about racial conflict (born in 1934).

54. A heavy odorless colorless gas formed during respiration and by the decomposition of organic substances.

56. The mission in San Antonio where in 1836 Mexican forces under Santa Anna besieged and massacred American rebels who were fighting to make Texas independent of Mexico.

58. Advanced in years.

59. South American armadillo with three bands of bony plates.

61. A quantity of no importance.

63. A small cake leavened with yeast.

64. Herb of the Pacific islands grown throughout the tropics for its edible root and in temperate areas as an ornamental for its large glossy leaves.

65. (geology) Before the appearance of life.

67. An adult male person (as opposed to a woman).

68. A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause).

69. A metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter.

70. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

DOWN 1. Primitive chlorophyll-containing mainly aquatic eukaryotic organisms lacking true stems and roots and leaves.

2. Distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers.

3. A bag used for carrying money and small personal items or accessories (especially by women).

4. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

5. Animal reproductive body consisting of an ovum or embryo together with nutritive and protective envelopes.

6. The syllable naming the first (tonic) note of any major scale in solmization.

7. A particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography).

8. A motley assortment of things.

9. British physicist (born in Hungary) noted for his work on holography (19001979).

10. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

11. Freedom from difficulty or hardship or effort.

12. Chief port of Yemen.

17. The upper house of the parliament of the Republic of Ireland.

21. An associate degree in nursing.

23. Any of several small ungulate mammals of Africa and Asia with rodent-like incisors and feet with hooflike toes.

25. A collection of objects laid on top of each other.

28. English actor noted for his portrayals of Shakespeare's great tragic characters (1789-1833).

30. The most common computer memory which can be used by programs to perform necessary tasks while the computer is on.

31. 30 to 300 gigahertz.

32. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods and health-related products.

37. A soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal.

38. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

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

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

43. Any of various units of capacity.

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

47. American professional baseball player who hit more home runs than Babe Ruth (born in 1934).

48. Valuable fiber plant of East Indies now widespread in cultivation.

49. Affect with wonder.

50. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

51. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

52. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

53. A city in southern Turkey on the Seyhan River.

55. A translucent mineral consisting of hydrated silica of variable color.

57. Any property detected by the olfactory system.

58. A flexible container with a single opening.

60. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

62. An anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.

66. Being one more than one hundred.

Yesterday始s Solution

TV Listings FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

00:45 01:40 02:35 03:30 04:25 05:20 05:45 06:10 06:35 07:00 07:25 08:15 08:40 09:10 10:05 11:00 11:55 12:50 13:15 13:45 14:10 14:40 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:25 18:20 18:45 19:15 19:40 20:10 20:35 21:05 22:00 22:55 23:20 23:50

Untamed & Uncut I’m Alive Whale Wars: Viking Shores Max’s Big Tracks Mutant Planet Animal Kingdom Predator’s Prey Wild Africa Rescue Wild Africa Rescue Escape To Chimp Eden The Planet’s Funniest Animals Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild Breed All About It World’s Ugliest Dog Competition Mutant Planet Animal Precinct Animal Cops Philadelphia E-Vets: The Interns E-Vets: The Interns Bondi Vet Wildlife SOS Mutant Planet Animal Kingdom Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild Growing Up...

Dogs 101 Cats Of Claw Hill Cats Of Claw Hill Wildlife SOS Bondi Vet Escape To Chimp Eden Predator’s Prey Mutant Planet In Search Of The Giant Anaconda Up Close And Dangerous Up Close And Dangerous Miami Animal Police

00:45 Indian Food Made Easy 01:10 Saturday Kitchen 2007/08 02:05 Saturday Kitchen 2008/09 02:35 MasterChef 03:30 Living In The Sun 04:20 A Taste Of My Life 04:50 The Hairy Bikers’ Cookbook 05:15 Rick Stein’s French Odyssey 05:40 James Martin’s Favourite Feasts 06:05 Living In The Sun 07:00 Saturday Kitchen 2007/08 07:25 Indian Food Made Easy 07:50 MasterChef Australia 09:25 Bargain Hunt 10:10 Antiques Roadshow 11:00 Come Dine With Me 11:50 10 Years Younger 12:40 Celebrity Fantasy Homes 14:15 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 15:05 Bargain Hunt 15:55 Antiques Roadshow 16:45 The Boss Is Coming To Dinner 17:10 Come Dine With Me 18:00 Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers 18:30 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 19:00 Rick Stein’s French Odyssey 19:25 James Martin’s Favourite Feasts 19:50 Antiques Roadshow 20:45 Gok’s Fashion Fix 21:30 Gok’s Fashion Fix 22:20 Bargain Hunt 23:05 Antiques Roadshow 23:55 Come Dine With Me

00:30 01:20 02:10 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:05 05:55 06:00 06:25 07:00 07:15 07:25 07:40 08:05 08:55 09:45 10:10 10:35 11:25 11:50 12:15 13:05 13:30 13:55 14:45 15:35

Bakugan: New Vestroia Powerpuff Girls Courage The Cowardly Dog The Amazing World Of Gumball Ben 10 Adventure Time Powerpuff Girls Generator Rex Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Angelo Rules Casper’s Scare School Eliot Kid The Amazing World Of Gumball Adventure Time Adventure Time Regular Show Grim Adventures Of...

Courage The Cowardly Dog Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Powerpuff Girls Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated Ed, Edd n Eddy Ben 10: Alien Force Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders Camp Lazlo Powerpuff Girls Angelo Rules

16:25 16:50 17:15 17:40 17:50 18:05 18:30 18:55 19:20 19:45 20:10 21:00 21:25 21:50 22:00 22:50 23:15 23:40

00:00 00:30 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 05:45 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:45 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30

The Marvelous Misadventures...

Grim Adventures Of...

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Sports FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Braves outslug Yankees run of the season for the Blue Jays.

NEW YORK: Jason Heyward hit two of a record nine homers at the new Yankee Stadium as the Atlanta Braves beat the New York Yankees 10-5 in sweltering heat Wednesday. Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, Heyward and David Ross all connected off Phil Hughes (7-6) to build a 6-1 lead in the interleague game. Michael Bourn stole what might’ve been another home run from Jayson Nix after missing an earlier opportunity for an attempt at a leaping grab. Alex Rodriguez hit his 640th career homer, and Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Eric Chavez all hit long balls against Tommy Hanson (84). The Yankees managed little else in their second straight loss after a 10-game winning streak. The Yankees got within a run at 6-5 on Curtis Granderson’s RBI single in the seventh but Rodriguez ended the inning with a double-play grounder.

RANGERS 4, PADRES 2 In San Diego, Yu Darvish allowed five hits over eight innings and got his first major league hit to help Texas to its sixth straight win, defeating San Diego. Darvish (9-4), who struck out eight, leads all big league rookies with nine victories. Yorvit Torrealba drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the sixth to bring in Josh Hamilton with the go-ahead run.

The Rangers swept the three-game series. Dale Thayer (0-2) took the loss for the Padres, who have lost five of six and have the worst record in the majors.

DIAMONDBACKS 14, MARINERS 10 At Phoenix, Ryan Roberts hit an inside-thepark home run and Justin Upton added a three-run shot as Arizona equaled a franchise record with six homers during a wild win over Seattle. Miguel Montero hit a two-run homer, Aaron Hill connected for the third straight game, and Jason Kubel and John McDonald each had a solo shot to match the team record set twice before. Montero had four RBIs.

NATIONALS 3, RAYS 2 At Washington, Stephen Strasburg struck out 10 to win a fast-ballers’ pitching duel, steering Washington past Tampa Bay. Strasburg (9-1) won his sixth consecutive start by allowing two runs over seven innings while throwing 111 pitches, the second most in his career, while Tyler Clippard picked up his 10th save. The Nationals needed all the pitching they could get - because the lineup didn’t produce a hit after the first inning. Strasburg did just a bit better than Rays starter Chris Archer (0-1), who dominated over his final five innings after a rough start in his major league debut. The Nationals had lost their previous four.

METS 4, ORIOLES 3 In New York, the Mets’ shutout streak was extended to 29 innings and despite a late Baltimore rally, that was enough for New York to complete a three-game sweep. Mets starter Dillon Gee (5-5) had given up only a single and the hosts looked like holding the Orioles scoreless for a third straight game, but Baltimore got three runs over the final two innings. New York closer Frank Francisco escaped a jam in the ninth for his 17th save in 20 chances. Baltimore starter Brian Matusz (5-8) dropped to 0-7 in interleague play.

ANGELS 6, GIANTS 0 In Los Angeles, Jered Weaver pitched six scoreless innings in his return from the disabled list as Los Angeles beat San Francisco.

Weaver (7-1) threw 78 pitches in his first start since three weeks out with a back injury.

Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong (6-3) gave up three runs over seven innings in his first regular season start against the Angels. This was his first loss in almost seven weeks. Alberto Callaspo, Kendrys Morales and Mark Trumbo all homered for the Angels, who took the rubber game of the interleague series - the first visit by the Giants to Anaheim since the 2002 World Series.

ATHLETICS 4, DODGERS 1 In Oakland, Tommy Milone pitched his first career complete game to steer Oakland past Los Angeles and its seventh win in eight games. Yoenis Cespedes had two hits and an RBI in his return to the A’s lineup, backing another strong start at home by Milone (7-5), who retired 22 of the final 24 hitters he faced and finished Oakland’s first complete game of the season. He improved to 5-1 at the Coliseum with a major league-leading 0.99 ERA at home. Dodgers starter Nathan Eovaldi (0-3) allowed three runs in six innings.

TWINS 2, PIRATES 1 In Pittsburgh, Josh Willingham hit a goahead homer in the eighth inning to lift Minnesota over Pittsburgh. Willingham hit a fastball from Jason Grilli (1-2) over the wall in left for his 14th homer. Jared Burton (1-0) picked up the win in relief of starter Francisco Liriano, who pitched arguably his best game of the season, giving up one run in 6 2-3 innings and striking out six. Glen Perkins then pitched the ninth for his first save in place of injured Twins closer Matt Capps.

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Jered Weaver throws to the San Francisco Giants during the first inning of a baseball game in Anaheim on Wednesday, June 20, 2012. — AP INDIANS 8, REDS 1 In Cleveland, Justin Masterson pitched his first complete game this season as AL Centralleading Cleveland finished a three-game sweep of Cincinnati. Masterson (4-6) took a shutout into the eighth before the Reds ended his streak of consecutive scoreless innings at 18. He did not walk a batter and struck out nine, including the side in the ninth, for his fourth career complete game. Cincinnati’s run was unearned. Asdrubal Cabrera hit a three-run homer and Johnny Damon hit a two-run shot for the Indians in the fifth inning off Bronson Arroyo (3-5). Lonnie Chisenhall added three RBIs for Cleveland.

CARDINALS 3, TIGERS 1 In Detroit, Jake Westbrook pitched his first complete game in over two years, giving up only an unearned run in St Louis’ victory over Detroit. Westbrook (6-6) notched his 14th career complete game, but his first since 2010, when he was pitching for Cleveland. The Cardinals took the lead in the sixth when Yadier Molina broke a 1-1 tie. The Cardinals added an eighth-inning run on an error. Tigers starter Rick Porcello (4-5) allowed 10 hits in seven innings.

RED SOX 15, MARLINS 5 In Boston, David Ortiz hit a grand slam for one of Boston’s four homers as the Red Sox set a season high in runs, crushing Miami. Mike Aviles, Jarod Saltalamacchia and Will Middlebrooks also homered. The Red Sox pounded out 16 hits and won their fourth straight game, passing Toronto and moving out of last place in the AL East. The Marlins lost for the 12th time in 14 games despite scoring four runs in six innings against Felix Doubront (8-3). Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco (6-6) gave up nine runs in 3 1-3 innings.

BREWERS 8, BLUE JAYS 3 At Milwaukee, Yovani Gallardo pitched into the seventh inning and Ryan Braun hit one of Milwaukee’s four homers in a win over Toronto. Gallardo (6-5) went 6 2-3 innings, giving up three runs and seven hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. Gallardo’s outing provided some much-needed rest for an overworked bullpen. Emergency starter Joel Carreno (0-2) gave up a pair of two-run homers to Martin Maldonado and Carlos Gomez, and a solo shot to Corey Hart in a five-run second.

Carreno gave up five runs on five hits in three innings. Edwin Encarnacion hit his 20th home

WHITE SOX 7, CUBS 0 In Chicago, Gavin Floyd (5-7) pitched scorelessly into the seventh as the White Sox avoided a three-game sweep in the all-Chicago showdown. Gordon Beckham homered and matched a career-high by driving in four runs, and the White Sox got an easy win after dropping six of seven. Beckham saw off Randy Wells (1-2) with a run-scoring single in the fourth and broke it open with a three-run drive in the sixth, making it 6-0.

ROYALS 2, ASTROS 1 At Houston, Bruce Chen pitched into the sixth inning on three days’ rest and Brayan Pena drove in a run to help Kansas City beat Houston. Alex Gordon tripled and scored for the Royals, who won the last two games of the three-game set. Thirteen of Kansas City’s last 14 games have been decided by two or fewer runs. Chen (6-6) struck out six in 5 2-3 innings and was charged with one run and five hits.

PHILLIES 7, ROCKIES 6 In Philadelphia, Todd Helton missed a tag at first base, allowing the winning run to score in the ninth inning as Philadelphia edged Colorado. Dexter Fowler had hit a tiebreaking RBI single for the Rockies off Jonathan Papelbon (1-2) with two outs in the top of the ninth, but the Phillies got a clutch, two-out hit of their own in the bottom half. Colorado’s Rafael Betancourt (1-3) retired the first two batters before Ty Wigginton singled.

He was brought home by a Hunter Pence double to tie the game again. Carlos Ruiz was intentionally walked and Shane Victorino’s infield single loaded the bases. Placido Polanco hit a grounder to shortstop. The throw to first was a bit high, but Helton caught it and had time to apply the tag but missed, allowing the winning run to score. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

India names two men’s tennis pairs to end row NEW DELHI: Mahesh Bhupathi and regular partner Rohan Bopanna will play together at the London Olympics after India’s tennis association backtracked on a controversial decision to split up the pair. India would field two men’s doubles teams in London, the All India Tennis Association (AITA) said yesterday after a player revolt over the original decision to name Bhupathi and former partner Leander Paes, who no longer speak to each other, as the only pair. “In the given circumstances, the best option before the AITA is of sending two pairs,”

federation president Anil Khanna told reporters.

Bhupathi, not on speaking terms with Paes after their second bitter split last year, had threatened to boycott the Games if he and Bopanna were separated. Bopanna, too, rejected an AITA offer to partner Paes, whose top-10 ranking gives him direct entry, and said India should field two pairs. Paes, who won three grand-slam titles with Bhupathi in the late 1990s, will now partner Vishnu Vardhan, ranked outside the top 200 in doubles. “The AITA agrees that this deci-

sion is unfair to Paes...but in the given circumstances, which is not 100 percent tennis circumstance, this is the best option,” said Khanna, who also heads the Asian Tennis Federation.

In mixed doubles, Paes will team up with Sania Mirza. Khanna was optimistic of Paes accepting the compromise.

“Leander is undoubtedly the most patriotic player...AITA holds him in very high esteem and appeals to him to accept this decision.” Bhupathi and Bopanna said in a joint statement that they were delighted with the decision. “The events of the

College football closes in on a playoff - finally CHICAGO: College football has always relied on polls and bowls to crown a national championship. It is an inexact science that has left many fans frustrated and wondering why they can’t settle it on the field - like every other sport - with a playoff.

Finally, the people in charge agree with the people in the stands. A major college football playoff, albeit a small one, is closer than ever to becoming a reality. The BCS commissioners have backed a plan for a four-team playoff with the sites for the national semifinals rotating among the major bowl games and a selection committee picking the participants. The plan will be presented to university presidents next week for approval.

Once the presidents sign off - and that seems likely - major college football’s champion will be decided by a playoff for the first time, starting in 2014. The Bowl Championship Series is on its death bed. Even the name is likely to go away. “We are excited to be on the threshold of creating a new postseason structure for college football that builds on the great popularity of our sport,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Wednesday.

All 11 commissioners stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind Swarbrick, who read the BCS statement from a podium set up in a hotel conference room. The commissioners have been working on reshaping college football’s postseason since January. The meeting Wednesday was the sixth formal get-together of the year.

They met for four hours and emerged with a commitment to stand behind a plan. “I think we’re very unified,” said Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, who for years had been a staunch opponent of even the smallest playoff.

For decades, major college football didn’t even try to organize a championship game. The top teams played in marquee bowl games and if it happened to work out that No 1 and No 2 squared off on New Year’s Day, well, all the better. When all the games were done, the voters in the AP poll would crown a champion and so would the coaches who vote in their poll. Sometimes there would be two No 1s. In the 1990s, the commissioners of the major conferences came up with the idea to create a national title game, matching No 1 vs No 2 every year.

Eventually, that spawned the Bowl Championship Series, which was implemented in 1998. Instead of solving the problem of crowning a champion, the BCS only seemed to exasperate fans even more. Too often, using polls and computer ratings to narrow the field to two teams was all but impossible. Like last year, when Alabama lost to LSU in the regular season, but ended up getting a second crack at the Tigers in the BCS title game - despite having the same record as Big 12 champion Oklahoma State. The Crimson Tide validated their appearance by trouncing LSU and winning the BCS title, but many outside of SEC country were left unsatisfied.

Under the commissioners’ proposal, Alabama and Oklahoma State likely would have played in one semifinal while LSU played Pac-12 champion Oregon in the other. No doubt many will wonder, “Why only four?” “I’m sure it won’t satisfy everyone,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. “Until you have an eight-team or 16team seeded playoff, there will be folks out there that aren’t completely satisfied.

We get that. But we’re trying to balance other important parties, like the value of the regular season, the bowls, the academic calendar.” The commissioners refrained from providing many specifics of the plan in their announcement.

Scott did say the two semifinals would be worked into the existing major bowls and the site of the national championship game will be bid out to any city that wants it, the way the NFL does with the Super Bowl. People with firsthand knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press that the semifinals of the proposed plan would rotate among the major bowls and not be tied to traditional conference relationships. They also said that under the plan a selection committee would choose the schools that play for the national title. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the commissioners did not want to reveal many details before talking to their bosses.

“I am delighted,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, whose push for a four-team playoff in 2008 was shot down. “I am pleased with the progress we have made.

There are some differences, but we will work them out. We’re trying to do what is in the best interest of the game.” It will certainly be in the best financial interest. The BCS television contract with ESPN - along with the Rose Bowl’s separate contract with ABC - pays the participating schools $155 million per year. BCS officials won’t put an exact number on it, but they aren’t shy about saying that a playoff would be worth much more. Probably more than double. —AP

last few days have been extremely challenging,” they added. “In making each of our decisions, we were guided by our strong convictions regarding what we believed was fair and we are pleased that this is reflected in the outcome. “We are excited that we will be playing together at the Olympics and our sole focus is now on our team’s preparations for the Games.” Khanna, however, warned that the matter was not closed and said the AITA would consider action against Bhupathi and Bopanna after the July 27Aug. 12 Olympics. — Reuters

Maria Sharapova

Sharapova seeks to cap revival with Wimbledon LONDON: As Maria Sharapova posed with the French Open trophy against the breathtaking backdrop of the River Seine and the Eiffel Tower, the Russian’s thoughts turned from her stunning surroundings in Paris to a small patch of grass in south-west London where she hopes to cap her remarkable return to the top.

Sharapova’s victory over Sara Errani in the Roland Garros final earlier this month was a cathartic moment for the 25-year-old, who had gone four years without winning a grand slam as she struggled with the aftermath of serious shoulder surgery.

Her gruelling journey back to grand slam glory, and the world number one ranking she now holds for the first time since 2008, is a testament to Sharapova’s fierce competitive instincts, but she has never been one to rest on her laurels. So, while the flashblubs and champagne corks were still popping in Paris in celebration of her career grand slam, Sharapova was already plotting a Wimbledon revenge mission. Just 12 months ago, Sharapova suffered one of the more surprising defeats of her career as Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic romped to a 6-4, 6-3 Wimbledon final victory.

Sharapova had been the hot favourite to win the title for the first time since she entranced the All England Club as a 17-year-old who came from nowhere to beat Serena Williams in the final. Now she is determined to make amends. “Of course it was reasonable for people to write me off because I was out of the game, I’d just had shoulder surgery,” Sharapova said. “And then, of course, my comeback story wasn’t like I got back on the court and I won a grand slam. “It took a lot of time, it took a lot of bad losses, it took a lot of bad days. It certainly didn’t come easy for me.

“I felt like I really deserve the French Open win because I worked so hard and I went through so many tough days to get here. Now I’ll start to think about Wimbledon.” Sharapova’s title bid could be aided by

the relatively poor form of several of the top seed’s main rivals. Kvitova arrives in London desperately hoping to rediscover the winning feeling she savoured 12 months ago. Since defeating Sharapova, the 22-yearold has struggled to live up to her new billing as a major force in the women’s game. She has no titles on the WTA Tour this year and suffered semi-final defeats against Sharapova in the Australian and French Opens.

Losing to France’s Virginie Razzano in the French Open first round last month ranked as the worst grand slam result of Serena Williams’ illustrious career.

If the 30-year-old American, who has 13 grand slam titles to her name-including four at Wimbledon-is in the right frame of mind, there is every chance she could bounce back quickly. Prior to her Paris nightmare, Williams had been in good form, winning 17 successive clay-court matches and she is usually even more dominant at Wimbledon, even though she isn’t a huge fan of grass. “When I tell people I’m not crazy about grass, they’re like, ‘really?’ And I say: ‘No, I’m not crazy about it, as you gets lots of bad bounces, and all kinds of stuff happens’,” Williams said. World number two Victoria Azarenka could be a serious threat if she can recapture the form that saw her win the Australian Open and three other titles in the first four months of the year.

Australia’s Sam Stosur, the reigning US Open champion, has endured a slump since her maiden grand slam triumph. But she said: “I don’t know what the secret recipe is for doing well at Wimbledon, so I’m not going to freak out at all. “Of course I would have liked more matches but I’m not going to get down on myself.” Meanwhile, two giants of the women’s gamefive-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams and four-time grand slam winner Kim Clijsters-will be unseeded at Wimbledon for the first time in more than a decade after struggles with illness and injury respectively. — AFP

Sports FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Asia fights back against match-fixing SEOUL: Asia’s tarnished reputation as a hotbed of football match-fixing and corruption is getting some overdue attention, as nations make moves to clean up the sport and position the region as a genuine rival to Europe and South America in attracting players, fans and investment. Last week Chinese courts made headlines by handing out prison sentences of around 10 years to senior officials and players for accepting bribes, while South Korea is taking further measures to improve the sport after the match-fixing scandal of 2011.

Earlier this week, football’s governing body FIFA extended the national bans imposed by South Korea’s KLeague on 13 players into worldwide sanctions. Former national team player Kim Dong-hyun received a lifetime ban just a month after being arrested in Seoul for an attempted kidnapping at knifepoint. Kim is the highest-profile of a total of 46 players in South Korea, past and present, charged with corruption.

Authorities are continuing a compre-

hensive education program to prevent the events of last year being repeated.

“It’s a continuous task and we don’t have to advertise our efforts,” Lee Kapjin, a former Korea Football Association vice president and head of the KFA’s misconduct committee, told The Associated Press. “We are here to help players and coaches deal with these situations should they arise in the future.”

There has already been a tragic human cost. In April, Lee Kyung-hwan, a Kleague player, committed suicide after being banned for corruption. Lee was the third confirmed person in the country to take his own life after the scandal became known. “We focus on using every opportunity to educate everyone in soccer about match-fixing. We have an ongoing training program to teach players about moral and ethical problems and coaches about providing leadership,” said Lee, who lectures regularly as part of the KFA’s program.

The government has been emphasizing to players and their parents that

the offer of a bribe itself is a crime, regardless of whether it is accepted or not. After years of bribery scandals in the Chinese Super League, the Chinese government cracked down in 2010 and arrested a number of senior administrators, referees and players. Last week, two former leaders of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison after both, Nan Yong and predecessor Xie Yalong, were found guilty of accepting bribes. Former national team players and high-profile referees have also received lengthy jail sentences.

Steve Darby, an English coach with extensive experience in Asia, believes that strict deterrents are necessary. “The Chinese are taking the problem seriously and showing that sanctions such as prison will be used to clean up the game,” Darby said. “It has to be the right way to show leadership. Prison is a deterrent to many of the middle men ... the key is to get the ring leaders.” The CFA has also offered incentives to the

Corinthians reach Libertadores final SAO PAULO: Corinthians reached the Copa Libertadores final for the first time by holding defending champion Santos to a 1-1 draw on Wednesday and winning the semifinal 2-1 on aggregate. Corinthians had beaten their fellow Brazilian club 1-0 last week in Santos. Neymar scored for Santos in the 36th minute, putting the semifinal level on aggregate. He knocked the ball in from close range after Borges’ shot struck the far post and rebounded back toward the striker near the goal line.

Danilo scored the decisive goal for Corinthians in the 48th with a shot from the sixmeter line after a free-kick cross by midfielder Alex. Corinthians will face either six-time champion Boca Juniors of Argentina or Universidad de Chile, who played yesterday in Chile. Boca Juniors won the first leg 2-0 last week in Buenos Aires. Needing a victory, Santos controlled possession from the start at the Pacaembu stadium but struggled to break through Corinthians’ defense.

Its goal came on a play started by Neymar, who found striker Alan Kardec on the right. He crossed to Borges, who dived feet first to redirect the ball toward the far post. Danilo’s equalizer came after a foul on substitute striker Liedson on the left flank. Alex’s cross went through Santos defense and found Danilo free from markers near the far post. He placed his shot past onrushing Santos goalkeeper Rafael.

Corinthians has not lost yet in this year’s Copa Libertadores and has allowed only three goals.

When playing at Pacaembu in Sao Paulo, Corinthians outscored its opponents 14-1.

Neymar’s goal was the first it had conceded at home.

Corinthians is a popular club in Brazil and a five-time national champion, but it has never had much success internationally until now. It won the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup in 2000, when it was invited as the host team. Santos was looking to reach its fifth Copa Libertadores final and win its fourth title, which would have been its second consecutive since the Pele era in the 1960s. Boca is a draw away from its 10th final, while Universidad de Chile never reached the final of the premier Latin American competition. — AP

SAO PAULO: Alex (front), of Brazil’s Corinthians, vies for the ball with Adriano of Brazil’s Santos FC, during their 2nd leg semifinal football match at Pacaembu stadium. — AFP

public to report any wrongdoing and has promised to work with international organizations to fight the problem.

China, South Korea and Japan have also pledged to work together.

Chinese football’s myriad scandals over the years have damaged the reputation of the domestic game and driven supporters and sponsors away. After 2010’s crackdown, those fans and businesses began to return; encouraged by significant investment in the Chinese Super League from companies and rich individuals and, now, some genuine star players. The increasing sums flowing into domestic clubs had enabled some big-name arrivals. In December, Shanghai Shenhua signed Nicolas Anelka, and has announced in-principal agreement to sign his former Chelsea striker partner Didier Drogba.

Guangzhou Evergrande has hired 2006 World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi and made Argentine playmaker Dario Conca one of the world’s highestpaid players. —AP

Drogba timing sweet for Chinese football BEIJING: Chelsea star Didier Drogba’s signing is sweetly timed as China looks to turn the page on its legendary corruption-but it’s also sparked heated debate over a new wave of foreign players. Just a week before Drogba’s move to Shanghai Shenhua was announced on Wednesday, a final batch of officials and players received lengthy jail terms over the bribery and match-fixing which had plunged the sport into disarray. Until recently, Chinese football was notorious for its “black whistle” cheating by referees and frequent, related outbursts of crowd violence, plus the repeated failures of its national team.

Now the Chinese Super League (CSL) is now becoming known for its top-dollar acquisitions like Drogba, fellow Shenhua recruit Nicolas Anelka and Guangzhou Evergrande’s World Cup-winning coach, Marcello Lippi.

Shenhua, already the home of French striker Nicolas Anelka, will reportedly pay 200,000 pounds ($314,000) a week to Drogba, who is fresh from leading Chelsea to their long-awaited victory in the Champions League. The Ivory Coast forward, 34, revealed his move on the same day that clubs voted to hike their number of foreign players to seven from five, if they are playing in the AFC Champions League continental competition.

The change appears aimed at helping Lippi’s Evergrande, who are the only Chinese team left in the tournament and are spearheaded by imported South American talent, including recent signing Lucas Barrios.

But the emphasis on foreign players has unsettled some commentators, who say paying big money for top stars is unsustainable and will not help develop Chinese players.

“Chinese soccer is facing a serious polarization. The rich become richer while the poor become poorer,” former Chinese international Li Weifeng told the China Daily.

“Fans are happy that the Chinese league will finally have world-class players and coaches, but will there be more if these people leave one day?”

Zhang Lu, a keeper with Liaoning Whowin, said foreign players could help their Chinese team-mates. But he also expressed reservations. “Of course more fans will be attracted. But does that mean that the CSL is a game for the rich?” he said, according to the newspaper.

Meanwhile some clubs criticized the mid-season move to raise the quota for foreign players, accusing Evergrande of “influencing” the vote. “How can it (the rule) be changed in the middle of the season?” Beijing Guoan general manager Gao Chao said, as reported by the China Daily. His club has already been eliminated from the AFC Champions League. —AFP

Sports FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Today’s Match on TV UEFA European Championship

Germany v Greece 21:45

Euro 2012 briefs

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Germany and Greece - Worlds apart WARSAW: Greece may have won the European Championships more recently than their Euro 2012 quarter-final opponents Germany but in terms of history and organization, the two teams are worlds apart. In terms of honors, few sides in football can hold a candle to the Mannschaft, who have been European champions three times and finished runners-up on the same number of occasions. On the biggest stage, Germany have been world champions three times and have the best record in World Cup history, having finished in the top four no fewer than 12 times, eclipsing even fivetimes winners Brazil and four-times winners Italy.

That compares to a solitary Euro 2004 win for Greece and only two appearances in the World Cup finals. The size of their trophy cabinets is not the only difference between the two sides. Domestically, the top German leagues are a class apart from their Greek equivalent and a strong indicator of the country’s footballing superpower status. German clubs have won the old European Cup and now Champions League six times and been runners-up on nine occasions, compared to just a single finals appearance for a Greek team and no victory. The Bundesliga, where many Greek players ply their trade, is also increasingly seen as a model of sound business practice, amid

wider concern about clubs spending beyond their means, particularly in the market-leading English Premier League.

According to a German football league (DFL) report on the 2010-11 season, overall revenues increased for the seventh straight year to a record 1.94 billion euros ($2.45 billion, 1.56 billion pounds) - a 9.7 percent increase year-onyear. Twelve of the 18 top tier clubs were in the black-up from seven the previous season-while average crowds of 42,101 were the best in Europe. “The Bundesliga is in a very sound position,” said the report “The Economic State of German Professional Football”, published in January. “On the whole, it is economically viable as well as competitive in the sport.” In recession-hit Greece, the economic crisis has inevitably hit the domestic leagues, exacerbating wider problems with below-par playing standards, hooliganism and match-fixing allegations.

Teams in the top tier Super League share broadcasting rights totaling 44.35 million euros but the 22.5 million euros in sponsorship from state-owned betting firm OPAP the season before last was slashed to 8.5 million euros last season. More cuts are likely to be on the way after pay-TV broadcaster Nova last week requested a 25 percent cut in the money that it pays to the Greek league and clubs, citing a drop in subscribers.

The financial crisis has left many Super League clubs owing large sums and only champions Olympiakos and Atromitos Athens have met their financial obligations to obtain operating licenses. If UEFA rules were enforced to the letter, it is thought that only about five clubs would be granted operating licenses. According to the international players’ union FIFPro, two-thirds of professional footballers playing in Greece are not paid on time while as many as one third can wait up to six months to get their salaries. Even then, Greek players hardly receive the big money paid to their counterparts in the likes of the Premier League, Spain’s La Liga or Serie A in Italy.

The Professional Football Players’ Association in Greece says the average Super League player earns 10,000 euros a month, with the lowest at 840 euros.

Cash-strapped clubs and a struggling league are also laboring to fill seats, with the average crowd at Super League games just 5,000 last season, further hitting cash flows. Olympiakos had an average of 21,500 but lowly Doxa Drama had just 677, according to league figures.

With no end in sight to Greece’s debt crisis, there are fears that crowds could fall even further next year, as fans struggle to renew season tickets or even afford the 20 to 50 euros for an individual match ticket.—AFP

Ref admits goal blunder BUDAPEST: Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai yesterday admitted that he should have awarded a goal to Ukraine in their final Euro 2012 match against England and apologized for his mistake. “After the match, we looked at and evaluated the situation. We realized straight away that we made a mistake,” Kassai said on the official website of the Hungarian football federation (MLSZ). The five officials at the game, including two on the goal-line, were criticized for not awarding a goal to the co-hosts, which arose as England defender John Terry tried to clear after a Joe Hart save from a Marko Devic shot. England were 1-0 up at the time and the scored stayed that way until the final whistle, seeing them advance as Group D winners while Ukraine were eliminated, although a draw would not have been enough to get them through.

France taught us a lesson

WARSAW: Czech Republic’s fans wave as they arrive in Warsaw, Poland, for the Euro 2012 soccer championship quarterfinal match between Czech Republic and Portugal yesterday. — AP

GNIEWINO: Spain striker Fernando Torres said yesterday he hoped the defending champions would make their experience count in the Euro 2012 quarter-final with France on Sunday. The 28-year-old scorer of a double in the 4-0 hammering of Ireland in the group stage - admitted if they succeeded it would be what a more experienced French side did to the more fancied Spanish in the 2006 World Cup second round match. The French side had been written off in the Spanish media in 2006 with them saying that their largely younger side would win to send ‘Zidane and the other oldies into retirement’ in the end the French won 3-1. “That day, France taught us a good lesson which helped us to grow up as a team, even if only a few players remain from that time,” the Chelsea marksman wrote on his website. “We will hope that this time, our experience will tilt the balance of the game in our favour.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012 WARSAW: Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (right) and Czech Republic’s Theodor Gebre Selassie jumps for a ball during the Euro 2012 soccer championship quarterfinal yesterday. — AP

Portugal book last 4

WARSAW: Cristiano Ronaldo’s powerful header 11 minutes from time sent Portugal into the Euro 2012 semi-finals with a deserved 1-0 victory over the Czech Republic yesterday. The world’s most expensive played hit the woodwork twice on an initially frustrating evening but crowned Portugal’s dominant second-half performance with his third goal of the tournament, nodding a right-wing Joao Moutinho cross into the net.

It was an impressive display from the Portuguese who were appearing in their fifth European Championship quarter-final in a row and will play Spain or France in the last four. The Czechs made a lively start inspired by the clever prompting of Petr Jiracek and Portugal took time to settle. Their simple gameplan was based around getting the ball to captain Ronaldo at every opportunity and he openly vented his frustration when his team mates failed to pick him out.

Ronaldo failed to connect properly with an overhead kick to the delight of the Czech fans, smashed a 35-metre free kick well wide and just before halftime struck the post following a brilliant turn and firm shot.

Portugal’s Nani and Miguel Veloso were

booked as tempers frayed and they suffered another blow when striker Helder Postiga was carried off injured just before halftime and replaced by Hugo Almeida. Almeida missed a great chance to open the scoring 19 minutes into the second half when he wastefully headed Raul Meireles’s perfect cross over the bar. Another long-range Ronaldo free kick grazed the outside of the post and the Real Madrid forward then lashed a halfvolley over the bar.

Portugal were dominating and Nani forced Petr Cech into a sprawling save before Almeida was adjudged offside when he nodded Nani’s cross into the net. The Czechs earned a brief respite following a brilliant surging run down the left by Vaclav Pilar but Portugal hit back when Joao Moutinho’s swerving drive was tipped over by Cech and Nani’s shot was saved after good work by Meireles. The match appeared to be drifting towards extra time when Portugal picked another hole on the left side of the Czech defense and Ronaldo stole in to provide an emphatic finish by heading the ball into the ground with the bounce taking it high into the net beyond Cech. — Reuters

WARSAW: Portugal’s Hugo Almeida scores a disallowed goal past Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech (right) as Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (top) looks on during the Euro 2012 soccer championship quarterfinal match yesterday. — AP