3rd Jun 2012 by Kuwait Times

CR IP TI ON BS SU

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Cheering crowds greet Queen Elizabeth at start of jubilee

Nadal leads Spanish onslaught at French Open

NO: 15468

150 FILS

7 40 PAGES

www.kuwaittimes.net

RAJAB 13, 1433 AH

Supplement Inside

Mubarak jailed for life, but anger still simmers Sons, police chiefs acquitted • Ex-strongman suffers ‘health crisis’

CAIRO: (Left) Egyptian protesters react in Tahrir square after the Muslim Brotherhood called for mass protests after a court sentenced ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his interior minister to life in prison yesterday but acquitted six security chiefs in the deaths of protesters last year. (Right) Mubarak lies on a gurney inside a cage in the police academy courthouse during his verdict hearing. — AFP

US will put more warships in Asia SINGAPORE: The United States will two largest economies on a range of shift a majority of its warships to the issues, including the South China Sea. Asia-Pacific region by 2020, Defense “We’re not naive about the relationship Secretary Leon Panetta said yesterday, and neither is China,” Panetta told the giving the first details of a new US mili- Shangri-La Dialogue attended by senior tary strategy. Fleshing out civilian and military leaders details of a strategic shift to from about 30 Asia-Pacific Asia announced in January, nations. “ We also both Panetta said the United understand that there really States would maintain six is no other alternative but aircraft carriers in the region for both of us to engage and over the long run and rebalto improve our communicaance its fleet so that 60 pertions and to improve our cent of its other warships (military-to-military) relawould be assigned to the tionships,” he said. “That’s Pacific by 2020, compared to the kind of mature relation50 percent now. ship that we ultimately have Leon Panetta The US defense secretary, to have with China.” speaking at an annual security forum in Some Chinese officials have been Singapore, also sought to dispel the critical of the US shift of militar y notion that the shift, after more than a emphasis to Asia, seeing it as an decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, attempt to fence in the country and was designed to contain China’s emer- frustrate Beijing’s territorial claims. gence as a global power. He acknowl- China has downgraded its edged differences between the world’s Continued on Page 13

Max 42º Min 31º High Tide 09:46 & 11:42 Low Tide 03:19 & 16:56

CAIRO: Hosni Mubarak, toppled by an uprising last year after 30 years ruling Egypt, was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for his role in killing protesters after a trial that sets a precedent for holding Middle East autocrats to account. But it was not enough for thousands of Egyptians who poured onto the streets after the verdict. Some wanted Mubarak executed, others feared the judge’s ruling exposed weaknesses in the case that could let the former military strongman off on appeal. Protesters gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, focus for the uprising that drove Mubarak, now 84, from office on Feb 11, 2011. Others in the second city of Alexandria chanted: “We are done with talk, we want an execution!” State television said Mubarak suffered a “health crisis” when he was taken by helicopter from the court to Cairo’s Tora prison, where he was admitted to a hospital facility. Mubarak had been held at a luxurious militaryrun hospital during the 10-month trial. One medical source said Mubarak had argued with those around him when he had landed at Tora, refusing to leave the aircraft. Mubarak routinely appeared in court on a stretcher, but it is not clear what ailed him. He had occupied a large hospital suite and was free to see relatives, walk in the garden and exercise, news reports and a hospital source said this week. Mubarak finally left the chopper and moved to the Tora prison hospital more than two hours after his helicopter landed there. The ruling came at a politically fraught time for Egypt, two weeks before a run-off in its first free presidential election that will pit the Muslim Brotherhood, which was Continued on Page 13

Arabs want timeframe for Syria peace mission DOHA: The Arab League yesterday demanded stronger UN measures against the Syrian regime to implement a peace plan within a set timeframe, including nonmilitary action provided for by Chapter VII of the UN charter. Arab ministers evoked the UN text shortly after peace envoy Koﬁ Annan told a small ministerial committee on Syria that an “all-out” sectarian war was looming in that crisis-hit country. The ministers urged the “Security Council to assume responsibilities according to the UN charter, and take all necessary measures to secure the full and immediate implementation of the plan of the joint envoy, Koﬁ Annan, in a set timeframe,” in a statement at the end of the meeting. These actions include “imposing the implementation of the six points of the plan through resorting to Chapter VII of the UN charter,” it said, listing the non-military measures provided for in Article 41 of the chapter. Continued on Page 13

DOHA: (From left) Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani and UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan attend an Arab ministerial committee meeting to discuss the Syrian crisis yesterday. — AFP

10 dead in Lebanon clashes

KUWAIT: Cars move along a highway in reduced visibility conditions during a severe sandstorm yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat (See Page 2)

Iran vows retaliation if hit TEHRAN: Iran will respond to any Israeli or US attack against its nuclear sites with a “proportionate” reaction, the military adviser to the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said yesterday. General Yahya Rahim Safavi, quoted by Fars news agency, said however that such an attack was unlikely. Despite warnings from Washington and Israel that “all options are on the table” if negotiations between Iran and major powers on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program fail, conditions do not favour an assault, he said. “They may be able to start one but they cannot end it and it remains in Iran’s hands,” the general said. “The domestic political, economic and social conditions in America

and the Zionist regime are not such as to have a new war in the region,” he said. US President Barack “Obama wants to get re-elected (in November) ... the cabinet of Mr (Israeli prime minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is a fragile one,” he said. However, in case of an attack, “we will act against their military operation smartly, proportional to any damage that they inﬂict on us ... meaning we will hurt them as much as they hurt us.” Rahim Safavi warned that the whole of Israel was within range of the missiles of Hezbollah, Iran’s Shiite militia allies in Lebanon, and that US forces in the region were vulnerable. Continued on Page 13

TRIPOLI: Clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian regime gunmen yesterday killed at least 10 people and wounded 31 others in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, a security official said. Among the dead were a woman and her son, killed by a rocket in the Bab al-Tebbaneh district, a mostly Sunni Muslim community which supports Syria’s antiregime opposition, the official said. At least five were wounded in Jabal Mohsen, an area mainly populated by pro-Damascus Alawites. Sporadic gun and rocket fire broke out at midnight and continued through the night, forcing some residents of the port city to flee their homes. The army and police were later being deployed in Tripoli, the source said. Sectarian violence has flared on a number of occasions in Tripoli since the revolt broke out in neighbouring Syria in March last year, including deadly street battles in May. Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen have been gripped by frequent fighting, reflecting a split between Lebanon’s parties where the opposition backs the revolt in Syria while a ruling coalition led by Hezbollah supports the Damascus regime. Yesterday’s death toll is the highest in a single day in Tripoli, raising fears that Syria’s unrest could spill over into its smaller neighbour. Lebanon’s National News Agency said there was “shelling across both areas heard every five minutes, and snipers targeting civilians”. Residents said those killed included civilians caught in the crossfire and that a Lebanese soldier was among the wounded. International peace envoy Kofi Annan said yesterday that Syria was slipping into all-out war and that the entire region would suffer if the international community did not step up pressure on Assad. “Let me appeal to all of you to engage earnestly and seriously with all other stakeholders, mindful that if regional and international divisions play out in Syria, the Syrian people and the region - your region - will pay the price,” Annan told a meeting of Arab League member countries. — Agencies

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A Sunni gunman is seen near a burning building during clashes that erupted in this northern port city yesterday.— AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

LOCAL

KUWAIT: Dusty weather conditions are expected to prevail in the country and the dust will begin to recede tomorrow. The country was gripped with a current dust wave, boosted by northwesterly gales reaching 60-70 kmph. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Activities paralyzed as dust storm hits Kuwait Dusty weather to help reduce temperature media websites about Kuwait temperature reaching 52-54 degrees Celsius, and asking people not to fill their gas tanks as it may explode, Karam noted that the prevailing dusty weather will rather decrease the temperature in this few days. “As dust blocks the sun, it lowers the temperature to about 43-45 degrees Celsius. The temperature may go above 50 during the few coming days but not during this dusty weather,” he explained. “We have the accurate weather prediction for three days. So I can’t tell the exact weather condition for the whole month. We don’t know definitely if the rest of June will be dusty. Regarding this week’s forecast, it is possible to reach 50 or more during this month. Last year it reached this high during the same period,” Karam said. He also advised the sea lovers not to go on sea trips during these two days due to the increased waves that may reach up to 7 feet. This he said could be dangerous for small boats and jet skis.

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Activities in Kuwait was paralyzed yesterday as dust storm wreaked havoc with low visibility (less than 500 meters). This dusty weather affected the transportation sector although there was no cancelation of flights at the local airport. The head of the Meteorology Department of the Civil Aviation Mohammed Karam said in a press statement that the dusty weather will continue today. “It won’t get worse than yesterday morning, but the visibility will still be very low, especially in the open areas. The north-west wind speed of about 6070 km pushed the dust particles to Kuwait from neighboring countries. I advise the drivers to be very careful, especially in the open areas,” he told the Kuwait Times yesterday. “The wind intensity decreased yesterday evening and will be more active today morning with more dust particles,” he added. Regarding the rumor circulating on the social

Arab Parliament speaker blasts Tehran By A Saleh KUWAIT: Arab Parliament Speaker Ali Salem Al-Diqbasi has asked Iran to stop interfering in the internal affairs of the Arab countries. He urged Tehran to stop stirring up sectarian strife in attempt to divert attention away from the international pressure over its nuclear program. Al-Diqbasi said Iran’s escalation of threats to the Arabian Gulf countries followed

the discovery of a terrorist cell working for Iran in Bahrain, and court rulings in Kuwait against a group of Iranians accused of spying for Iran. The Iranian attack against the Gulf Union is growing with Iran establishing mobile phone coverage on UAE’s Abu Mousa Island. He accused Iran of supporting the Syrian regime and providing Assad with weapons in the face of a popular revolution and also interfering in Libya’s internal affairs. He asked Iran to keep

Cabinet, parliament on collision course KUWAIT: Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah leaving for Doha yesterday to participate in the extraordinary session of the Arab League Council, the meeting for Arab Ministerial committee on Syria, and the Arab peace initiative ministerial session. Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled’s delegation consists of officials from the Foreign Ministry, Kuwaiti diplomats and other personnel.

Al-Adasani plans to grill Al-Rujaib KUWAIT: MP Riyadh Al-Adasani plans to file a grilling motion today against Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Ahmad Al-Rujaib, according to sources close to the lawmaker. Al-Adasani has reportedly informed Parliament Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun about his plans, said the sources who spoke to AlQabas on the condition of anonymity. On the other hand, Al-Rujaib has challenged Al-Saifi to provide proof of his allegations as mentioned in his grilling. “After Al-Saifi has failed to provide any proof of his racism allegations, he is now trying desperately to question my integrity. This shows that AlSaifi’s allegations are empty”, Al-Rujaib said on Friday. The minister’s comments come in reactions to the statements Al-Saifi made during an interview with Al-Rai TV on Thursday. The lawmaker alleged that he was approached by people who identified themselves as ‘Messengers of Al-Rujaib’ and offered to help him hire anybody he nominates at the ministry in exchange of dropping his grilling plans. “I challenge Al-Saifi to reveal the identities of the people he claimed to have negotiated with him on my behalf”, Al-Rujaib said in

the statements in which he reiterated that the grilling is filled with constitutional and legal flaws. Al-Saifi’s grilling focuses mainly on allegations that Al-Rujaib made statements in published columns in which he disrespected Kuwaiti tribes and linked one of them as a threat to national security. The lawmaker urged the minister during the interview to specify the tribe ‘he claims has an old vendetta’ against Kuwait. Al-Rujaib had strongly rejected the allegations. Meanwhile, MP Al-Adasani has criticized statements Al-Saifi made during the interview, in which he claimed that ‘provocative statements by Al-Adasani prompted the Majority Bloc to oppose the original plan to file a joint grilling’. “I urge Al-Saifi to be more honest in his statements”, Al-Adasani said on Friday, explaining that he refused a request from the Majority Bloc to postpone his grilling because it handles humanitarian issues that cannot be delayed. Al-Adasani explained that Al-Saifi had first approached him with the idea of merging their grillings, but later asked him to postpone the plans to the next parliamentary term which prompted him to back off from the merging deal. “After realizing that I was going to file my grilling separately, AlRujaib went ahead and filed his before mine”, Al-Adasani added.

KUWAIT: Opposition lawmakers were quick to express criticism to the cabinet’s reported plans to reject draft laws passed by the parliament including the death penalty for offending the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and establishing a public university for applied sciences using faculties of the Public Institution for Applied Education and Training. “A cabinet’s decision to reject draft laws that ministers were present during their debate process in the parliament and voted in their favor, contradicts with institutional and constitutional court while puts the state in front of a new political crisis”, proclaimed MP Dr Faisal AlMislem in statements Friday commenting on news reports appeared the same day. Meanwhile, MP Dr Mohammad Al-Kandari said that the cabinet will prove its “weakness and incompetency to stay in office” should they reject the two draft laws mentioned above. In the meantime, reports suggesting that the cabinet plans to go ahead with a mega project to build a new power plant in Al-Zoor, further add fuel to speculation that a deadlock in relations between the cabinet and parliament is inevitable, especially after MP Mohammad AlKhalifa confirmed Friday that his Popular Action Bloc “will not allow this project to go through or any other projects in which the law isn’t fully implemented”. This comes while a slew of grilling motions planned by members of the Majority Bloc gives more reasons for speculations that the remaining parliament sessions before the summer break on Aug 2, 2012 will feature little legislative achievements. “A meeting last week between members from the parliament and cabinet failed to result in an agreement to put interpellation plans on hold”, Al-Rai reported yesterday quoting cabinet insiders. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the sources quoted an unnamed “senior lawmaker” of explaining that he cannot stop MPs from filing their grilling motions, and that to a “cabinet mediator who spoke about the intention of HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah to carry out a cabinet reshuffle during the parliament’s summer break”. The Majority Bloc reportedly require that Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Ahmad AlRujaib, Minister of Defense Ahmad Al-Khalid AlSabah, and Minister of Oil Hani Husain be relieved from their duties, according to the

same sources. Al-Rujaib is already scheduled for the debate of a grilling filed by MP Saifi Al-Saifi, while MP Khalid Shukhayyer announced that his grilling against the defense minister is pending the bloc’s collective approval; which could’ve been discussed during their meeting Saturday night. Husain in the meantime is widely expected to be quizzed on the outcome of an international court ruling requiring Kuwait to pay $2.16 billion in compensation over the canceled K-Dow deal. Al-Rai reiterated yesterday speculations motioned in an earlier report that MP Dr. Obaid Al-Wasmi has three grilling motions in store for Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak, the Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah, as well as the acting Minister of Finance Nayef Al-Hajraf or a new finance minister should they fail to tackle the issues addressed in the grilling of former minister Mustafa Al-Shamali. In the meantime, sources close to Dr. Al-Wasmi indicate that the oppositionist lawmaker is also studying the possibility of filing an interpellation against the oil minister. Minister Al-Hajraf told Al-Jarida in the meantime that “procedures are underway to form a committee to address the topics mentioned” in Al-Shamali’s interpellations, adding that the process requires “time and patience before results appear”. Separately, Al-Qabas reported yesterday quoting a “parliamentary insider” that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah asked the prime minister to be relieved of his duties as Minister of Cabinet Affairs. The minister indicates that the cabinet affairs ministry is providing a distraction “that takes the focus of his attention away from his duties in the foreign ministry”, said the source, adding that the premier is taking his request into consideration. In other news, a source close to the parliament’s legislative committee told Al-Rai Friday that the panel discusses in its meeting today a request from the Public Prosecution to lift the immunity of MP Nabil Al-Fadhl in order to face defamation charges pressed by Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani. The case refers to statements Al-Fadhl allegedly made during a TV show during his elections campaign, said the source. — Al-Qabas, Al-Jarida, Al-Rai

good relations with its Arab neighbors. In another development, the Ministry of Public Works will start the procedures regarding the Jaber bridge project after it was put on hold - as it awaits the Audit Bureau’s report. The ministry will hold a meeting on Sunday July 8th, to release the tender for constructing of the Doha Spur - which is part of the bridge. Sources said the Doha Spur project will be completed before the end of the year.

News

in brief

Diving team wins award KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti diving team has won ‘Ford Awards program for environment protection’ along with another 12 parties chosen by Ford in different GCC and Arab countries who made serious and practical efforts in protecting the environment. The diving team got the prize for its program in protecting coral reefs in Kuwait, which includes several activities like removing ship wrecks, nets and rehabilitation of coral reefs. The team was awarded $10,000 from Ford Company.

Metal Scrap yard fire KUWAIT: Fire broke out in one of the shops at the Metal Scrap yard in Amghara area yesterday. Firefighters from Jahra and Jleeb responded promptly and put out the fire. In another development, another fire broke out in one of Al-Nakhil Hotel Restaurants in Salmiya. A hotel employee was injured and was treated by paramedics.

Ex-convict arrested KUWAIT: An ex-convict and drug addict was arrested by special security forces yesterday after his father reported to the Um Al-Haiman police that he fired several gun shots at his car. The suspect was using an unlicensed gun. He also destroyed some things in the house according to the father. When police arrived, the suspect fired several shots at them, scaring people in neighborhood away. He attempted to hide in the neighboring compound but was later apprehended by the police.

MOE to hire bedoon teachers soon KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education plans to announce next week vacancies available for bedoon teachers in public school similar to announcements made to hire expatriate teachers, a local daily reported yesterday quoting a senior ministry official. Assistant Undersecretary for Public Education Mohammad Al-Kandari told Al-Jarida that the vacant spots will be in specific fields featuring shortage of Kuwaiti teachers, which are usually filled by hiring expatriate teachers. “The MOE is taking serious efforts to hire teachers from the stateless residents’ community on par with procedures to hire expatriate teachers”, Al-Kandari further indicated.

KUWAIT: Capital officials carried out a security campaign in Fahad Al-Salem Street Shuwaikh Industrial Area, resulting in the arrest of 150 people, including 73 Iqama violators. The arrested law-violators were sent to concerned authorities. — Photos by Hanan Al-Saadoun

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

LOCAL

Govt eyeing expat limits for demographic balance State steps up arrests and deportations KUWAIT: The government is studying a series of measures to take in order to reach an ultimate goal of reducing the percentage of expatriate community in Kuwait to 45 percent of the total population, a local daily reported yesterday quoting an official document. The document which is being prepared by the Interior Ministry in coordination with the Cabinet calls for establishing a quotas system that “maintains balance between numbers of different expatriate communities and between their numbers and the numbers of the Kuwaiti community”. The document outlines steps for a governmental plan to restore demographic balance in Kuwait through a set o f re g u l a t i o n s to b e p a s s e d by t h e Cabinet. “The Cabinet is required as per the document to make a decision that adopts a clear policy to control the set-

tlement of expatriates of all nationalities in Kuwait,” reads the document as quoted by Al-Rai daily. According to the document, this policy requires setting maximum periods during which expatriate labor forces are allowed to stay in Kuwait, as the period varies based on their qualifications as follows: • Maximum 6 years residenc y for marginal labor forces, as referred to in official records. • Maximum 8 years residenc y for medium-skilled labor forces who are not married. • Maximum 10 years residency for medium-skilled labor forces who are married. • Maximum 12 years residency for high-skilled labor forces. • An open residency to labor forces with rare expertise. “The main goal of setting these aver-

News

in brief

Masaken tenders to be launched KUWAIT: Sources revealed that the Public Authority for Housing will open this week tenders for auctioning 50 percent of the shares of Masaken low cost company that will be responsible for the execution of a project at Salmi Road, which will substitute for popular houses at Sulaibiya and Jahra. The project consists from 9,696 government houses with an area of 150 sq m for each houses at a total cost of KD 520 million. Sources said that the project might see a consortium of companies along with the winning company. The project is a big and important one for a full and comprehensive city that contains residential areas and public nonprofit buildings.

Bedoons can register for education KUWAIT: The charity fund for the Education Ministry will start registering illegal residents’ students for the upcoming 2012-13 school year, said an official here yesterday. Assistant Undersecretary for special education and chairperson of the charity fund Mona AlLogani said that the effort was coordinated with the central system for dealing with the situation of illegal residents, adding that since 2003, the fund took care of education expenses of around 12,802 students with illegal residency status at private schools. The official indicated that the fund would also be helping those who adjusted their residency status to enable students to further pursue their education.

Threats to interior minister KUWAIT: Observers have denounced defamation campaigns against First Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud. They said that campaigns being carried in the media threatening Sheikh Ahmad of political questioning are being met by doubts from citizens who believe that such campaigns only creates a state of instability and divert the public opinion to marginal issues and ends up in entering all parties in useless arguments and personal interests that overshadow the interest of Kuwait. They said that threats of grilling the minister aim at weakening and terrorizing him and diverting him from doing his duties and responsibilities. Social media portrays the impression that Kuwait is suffering from general corruption in all its security fields and absence of growth plans. Their claims of “playing” in citizenship files and that the ministry gives citizenship to those who do not deserve it is completely wrong and needs proof.

Wataniya introduces new BlackBerry plans KUWAIT: Wataniya is driven by motivation to develop and introduce the best services for its customer. In order to cater to all segments of society Wataniya Telecom is glad to introduce new BlackBerry (R) plans which are flexible, affordable and suitable for all segments of society. BlackBerry subscribers can select the plan that best fits their communication needs while only paying for the services they use and nothing more. All they simply have to do is Abdolaziz Al Balool send BB to 1500via SMS to access the BlackBerry menu and select their preferred plan. All the new BlackBerry plans come with the embedded social networking apps which include Facebook and Twitter. The first of these plans is the Basic plan, which offers the customer the BlackBerry (R) Messenger service (BBM(tm)), and is for KD 4 per month, which is considered the lowest price in Kuwait. The second plan which is Social Plus includes BBM service and internet browsing and costs only KD 8 per month while the third plan called Complete comes with BBM, 1 email account and internet browsing for KD 10 per month. The fourth plan is the Unlimited and it supports all the services in addition to 10 email accounts, video streaming and access to BlackBerry Protect app, which automatically and securely backs up all the data on the smartphone and helps in tracking the smartphone if lost, all this for just KD 13 per month. Lastly there is Unlimited Plus designed especially for travelers; it comes with all the benefits as the Unlimited plan along with 10 MB of roaming internet just for KD 25per month. Commenting on the new BlackBerry Plans from Wataniya, Abdolaziz Al Balool, Public Relations Director confirmed that the revamped plans reflect the company’s endeavors in offering innovative services and products at competitive prices. Al Balool also added: “Smartphones have become an integral part of our customers’ lives nowadays and this is why Wataniya was inspired to introduce a new variety of BlackBerry plans.We want to help our customers to always stay connected wherever they are. The new BlackBerry plans will be available starting May 24, 2012. With the new plans, customers can choose whatever suits their telecommunication requirements whether it is BBM, emails, internet browsing or connecting through different social platforms. Our customers now have the freedom of choice and the luxury of paying for what they use. Wataniya will continue introducing services for smart phones offering customers a differentiated experience in the Kuwaiti telecom market.”

ages is to prevent cases of long settlement after which an expatriate can call for the right of citizenship as per United States agreements that Kuwait has signed,” Al-Rai reported, adding that this system would also help Kuwait “curb the increase of marginal labor forces”. Moreover, the document calls for measures to “clean the countr y ” from marginal labor forces through measures that include “security campaigns covering all governorates” to arrest residents living in violation of labor and residency regulations. The Ministry of Interior has been carrying out intensive crackdowns for over a week during which nearly three thousand violators have reportedly been arrested. The measures recommended in the documents also include “speeding up the procedures of deportation” of violators arrested. Meanwhile, the

document recommends establishing “housing systems for labor forces located far from model areas” for the purpose of “maintaining security control when necessary”. It also calls for “deterrent measures against companies or individuals that employ or provide shelter to marginal labor forces illegally”, listing penalties that include jail terms r a n gi n g b e t we e n o n e a n d t h re e m o n t h s, a s we l l a s f i n e s r a n gi n g between KD 10,000 and KD 100,000. The document also addresses the process of recruiting marginal labor forces by recommending measures to limit this process such as limiting the issuance of commercial visas to busin e s s ow n e r s, c a p i t a l ow n e r s, l a b o r forces with high pay and labor forces with high academic qualifications. The recommendations also include banning the process of transferring all kinds of

entrance visas into work permits, as well as setting up a committee that e x a m i n e s a wo r k e r ’s s k i l l s b e fo re approving their work permit proce dures. The document suggests using help of international consultants in the labor force field. “The national security is under threat by the rapid increase in certain expatriate communities as well as the spread of mafias in the economic sector and monopoly of certain nationalities on the handicraft business,” the document reads, mentioned difficulties in “restoring order in case of chaos in areas highly populated with expatriate co m m u n i t i e s s u c h a s J l e e b A l Shuyoukh, Amghara, Mina Abdullah and Fahaheel”, and calling for cooperation between state departments including the interior, social affairs and labor, commerce, municipality health and information ministries.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

LOCAL kuwait digest

Local Spotlight

The opposition’s scenario

Time to split up MSAL

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij

“H

H the Prime Minister is the person who is capable of making a decision to cancel the deal without costing Kuwait any fils” - MP Musallam Al-Barrak. “The penalty clause cannot be exercised if the contract is terminated before January 2nd” MP Faisal Al-Mislem. The Opposition leaders are startlingly focusing on the penalty clause in the Government contract with Dow Chemical, yet ignore in a similarly startling manner the reason behind the contract’s termination and the penalty clause being exercised as a result. In order to convince the public with their point of view, they provide a ‘scenario’ to the operation that bares a striking similarity to the implausible scenarios of old Bollywood movies. According to MP Musallam Al-Barrak, their alleged scenario for the case depends on three blocs of corruption: the first is present in Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), the second in the Cabinet, and the third in the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC). The scenario alleges that the three blocs agreed to sign a deal with Dow Chemical and all of them, in addition former Oil Minister Mohammad Al-Olaim, signed the contract to establish the world’s largest petrochemicals factory as the deal outlines. In order to ensure the rights of both parties, an agreement was reached to include a penalty clause with a high value in case of termination, and to provide a guarantee that both partners will go ahead with the deal. The scenario alleges that the four Kuwaiti blocs; KPC, SCP, the Kuwaiti government and the Minister of Oil, deliberately agreed on a large penalty clause in order to “share” the large amount they would collect should the contract be terminated. Now let’s take a look at the facts. The Oil Minister strongly defended the project, which means that he couldn’t have conspired to have the deal canceled. The majority of SCP members defended the project; some of them actually resigned in protest after the contract was terminated. The cabinet was strongly supporting the project at first, until they yielded to MPs’ pressure when the grilling threat card was put on the table; something the former prime minister was desperately trying to avoid at the time for some reason. The oil minister, the SCP and KPC did not want the deal canceled. They, along with the Cabinet at the beginning, fought hard to keep the project ongoing. Al-Olaim even stressed in statements to the media that the deal was made without agents, which means that Kuwait doesn’t have to pay for middlemen. It hinted that perhaps this could be the reason behind the attack against the deal. In order for the deal to be canceled, media campaigns were needed to stir the subject within society and garner more public support against the project. That alone wasn’t enough, however, as a party capable of forcing the decision for the contract’s termination was needed. The only institution remaining was Parliament - mainly the outspoken members of it. I can’t think of a more outspoken Opposition MP than Faisal Al-Mislem and Musallam Al-Barrak, who led the MPs’ campaign against the deal. To add legitimacy to the campaign, Ahmad Al-Saadoun became involved. Now I believe we have the right to ask who was mainly responsible for the contract’s termination. Let’s assume that the Opposition’s alleged scenario is true. Then who allowed the so-called corrupt blocs to benefit from exercising the penalty clause? The termination doesn’t happen except by a party that has the authority to make that decision. Can the Opposition explain to us how that decision happened? Something else I would like to address today, which has to do with an earlier column in which I argued that the nationality in its current concept should be canceled. After 300 years of modernity and 50 years of parliamentary work, we still insist on refering to individuals by the tribes they are descended from. Fahad Al-Rajaan is referred to as Al-Mutairi, and Dr. Ibrahim Al-Rashdan by the term Al-Azmi (in reference to the Mutair and Awazem tribes respectively). In 1962, the late Mubarak Al-Noot was a senior member in the Arab Nationalist Movement, which myself and the former minister the late Ahmad Al-Rabaei were members of. This means that he’s been a nationalist for more than half a century, yet he is often referred to by many as a tribal citizen. It could be normal to point out a person’s tribal origins, but what is not normal is using these classifications as a base for discrimination; while what is even more abnormal is to deny that such a problem exists.My calls for citizenship cancelation were seen by many as bizarre and inapplicable; some even argued it was rushed and motivated by a case of frustration. But that wasn’t the case. My words came following thorough thinking, by which I came to the realization that the current citizenship system isn’t in line with the principles of the democratic system. Everyone has the right to be proud of their lineage, but only as long as the process doesn’t affect other people’s lives in any shape or form. When citizens are discriminated against in a state departments according to their origins, this is wrong. When the state goes as far as granting privileges to citizens because of their origins or how long their ancestors have been living in Kuwait, this is a crime. The Kuwaiti Constitution, along with international human rights regulations, prohibit discrimination based on gender, origin or religious belief. When article 29 of the Constitution puts all people living in Kuwait equal in front of the law, then how does discrimination happen between Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis, and between Kuwaitis themselves? Why do we have several classes of citizenship, leading to cases in which a person would be eligible to vote while his father wouldn’t? Why are citizens classified according to their tribal descent or by the fact that they grew up in the urban side of the state? Insisting on the current citizenship stipulations is an assertion of inequality, injustice and eagerness to promote superiority and differentiation among people. There is no meaning for a citizenship in a democratic society where people are treated equally. A doctor isn’t required to treat people as per their nationality, and a judge doesn’t need to know where you came from before he makes his judgment. Justice in democratic societies is supposed to be blind; meaning that it sees no differences between litigants. The right to vote is the only thing that a Kuwaiti citizen can enjoy exclusively in his country. This process can be handled with some sort of an elections card that doesn’t require a voter to provide his first class citizenship to be able to vote! But it is normal in a society where citizens take and don’t give back, while others give without taking in return, for discrimination to happen. —Al-Qabas

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net

kuwait digest

Who is finally responsible? By Ibrahim Al-Awadhi

side from conspiracies about corruption being involved in the case in which Kuwait is now required to pay $2.16 billion to Dow Chemical, it is important to realize the fact that the contract termination came as a result of the Cabinet falling under pressure from MPs who failed to take into account the repercussions of this decision on the international scene. The situation was handled from a narrow viewpoint that took into account political gains ahead of financial feasibility. The termination in late December 2008 came a few days after the Oil Minister and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) officials approved the deal, due to the impacts of the global economic crisis that emerged only a short while before the decision was made. Meanwhile, the speculated errors in the signed contract raise questions about the role of monitoring bodies who were supposed to keep an eye on deals signed by state departments. It is illogical that a state-owned body agreed to a penalty clause by which more than 27 percent of the deal’s value was to be paid in case of violation of the contract. Questions are raised about other issues; which include the reasons why the contract did not include a clause to have legal disputes settled in Kuwaiti courts, as per Cabinet decision 11 in the year 1988. Kuwait did not only lose the $2.16 billion compensation, but also lost the opportunity to partner one of the largest oil companies in the world. The case also affects Kuwait’s relationship with Dow Chemical, that owns 42.5 percent of EQUATE Company. Moreover, the case gives Kuwait the reputation that it fails to fulfill agreements signed with international investors, which damages Kuwait’s global status economically. After the deal was canceled, Dow Chemical headed to Saudi Arabia and signed a $26.4 billion deal with Aramco to establish 26 industrial complexes.

This deal further gives Dow no reason to consider the possibility to enter into a joint venture with KPC in the future. The $2.16 billion will not be paid by the previous Cabinet, the MPs or the KPC. The losses will be suffered by all citizens. The main question today is: who can be responsible for protecting public funds when ministers and MPs fail to live up to their oaths (which include vowing to protect public funds)? The $2.16 billion would have funded a project to establish multiple hospitals, universities, schools or factories in Kuwait. This amount would also have provided housing loans for at least 8,570 citizens. Who will be held accountable for this loss? —Al-Rai

The speculated errors in the signed contract raise questions about the role of monitoring bodies who were supposed to keep an eye on deals signed by state departments. It is illogical that a state-owned body agreed to a penalty clause by which more than 27 percent of the deal’s value was to be paid in case of violation of the contract.

kuwait digest

The dawn of a bright new era By Dr Mohammad Al-Muqatea

uwait’s modern history can be divided into three phases in the past fifty years, each owning clear and distinctive characteristics that are drastically different to each other. The first phase lasted between 1960 and 1978, and featured the birth of the modern state with a constitution and an institutional system of governance. This phase in Kuwait’s history featured the early steps of construction of the state’s institutions. The educational sector featured construction of public schools around Kuwait as well as the Kuwait University. The health sector saw construction of hospitals and polyclinics that provided pioneering health care to residents of each area. Infrastructure projects including road networks were carried out during this phase with an outlook for a better future that set the foundations for the state that became the leading example and ideology, education and politics in the Arab region. The second phase lasted between 1979 and 1996, and can be described as the ‘era of consumption’ and reaping the benefits of what was sowed in the previous era. This period is mostly characterized by the abundance of patriotic songs expressing pride in the achievements made during the first era, combined with lack of true effort to maintain the same process of improvement that the first phase

is characterized with. While the parliament and cabinet maintained the achievements made in the early years of the modern state, they failed to make significant improvement in the following two decades. The third phase star ted in 1997 and is ongoing until today. It is characterized by the process of demolishing the foundations of the state built in the first era and maintained in the second, and features notable reduction in indicators of respecting the law, combined with the increase of the culture of individualism ahead of the national good. The education suffered deterioration during these years, while political infighting emerged between groups in the parliament which in turn became a place for people to achieve personal gains. Today we reached a situation facing a dangerous case of disintegration of the state’s foundations as a result of the lack of control over parliamentary work and the media which were utilized to fight officials working for the public good. This situation forms a threat to the structure, identity and history of the state. However, it is not going to last forever because no matter how bad it gets, it can never change the fact in our bright history. No matter how dark the night gets, the dawn always comes in the end. We are confident that the dawn of a bright new era in Kuwait will eventually come. —Al-Qabas

Today we reached a situation facing a dangerous case of disintegration of the state’s foundations as a result of the lack of control over parliamentary work and the media which were utilized to fight officials working for the public good. This situation forms a threat to the structure, identity and history of the state. However, it is not going to last forever because no matter how bad it gets, it can never change the fact in our bright history.

believe it is time to change the structural formation of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor for the better. I am calling for the separation of all departments that are involved with women, children, elderly and social services from the wing of the ministry financially with all its administrative departments to form an independent authority for those people while keeping the labor affairs under the power and control of the ministry to be the ministry of labor only. This is not a hard wish or mission impossible. I don’t mean by this to change only the name, but the departments need to be moved out from the ministry of social affairs financially and administratively with or without the minister’s approval. The number of expats in Kuwait has increased since the last 30 years, therefore to bring major changes to the formation of this ministry is a must. In fact I have sent a plea to the National Assembly in this regard and have spoken publicly and on TV about the need to consider this request. I believe social justice is a matter of concern to many activists calling to remove the burden from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor to help it provide better services to expatriates. The fact that this ministry did well 20 or 30 years ago doesn’t justify that we should keep things as it is until today with the population reaching 3 million including expats! Every expat in Kuwait has a story about dealing with the Ministry of Social Affairs and many have complained about its slow services and poor performance. Although the ministry has tried to update some of its systems and services by having it computerized, this did not upgrade its services because it is overwhelmed. I believe it is time to make the change that everyone wish to see, Kuwaitis or not. It is time to consider the services provided to women and families seriously and try to do our best to upgrade the services given to all. This will only happen if the labor force in Kuwait has its own department - the ministry of labor - and women and families have an independent authority for them.

kuwait digest

Going back to 10 constituencies By Thaar Al-Rashidi

he attempt to change the political scene in Kuwait for the past 10 years is very much similar to the attempts by a doctor ‘under training’ to treat a patient suffering from chronic migraine. He decides to give him 25 pills a week, but when he finds that his body does not respond as it should he decides to give him five pills a week. When the ‘under training’ doctor notices that the patient has improved but is suffering from too much activity, above normal, he decides to increase the number of pills to 10 weekly. This is exactly what is happening in Kuwait. There were 25 constituencies, then it changed to five constituencies. Now the government wants to increase the dose to 10 constituencies, after they found the public has become politically very active. I will not say the government, but I will say the regime. When the 10 constituencies are adopted by the government, then the government wants to dismantle the peoples authority, who became very active in legislation and supervision after the majority group came into power at the National Assembly. They apparently adopted the peoples demands and carry the accountability banner. The government ‘doctor under training’, regardless of who the Prime Minister is, did not like the arrival of peoples representatives in Parliament and now see the ideal solution to be 10 constituencies. This will control the state of political activities by the people, after it was very much in control at the time of 25 constituencies. Now it wants to get back something of its control on the political scene. Although the government appears to be content with the results of elections, after the five with results of the elections in the five constituencies, especially through some influential people and some merchants who were able to control a certain percentage of the results through the use of political money, or even manipulation as happened in 2009 elections. The detailed results until now have not been released, yet in the 2012 elections, the government is not content and not happy about it, as it is not under government control and a Majority of MPs have formed and the government Opposition reach unprecedented figures. Therefore, the government wanted to return to 10 constituencies in the hope that it can gain something of its control. In my opinion, this wish is an attempt to turn back the clock. My humble advise is that the government accepts what people have elected. Those people have nothing but their votes and the government should accept the democratic results, with all its contradictions, as the government pictures this democracy. The threat to go back to 10 constituencies is a political attempt by the government to reduce the ceiling of popular demands, which has become very high. NOTE: Instigations against the current National Assembly and the calls to dissolve it is an attempt by some who were hurt when people spoke up. You are part of those people. You have what they have, and you have to pay what they pay, although I know very well that the instigators are either after power or after tenders?! — Al-Anbaa

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

local

Man defends ‘constitutional right to drink’ in Hawally Bedoon commits suicide KUWAIT: A drunk man was arrested in Hawally recently despite defending his right to drink as part of his constitutional rights. The man was busted by patrol officers while he was behaving awkwardly in public. They put him under arrest after confirming he was under the influence of alcohol. The suspect argued that the Kuwaiti constitution protects his freedom to carry out any action he desires including alcohol consumption. Police gave deaf ears to his arguments as they escorted him to the area’s police station.

Infant abandoned in bus Search is underway for the parents of an infant found inside a bus. The bus driver called police on Sunday night after he found the baby boy at the back seat. He explained to oﬃcers that he heard sounds of a baby crying when he stopped the engine at his company’s headquarters in Shuwaikh. The baby was taken to the Sabah Hospital where his condition was described as stable. A case was ﬁled at the Shuwaikh police station.

Suicide case Investigations are currently ongoing to reveal the circumstances behind the apparent suicide of a bedoon woman inside her family’s house in Firdous. Police reported to the scene following an emergency call last Sunday night. They found the woman’s body hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling of a room. The body was referred to the forensic department as early criminal investigation results indicate that the 31-year-old committed suicide.

Brothers assault sister Two brothers face charges after physically assaulting their sister over a family land dispute. The two Kuwaiti men told Hawally oﬃcers that they were ‘disciplining’ their sister for immoral behaviors. On the other hand, the woman argued that her brothers attacked her when she refused their oﬀer to buy a real estate property worth KD170,000 she inherited from her father for just KD30,000.

Child trapped in elevator Firefighters rescued a 6-year-old boy who was trapped inside an elevator in Jabriya recently. The boy was rescued unharmed and was handed over to his family. The rescue operation involved releasing the elevator manually to the ground floor after it was stuck between the first and second floors. No negligence charges were pressed against the parents. Thieves ‘clean’ company Search is currently ongoing for thieves who stole almost all the valuable items of a Sulaibiya company at a late hour on Thursday. The company ’s lone security guard was reportedly outnumbered by the four suspects who tied him up before loading computer sets, doors, window frames and a 250 meter long cable they found in the warehouse into a half lorry and drove away. The Indian man reported the case after he managed to free himself two hours after the crime was committed.

$10 million humanitarian aid to Somalia

KUWAIT: The Italian ambassador to Kuwait Sabrizio Nicoletti hosted a reception yesterday on the occasion of the National Day of his country at Missoni Hotel. It was attended by a number of diplomats and other dignitaries. —Photos by Joseph Shagra

KDA continues buoys work KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti diving team continued its full maintenance project for the buoys around the coasts and Southern Islands to prepare it receive boats and yachts which berth in the area and to avoid dropping anchor at the coral reefs which end up in destroying them. Faisal Al-Harban, a project oﬃcial, said

that the team has completed ﬁve new buoys at teller coral reefs east of Kobbar Island and Umm Deira coral reefs north of Kare Island at 9-15 meters deep. He explained that the team completed maintenance work next to the coral reefs. He added that the project has completed its 17th year successfully, with full

NTEC, Heliocentris to launch energy firm KUWAIT: Kuwait National Technology Enterprises Company NTEC inked yesterday a deal with Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG, a leading specialist in environmentally friendly energy storage solutions based in Berlin, to establish Heliocentris Energy SolutionsKuwait. In press statements, General Manager of NTEC Anas Meerza disclosed that NTEC will have 51 percentstake in the new company and the residue will be acquired by Heliocetris Energy. He pointed out that the deal comes in implementation of NTEC strategy of localizing modern technologies. “NTEC aims foster the expansion in the use of renewable energies in Kuwait and the region as a whole through a series of new projects using Heliocentris technologies,” he said. Meerza unveiled that the company plans to enter into new partnerships with three multinational companies operative in Kuwait. For his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Heliocentris Energy Solutions Kuwait branch Iyad Abulala hailed the partnership with NTEC as a new achievement for Heliocentris in the region. “We are thrilled to have won the trust of NTEC,” he said, expressing hope the new company will greatly benefit from Heliocentris technologies. The NTEC, a fully owned subsidiary of Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), owns 11 percent-stake in Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG. NTEC’s business model is that of a technology projects development company utilizing investment tools such as Private Equity, Venture Capital and Direct Investment with a mission to lead both government and private sectors in the development and application of leading edge technology. NTEC invests in high potential companies that are fully developed or at the forefront of developing new technologies which will be beneficial in the development of not only the State of Kuwait but the region as a whole. Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG is a specialist for clean energy storage solutions based on a smart combination of batteries, fuel cells and energy management. Areas of application are mobile and stationary applications that require longer ranges than current batteries can provide. — KUNA

ISTANBUL: His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabad had instructed $10 million in urgent humanitarian aid to Somalia, a move reflecting Kuwait’s keen on helping the Somalis, a senior Kuwaiti diplomat said here yesterday. Khaled Al-Jarallah, foreign undersecretary, noted that Somalia also benefitted from the State of Kuwait’s $100-million Decent Life Fund, which was established by an initiative of the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah to help poor countries face growing prices of basic goods. Al-Jarallah was addressing an international conference on Somalia held in Istanbul, reiterating that Kuwait has always supported “its brothers in Somalia.” He said Kuwait donated $10 million to fund the development of two airports in Somalia. “The brothers in Somalia benefitted largely from direct aid or through development projects to which Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development financed over $132 million ...,” said Al-Jarallah. The diplomat noted that Kuwait-based International Islamic Charitable Organization and Kuwait charitable societies contributed with tens of millions of US dollars to help alleviate suffering of the Somali people. Al-Jarallah welcomed the extension of the mandate of the African Union (AU) forces in Somalia, noting the peacekeepers should help restore security and stability of the war-torn country, to avoid re-emergence of terrorists. On the sidelines of the conference, AlJarallah said there was a clear roadmap about the political process and political reforms in Somalia which should be implemented in line with specific timetable. “These political reforms are not enough to address the situation in Somalia. These reforms should be accompanied by supporting infrastructure in Somalia ... and to implement projects like roads, airports, water or health,” Al-Jarallah said. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his speech to the conference earlier, said Turkey was exerting efforts to attract more international attention to the situation in Somalia. He said the Turkish officials have been informing international organizations about the deteriorating living conditions of Somalis, particularly children. Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmad said his country needed a national army to defend the nation. UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon said the international community could not solve the Somali problems in the short-term. Ban said Somalia was in dire need of a strong security institutions. — KUNA

KUWAIT: The symposium titled ‘Overhunting, Reality and Solutions’ in progress.

Kuwait eyes sustainable hunting to protect birds By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: The Kuwait Society for Environment Protection (KSEP) held a symposium titled ‘Overhunting , Reality and Solutions’, and adopted recommendations to stop the exhaustion of the habitat of migrating birds in Kuwait. Representatives from 10 governmental and private institutions, NGOs and foreign bird observers participated in this symposium. After many sessions, the participants agreed on six recommendations to halt the overhunting of birds. “We approved a strategy on sustainable hunting in Kuwait in a recommendation to be discussed with the members of the environment committee in the parliament, in addition to proposing a draft law to be submitted to the fatwa department at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Aﬀairs,” stated Abdulmuhsin AlSrayea, a member of the bird observation team at KSEP. The participants of the symposium decided to continue meeting to discuss recommending to establish a specialized body such as a society, federation, or permanent committee to organize hunting activities to be under the umbrella of a governmental body. Mahmoud Shihab, head of the bird observation and protection team at KSEP, noted that Kuwait as any country in the world founded nature reserves to preserve biodiversity and native life and migrating birds both wild and seabirds. “Many international treaties were signed

to preserve the areas that are important for birds and to limit their trade, especially those that are in danger of extinction such as the CITES and AEWA agreements. Unfortunately these laws are not providing a complete solution to this problem of overhunting and encroaching on natural reserves, which is still continuing,” he pointed out. Budour Al-Eisa, Representative of the Ministry of Information, called for new incentives for hunting lovers to preserve the environment and limit overhunting. She also suggested organizing an annual contest to choose the best photography of a bird or best story about birds in addition to punishing parents who encourage their children to hunt birds. “Such a parent should be punished not only by paying a financial fine, but also by canceling his license for the weapon used. It’s also important to establish voluntary youth groups to spread awareness of the dangers of overhunting, and highlight the importance of birds for the environment by sending mobile and TV messages about the birds’ migration,” she added. Zuhair Hamdi, a sharia researcher from the Ministry of Awqaf, suggested adding this issue to Friday sermons and religious lectures that are held in the mosques. “Islam encourages caring for the environment and not harming it in addition to caring about animals in particular. We can also benefit from the religious texts that speak about animals and the environment,” he said.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

local

EPA playing major role in safeguarding environment 17 years of successful activities By Staff Reporter

nswers to questions raised by Kuwait Times to Environment Public Authority General Manager Saleh Al-Mudhaf.

Kuwait Times: What are the main objectives of EPA in Kuwait? Al-Mudhaf: In 1995, the Law No. 21/1995 was issued Saleh Al-Mudhaf and amended by The Law No. 16/1996 to establish the Kuwait Environment Public Authority (KEPA) to carry out all activities and functions necessary to ensure the protection of the environment in the State. The main objectives of the KEPA could be summarized in the following: •Set and implement strategies, policies and plans to safeguard the environment in the State •Combat and control environmental pollution of all kinds. •Cooperate and coordinate action with all relevant organizations to draft laws, prepare legislation, set environmental criteria (standards), and promulgate regulations to ensure environmental safety, protection and development. •Set and implement strategies and action plans to ensure sustainable development of the environment and society. •Study and review accession to and ratification of the regional and international conventions related to the environmental affairs in coordination with relevant authorities. KT: What are EPA’s major achievements so far? Al-Mudhaf: In 1999, the KEPA eliminated the only point source of mercury pollution to the marine environment by removing completely about 30,000 tons of marine soils (clays) heavily contaminated with mercury from the offshore area of the Oil-Sector Complex built along Shuwaikh coast. Two years later, the Executive Bylaw (known as Decision 210/2001) for the Law establishing the KEPA was issued including environmental regulations and standards. Recently, the new Environmental Law of Kuwait was submitted for approval to the Kuwaiti Parliament, while a separate decision was issued on April 1 (Decision 4/2012) to update to the two major air quality regulations (Article 76 for ambient air and Article 79 for stationary source emissions, KEPA Executive Bylaw) to be in line with the World Health Organization and USEPA (US Environment Protection Agency) international standards. In the year 2002, the Agenda 21 Program has been implemented, covering Kuwait’s most important achievements in sustainable development. In addition, the Environmental Strategy of the State of Kuwait was established. Moreover, 14 major international agreements were ratified during the period from 1992 to 2006. Almost 80% of these agreements have been implemented through KEPA environmental laws, regulations and standards and through national action plans and programs. In the year 2009, the KEPA established a GIS-based Environmental Monitoring Centre to provide a database for information about environment and to help in environmental monitoring of industrial activities in the country through online monitoring programs linked to the Centre. Furthermore, KEPA in collaboration with relevant Kuwaiti governmental organizations, academic and research institutes, and companies in the private sector has set new strategies, policies and action plans to achieve a number of important national goals, including:

•Treating all industrial waste water (IWW) illegally dumped in landfills between 2003 and 2008 (about 1,200 million gallons/year) by Wafra Emergency Treatment Plant, which was commissioned in 2010 and designed to receive 15,000 cubic meters of IWW a day. •Treating IWW in industrial installations during 2009-2011 by installing onsite IWW treatment units or closed loop systems in all factories violating KEPA environmental laws, regulations and standards, and upgrading Umm Al-Hayman waste water tertiary plant to treat the IWW generated from factories, as well as planning the installation of Central Treatment Plants in new industrial areas in the next 5 years. •Reducing atmospheric emissions, particularly in Kuwait Southern Region through the following measures: •Environmental Compliance (EC) of industrial installations following the massive inspection of 800 factories in 9 industrial areas, between 2009 and 2011. •EC of oil companies through carefully planned programs such as KOC Project (2011-2016) for the development of an Enforcement/Compliance Management System, including Regulatory Air Compliance and Audit Management Systems aiming at reducing considerably gas emissions and flares from Kuwaiti oil fields as well as Waste, Flaring and SO2 Emissions Reduction Programs set and implemented by EQUATE Petrochemicals between 2011 & 2012. •Setting and implementing an action plan to ban the use of sulphur-rich diesel fuel in all industrial installations in the next 5 years and replace this fuel by electricity, natural gas and/or alternative renewable fuels (Plan set 2010). •Setting regional and local programs for monitoring Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and Coral Reefs (2009). •Developing integrated management programs/systems for air quality, coastlines and chemicals (ongoing projects since 2010). •Establishing the Green Buildings Concept and Technology in Kuwait (National Committees formed in November 2010). •Supervising and following up the implementation of two environmental projects by “Al-Dhow for Environmental Projects” and “Kuwait Cement” private companies to apply AirWater Windmill Technology for the enhancement of ambient air quality in Umm Al-Hayman Residential Area and use Tire Derived Fuel (fuel derived from burning used tires) as an alternative for the conventional fossil fuel in operating Cement Kilns. KT: We know that EPA also works in the industrial sector and the government in variety of voluntary pollution programs and energy conservation. What kind of difficulty does the organization face? Al-Mudhaf: In 2009, the KEPA launched its first massive inspection campaign with 125 factories inspected by 40 officers over a period of 4 months (from November 2009 to March 2010). Heavy penalties were inflicted on 80 factories in violation of KEPA legislation. Some of these factories have old production lines since the 1970s, and hence must be replaced with new lines friendly to environment, some have heavy or medium impacts on the environment resulting from releasing pollutants to air, land and/or water, while others lack funds to install onsite wastewater treatment units, stacks, fans, sensors for online continuous monitoring, and to have modern environmental and waste management systems as a prerequisite for reaching settlement with KEPA. In order to overcome these difficulties the KEPA 3-phase EC Plan to improve environmental conditions in Kuwait Southern Region (approved by the Supreme Council for Environment

and the Council of Ministers in 2010) has strongly recommended the establishment of a National Fund for Environmental Compliance. While the World Bank has been already asked by a National Committee to provide an action plan for its establishment, the National Fund will enable governmental organizations and factories owners to achieve the following components of the KEPA EC Plan throughout the country: •Relocating heavy and medium impacted factories in other new remote industrial areas. •Installing Central IWW Treatment Plants in new industrial areas. •Planting green belts covering buffer zones between industrial and nearby residential areas. •Removing violations, evaluating existing environmental conditions and preparing on-line monitoring programs for all factories through KEPA authorized environmental consultants. •Conducting annual Regulatory Air Emission Inventory and Health Surveys in Industrial & Residential Areas. KT: What are the most important issues discussed through Supreme Council for Environment? Al-Mudhaf: The Law No. 21 of 1995 of establishing the KEPA, and the Law No. 16 of 1996 amending certain provisions of Law No. 21 of 1995, have defined the role and functions of the Supreme Council of Environment (SCE), which could be summarized in the following: The Authority shall have a Higher (Supreme) Council having competence to enact the objectives and general policies of the Authority and its bylaw and other competencies stipulated for by this law. The Council shall be constituted under Chairmanship of First Deputy Prime Minister and the membership of a certain number of Ministers and others in respect of whom a decree shall be issued. The Director General shall act as a rapporteur of the Council. The Council shall issue a bylaw outlining the work procedures and the method for adopting its decisions, the Council shall meet twice at least every year (Article Four). •The Supreme Council shall issue a decision regarding the formation of a Board of Directors for the Authority consisting of the Director General and eight members of experience in the field of environment protection to be selected from outside the Authority for four years renewable for similar periods (Article Six). •The Supreme Council shall upon the proposal of the Board of Directors and after notifying the official Authority, decide to stop work in any establishment or any activity or preventing use of any instrument or material wholly or partially if the progress of work or the action results in pollution of the environment, the cessation shall be for one week duration and might be extended to another week. The Supreme Council shall authorize the Director General to issue the suspension order in case of emergencies for a period not exceeding seven days after which the matter shall be referred to the Supreme Council (Article Ten). •The Cabinet (Council of Ministers) shall decide upon the proposal of the Supreme Council, the appurtenant and competent administration and departments to be assigned to the Authority in co-ordination with the entities to which they belong (Article Nineteen). Of important note is the abovementioned Article 4 which states that the SCE is fully authorized to set the objectives, general policies and bylaw of the Authority and handle any other competencies stated in this law. This enables the KEPA to set and implement strategies, policies, action plans, programmes and emergency plans during environmental crisis

and disasters to guarantee the protection of environment in Kuwait. A series of important decisions have been made recently by the SCE on a variety of environmental issues, including the banning of using foam and its products in any celebrations in Kuwait, the approval of KEPA EC Plan, the cessation of work and any other activities for one week duration in heavy impact industrial installations in violation of KEPA laws and regulations, the banning of swimming and fishing in coastal areas impacted by raw sewage waters discharged from Mishref Pumping Station, and the approval of emergency action plans and measures taken to control air pollution and protect environment and health of citizens and workers in impacted areas following the burning of used tyres accumulated in some parts of Al-Rahiya open dumping site near Jahra residential area. KT: Please elaborate more on Environmental Monitoring Information System of Kuwait (eMISK). Al-Mudhaf: Environmental Monitoring Information System of Kuwait (eMISK) is an ambitious system initiated by the Environment Public Authority (EPA) of Kuwait. eMISK aims to establish, build and maintain a comprehensive geo-environmental database of Kuwait along with an enterprise level GIS system for access, update and analysis of the environmentally relevant data. This geo-environmental database is made available through eMISK to the decisions makers and stakeholders from within EPA, and through ‘www.beatona.net’ to outside agencies and to the public at large. eMISK aspires to raise awareness at all levels of Kuwaiti Society of the values of the environment, and to place authoritative scientific information at the center of decision-making, for the universal well being of the society. eMISK spans over 3 phases, the 1st of which has completed in February 2012, which has already established a comprehensive geo-environmental database for Kuwait, including the required infrastructure, and human resource capital within EPA. The Phase 2 of eMISK is aimed at the development of domain-specific environmental analysis, models, and simulations to help address specific environmental issues of Kuwait. The third and the last phase of eMISK will focus on the development of Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) for issues specific to the environment of Kuwait. eMISK is all set and running. It is powering the official environmental web-portal of Kuwait EPA and can be accessed through www.beatona.net. Beatona stands for “Our Environment” in Arabic language. It is the official environmental portal of Kuwait which is developed and managed by the environmental monitoring information system of Kuwait (eMISK), Environment Public Authority (EPA), Kuwait. Beatona.net represents KEPA’s commitment towards creating consciousness about the environment among the people of Kuwait. Beatona is eMISK’s public venture for the people of Kuwait. The main mandate of beatona is to generate awareness and share authentic content and valued scientific information with the citizen in a use friendly manner. It is supported by a group of committed and specialized people including local and international technical experts, consultants and scientists, who work together to ensure compliance with the global standards of data integration and information sharing. Contributions from various government entities and organizations comprise the valuable contents and information offered to the environmental community in Kuwait through Beatona.net. (To be continued)

Kuwait International Bank hosts students delegation KUWAIT: Kuwait International Bank recently hosted a delegation of students from the University of Colorado in the United States, giving them an opportunity to learn in depth about the transition of the bank to fully Shariah compliant Islamic Bank operating in the Kuwaiti market. The delegation was received by GM of Corporate Support Abdulrahim Al Awadhi, Research Department Manager and Board Secretary Dr Sadeq Abul, Acting Executive Manager of International Banking Department Mourad Mekhail and Dr Nasreen Alqaseer GM of Risk

Management Department. The purpose of the visit was primarily to familiarize students on the nature of banking in Kuwait in general and on Islamic Banking in particular while focusing on economic, social and political trends. During the visit, Abul confirmed that the transition from a real estate bank to a fully Islamic Shariah Compliant bank has been an important and leading experience worthy of study by researchers noting the great success it has achieved in a short period of time. Acting Executive Manager of International Banking Department

Mourad Mekhail gave an overview on the nature of work at the International Banking Department at KIB emphasizing the successful role it has taken to meet the customer’s needs and positioning itself as a leader amongst regional banks. Dr Nasreen Alqaseer GM of Risk Management Department elaborated on the department’s active role in keeping up with the latest trends and updates in risk management at Islamic Banks which has reinforced the bank’s position in the market and supported in gaining its customer’s confidence.

US Embassy concludes journalism workshop KUWAIT: On May 29, 2012, journalists of key Kuwaiti Arabic newspapers successfully completed a two-day journalism training workshop organized by the US Embassy and conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation at Costa Del Sol Hotel. In the two-day workshop, TRF instructor Ghaida Ghantous utilized the topic of environmental reporting to address important journalism fundamentals. Reporters were able to identify

key global and local environmental issues, and actively engaged in reporting and interviewing exercises that helped them structure clear, accurate and balanced stories according to international journalistic standards. Team Leader of Kuwait Dive Team Waleed Al-Fadhel gave an exciting presentation on the local marine environment in Kuwait, as well as the preparations of the Kuwait Dive Team to mark

World Environment Day. Ambassador Tueller closed the workshop and presented Thomson Reuters Foundation certificates to the participating journalists. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of the world’s leading provider of international news, Thomson Reuters. One of the significant contributions of the foundation is providing media training to improve journalism skills in countries around the world.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Russia marks 50 years since Soviet protest massacre Page 10

US, China relations key topic at defense meeting Page 12

Cheering crowds greet Queen at start of jubilee Gun salutes ring out to mark anniversary LONDON: A rapturous flag-waving crowd of more than 100,000 cheered Queen Elizabeth II at Epsom racecourse in Britain yesterday as she began four days of celebrations for her diamond jubilee. Gun salutes rang out across the country to mark the anniversary of her coronation before the 86-year-old queen arrived to watch the

LONDON: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, center, reacts as she looks out from the balcony at the end of the Epsom Derby horse race at Epsom racecourse England at the start of a four-day Diamond Jubilee celebration to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II accession to the throne yesterday. —AP

races, smiling broadly as she and husband Prince Philip were driven past the winning post. In a surge of enthusiasm for the monarchy across Britain, thousands of people paraded through Perth in Scotland for the jubilee, many held community parties, and villages competed to create the longest stretch of bunting. Crowds even turned out to watch military bands rehearse in London ahead of the main celebrations for the queen’s 60 years on the throne. “It’s not every morning you wake up on a day that will be written about in the history books,” declared The Sun, Britain’s best-selling newspaper. “Make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime occasion. It may be centuries before another comes along.” Cloudy weather and forecasts of rain did not deter the public from partying amid the highest support for the royals in decades. A recent poll showed about 80 percent of Britons want the country to stay a monarchy. People were already camping in tents beside the Thames river ahead of a pageant of about 1,000 boats that will sail through London today with the queen in a royal barge decked with 10,000 flowers. “There is huge excitement. The queen has done a terrific job in the past 60 years,” said Andrew Phasey, whose canal narrowboat will be part of the pageant. “We feel hugely privileged to be taking part. It will be a terrific day.” Britons have planned more than 9,500 street par ties for today, although there are concerns about forecasts of heavy rain. Tomorrow, some 4,000 beacons will be lit across the Commonwealth following a huge picnic and star-studded concert at Buckingham Palace. Tuesday, will be devoted to ceremonial events including a thanksgiving service and carriage procession. The queen, a keen rider and racehorse owner, and her husband were yesterday watching races including the Epsom Derby, Britain’s richest horse race. Paratroopers descended to the racecourse trailing huge Union Jack flags and red smoke ahead of their arrival with sons Andrew and Edward, young princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and other members of the royal family. The queen wore royal blue and her trademark matching hat with flowers, while Prince Philip, 90, waved his top hat to the crowd of 130,000 people. Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins sang the national anthem, while Buckingham Palace posted on Twitter: “And we’re off! The #diamondjubilee weekend begins.” Queen Elizabeth later presented the 110-year-old Coronation Cup, renamed the Diamond Jubilee Coronation Cup for the occasion, to the team behind winning horse St Nicholas Abbey, who also won the race last year, ahead of the Derby. Rachel Molloy, 28, a singer from London, said over strawberries and champagne, “We waved to her and it was very exciting because we’ve never seen the queen

Syria massacre frays US-Russia ties WASHINGTON: Tensions between the United States and Russia have sharply escalated since a massacre in Syria, as Moscow holds ﬁrm in the face of US charges that it has emboldened Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The latest friction comes weeks into a new term by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has little patience for Western criticism and has already butted heads in a longstanding row over a NATO missile shield in Europe. Russia and Iran are Syria’s primary allies and the United States has ramped up criticism since the May 25 massacre in pro-opposition Houla, where gunmen rounded up and killed 108 people, 49 of them children. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a tour of Scandinavia and Russia’s Caucasus neighbors, has denounced Moscow’s arms sales to Syria and warned that Moscow’s policies could help spark a “civil war.” Russia hit back, pinning blame for the massacre on foreign support for the rebels. Syria is Moscow’s main remaining foothold in the Arab world and provides access to the Mediterranean Sea at the port of Tartus. Putin has vowed not to repeat the experience of Libya, where a NATO campaign helped topple strongman Moamer Kadhaﬁ after Russia and China

abstained from a UN Security Council vote. Putin has held firm on arms sales, denying that Russia has supplied any “weapons that could be used in a civil conflict.” Russia expert Matthew Rojansky said that Moscow wanted to demonstrate that like virtually no other country, with the possible exception of China-it had the power to act as it chooses. “It’s not just a matter of principle, but it’s almost a litmus test for the independence and the freedom of Russia’s hand globally,” said Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Can Russia act, even against the clear sentiments of the United States-the putative global leader-and the collective West? This is Russia’s proof, yes we can.” Experts said that Russia also had clear policy differences with the United States over Syria as Moscow worried that Western powers were overlooking the possibility of Islamic hardliners replacing the secular-minded Assad. President Barack Obama’s administration rejects accusations that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated the Syrian opposition. Syrian dissidents say that civilians account for most of the 13,000 people

killed since an uprising broke out in March 2011 against the Assad family’s four-decade reign. Obama has demanded that Assad step down and oﬀered logistical support to the opposition. But his administration-which is seeking to wind down a decade of war in Afghanistan after ending the controversial Iraq mission-has ruled out the use of force in Syria. To some observers, Russia provides a convenient rhetorical target in the absence of other options on Syria-and Moscow sees the bluﬀ. “For the US, it’s useful to point to Russia as obstructing action in the Security Council,” said Mark Katz, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. “When the US is serious, the US doesn’t bother to wait for Security Council approval-we say that the Security Council can either join us or not. I think the Russians understand that we’re not at that point and that the Obama administration is probably not going to get to that point either.” The Obama administration put an early focus on building cooperation with Russia in a policy dubbed a “reset” after some of the tensest times since the Soviet Union under former president George W. Bush.—AFP

this close. She looked happy.” “I just want to see the queen,” said Chinese student Adora Lin, 22, from the factory mega-city of Shenzhen, who had bought a new hat for the occasion. “I’m not going to bet. I just want to see how people dress up and celebrate.” Prince William and wife Catherine-whose 2011 wedding drew two billion TV viewers and was credited with reviving public interest in the royals-did not attend yesterday’s events but will appear on the royal barge today. Thousands of people including 1,000 pipers and drummers, girl scouts and boy scouts meanwhile held a parade in Per th despite an ongoing campaign in Scotland for independence from the United Kingdom. In

Northern Ireland, even republican party Sinn Fein has supported celebrations and offered a gift to the queen for the occasion. Shops across Britain were doing a brisk trade in Union Jack accessories, commemorative china, masks of the royals and even jubilee garden gnomes. Festivities are set to be more muted across the Commonwealth, mostly made up of former British colonies, but British soldiers were pic tured in Afghanistan ser ving celebrator y tea from a goldcoloured teapot. The queen acceded to the throne on February 6, 1952, upon the death of her father King George VI while she was away in Kenya, and was crowned the following year on June 2, amid massive public enthusiasm despite heavy rain.—AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

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

Iran builds new space center to launch satellites TEHRAN: Iran is finishing construction of a new space center that will allow it to soon launch more domestically made satellites into orbit, the country’s defense minister said yesterday. The remarks by Gen. Ahmad Vahidi’s were the first confirmation that Iran is building a new space facility amid the standoff with the West over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. The West is concerned the program masks efforts to make atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting it’s only for peaceful purposes. Iran’s ambitious space plans have also raised concerns in the West because of their possible military applications - the same rocket technology used to

send satellites into orbit can also be retooled to make intercontinental warheads. Vahidi, in comments carried by the oﬃcial IRNA news agency, said the ﬁrst satellite to be launched from the new center will be the Tolo. It will be carried into orbit by the Iranian-made Simorgh light booster rocket, he said. Vahidi didn’t say where the new facility, which has been named after the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is located. Iran already has a major satellite launch complex near Semnan, 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Tehran, and another space center - a satellite monitoring facility - outside Mahdasht, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) west

of the Iranian capital. “Some 80 percent of the actual construction of the new space center has been completed,” Vahidi said, adding that the new facility will send “satellites from Iran, the regional countries and the world of Islam into orbit in the near future.” Iran’s decades-old space program is a key aspect of its eﬀorts to achieve technological prowess similar to that of world powers. In Feb. 2010, Iran announced it had successfully launched a menagerie of animals including a mouse, two turtles and worms - into space on a research rocket. Iran launched its ﬁrst commercial satellite in 2005 on a Russian rocket in a joint project with Moscow,

which is said to be a partner in transferring space technology to Iran. That same year, the government said it had allocated $500 million for space projects for the next five years. Iran’s lofty space plans also include putting a man in orbit within less than a decade, despite the expense and technological challenges involved. Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications. Iranian officials also point to America’s use of satellites to monitor conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and say they need similar capabilities for their security. — AP

Scores defy ban on Tunis demo against extremism Protesters accuse authorities of double standards

KHAN YOUNIS REFUGEE CAMP: Women mourn during a funeral of Ahmed Abu Nasr, an Islamic Jihad militant, in Khan Younis Refugee Camp yesterday. Abu Nasr and an Israeli soldier were killed in a shootout near the border with the Gaza Strip Friday, the Israeli military said. The exchange of fire began after the militant crossed the fence separating the Hamas-run coastal strip and southern Israel. —AP

Iraq crisis escalates with calls for PM to go BAGHDAD: A series of intertwined political crises that began with accusations that Iraq’s prime minister was consolidating power have escalated into calls to unseat him, and paralysed the country’s government. The protracted drama has seen Prime Minister Nuri AlMaliki’s deputy revert to decrying him as a “dictator” and the leader of the autonomous Kurdish region call for him to go on one side, while the premier insists he has suﬃcient backing to stay on the other. “The political crisis has reached its highest level since its beginning, but it is still running within the framework of the democratic game,” Iraqi political analyst Ihsan alShammari said. “The country is paralysed on all levels; there is a clear political paralysis paralleled by governmental negligence and a failure of the legislative authority, while the people are disappointed and afraid of the security

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri AlMaliki speaks during a press conference on May 16, 2012. — AP consequences,” Shammari said. The trouble began in earnest in midDecember, when the secular Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc began a boycott of parliament and the cabinet over what it said was Maliki’s centralisation of power. For his part, Maliki sought to sack Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutlak, an Iraqiya member who had labelled the premier “worse than Saddam Hussein.” That month, an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, also of Iraqiya, for allegedly running a death squad. Hashemi ﬂed to the autonomous Kurdistan region in north Iraq, which declined to hand him over to Baghdad and then permitted him to leave on a regional tour that took him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He is now being tried in absentia in Iraq. Kurdistan further entered the fray when its chief, Massud Barzani, launched a series of attacks against Maliki. In April, the region stopped oil exports, claiming Baghdad has allegedly withheld more than $1.5 billion (1.2 billion euros) that Kurdish oﬃcials say is owed

to foreign oil companies working in the region. And powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada alSadr, whose parliamentary bloc is part of the national unity government along with Iraqiya and the Kurdish alliance, referred to the premier as a “dictator” hungry for acclaim, and accused him of wanting to postpone or cancel elections. But Maliki opponents have now moved from merely criticising the premier to talk of actually removing him from office. Iraqiya, which eventually returned to parliament and the cabinet, has sought to convince President Jalal Talabani to initiate a vote of no confidence in the premier in parliament, while Barzani has said he cannot work with Maliki. Yesterday, Mutlak repeated his claims Maliki was a “dictator” and called for the country’s political blocs to “stand together” to noconfidence the prime minister. “Maliki staying on as prime minister will expose national unity to danger, and will lead to the division of the country, continuing corruption, and more human rights violations,” Mutlak said in a statement. “We call on all political forces to... stand together to withdraw confidence, and end the growing dictatorship in Iraq.” Barzani’s chief of staff Fuad Hussein, meanwhile, said last month that “Maliki must change his policy or he will be replaced.” “The message to Maliki is that if he can change his policy, he is welcome to do so; otherwise, he will be changed,” Hussein said in an interview with the Rudaw news site posted on the Kurdistan region presidency’s website. Maliki, meanwhile, put out his own statement yesterday after a meeting with tribal leaders from the northern province of Kirkuk in which he said they voiced support for his leadership. The months of acrimony have taken a toll on the functioning of the government. Parliament has not passed significant legislation except for the budget, while other important measures such as a hydrocarbons law regulating the country’s oil sector have been delayed. And a national meeting of political leaders originally scheduled for December that was aimed at defusing the tension has yet to be held. The crises have also had an economic impact, experts and officials say. The “economy is retreating because of the increasing fears of investors,” said Shammari. Independent Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman added that “the problems have started influencing trade and security, and everything.” He said the heads of the political blocs “behaved as if they were in the desert,” and that they needed to move from acting as leaders of parties and groups to acting like statesmen. President Talabani warned in a statement on his website of “the seriousness of the current situation” in Iraq resulting from the political disputes, which he said is now threatening state, economic and security institutions. He also reiterated calls for dialogue, but with no signs of reconciliation between the verbally warring parties, the acrimony seems set to continue. —AFP

Syrian rebels kill 14 soldiers BEIRUT: Syrian rebels ﬁghting to oust President Bashar Al-Assad killed six soldiers in the southern province of Deraa yesterday and at least eight others in clashes on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group reported. “ There were heavy clashes between Syrian forces and ﬁghters from the opposition in (Deraa)... resulting in the death of at least 6 Syrian troops,” the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement. “At dawn, there were violent clashes in Al-Ghouta (near Damascus), killing at least eight Syrian troops,” it added. The Observatory said that two civilians were

also killed yesterday, one during army raids in Damascus and one by gunfire in the central city of Homs, where activists say the army has been waging a shelling offensive on opposition districts. The 15month uprising shows signs of nascent civil war, with rebels saying they need to fight to protect civilians from being massacred at the hand of Assad’s forces and loyalist gunmen. On May 25 United Nations ceasefire observers documented the killing of more than 100 men, women and children in the western Houla region, and the world body said that the army and pro-Assad gunmen were probably responsible for the massacre. — Reuters

TUNIS: Some 100 people defied a government ban yesterday to rally in the centre of the Tunisian capital against Salafist extremism, accusing the authorities of double standards. Security forces surrounded the demonstrators in Tunis as they shouted slogans calling for the government to resign. Activists using the Internet had called the protest on the city’s main thoroughfare, avenue Habib Bourguiba. But the interior ministry, in a statement on its Facebook page, said the protest would be illegal because no one had asked for authorisation. The ministry “reserved the right to react,” the statement added. But Fatma Ghorbal Lassoued, a leader of the Women and Dignity association behind the call, said the request for authorisation had been made according to the regulations on Tuesday. “There are double standards. The supporters of the government and the Salafists can do as they please, but we have obstacles put in our way,” she told journalists shortly before the rally. Participants cited a Salafist gathering on May 20 at Kairouan in the west of the country and a pro-government demonstration outside the Tunis courthouse on Friday, which were allowed to take place. Yesterday’s demonstration was called in response to violence last weekend in the northeast of the country, when radical Salafist groups attacked several police stations. The ultra-conservative Salafists, some armed with clubs and swords, also burned down the shops of alcohol vendors who refused to close. They have been intensifying their attacks over the last 11 days. On Thursday, responding to the attacks on the police stations, Interior Minister Ali Larayedh warned that police were authorised to use live rounds. “The state of emergency is still in force and we will take all necessary steps to restore security in the country,” he added. On April 9, a demonstration on the same avenue went ahead despite having been banned

TUNIS: Demonstrators and police talk on Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis yesterday as demonstrators defy a government ban to rally in the centre of the Tunisian capital against Salafist extremism, accusing the authorities of double standards. —AFP but was violently broken up by the security Moderate Tunisians have also expressed deep forces, provoking widespread anger. At least 15 concern over the rising power of Salafists since civilians and eight police were hurt in the unrest. the revolution that toppled Ben Ali’s regime and Larayedh was summoned before parliament, and brought a moderate Islamist party to power. The President Moncef Marzouki denounced the Salafist movement comprises several branches. Some adherents focus strictly on religion, some “unacceptable violence”. With the fall of president Zine el Abidine Ben are politicians and some are jihadists who see Ali in January 2011, secular liberals and radical violence as a legitimate means to impose their Islamists have been in constant conflict over faith. Researchers put the Salafists’ numbers at whose values should prevail in the country. around 10,000. — AFP

Violent Arab ghetto shows Israel’s seamy underside Widespread poverty, police inaction take toll LOD: “My friend is on the floor, dying, 11 holes in his body, and I only have 10 fingers,” raps Tamer Nafar. “Don’t close your eyes, blink if you can hear me.” Nafar isn’t rapping about violence and crime in urban America, but murders, drugs, guns and gang warfare in his own Israeli slum. The backstreets of Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city just 20 minutes from the tree-lined boulevards of Tel Aviv, reveal a seamy underside of Israel that few visitors get to see, tucked away behind Ben Gurion airport off the main highway to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. “There’s crime pollution in this city that hits everybody. Nobody has immunity,” said Nafar, lead MC in the Arab group DAM. Residents, police, government officials, academics and social workers agree conditions in the areas where Arabs live have reached a crisis point, with poor schools and infrastructure fuelling crime and drug abuse. Arab residents and analysts say that Israel’s government and the police have ignored the problem because it has stayed within the Arab community and the country’s Jewish population is largely unaffected. But awareness is growing, partly thanks to wider public appeals from the communities themselves. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a special Knesset meeting in mid-February organized by Arab parliamentarian Ahmed Tibi that statistics showing that 40 percent of Arab Israelis felt threatened were “intolerable”. “The lives of Israeli Arabs are insufferable as a result of crime, murder, the killing of women, murder in general, robbery and looting,” Netanyahu said. POVERTY Out of a total population of 7.8 million in Israel, 1.6 million - 20 percent - are Arabs. Many live in Nazareth and Arab villages located mostly in the north of Israel and in socalled mixed cities such Acre, Lod, Ramle, Haifa and Jaffa. Most are descendants of Palestinians who stayed on after the 1948 war to establish Israel in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out. Many Arabs feel kinship with Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Jewish rightwingers say many Arabs are disloyal to the state. Most Arabs are exempt from service in Israel’s conscript military forces, which is compulsory for Jews, and they are barely integrated into the local economy. The government estimates that just over 50 percent of Arab families live under the poverty line. Truly mixed Jewish-Arab neigh-

borhoods are increasingly hard to find as Jews, often with government support, move out to more affluent neighborhoods, creating Arab ghettoes and exacerbating the feeling among Arabs that they are second-class citizens. Dor Shaulov, a project manager at City Without Violence, a government-funded initiative aimed at reducing violence in urban areas, said Arabs tend to be in favour of mixed communities while Jews preferred to stay separate. “When Arabs start to move in a Jewish neighborhood, the Jews start to move out,” Shaulov said. Residents in the Arab areas complain of inferior municipal services, higher unemployment rates, crowded neighborhoods, inferior health care and unfair allocation of resources in the education system and housing. “Since 1948, there has not been one governmental housing plan in the Arab neighborhoods of Lod ... even though there have been hundreds of plans for Jews,” said Faten Zinati, a municipal government employee who works in Lod. As a result, she explains, Arabs have been forced to build homes without permits, many of which have been demolished, and the rest are under threat of demolition. The result is that today, “the Arab neighborhoods are neglected, dirty and disordered,” she said. WHERE ARE THE POLICE? Out of 141 murders last year in Israel, 62 were committed in the Arab sector, according to the latest figures cited by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich in the Knesset. Thirty percent of the prison population is Arab, and 68 percent of all gunfire incidents involve Arabs, he said. In Lod, where about a third of the population is Arab, most crime involves Arabs against Arabs. Residents and observers say lack of adequate policing in Arab areas is a big part of the problem. “The majority of the drug dealers are Arabs stationed in the Arab parts of the city, and the violent crime victims are mostly Arab too,” said Mahmoud Mohareb, a professor of Israeli studies at Al Quds University. “There is no police seriousness when it comes to investigating crimes committed between Arabs,” Mohareb said. Police defend their record and point to success in cleaning up the drugs scene. They reckon up to 1,500 drug users a day bought narcotics in Lod’s Arab “Mahata” neighborhood two years ago using “ATM’s”holes in the walls that supplied heroin and crack cocaine-a trade that is almost nonexistent today. “It was like a market place, but for

drugs and drug users,” said resident Amer Zawarkeh. Violence continues, the police agree, but they say the problem is due to “tribalism” in the communities. A third of Lod’s Arab population are tribal Bedouins, who began migrating to the city in the 1950s in search of work. Israel’s Police Commissioner, Yohanan Danino, agreed the rate of crime solving in the Arab community is low and needed to be improved. More Arabic-speaking officers is one solution, but he said getting the full cooperation of the Arab community would be key. HOUSING PERMITS Crammed into decrepit tenement-style flats, many homes in the Arab parts remain under threat of demolition. A study by the Israeli rights group Shatil estimates that some 70 percent of Arab homes in Lod lack legal permits, which are hard to obtain. In their neighborhoods, the streets have no names, the houses have no numbers and GPS tracking systems go blank. There are no paved roads and rubbish is strewn everywhere. Municipal services such as street lighting and rubbish collection stop at the boundaries of their quarters. “The only way to fix this neighborhood is to destroy it entirely and let us build new houses, with permits,” said resident Zawarkeh. In March 2011, Human Rights Watch put out a report called “Israel: Stop Discriminatory Home Demolitions” in which the group criticized the practice of demolishing homes in Arab communities built without permits when getting permits was so hard. “When it comes to housing rights in Lod, Israeli officials seem to have one rule for Palestinian citizens, another for Jewish citizens,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.Israel’s government has earmarked about 172 million shekels ($46 million) for a number of improvement schemes. But Netanyahu and his cabinet argue local policing, housing and infrastructure are just part of the overall problem. The Knesset meeting on the problem was a landmark event, participants said. “This is the first time that the Arab sector has cried out for help and wants the police to enter the towns and cities,” Netanyahu said at the meeting. “Arab MKs (members of Knesset) have told me: ‘we are in distress’.” “The principal solution is the integration of Israeli Arabs in the economy and education,” he said. “Simultaneously, action needs to be taken in the field of law enforcement.” — Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

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

1,200 firefighters battle record New Mexico blaze ALBUQUERQUE: More than 1,200 firefighters are battling the nation’s largest wildfire that has charred acre after acre of timber and brush in rugged mountains and canyons of southwestern New Mexico, shrouding parts of the region in smoke. The blaze maintained its rapid growth Friday through what New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez termed “impossible” terrain, as forecasters predicted thunderstorms and dry lightning that could spark even more fires. Fire authorities said the blaze in the Gila National Forest - the largest on

record in New Mexico as well as the country’s biggest current blaze - had burned through 340 square miles, or 218,000 acres, of terrain. Firefighters conducted more burnout operations in an effort to corral the erratic blaze that has injured six people, the fire’s incident management team said. None of the injuries was serious. The fire was about 15 percent contained. Fire information officer Gerry Perry said most of the resources were being focused on the northern and western ends of the fire. “The wind situation looks a whole lot better, but

we’re still expecting that we’re going to be busy,” he said. The extended forecast called for more hot, dry weather. So far, the fire has destroyed a dozen cabins and eight outbuildings. Perry said the fire is close to the community of Mogollon, but the threat is not imminent since firefighters have been working to protect the structures there by clearing debris and applying special fire-resistant wraps. It’s too early for the ecologists, soil scientists and hydrologists to get on the ground to start assessing the damage, but members of the incident man-

agement team have estimated that a majority of the fire has left behind moderate and minimal fire scars. Officials closed the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument on Thursday due to smoke generated from the fire. The National Park Service said the closure will remain in effect until conditions improve. The wildfire near the Arizona border is fueling experts’ predictions that this is a preview of things to come across the West as several states contend with a dangerous mix of wind, low humidity and tinder-dry fuels. Martinez viewed the fire from a

National Guard helicopter Thursday and saw the thick smoke shrouding some of the steep canyons that are inaccessible to firefighters. She said that there was no way they could directly attack the flames in the rugged areas of wilderness. Looking at a blanket of smoke stretching for miles, Martinez used words like “daunting” and “enormous,” fitting since fire managers said the blaze could smolder until the region gets significant rainfall. “It’s going to keep going up,” she said of the acreage burned. “Be prepared for that.”—AP

Scandal grows around Argentine vice president Boudou accused of steering $55m contract

CHICAGO: President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks at a campaign event at Chicago Cultural Center, Friday in Chicago. —AP

What’s this? Obama longs for GOP rival like McCain WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama seems to think that the world of politics would be better if someone like John McCain were running for the White House. The Democratic incumbent and his re-election advisers are waxing nostalgic about the Republican senator from Arizona who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential race. They’re embracing McCain as a reasonable voice on climate change and immigration, someone who took on extremism in his own party. It’s all a way of drawing a contrast with Obama’s current GOP rival, Mitt Romney, and trying to convince crucial independent voters that the former Massachusetts governor is outside the mainstream. But Obama’s flattering memories of McCain conflict with their campaign clashes of 2008. Back then, Obama hammered his rival as “out of touch” with many of the problems facing people in the United States. Today’s platitudes also conceal the reality of Obama’s current dynamic with McCain. The senator is one of the president’s staunchest critics on everything from health care to foreign policy, and he’s a vocal Romney supporter. To hear Obama tell it now, the McCain who ran against him in 2008 was an example of a principled Republican who knew how to reach across the aisle. The implication from Obama is that those qualities simply don’t apply to Romney. “John McCain believed in climate change,” Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in Minneapolis Friday. “John believed in campaign finance reform. He believed in immigration reform. I mean, there were some areas where you saw some overlap. In this election, the Republican Party has moved in a fundamentally different direction.” Obama’s take on McCain has become a standard part of his fundraising appeal to donors. As the general election heats up, the Obama campaign is relishing more opportunities to try to turn its former foe into an asset. When Romney didn’t condemn his supporter Donald Trump for raising more ques-

tions this week about the president’s citizenship, the Obama campaign dug up old video clips of McCain correcting supporters in the 2008 who said they were scared of Obama and one clip of a supporter who thought he was an “Arab.” “As the Republican nominee, John McCain stood up to the voices of extremism in his party,” an Obama Internet video says. It then asks why Romney won’t do the same. The 90-second video ends with words on the screen that read: “McCain and Romney: Two Republican nominees, only one willing to lead.” Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain, said Friday that if McCain and Obama “share so many priorities and are in such agreement, why didn’t the president or his staff ever reach out to Sen. McCain to work on them?” Not surprisingly, veterans of the 2008 campaign are split down party lines over whether the 2012 Obama campaign’s strategic embrace of its former rival makes sense. “They’re not announcing that they’re embracing all of (McCain’s) positions on issues,” said Jennifer Psaki, a former Obama White House official who also worked on the president’s 2008 campaign. “But they are highlighting the standards that John McCain held himself to that Mitt Romney has not.” Steve Schmidt, a senior strategist to McCain’s 2008 campaign, said voters will see through the Obama team’s attempts to use the former GOP nominee to paint the party ’s current standard-bearer as an extremist. “It’s very difficult to make the case that Mitt Romney is a right-wing nut, particularly because a lot of real right-wing nuts have spent a lot of time saying Romney’s not one of them,” Schmidt said. Like Romney, McCain faced criticism from Democrats in 2008 who said the independent-minded senator had kowtowed to the conservative wing of the party in order to claim the GOP nomination. The nearly four years since Obama and McCain’s electoral face-off have been filled with interactions that the president probably won’t be bringing up at campaign fundraisers or using in a campaign video. — AP

BUENOS AIRES: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez’s second-in-command is known as a fun-loving, guitar-playing renegade who wore a leather jacket to their Election Day victory bash. Amado Boudou still leads a new generation of politicians preparing to run the country, but scandal now dims his youthful glow. The 48-year-old vice president is accused of steering a $55 million contract for printing the nation’s money to secret partners through a shadowy shell company used to fund pleasure trips for his friends and family. Boudou claims the media and judiciary invented the scandal, saying “there’s a devious plan to try to find a connection to people that I don’t have.” But opponents say attempts have been made to cover it up, revealing a culture of impunity. The affair is feeding anxieties about a government that seems to be running out of room to stabilize the economy and keep businesses from bailing out of the country. Prosecutors said they found sufficient evidence to pursue illegal enrichment, money-laundering and influence-peddling charges against Boudou, his girlfriend, his best friend and a mysterious lawyer who allegedly worked for years as his proxy in secretive business deals. An investigative judge is considering criminal charges that could lead to a lifetime ban from public office. Argentine justice usually moves slowly, however, and Boudou’s complaints succeeded in ousting a trio of respected court officials who were building the case against him. Impeachment isn’t likely either, since Fernandez has firm control of Congress. The seeming impotence of courts and the Congress has left it to the media to expose wrongdoing - and hardly a day has gone by this year without another suggestion of close ties between Boudou and The Old Fund, a holding company with secret ownership that the vice president claims to have

the facts. ... As the case stands now, his credibility is absolutely critical to the case.” Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder for the February shooting. The neighborhood watch volunteer says he shot Martin in self-defense because the unarmed 17year-old was beating him up after confronting Zimmerman about following him in a gated community outside Orlando. Witness accounts of the rainy night Martin was shot are spotty. There is no video of the fight, though photos prosecutors have released showed Zimmerman with wounds to his face and the back of his head. Zimmerman’s credibility would be important if O’Mara tries to get a judge without the jury to dismiss the charges based on the stand-your-ground law, said Orlando defense attorney David Hill. “If he was in on something that was not truthfully revealed to the judge, when there is a ‘stand your ground’ hearing, of course you’re going to second-guess him,” Hill said. Both McClean and Hill said O’Mara would be able to challenge the admissibility of the bond revocation at trial by questioning its rel-

documents and congressional declarations, the influence-peddling would have happened six months earlier, when Boudou used his power as economy minister to help The Old Fund take a struggling printer, Ciccone Calcografica, out of bankruptcy. The maneuver pre-empted takeover efforts by another printing company, Boldt, which has ties to provincial casinos and Boudou’s would-be rival for the presidency, Buenos Aires province Gov. Daniel Scioli. The Old Fund put up $579,000 in unexplained cash to win control of Ciccone, and Boudou

BUENOS AIRES: In this April 25, 2012 photo, Argentina’s Vice President and Senate President Amado Boudou attends the debate of an oil nationalization bill, proposed by Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, at Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. —AP The leaders of Argentina’s tax agency, central bank and mint also endorsed some of the key decisions that landed him in court. Now lawmakers are calling it a Nixonian cover-up, raising what-did-sheknow-and-when-did she-know-it questions about the president’s June 2011 choice of Boudou as her running mate. According to court

and tax agency chief Ricardo Etchegaray gave the company 12 years to cancel its $51 million in tax debts. “As economy minister, I didn’t take any action to favor Ciccone,” Boudou insisted. “All I did was answer a letter from (the tax agency) to take care of the company. That’s what we do in this government, take care of Argentine

businesses.” Renamed Compania de Valores Sudamericana, the printer quickly made millions generating Fernandez-Boudou campaign materials, and the presidents of the mint and central bank pushed ahead with plans to have the company print 500 million 100-peso notes. The bank note, now worth $22 at official exchange rates and $17 on the black market, is Argentina’s largest denomination and is sorely needed in the inflationary economy. Corporate secrecy laws make it difficult to determine who owns what in Argentina, but the newspapers Clarin, La Nacion and Perfil followed The Old Fund money to a complex web of other shell companies, overseas holdings and “prestanombres” people who “lend their names” for a small fee to create fraudulent incorporation papers. Opposition lawmakers said The Old Fund funneled unexplained cash to support political projects and pleasure trips for Boudou’s inner circle. “The vice president of the nation alleges that he doesn’t know and possesses no kind of relationship with the members of these companies, and yet there exists a substantial number of facts that together create a complex plot of connections between them,” Radical Party Sen. Gerardo Morales observed. A woman scorned provided the first big break: Laura Munoz alleged in February that her estranged husband, attorney Alejandro Vandenbroele, The Old Fund’s director and only publicly known figure, was Boudou’s secret front man. Munoz claimed his associates were threatening her life, and said she gave investigators a trove of evidence. The vice president denied it in a fiery Senate speech, saying they ’d never even met. Vandenbroele went so far as to take out a newspaper ad saying “it’s absolutely false that I’m a proxy for the vice president.”—AP

Woman follows Chavez on Twitter, gets home CARACAS: A young woman in Venezuela has been rewarded with a new home by President Hugo Chavez for becoming his 3 millionth follower on Twitter. Natalia Valdivieso posted celebratory messages on her Twitter account as she received her home Thursday, one of them reading: “Thank you my home is very beautiful!” She said there were about 200 families receiving public housing in her area on Margarita Island. Chavez congratulated Valdivieso in a message on Monday when he said she had become his 3 millionth follower. His regional

Zimmerman credibility may be issue in Martin case FLORIDA: The credibility of the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager could be an issue at trial after a judge said that George Zimmerman and his wife lied to the court about their finances to obtain a lower bond, legal experts say. That’s because the case hinges on jurors believing his account of what happened the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed. Zimmerman wasn’t charged in the case until more than a month after the shooting, saying he shot Martin in self-defense under Florida’s so-called stand your ground law. Protests were held across the US , and the case spurred debate about race. Martin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is from Peru. The questioning of Zimmerman’s truthfulness by the judge on Friday could undermine his credibility if it is brought up at trial. It also may complicate how his defense presents him as a witness, said Orlando-area attorney Randy McClean, who is a former prosecutor. “The other key witness, unfortunately, is deceased,” McClean said. “Basically, Zimmerman is going to be asking the jury to believe his version of

no relationship with. Some Latin American governments have made high-profile moves against corruption. Chile takes bids on contracts worth $150 or more through a transparent online procurement system. Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has forced out seven of her ministers because of corruption allegations, rarely waiting for an official inquiry. Fernandez hasn’t commented, but neither has she dropped Boudou, who had seemed an obvious choice to succeed her in 2015. The trouble is, he didn’t act alone:

evance. Zimmerman was arrested 44 days after the killing, and during a bond hearing in April, his wife, Shellie, testified that the couple had limited funds available. The hearing also was notable because Zimmerman took the stand and apologized to Martin’s parents. Prosecutors pointed out in their motion that Zimmerman had $135,000 available then. It had been raised from donations through a website he set up, and they suggested more has been collected since and deposited in a bank account. Shellie Zimmerman was asked about the website at the hearing, but she said she didn’t know how much money had been raised. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester set bail at $150,000. The 28-yearold was freed a few days later after posting $15,000 in cash - which is typical - and has since been in hiding. Prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda complained Friday, “This court was led to believe they didn’t have a single penny. It was misleading and I don’t know what words to use other than it was a blatant lie.” The judge agreed and ordered Zimmerman returned to jail by Sunday afternoon.—AP

campaign manager, Carlos Mata Figueroa, announced later that she would receive the home. Government officials said Valdivieso is 19 years old. Chavez’s government has been building new public housing complexes ahead of the country’s Oct. 7 presidential election. In other messages Thursday, Valdivieso called Chavez “the best president” and gushed: “I woke up knowing that is the happiest day of my life!” The giveaway also sparked criticism from some, and jokes by others. Government critic Gustavo Coronel wrote on his blog that it was “intolerable” for Chavez to have

rewarded someone in such a way simply for being a supporter. He noted the home was built with government money, not Chavez’s money, and asked how the president dared to dole it out on the basis of political support. “It’s about shamelessly giving charity to those who follow him,” Coronel wrote. The satirical website El Chiguire Bipolar poked fun at the handout with a mock news article saying that Chavez’s 2,999,999 other Twitters followers were disappointed. “Millions of the president ’s followers complained at having received nothing,” it said.—AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

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

Berlusconi says idea Italy should dump euro was ‘joke’ ROME: Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi said yesterday he was only joking when he suggested that Italy should dump the euro unless the European Central Bank agreed to inject more cash into the economy. “We have to go to Europe and say forcefully that the ECB should start printing money. If it doesn’t, we should have the strength to say ‘ciao, ciao’ and leave the euro,” Berlusconi said on Friday in an entry on his Facebook page.

Less than 24 hours later, the former leader reversed his position, which clashed with that of Prime Minister Mario Monti and threatened to undermine the government almost a year ahead of the next national vote. “That a joke ... could be mistaken for a proposal is certainly a serious mistake for whoever claims to provide political news,” Berlusconi wrote yesterday on his Facebook page. He said the press had taken seriously what he had said “with a smile and

irony”. Berlusconi’s People of Liberty (PDL) party is one of the two main blocs supporting Monti’s government of technocrats, which was brought to power in November precisely to prevent Italy from defaulting on its debt and destroying the single currency. The Italian media underscored yesterday that it would be impossible for the PDL to continue supporting Monti if it openly campaigned against the euro. The 75-year-old Berlusconi, having given up leadership of the party amid

an ongoing trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, appears to be hankering for a comeback as next year’s elections approach. The PDL, blamed for failing to reform the economy, took a drubbing in local elections last month, when Italians embraced the Five-Star Movement, an anti-euro protest bloc led by comedian Beppe Grillo. Berlusconi has a long track record of saying provocative things and backtracking later. Less than a month after

the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September 2008, thenPrime Minister Berlusconi said world leaders were considering closing international markets to “rewrite the rules of international finance”. With an hour, he denied the comments, which had sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling more than 8 percent, saying no leader was thinking of shutting the markets and that it was a rumour he had “heard on the radio”. — Reuters

Kenyan troops integrated into AU Somalia mission Kenya defence minister signs agreement at AU headquarters

TROMSO: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Stoere (R), talk onboard the Arctic Research Vessel Helmer Hanssen during a boat tour of a fjord off of Troms, Norway, in the Arctic Circle yesterday. —AFP

Clinton talks cooperation in resource-rich Arctic TROMSO: US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trekking north of the Arctic Circle, a region that could become a new international battleground for resources. Clinton’s trip yesterday to the northern Norwegian city of Tromso is her second to the area in a year. She is bringing a message of cooperation to one of the world’s last frontiers of unexplored oil, gas and mineral deposits and underscoring the region’s rising significance as melting icecaps accelerate the opening of new shipping routes, fishing stocks and drilling opportunities. To safely exploit the riches, the US and other countries near the North Pole are trying to work together to combat harmful climate change, settle territorial disputes and prevent oil spills. “From a strategic standpoint, the Arctic has an increasing geopolitical importance as countries vie to protect their rights and extend their influence,” Clinton said Friday in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. Governments should “agree on what would be, in effect, the rules of the road in the Arctic, so new developments are economically sustainable and environmentally responsible toward future generations.” At the least, the US and the other Arctic nations hope to avoid a confrontational race for resources. Officials say the picture looks more promising than five years ago when Russia staked its claim to supremacy in the Arctic and its $9 trillion in estimated oil reserves by planting a titanium flag on the ocean floor. The United States does not recognize the Russian assertion and has its own claims, along with Denmark, Norway and Canada, while companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Royal Dutch Shell PLC want to get in on the action. China also is keeping a close eye on the region. Moscow has eased tensions somewhat by promising to press any claims through an agreed United Nations process. But Washington, for its part, has yet to ratify the global body’s 1982 Law of the Sea

treaty regulating the ocean’s use for military, transportation and mineral extraction purposes. One hundred sixty countries have acceded to the pact and the Obama administration is making a new push for Senate approval. Refusing to sign on means the US could be frozen out of its share of the spoils. Arguing for its ratification at a Senate hearing last week, Clinton said the treaty would offer the US oil and gas rights some 600 miles into the Arctic. “American companies are equipped and ready to engage in deep seabed mining,” she said. “But the United States can only take advantage of the ... mine sites in areas beyond national jurisdiction as a party to this treaty.” The Arctic’s warming is occurring at least twice as fast as anywhere else on earth, threatening to raise sea levels by up to 5 feet this century and possibly causing a 25 percent jump in mercury emissions over the next decade. The changes could threaten polar bears, whales, seals and indigenous communities hunting those animals for food, not to mention islands and lowlying areas much farther afield, from Florida to Bangladesh. But the rapidly changing climate is also changing the realm of what is possible from transportation to tourism, with the summer ice melting away by more than 17,000 square miles each year. During the most temperate days last year, only a fifth of the Arctic Circle was ice-covered. Little of the ice has been frozen longer than two years, which is harder for icebreakers to cut through. Europeans see new shipping routes to China that, at least in the warmth and sunlight of summer, are 40 percent faster than traveling through the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. A northwest passage between Greenland and Canada could significantly speed cargo traveling between the Dutch shipping hub of Rotterdam and ports in California. — AP

EU could restore border checks in visa-free area BRUSSELS: European countries in the visa-free Schengen area may be allowed to restore border controls for up to a year under “exceptional circumstances” in proposals to be put to ministers this week. A draft working document to be discussed by interior ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday followed demands from France and Germany which specifically mentioned illegal immigration problems as one reason to reintroduce checks. But the document seen by AFP does not spell this out, and the EU’s home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has said Schengen was not designed to control migration. She also noted that since a joint letter from France and Germany was put to ministers in April, the French government has changed following the election of socialist President Francois Hollande in place of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. “For us, this letter no longer exists,” Malmstroem told AFP. “I’ve not yet discussed it with the new French government but I’m sure France will have a constructive approach at the next interior ministers’ meeting.” The draft rules if adopted would allow a state within the Schengen area to reimpose border controls for six months, renewable for anoth-

er six when “exceptional circumstances” require it. But a negotiator said ministers would have to reach common agreement, while the role of the European Commission in deciding if the circumstances were met still had to be worked out. Sarkozy, chasing the far-right vote, in April threatened to pull out of the 26-nation Schengen zone within a year failing improved action to keep out illegal immigrants. But the tough talk from Paris irked some of France’s partners, with Belgian Interior Minister Joelle Milquet charging that “electoral concerns are playing a bigger role than the issues.” Europe has been working on ways to maintain the Schengen treaty while addressing growing Europe-wide concerns on illegal migration since last year’s Arab Spring revolts threw thousands across the Mediterranean into Italy and Greece. As a result, France temporarily closed its border with Italy. Currently, the Schengen treaty allows renewal of border controls in the case of a terror or security threat for sports or other events. The European Commission has previously proposed states be enabled to close borders for five days in case of migratory pressure, but must ask permission from Brussels for longer periods. —AFP

ADDIS ABABA: Kenyan troops were officially integrated into the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), with Kenya’s defence minister signing an agreement at AU headquarters yesterday. “We conclude the process of establishing a formal, legal framework for the integration of the Kenyan defence forces into AMISOM,” Minister of Defence Yusuf Haji said at the signing in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Kenyan tanks and troops rolled into Somalia in October following a series of kidnappings and attacks on Kenyan soil believed to have been carried out by Shebab insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda. In December, the AU said it backed the integration of Kenyan troops into its peacekeeping mission. AU peace and security commissioner Ramtane Lamamra welcomed the official integration and said it marked progress towards defeating Shebab militants in Somalia. “We are really opening a new chapter-a chapter that will take us closer to... the completion of the mission in Somalia,” he said. It was not clear how many Kenyan soldiers would be coming under the AMISOM umbrella but some sources gave a figure of 4,000-5,000 men, boosting the force now made up of some 11,000 Burundians and Ugandans by almost half. The re-hatting of Kenyan troops comes three days after they took the Shebab- controlled town of Afmadow, a long-term target ever since they entered Somalia. Haji said they were inching closer to capturing the strategic port city of Kismayo, but he did not specify a timeline. “We are not very far from Kismayo, but we can’t say when we are taking over,” he said, adding that although the rebels still posed a threat, they had lost strength. “They have been diminished and also their command structure has been destroyed on the ground, but you can never rule out a few remnants of al-Shebab here and there. But we are very hopeful that at the end of the day AMISOM will end the

war in Somalia,” he said. Lamamra added that AMISOM still faces a number of logistical challenges and urged the United Nations to maintain support for the mission. “Now that AMISOM is expanding, now that we are covering the entire territory, we do have more challenges. In particular, what relates to

ADDIS ABABA: African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra (L) and Kenya’s Defence Minister, Yusuf Haji (R) append signatures to memoranda during a ceremony at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis-Ababa yesterday to officially integrate over 5,000 Kenyan troops into the AU mission in Somalia when Kenya and the AU signed a memorandum of Understanding yesterday. —AFP logistics, we need our friends in the UN to be able to supply all what is needed,” he said. Somalia has been embroiled in civil war since 1991, when former president

Russia marks 50 years since Soviet protest massacre MOSCOW: Russia yesterday quietly marked half a century since Soviet forces brutally suppressed a rare protest led by striking factory workers in one of the worst massacres of the USSR’s postwar era. Twenty-six people were killed on June 2, 1962 when Soviet troops fired on the mass protest against working conditions and rising prices in the southern city of Novocherkassk. In the brutal ensuing crackdown, seven protestors were condemned to death and shot and while over 100 received 1015 year terms in Soviet prison camps. With modern Russia still reluctant to face head-on the traumas of its Soviet past, commemorations of the 50th anniversary were modest in scale and not promoted by the Kremlin. Memorial services were taking place in Novocherkassk while in Moscow leaders of the liberal Yabloko party laid a wreath at the Solovetsky Stone that remembers the victims of repression opposite the exKGB Lubyanka headquarters. “Let us remember those who were shot dead and those who ended their lives in the camps just because they dared ask for justice,” said the deputy head of the Yabloko faction in Moscow, Galina Mikhaleva. “Unless we understand the situation where people found themselves in a totalitarian state we will never be able to build a democratic society

Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted. It has been variously governed by ruthless warlords and militia groups and a fragile transitional government which holds official power in the Horn of Africa country. After a two-day conference on Somalia held in Istanbul, UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon called Friday

where the authorities are under the control of the people,” she added in a Yabloko statement. State television also broadcast a low-profile scattering of factually-worded news reports about what is now known in Russia as the “Novocherkassk Tragedy”. “I heard a crackling noise. A sharp crackle. And I looked down and there was blood, a puddle of blood,” pensioner Nadezhda Dmitriyeva, who was caught up in the events as she walked in the city centre, told state television. The strike broke out on June 1, 1962 at the electric train factory in Novocherkassk whose workers protested against a new order to increase output by 30 percent at a time when their salaries were falling and prices rising. When asked by the workers how they were going to live, the head of the factory is said to have fueled their anger by replying: “If you don’t have enough money for meat then just eat liver pies!” The next day, joined by other segments of the population as well as women and children, they marched to the local Communist Party headquarters and occupied the central square in Novocherkassk. According to documents that were only made public after the fall of the Soviet Union, top leader Nikita Khrushchev gave precise instructions: “No pity for the enemy.” — AFP

MOSCOW: A man pays tribute in front of a monument to the victims of political repressions in central Moscow yesterday. Russia quietly marked half a century since Soviet forces brutally suppressed a rare protest led by striking factory workers in one of the worst massacres of the USSR’s postwar era. —AFP

for urgent international aid to head off the risk of warlords exploiting a power vacuum after a scheduled change of government in August. —AFP

News

in brief

Engineer abducted in Nigeria freed ROME: Italy’s foreign ministry says an Italian engineer abducted in Nigeria has been freed. The ministry says in a statement yesterday that Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi thanked Nigerian authorities for their help in securing the release of Modesto Di Girolamo. Di Girolamo was abducted on May 28 in northern Nigeria. He was working on a road construction project. The ministry statement didn’t say when Di Girolamo was freed or give other details. Pope leads youth in stadium pep rally MILAN: Pope Benedict XVI is leading thousands of young people in a packed Milan soccer stadium in a pep rally to shore up flagging Catholic faith. Benedict yesterday told the young faithful to keep their ideals high. He also is urging them to attend today Mass regularly and to pray daily. The pope is on the second day of a three-day visit to Milan as part of Church activities aimed at showing support for families. Regional leaders want reforms before Zimbabwe poll HARARE: Regional leaders mediating elections in Zimbabwe say they want to see democratic and constitutional reforms in place before fresh elections can be held next year. A communique circulated in Harare yesterday after a summit of the Southern African Development Community in the Angolan capital of Luanda on Friday said the regional bloc called on the coalition to complete work on a new constitution and put it to a referendum, adhering to the terms of Zimbabwe’s power sharing deal brokered by the region in 2009. The group said that chief mediator President Jacob Zuma of South Africa will help set a time frame for elections. President Robert Mugabe has called for elections this year to end a troubled coalition government. African leader sacks nephew as finance minister BANGUI: Central African Republic President Francois Bozize has sacked his nephew and righthand man Sylvain Ndoutingai as finance minister, according to a decree read out over state radio yesterday. “ The present decree abrogates” Ndoutingai’s appointment following elections last year, it said, giving no reason for the firing of a minister considered so powerful that he went by the nickname of “Demigod.” Ndoutingai held the key mining portfolio for years before his appointment as finance ministry last year in a reshuffle following the elections. — Agencie

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

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

Pakistan court acquits 4 of helping NYC bomber ISLAMABAD: A lawyer representing four Pakistani men accused of involvement in the 2010 Times Square bomb plot says they have been acquitted. Malik Imran Safdar said yesterday that the prosecution failed to prove its case against his clients Muhammad Shoaib Mughal, Muhammad Shahid Husain, Humbal Akhtar and Faisal Abbasi. The men were arrested in Pakistan following the New York City incident. Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty in a US court to trying to blow up a bomb in his SUV. It pro-

duced smoke but no explosion. Two other men arrested Pakistan in the wake of the incident were previously released. The lawyer for the four said they were acquitted yesterday in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, near the capital of Islamabad. An American drone fired two missiles at a motorbike in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing two suspected militants, officials said, as the US pushed on with its drone campaign despite repeated Pakistani protests. This was the fifth such strike in the country in less than two weeks.

India monsoon misses arrival date NEW DELHI: India’s monsoon, crucial to farmers and growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, has missed its normal arrival date but forecasters said they were confident the rains would arrive soon. “Most likely, the southwest monsoon will reach Kerala by June 5,” India Meteorological Department director general L.S. Rathore told the Press Trust of India late on Friday. Normally the rains begin sweeping across the subcontinent from June 1 to late September and in recent years they have started early. Rathore said “there is no concern” about the delay in the arrival of the monsoon rains that he attributed to unfavorable weather off India’s shores in the Arabian Sea. The weather office in April forecast that the rains would be normal for a third straight year. Indian agriculture gets 60 percent of its precipitation from the rains and a bad monsoon can spell financial disaster for its 235 million farmers, many of whom are smallholders eking out a living. While agriculture’s share of India’s nearly $2-trillion economy has shrunk to around 14 percent from 30 percent in the early 1990s, the rains are still vital to its fortunes. Rural spending accounts for more than 50 percent of domestic consumption and a failed monsoon hits demand for everything from fridges to cars. The country suffered a devastating drought in 2009. The government is banking on a good monsoon to rein in surging food prices that have hit hardest India’s hundreds of millions of poor, the ruling Congress party’s biggest supporters. It also needs a good agricultural performance to spur growth after the economy grew by 6.5 percent last year, its slowest pace in nine years.—AFP

US missiles kill 2 in northwest Pakistan DERA ISMAIL KHAN: An American drone fired two missiles at a motorbike in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing two suspected militants, officials said, as the US pushed on with its drone campaign despite repeated Pakistani protests. This was the fifth such strike in the country in less than two weeks. Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the missiles hit in Dogh village near Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal region. The officials said the two militants were targeted after they came out of their suspected hideout in Dogh, about six kilometers (four miles) south of the main town of Wana. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas, where Afghan and other militants have found refuge, are considered a key tactic by US officials in the war against Al-Qaeda and its Taleban supporters. But most of the Pakistani public resents the strikes, which are considered an affront to the nation’s sovereignty. The covert CIA-run program is a cause of tension between the US and Pakistan. Despite Pakistan’s demands for a halt in the drone attacks, the US has fired scores of missiles into northwest Pakistan since 2008, targeting AlQaeda and Taleban operatives there. Privately, many Pakistani military officers are believed to have supported the drone program. The US rarely talks publicly about the drone program in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed senior Taleban and Al-Qaeda commanders. The continuing strikes, however, have complicated negotiations between Islamabad and Washington about reopening supply routes for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the routes six months ago in retaliation for US airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border.—AP

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the missiles hit in Dogh village near Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal region. The officials said the two militants were targeted after they came out of their suspected hideout in Dogh, about six kilometers (four miles) south of the main town of Wana. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas, where Afghan and other militants have found refuge, are considered a key tactic by

supported the drone program. The US rarely talks publicly about the drone program in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed senior Taleban and Al-Qaeda commanders. The continuing strikes, however, have complicated negotiations between Islamabad and Washington about reopening supply routes for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the routes six months ago in retaliation for US airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border.—AP

NATO raid rescues 4 aid workers in Afghanistan Cameron hails ‘breathtaking’ operation KABUL: NATO forces swooped in by helicopter before dawn yesterday to rescue two female foreign aid workers and their two Afghan colleagues who were held by militants for nearly two weeks in a cave in northern Afghanistan. British Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the “breathtaking” operation, which he approved Friday afternoon after becoming increasingly concerned about the safety of the hostages, one of whom, 28-year-old Helen Johnston, was British. Johnston was kidnapped along with Moragwa Oirere, a 26-year-old Kenyan, and the two Afghans while visiting aid sites in Badakhshan province on May 22. The four work for Medair, a humanitarian non-governmental organization based near Lausanne, Switzerland. The rescue operation was carried out by British troops in cooperation with other NATO and Afghan forces, Cameron told reporters outside 10 Downing Street in London. He said it was “extraordinarily difficult” to decide to go ahead with the operation, which involved a “long route march” without being discovered. “It was an extraordinarily brave, breathtaking even, operation that our troops had to carry out,” said Cameron. “We will never be able to publish their names but the whole country should know we have an extraordinary group of people who work for us who do amazingly brave things.” All four hostages were rescued safely, no British troops were injured and a number of Taleban militants and kidnappers were killed, said Cameron. Past rescue attempts in Afghanistan have not always gone so well. In 2009, an Afghan translator kidnapped alongside a New York Times reporter was killed in a hail of bullets during a rescue attempt by British commandoes. In 2010, the US Navy’s SEAL Team 6 tried to rescue Linda Norgrove, a Scottish aid worker, from her Taleban captors in Afghanistan. She was killed by a grenade thrown in haste by one of the American commandoes. Afghan officials said seven militants were killed during yesterday’s operation, which was launched around 1 am Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a coalition spokesman, said a helicopter rescue team reached the scene before dawn and confirmed that the hostages were there. “The kidnappers were armed with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and AK47s,” Cummings said. “They were kidnapped by an armed terrorist group with ties to the Taleban .” The aid workers appeared to be in good health, but they will be evaluated before being reunited with their families, he said. Johnston’s family said they were delighted and relieved by the news that the aid worker and her colleagues have been freed. “We are deeply grateful to everyone involved in her rescue, to those who worked tirelessly on her behalf, and to family and friends for their love, prayers and support over the last twelve days,” the family said in a statement. Medair spokesman Aurilien Demaurex also expressed relief that the aid workers were rescued and said the company is “immensely grateful to all parties involved in ensuring their swift and safe return.” Shams ul-Rahman, the deputy governor of Badakhshan province, said the hostages were being held in Gulati, a village in Shahri Buzurg district. It is a mountainous and forested area near the Tajikistan border in extreme northern Afghanistan about 70 kilometers (44 miles) from the district center. “Mostly smugglers are based in those areas,

Indian preliminary hearing for two Italian marines THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two Italian marines accused of murdering two I ndian fishermen appeared in court yesterday for a preliminary hearing in a case that has caused a diplomatic row. Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who shot dead the fishermen off India’s southwestern coast on February 15, appeared in the lower court in Kollam in the southern state of Kerala. The two marines deny murder, saying they

US officials in the war against AlQaeda and its Taleban supporters. But most of the Pakistani public resents the strikes, which are considered an affront to the nation’s sovereignty. The covert CIA-run program is a cause of tension between t h e U S a n d Pa k i s t a n . D e s p i te Pakistan’s demands for a halt in the d ro n e a t t a c k s, t h e U S h a s f i re d scores of missiles into northwest Pakistan since 2008, targeting AlQ a e d a a n d Ta l e b a n o p e r a t i ve s there. Privately, many Pakistani military officers are believed to have

mistook the fishermen for pirates. The court fixed June 18 for the nex t hearing and direc ted the state government to provide a list of interpreters “for the benefit of the accused”, the semi- official Press Trust of India news agency reported. It also asked the prosecution to provide copies of the charges to the two marines as requested by their lawyers. The marines were employed to guard against pirate

KOLLAM: In this photograph taken on May 25, 2012, Italian marines Latore Massimiliano (2L) and Salvatore Girone (2R) are escorted by Indian police outside a court in Kollam. Two Italian marines accused of murdering two fishermen appeared in an Indian court for a preliminary hearing yesterday in a case that has caused a diplomatic row. —AFP

attacks on an Italian oil tanker. They have said the fishermen’s boat behaved suspiciously and ignored warning shots while approaching the Italian vessel. The pair were freed on bail by Kochi High Court last week on condition they each deposit personal bonds of 10 million rupees (140,000 euros, $178,000) and comply with other conditions, including surrender of their passports. Italy has called the case against the marines illegal and challenged it before India’s Supreme Court. It has also paid compensation of 144,000 euros ($190,000) to the fishermen’s families. The Kerala government has ruled out any outof-court settlement in the murder case. Rome says the marines should be prosecuted in their home country because the shootings occurred on an Italian-flagged vessel in international waters, but India says they took place in waters under its jurisdiction. Armed guards are increasingly deployed on cargo ships and tankers in the Indian Ocean to tackle threats from Somali pirates, who often hold ships and crews hostage for months demanding multi-million-dollar ransoms. After the marines were charged with murder in May, Italy recalled its ambassador to Rome for consultations on the matter.—AFP

but of course the smugglers have the support of the Taleban ,” Rahman said. He said Afghan elders in the area had worked to seek the release of the aid workers. “A group of elders was about to go to the village and start negotiations,” Rahman said. “Based on intelligence reports that Afghan forces received, a successful operation was conducted that resulted in the release of the hostages and the killing of the kidnappers.” Also yesterday, NATO and Afghan forces detained a militant commander who allegedly planned and coordinated an attack on a coalition base in eastern Khost province Friday. During the operation in the province’s Sabari district, the troops also detained several other insurgents and seized an AK-47 and multiple magazines of ammunition, the coalition said. Militants detonated a truck bomb outside Forward Operating Base Salerno on Friday, then tried to storm the site, but coalition forces repelled the attack, killing 14 militants. No foreign or Afghan troops were killed during the attack, said NATO. The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack, but the militant detained yesterday was a member of the Haqqani network, the coalition said. The Haqqani network, which is based in neighboring Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, is allied with the Taleban and alQaida but operates fairly independently. It is considered the most dangerous militant group in Afghanistan and has carried out a series of high-profile attacks in the capital, Kabul. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, four Afghan policemen were killed in two explosions Friday evening and Saturday morning in the south. Both attacks involved bombs hidden in motorcycles that exploded as police vehicles were passing by in Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, said Gulab Khan, the director of the criminal investigation department in the province. Each attack killed two policemen. Two other policemen were wounded in yesterday’s blast, he said.—AP

KANDAHAR: Taleban insurgents stand against a wall as they are presented to the media, after being captured by security forces, in Kandahar yesterday. Six Taleban fighters were captured with their weapons as they planned attacks in and around Kandahar, officials said. —AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

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

News

in brief

844 evacuated after land sinks in China BEIJING : More than 800 villagers have been evacuated after land sank in southern China’s Guangxi province, which is known for its karst topography. The official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday that the land subsidence occurred near a middle school in Nanning city’s Xixiangtang district after the school dug a well to ease a water shortage. Xinhua says the sink hole is 1.5 meters (5 feet) deep and 2.5 meters (8 feet) wide and has caused one building to collapse, six to tilt and another to crack. There were no reports of injuries, but 844 villagers were evacuated. Sinkholes and land cracks have been common in China in recent years, partly because of intense construction and mining activities coupled with insufficient geological regulation. Chinese police break up child trafficking ring BEIJING : Chinese authorities have broken up a child trafficking ring, arresting 76 suspects and rescuing more than 30 children. The official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday that railway police in southern China’s Kunming city started an investigation last year after discovering several abducted infants at the local rail station and on trains. The trafficking ring was operating in several provinces. Trafficking in children is a big problem in China, where a traditional preference for male heirs and a strict one-child policy has driven a thriving market in baby boys. Unwanted baby girls also are sold or abandoned by parents who want sons. China rescued more than 8,000 abducted children last year. S Korea building high-speed railway to Pyeongchang SEOUL: South Korea has begun building a promised high-speed railway to shorten travel time between its main airport and the venue of the 2018 Winter Olympics. The promise last year helped the eastern resort of Pyeongchang win the right to host the Olympics. South Korea expects the railway to help reduce travel time between Incheon International Airport in the west and Pyeongchang to one hour. The organizing committee for the Olympics said in a statement that construction will end in 2017 and cost $3.35 billion. The new railway links Wonju in the west of Gangwon Province and Gangneung in the east and includes a stop in Pyeongchang. The committee said President Lee Myung-bak attended a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday in Gangneung.

US, China relations key topic at defense meeting Panetta offers olive branch to communist giant SINGAPORE: Speaking near China’s backyard yesterday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rejected suggestions that America’s new focus on the Asia-Pacific will fuel conflict in the region or that the emerging strategy is meant as a threat to Beijing. Instead, he appeared to offer an olive branch to the communist giant, with a broad message that the two often-feuding world powers must learn to work better together for the benefit of the entire region. Delivering his most extensive thoughts to date on the fragile state of US -China relations, Panetta said neither side is naive about their disagreements. “We both understand the differences we have, we both understand the conflicts we have, but we also both understand that there really is no other alternative but for both of us to engage and to improve our communications and to improve our (military) relationship,” Panetta said at a security conference in Singapore. At the same time, however, Panetta warned Asian nations that they must find a way to resolve their own conflict because the US can’t always come charging in to help. Tensions between the US and China reverberate across the region, and are often focused on America’s support of the island of Taiwan, which China considers its own. Another key area of dispute is the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely as its own. But Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines also have territorial claims there. In addition, more recently the US has been vocal in blaming China for cyberattacks that emanate from the country and steal critical data from US government agencies and private American companies. On the cyber front, Panetta said US and Chinese leaders have talked about developing teams that can work together on difficult issues, including how they can exchange information on computer-

based threats and whether they can agree on standards for the use of cyber capabilities. The key, Panetta said, is for the US and China to develop the ability to communicate when disputes arise so that they can be resolved peacefully. Defense experts attending the conference peppered Panetta with questions about China, including one from a member of China’s People’s Liberation Army. But officials also noted that Beijing did not send any of its senior leaders to the conference. It was not clear why, although some officials suggested that China’s leaders were busy with internal issues. Questioners asked whether adding more US military to the region might embolden some smaller nations and risk triggering more conflicts. And they wondered aloud whether China’s leaders boycotted the conference in protest over America’s beefed up strategy for the region. “I don’t think we should take the attitude that just because we improve their capabilities that we’re asking for more trouble,” Panetta said. Panetta also issued a strong call for Asian nations to set up a code of conduct, including rules governing maritime rights and navigation in the South China Sea, and then develop a forum where disputes can be settled. “It isn’t enough for the United States to come charging in and try and resolve these issues,” Panetta said, adding that the Asian nations must develop ways to peacefully solve their own problems. Panetta’s speech here was designed to give a more detailed explanation about the new defense strategy, which puts more focus on the Asia-Pacific, including plans to increase the number of US military personnel, warships and other assets in the region over the next several years. Specifically, he said that by 2020, about 60 percent of the fleet will be assigned there as part of a new strategy

to increase US presence in Asia. Currently, the Navy has about 285 ships, with roughly half assigned to each coast, but that total may decline a bit as some ships are retired in the coming years and may not be replaced. The current fleet includes 11 aircraft carriers, with six assigned to the Pacific. The West Coast total is expected to go down to five, but Panetta yesterday said he will maintain 6 carriers in the Pacific, over the long term. While noting it may take years to complete the transition, Panetta assured his audience at the conference in Singapore that US budget problems and cutbacks would not get in the way of changes. He said the Defense Department has money in the five-year budget plan to meet those goals. He said he is looking forward to visiting China later this year, adding that he

wants to see the US and China deepen their military ties, including on counterdrug programs and humanitarian aid. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was attending the conference, questioned Panetta’s optimism about relations with China, but said he hopes it works out. He added that the Pentagon must begin planning for the possibility that another $500 million may have to be slashed from the defense budget early next year if lawmakers can’t agree on spending cuts in the next several months. Panetta has said he believes Congress will eventually find a way to avoid the automatic cuts. Singapore is Panetta’s second stop on a nine-day trip through Asia. He was in Hawaii on Thursday and is expected to travel to Vietnam and India. — AP

SINGAPORE: US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, center, poses with Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Defense Shu Watanabe, left, and Australian Minister for Defence Stephen Smith before their trilateral meeting held on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit in Singapore yesterday. —AP

Top Chinese official accused of being spy

MAE LA: A Myanmar refugee holds a portrait of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit to the Mae La refugee camp near the Thai-Myanmar border yesterday.—AFP

Suu Kyi says Myanmar refugees won’t be forgotten MAE LA REFUGEE CAMP: Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi got an upclose look at her nation’s long-standing refugee crisis for the first time yesterday, visiting a sprawling sea of thatched huts on the Thai border to tell those who fled here: “You will not be forgotten.” The newly elected lawmaker’s six-day journey to Thailand is her first foreign trip in 24 years, and she has used it to draw attention to the plight of her compatriots abroad - from exploited migrant workers who came in search of jobs to war refugees who came in search of peace. The wildly enthusiastic refugees in Mae La said Suu Kyi’s trip yesterday was the first time anyone of such stature from Myanmar’s government had ever visited them. But few had hope their fate would change soon. “If we go back now, who will guarantee our security?” said Naw Mu, a 35-year-old woman who crossed the border 10 years ago and now lives in the crowded camp, which is shadowed by rugged mist-shrouded mountaintops covered in dense forest. “We want go back when there is peace, but we’re not ready,” Naw Mu said. “We’re afraid it’ll be like it was before - we’ll be running for our lives.” Ethnic Karen rebels fighting for greater autonomy took up arms at independence from Britain in 1948 and are one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world. Over the last few months, however, they have been negotiating a historic truce with the government and skirmishes have eased. The cease-fire is part of a wave of globally praised reforms engineered by President Thein Sein’s military-backed government over the last year that have begun transforming the international pariah into a newly budding nation that has finally begun to open up. Suu Kyi’s trip itself is also being seen as proof of the confidence she has in those reforms. The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who spent 15 of the last two decades under house arrest, had previously refused to leave the country because she feared the former ruling generals

would not let her return. Suu Kyi’s trip to Mae La was much like her electoral campaign earlier this year that won her a seat in parliament: Pulsating crowds of supporters screamed her name and struggled to get a glimpse of the former political prisoner they have heard so much about but never seen. The beating of traditional drums heralded her arrival and departure, and as her convoy inched through the camp’s dirt roads, Suu Kyi mostly stayed in her vehicle, waving to the crush of onlookers wailing “Long live Mother Suu!” The 66-year-old opposition leader visited a health clinic in the camp, and listened intently as local authorities described the grim living conditions of nearly 50,000 refugees here, almost all of them entirely dependent on aid to survive. “I have not forgotten you,” Suu Kyi said during one of several impromptu stops to greet the crowds. Asked to comment on her visit to the camp, Suu Kyi told The Associated Press: “It’s not a problem to be solved with emotions. We have to solve it practically.” This part of the Thai border is home to up to 140,000 refugees. The United Nations says there are at least 417,000 refugees from Myanmar altogether, the rest living in Malaysia, India and Bangladesh. The fact that they are too fearful to return is a testament to the challenges ahead - including ending an upsurge of fighting in northern Kachin state and releasing hundreds of remaining political prisoners. Although Western nations have begun suspending harsh economic sanctions that once helped isolate the now-defunct military regime, Suu Kyi says the world should exercise caution and maintain a “healthy skepticism.” Aeh Aeh Phaw, a married mother of eight who fled to Mae La in 2008 to escape fighting, said she dreams every day of going home. “Being in the camp is like living in a prison. It’s like we’re birds in a cage, we cannot move freely,” she said. “But we cannot go home until there is security and peace.”—AP

WASHINGTON: China has detained a top security official for passing sensitive information to the United States in the highest-level spy case involving the two countries since the 1980s, reports said. Citing an unnamed “person with knowledge of the case,” The New York Times said the official, who was arrested earlier this year, was believed to be an employee in the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence agency. Hong Kong’s New Way magazine said the detained official was a secretary to a vice minister at the ministry. The vice minister, who was not named, has also been suspended from duty, the New Way report said. “What is unbelievable is that the person involved in this spy case is a secretary to a vice minister who is handling China’s top secrets, which means all the confidential documents sent to the vice minister pass through the secretary first,” the magazine said. “The incident has caused the concerns and worries of Chinese top leadership, and (President) Hu Jintao has ordered an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter,” the magazine said, adding that Hu was “shocked and angry.” The magazine

said the official was recruited by the CIA when he studied in the United States. New Way described it as the highest-level spy case involving China and the United States since China’s Yu Qiangsheng defected in 1985. The United States and Chinese governments have not given any hint publicly of the discovery of the spying suspect. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Oslo on Friday, declined to comment on the reports. The unnamed official was detained around the time that the Communist Party was dealing with a fragile moment in relations with the United States, The Times noted. In February, a former Chinese police chief drove to the US consulate in Chengdu to present evidence allegedly linking the wife of a top Communist Party leader, Bo Xilai, to the killing last year of a British businessman. The police chief, Wang Lijun, was escorted to Beijing by officials from the Ministry of State Security after spending a night in the consulate. It is unclear what kind of information the detained Chinese official is suspected of having given to the United States and whether that information had compromised any operations by the Chinese gov-

ernment, The Times said. A senior US administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the detention came during the same period as a series of investigations begun after the revelations in the Bo affair, the report said. The investigations, authorized by China’s top leaders, have expanded beyond Bo to the Ministry of State Security and now include allegations of improper use of the security services by various Chinese officials and corruption, The Times noted. It was not clear that the espionage case was related in any way to the other investigations, the report said. “There is clearly some very intense stuff going on with the security ministry,” the paper quoted the unnamed official as saying. “It’s hard to tell exactly, but it’s clearly maneuvering going on after Bo.” The reports came amid a growing strategic rivalry between the China and the United States, particularly in Asia. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a summit in Singapore earlier yesterday that the United States would shift the bulk of its naval fleet to the Pacific by 2020 as part of a new strategic focus on Asia.— AFP

Thai PM: Reconcile or face ‘cycle of violence’ BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday warned the deeply divided kingdom faces a “cycle of violence” unless steps are taken towards reconciliation after years of civil unrest. Proposals aimed at healing rifts that have seen Thailand rocked by bloody unrest since a 2006 coup have sparked fury among opposition MPs who fear they will open the door for Yingluck’s brother-ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return. Protesters from the nation’s “Yellow Shirt” faction blocked lawmakers from entering parliament Friday to debate a disputed reconciliation bill, as barely-concealed political tensions resurface in Thailand. A rescheduled debate starting on Wednesday has also been “postponed indefinitely”, Udondej Rattanasatien, of the ruling Puea Thai Party, told AFP yesterday. Speaking on a weekly Thai television program, Yingluck said a “reconciliation process” is the only the way out of years of sporadic unrest which has roughly cleaved the kingdom into “Yellow Shirt” and “Red Shirt” factions. “The country has suffered a lot. If reconciliation can move the country forward, it is suitable,” she said. “If we don’t start (a process), the country will be in a cycle of violence. The country will have no way out.” Yellow Shirt protesters camped out for three days outside parliament to prevent a debate on the reconciliation bill, and had warned they would try to enter the building if lawmakers opened discussions. Protest organizers, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the Yellow Shirts’ official name, who are powerful players in Thailand’s color-coded politics, sent supporters home late Friday after three days of rallying. Backed by the Bangkok-based elite, the PAD are arch-rivals of Thaksin’s “Red Shirts”, whose massive rallies against a previous government in 2010 ended in a bloody crackdown. A PAD statement yesterday said there would be no protests next week, but urged supporters “to be on alert to rally.” Four reconciliation proposals are up for debate, threatening to further polarise politics in the country that has become increasingly divided in the years since Thaksin was toppled by royalist generals. Three of the potential bills include amnesties that some fear could be used by the government to usher back the divisive former premier, who lives abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption and terrorism charges relating to violence in 2010.—AFP

GUANGDONG: A worker cleans a walkway at an European-style houses in Hallstatt See, a replica of the Austrian town of Hallstatt, in Boluo county, Huizhou city, south China’s Guangdong province yesterday.—AP

Chinese developer unveils replica Austrian village HUIZHOU: A group of Austrians whose scenic mountain village has been copied down to the statues by a Chinese developer attended yesterday’s opening in China for the high end residential project but were still miffed about how the company did it. Minmetals Land Inc.’s replica of Hallstatt, a quaint Austrian alpine hamlet, is located in subtropical southern China. The original is a centuries-old village of 800 people and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a housing estate that thrives on China’s new rich. In a China famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard. The Chinese Hallstatt features a church spire, a town square ringed by pastel-colored buildings and angel statues. They’re among architectural flourishes inspired by the original. Members of the Hallstatt delegation said they were proud to be copied but also disappointed with the way it was done. “They should have asked the owners of the hotel and the other buildings if we agree with the idea to rebuild Hallstatt in China, and they did not,” hotel owner Monika Wenger said ahead of the opening ceremony. “And that was a big problem we had with

this project here.” People in Hallstatt first learned a year ago of Minmetals’ plan when a Chinese guest at Wenger’s hotel who was involved with the project inadvertently spilled the beans. Minmetals staff had been taking photos and gathering data while mingling with tourists, raising suspicions among villagers. Minmetals Land is the real estate development arm of China Minmetals Corp., China’s largest metals trader. Wenger said she was “disappointed” the company didn’t ask permission. Mayor Alexander Scheutz, who signed a cultural exchange agreement yesterday with the new Hallstatt, was more diplomatic, saying “we are very proud.” While construction was continuing at the Chinese project, located in Guangdong province’s Huizhou city, about 60 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Hong Kong, the site was already open to visitors. But some were skeptical the copycat version would ever match the beauty of the original, a scenic jewel with hill-hugging chalets, elegant church spires and ancient inns all reflected in the deep still waters of an Alpine lake, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of Vienna. —AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

NEWS

Bahraini anti-government protesters wave national flags and images of jailed activists yesterday in Bilad al-Qadeem in Manama. Clashes broke out after a traditional procession marking 40 days after the death of Salah Abbas, a man whose family and opposition rights activists allege was killed by police during earlier clashes. — AP

Iran vows retaliation if hit Continued from Page 1 “They have thousands of missiles ... (Hezbollah chief) Hassan Nasrallah is a soldier of the supreme leader ... All places in the Zionist entity are within missile range,” he said. And “the 20 American bases and more than 100,000 soldiers in the region all face Iranian danger ... The Americans know full well that all of their 60 warships in the Persian Gulf and Sea (Gulf ) of Oman are vulnerable,” the general added. Analysts say Iranian military oﬃcials use such

ﬁery rhetoric as a way of keeping the West on edge over the possible disruption to global oil supplies in the event of US or Israeli military action. Tehran has previously threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz a vital crude shipping lane - if it is attacked, which experts say would result in a spike in the price of oil and could hit the US economy as it seeks to recover from the ﬁnancial crisis. Last month the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said plans for a possible military strike on Iran were ready and the option was “fully

US will put more warships in Asia available”. World powers held talks with Iran in Baghdad on May 23-24 in an attempt to ﬁnd a diplomatic solution to their concerns over its nuclear program, which Tehran maintains is entirely peaceful. Another round was set for June 1819 in Moscow. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Iran needed to take steps to curb its nuclear activities during the talks in Moscow. Israel is sceptical any progress can be made and has accused Tehran of simply buying time. — Agencies

Mubarak jailed for life, but anger still... Continued from Page 1 banned under Mubarak, against the deposed autocrat’s last prime minister. Mubarak was wheeled into a courtroom cage on a hospital stretcher to join co-defendants including his two sons Alaa and Gamal, former Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli and six security officials. “The court has ordered a punishment for Hosni Mubarak of life in prison based on charges of participating in crimes of killing and attempted killing,” Judge Ahmed Refaat told the hushed courtroom. Propped up on the hospital stretcher and wearing sunglasses, Mubarak heard the verdict stony-faced. He was acquitted on a separate corruption charge. Refaat sentenced Adli to life in prison but acquitted the senior security officials for lack of evidence. He quashed charges against Mubarak’s sons, relating to abuse of power and graft, but a new case brought against them this week for stock market fraud will keep them behind bars for now. Businessman and Mubarak ally Hussein Salem, being tried in absentia, was acquitted of corruption charges. After a silence during sentencing, scuffles broke out inside the court between security officers and people chanting “Void, void” and “The people want the cleansing of the judiciary”. It was the first time an ousted Arab leader had faced an ordinary court in person since a wave of uprisings shook the Arab world last year, sweeping away four entrenched rulers. Rather than a healing experience that many Egyptians wanted, many saw the trial that acquitted top security officials as showing how much of Mubarak’s old order was still in place. Islamists and others called for protests yesterday. But some Egyptians said Mubarak’s sentencing was enough, even if they were unhappy that security officials were off the hook. “I think the verdict on Mubarak is fair, he is over 80 years old and a life in prison verdict is a hard one, as it means he will certainly spend all his remaining years in jail,” said Ahmed Raouf, 30, who works at a private Cairo computer firm. The Muslim Brotherhood demanded a re-trial for Mubarak, who made Egypt into a staunch Arab ally of the United States. “The public prosecutor did not carry out its full duty in gathering adequate evidence to convict the accused for killing protesters,” said Yasser Ali, campaign spokesman for Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi. Mursi has vowed that if he is president, he would use the courts to ensure his predecessor stayed in jail. “It is not possible to release Mubarak,” he told Reuters on Thursday. “I promise the martyrs, we will retrieve their rights in full, God willing.” About 850 people were killed in the 18-day revolt that toppled Mubarak. Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, a former air force chief like his old boss and Mursi’s opponent in the presidential run-off, calls Mubarak a role model. He said on his Facebook page that the trial showed no one was above the law. “This verdict brings Egypt back to its leading regional role as the country witnesses the first condemnation of an Arab pharaoh who ruled for 30 years,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah from the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. But he said the verdict would be a political football in the election. He said Mursi wanted to

show he was the only one who could reform the system and Shafiq would seek to prove that this showed the judiciary could deliver a tough sentence, despite criticism of the ruling by protesters. Shafiq has vowed to restore order swiftly after 15 months of turmoil that has left many Egyptians exhausted. Any n ew violence could swing other ordinary Egyptians behind him. Al Jazeera reported that Mubarak would lodge an appeal. His lawyers could not be reached immediately for comment on the report. Outside the court, Soha Saeed, wife of one of those killed during the antiMubarak revolt, shouted: “I’m so happy, I’m so happy.” But, as the details of the verdict sunk in, protesters clashed with police, hurling stones and criticising the court. Despite Mubarak’s life sentence, lawyers acting for the families of victims in the uprising said the acquittal of the six security officials showed the weakness of the prosecution case and suggested the jailed president could win an appeal. “Regarding accusations against the police leadership, the court is of the opinion that none of the actors who committed the crimes of murder were caught during or after the events, so there is no direct evidence for the charges,” the judge said. Charges against the six included complicity in killing protesters and failing to prevent damage to public property. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the ruling “sends a powerful message to Egypt’s future leaders that they are not above the law”. But it said acquittals of security officials due to insufficient evidence “highlights the failure of the prosecution to fully investigate responsibility for the shooting of protesters”, a possible green light for future abuses. The lawyers for the victims’ families said the verdicts against Mubarak and Adli were designed to appease public anger while leaving room for them to be overturned on appeal. Refaat opened yesterday’s proceedings by hailing Egyptians for removing the only leader many of them had known. “The people of Egypt woke on Tuesday, Jan 25, 2011, to a new dawn, hoping that they would be able to breathe fresh air ... after 30 years of deep, deep, deep darkness,” he said. Yet many Egyptians are still waiting for the light - the messy trial and its aftermath typifying the chaos and confusion that have marked a political transition led by the military. The ruling army council that took over when Mubarak quit has promised to hand over to a freely elected president by July 1. But many Egyptians are fuming that the pillars of Mubarak’s authoritarian rule, including the hated police force, have survived his downfall intact. Hundreds marched on the supreme court building in central Cairo. A number of them hurled stones that smashed windows, but others shouted “Peacefully” at them, stopping the violence. In Tahrir, some protesters burned Shafiq’s campaign posters. Few Egyptians had expected Mubarak to be put to death, although protesters have often hung his effigy from lampposts. Hanafi El-Sayed, whose 27-year-old son was killed early in the uprising, travelled from Alexandria for the trial. “I want nothing less than the death penalty for Mubarak. Anything less and we will not be silent and the revolution will break out again,” he said shortly before the verdict. — Agencies

Continued from Page 1 representation to the Shangri-La Dialogue from last year, when Defence Minister Liang Guanglie attended and met then-US Defense Secretary Robert Gates. This year the Chinese military was represented by the vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences. Panetta, by contrast, was accompanied by General Martin Dempsey, the military’s top officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of the US Pacific Command. The US defense secretary held a series of bilateral and trilateral meetings with counterparts from several nations. Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen notified Panetta that Singapore had agreed in principle to a US request to forward deploy up to four Littoral Combat Ships to Singapore on a rotational basis. A senior US defense official said later that the series of meetings “served the broader purpose to advance this overlapping network of mutually reinforcing relationships that the US is building in the region.” Panetta was at the start of a seven-day visit to the region to explain to allies and partners the practical meaning of the US military strategy unveiled in January that calls for rebalancing American forces to focus on the Pacific. The trip includes stops in India and Vietnam, where he will visit a US Navy cargo ship in Cam Ranh Bay, becoming the most senior US official to visit the former American naval base since the end of the Vietnam war. Panetta’s Asia visit comes at a time of renewed tensions over competing sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, with the Philippines, a major US ally, and China in a standoff over the Scarborough Shoal near the Philippine coast. Panetta met Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin on the sidelines of the conference and discussed areas of future cooperation, including maritime awareness and cyberspace, and called for peaceful resolution of the South China Sea dispute. The South China Sea is a flashpoint but, with about 90 percent of global trade moving by sea, protecting the teeming shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca is equally vital. “Maritime freedoms cannot be the exclusive prerogative of a few,” Indian Defence Minister A K Antony told the forum. “We must find the balance between the rights of

nations and the freedoms of the world community.” Overlapping maritime claims - often fueled by hunger for oil, gas, fish and other resources - are compounded by threats from pirates and militants, delegates said. Panetta said he was committed to a “healthy, stable, reliable and continuous” military-to-military relationship with China but underscored the need for Beijing to support a system to clarify rights in the region and help to resolve disputes. “China has a critical role to play in advancing security and prosperity by respecting the rules-based order that has served the region for six decades,” he said. Under the plans Panetta announced yesterday, the Navy would maintain six aircraft carriers assigned to the Pacific. Six of its 11 carriers are now assigned to the Pacific but that will fall to five when the USS Enterprise retires this year. The number will return to six when the new carrier USS Gerald R Ford is completed in 2015. The US Navy had a fleet of 282 ships, including support vessels, as of March. That is expected to slip to about 276 over the next two years before beginning to rise toward the goal of a 300-ship fleet, according to a 30-year Navy shipbuilding projection released in March. But officials warned that fiscal constraints and problems with cost overruns could make it difficult to meet that goal. US Senator John McCain told a news conference he was concerned about the decline in the size of the US fleet. “At some point - and I think we may be at that point - we are not going to be able to carry out the kinds of commitments to the region that the secretary outlined in his speech,” said McCain, a top Republican senator on defense issues. Panetta underscored the breadth of the US commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, noting treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia as well as partnerships with India, Singapore, Indonesia and others. He said the United States would attempt to build on those partnerships with cooperative arrangements like the rotational deployment agreement it has with Australia, and is working on with the Philippines. Panetta said Washington would also work to increase the number and size of bilateral and multilateral military training exercises it conducts in the region. Officials said last year the United States carried out 172 such exercises in the region. — Reuters

Arabs want timeframe for Syria peace... Continued from Page 1 Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi told reporters the ministers “did not request a military action.” Earlier, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani urged Annan to set a timeframe for his Syria peace mission, and asked the Security Council to apply Chapter VII. “We request Mr. Annan to set a timeframe for his mission because it is unacceptable that massacres and bloodshed continue while the mission is ongoing indeﬁnitely,” the Qatari premier told a meeting attended by Annan. We demand the UN Security Council to refer the six-point (Annan plan) to Chapter VII so that the international community could assume its responsibilities,” he said. Chapter VII outlines action the Security Council might take, including military force, in response to threats to international peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. The Qatari premier, whose country has been at the forefront of mobilising international action against Syria over its 15-month deadly crackdown on dissent, said Damascus “makes a mistake in betting on surviving this

way.” He accused Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime of ignoring Annan’s six-point peace plan, saying Damascus “did not implement the first point of the plan and ignored the rest.” Annan’s plan calls for a halt to violence, daily two-hour humanitarian truce, media access to areas of fighting, the launching of a political dialogue, the right to demonstrate and the release of detainees. In April, the UN Security Council unanimously passed its first ever resolution on the Syria crisis, allowing for a team of unarmed ceasefire monitors. Some 300 monitors have been allowed into Syria, but the UNbacked ceasefire which technically went into effect on April 12 has been violated daily as deadly violence continues to plague the country. Arabi went further in suggesting a change of the mandate of the unarmed UN peace monitors, turning them into peacekeepers. “Changing the mandate of the observers, or turning them into a peacekeeping force should be among the alternatives, because what is need now is not monitoring, but supervising an end to violence,” Arabi said. He added that he sent a letter to the United Nations demand-

ing “firm effort to implement the UN Security Council resolutions.” Arabi said he specifically asked the Security Council “to assume responsibilities under Articles 40 and 41 of the UN Charter, which fall under Chapter VII.” But he stressed, however, that he did not refer to military intervention, saying he does not have the “mandate to address this issue.” Annan warned of the deterioration of the situation in Syria which he visited earlier this week, blaming it squarely on Assad and his government. “The spectre of an all-out war with a worrying sectarian dimension grows by the day,” he said. “The situation is complex and it takes everyone involved in the conflict to act responsibly if the violence is to stop. But the first responsibility lies in the Syrian government and President Assad,” he said. The outgoing leader of the opposition Syrian national Council Burhan Ghalioun charged that Damascus “does not want a political solution”, adding that the regime “will not depart unless it is forced to do so”. Ghalioun accused Russia, a staunch ally of Syria, of becoming “part of the problem,” and urged Moscow to help find “a framework for Assad’s departure”. — AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

opinion

THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF ESTABLISHED 1961

Founder and Publisher

YOUSUF S. AL-ALYAN Editor-in-Chief

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

Issues

Egypt-US ties will be cooler whoever wins By Lachlan Carmichael -Egyptian ties will be cooler than they were under ex-president Hosni Mubarak, who was the linchpin to US diplomacy in the Middle East, no matter who wins Egypt’s presidential election, analysts say. US President Barack Obama’s administration has been careful to avoid any sign it backs either Ahmed Shafiq, the ousted Mubarak’s last prime minister, or Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate. The pair face off June 16-17 after leading the field in the first round. Nathan Brown, a Middle East expert at The George Washington University, told AFP he did not believe Obama administration officials necessarily backed the secular Shafiq. “Shafiq’s policies might be ones that they would be more comfortable with but one of the feared outcomes of the United States would be political chaos and a Shafiq victory might be more likely to provoke that,” Brown said. Seen by some voters as a man who would restore pre-revolutionary order, Shafiq is also perceived as illegitimate by many of the people who took part in the revolution that ousted Mubarak in February last year, he said. In a sign of the feared instability Brown mentioned, protesters set fire Monday to Shafiq’s headquarters after the election committee said he had made it into a run-off vote with Mursi.And if he wins, he added, Shafiq will not “be quite as cooperative with the United States as Mubarak was because domestically he would be far, far weaker.” Shafiq may also be a reluctant partner because he might feel Washington had betrayed the Mubarak regime. In Washington, both Mursi and Shafiq “set off almost mirror-image anxieties, one about the result for Egypt and the other about the fate of American-Egyptian relations,” Brown said. Though his own ties with US ally Israel were often tense, Mubarak at times cooperated with Israel on security matters and aided US-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Mubarak also sent troops in support of the US-led coalition that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991, worked closely with the United States on counter-terrorism and strongly opposed Iran’s regional ambitions. In contrast, the Brotherhood and Washington have long disagreed on Iran, regional security cooperation, “the American military presence in the region and most of all on Israel,” Brown said. If Mursi wins, “there is little doubt that close Israeli-Egyptian security cooperation... would be absolutely out of the question,” the professor said. Marina Ottaway, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added: “What has been a cold peace between Egypt and Israel is going to become even colder if the Brotherhood wins. Nonetheless, analysts said, both candidates will seek to preserve the peace treaty with Israel for their own reasons. Mursi will accept that the US-backed military and security apparatus will still have a voice in foreign affairs, including on Israel, and will put a priority on tackling domestic issues like the troubled Egyptian economy. Shafiq will try to continue Mubarak’s foreign policy, but will face more pressure from antiIsraeli public opinion, Ottaway said. “And I think the relationship with the United States is going to be much more difficult no matter who wins,” she said. If Washington is seen as backing Shafiq, it would look like it “is still backing the old regime and that would undermine the credibility of the US not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world,” Ottaway told AFP. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven Cook said it would be “politically unpragmatic” for the Brotherhood to embrace the United States, but it might work with Washington in “the short run” to help tackle its economic crisis. Things will not be necessarily easier if Shafiq wins, he agreed. “I don’t think that Washington has any preference, and if it does, it is certainly not broadcasting it to the world. The United States hopes to be able to work with whoever is the next president, but it is going to be hard.” —AFP

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

Trip to disputed islands frays UAE nerves By Raissa Kasolowsky visit by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander to three tiny islands near the Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane revives a bitter territorial dispute between Gulf antagonists and trade partners - Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi has yet to comment on Thursday ’s trip by Mohammad Ali Jafari, but like other Gulf Arab capitals it reacted angrily when Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad toured one of the islands in April, and recalled its envoy from Tehran in protest. Tension between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in a Middle East shaken by 18 months of political revolt has envenomed the 41-year-old row, complicating an ambivalent relationship in which national pride has long vied uneasily with economic pragmatism. The UAE weathered last year’s Arab uprisings unscathed, but has cracked down on Islamists in recent months, wary lest the successes of their peers after upheavals in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt embolden them to challenge the government. The danger of a confrontation between Shiite Iran and the United States, the military protector of the Sunni-ruled Gulf states, over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program has also fuelled a voracious appetite for weapons in the region. Iran has threatened to target US interests in the Gulf and to block the Strait of Hormuz if attacked. The UAE is a top US arms buyer, agreeing deals worth over $10 billion between 2007 and 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). “We shake the friendly and brotherly hands in Islamic countries,

especially those south of the Persian Gulf, and ask them to help get rid of the arrogant powers who are now in the region,” Iranian state television quoted Jafari as saying during his visit to military forces deployed on the islands. The USbacked shah of Iran put troops on Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunb in 1971, just before the seven Gulf emirates won independence from Britain and formed the UAE. The emirates of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah had previously ruled the islands. The Islamic Republic says it wants good ties with the UAE, but, like the shah, insists it owns the islands and has ignored Abu Dhabi’s calls for arbitration or a diplomatic solution. After Ahmadinejad’s visit to Abu Musa in April, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan said his “provocative rhetoric exposed Iran’s false allegations regarding its keenness to establish good neighbourly relations and friendship with the UAE and countries of the region”. Persistent protests led by a Shiite majority demanding reform in Sunniruled Bahrain have aggravated regional tension, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE accusing Iran of fomenting trouble in the island state and elsewhere - charges Tehran denies. But fear of Iranian meddling has spread among Emiratis, threatening to poison once-thriving and often unofficial trade relations between two of the world’s leading oil exporters. In freewheeling, cosmopolitan Dubai, the creek remains full of dhows ferrying goods to Iran across the Gulf, but many people in nearby Abu Dhabi take a darker view of Iranian intentions. “What they are doing in Bahrain they

might do in other countries around here,” murmured a 40-year-old Emirati businessman in Abu Dhabi, who asked not to be named. Such fears seem far-fetched given the demographic contrast between Bahrain and the UAE, with its small Shiite minority, estimated at 10 to 16 percent of an overall population of 8.3 million, of which 90 percent are expatriates. The roots of this anxiety stretch ever further back than the rift between Sunnis and Shiites some 13 centuries ago. Some Emiratis believe Iran shares the same “imperialist” designs as the Sassanid Empire which dominated the region before Islam. “They still see themselves as the Persian empire and they want to rule over the region,” said an Emirati customs employee, who also asked not to be named. “I am not scared of Shiites, I am scared of strife. Emirati society is scared of strife.” According to Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute Qatar, Iran has stationed a few hundred soldiers on the disputed islands along with some long-range - and inaccurate - HY-2 Silkworm anti-ship missiles. “The real arena between the two sides is Bahrain, but these islands are a source of quite serious tension,” he said. “Many (Gulf Arabs) believe that Iran wants to take over the Persian Gulf and remake it in its own image.” But personal and commercial links between the UAE and Iran also stretch back over centuries and are not easily broken. The UAE’s Iranian community of half a million, according to Dubai’s Iranian Business Council, includes many property and business owners clustered in the old trading hub of Dubai. Apart from these expats, there are also Emiratis

of Iranian origin, mostly Sunni Arabs whose families were uprooted or migrated from their homes across the Gulf a few generations ago. Dubai’s direct re-exports to Iran grew 29 percent to 31 billion dirhams ($8.4 billion) last year, the fastest rise in five years, despite a marked slowdown in the last quarter. Dubai has often been seen as a weak link in implementation of international sanctions against Iran, but diplomats say the UAE has tightened controls in the past year. The IMF said in May this would have only a “moderate” impact on the UAE’s growth. In December, Washington pressured Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank into stopping the channelling of billions of dollars from Iranian oil sales through its accounts. Such pressure and Abu Dhabi’s greater power since it bailed Dubai out of a corporate debt crisis in 2009, means the UAE now takes a more unified line on Iran, diplomats and analysts say. “Abu Dhabi faces a conundrum. They have to be seen as whiter than white for the Americans on Iran because of how engaged US public opinion is on the issue,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, research fellow at the London School of Economics. “But if you have Dubai that is essentially a loophole for Iran to evade the tightening of sanctions and, who knows what other unregulated trade might be going through, then that is embarrassing at best but also potentially a security breach.” Yet the UAE’s juggling of conflicting demands and interests vis a vis Iran may have its uses, a Western diplomat said. “It may be double-handed but it’s not two-faced. It’s also a useful dance because it allows them to keep their options open.” — Reuters

Tough contracts hurt Iraq energy auction By Prashant Rao landmark Iraqi auction for oil and gas exploration blocks was a disappointment because of poor contract terms on offer and a lack of requisite energy infrastructure, analysts say. The May 30-31 auction, the fourth of its kind to be organised by Baghdad in the past three years and the first to offer acreage for oil and gas exploration since the 2003 US-led invasion, ended with just three deals awarded out of 12 blocks on offer, and eight plots receiving no bids whatsoever. Iraq’s oil ministry painted the bid round as a success, with one official arguing that a success rate of 25 percent was a “good result.” Analysts, however, disagreed. “It was not a success,” said Ruba Husari, editor of www.iraqoilforum.com. “It was not a success because the main aim of Bid Round Four was to find gas and develop it.” Husari pointed to two key obstacles poor energy infrastructure in many of the exploration areas, particularly in Iraq’s western desert which is thought to hold gas; and contract terms that required firms to specify how much money they wanted to receive, without knowing how much energy was in the blocks. “Until you drill, and make a discovery

and you appraise that discovery, and until it is declared commercial, you cannot tell how much you want to be paid for that, to make the project feasible,” she said. “And with that infrastructure, you cannot monetise the discover y because you will only start receiving remuneration once you start producing, and you cannot produce if this infrastructure is not ready.” Iraq is focused on building up oil pipeline and export-related infrastructure but remains lacking when it comes to gas, with insufficient facilities for extraction, treatment and transport of the resource. Of the three blocks that were eventually sold, two were in Iraq’s oil-rich south, while none of the exploration blocks along Iraq’s western border received bids. Blocks were eventually awarded to Pakistan Petroleum, and consortia led by Russia’s Lukoil and Kuwait Energy. As in previous auctions, Iraq required firms that agree to explore blocks to work under fixed-price service contracts, rather than the production-sharing agreements that are common elsewhere and more popular with major energy firms. But whereas previous bid rounds offered oil and gas fields that were already discovered and where production needed to be increased, ana-

lysts said the uncertainty regarding the level of reserves in exploration blocks offered in the latest sale meant service contracts were particularly difficult to accept. “The drawbacks were the conditions, as they were only pure service contracts, so they did not have upside potential if they found a big field,” said Manouchehr Takin, an analyst with the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London. Takin noted that a key issue was also that Iraq specified in the contracts that, were oil to be discovered in any of the exploration blocks, it could require that companies not extract any crude for up to seven years, as the country is already busy ramping up output at several fields. But while Iraq would not need the production, and indeed may not be able to export such additional capacity in the short-term because of bottlenecks in the country ’s export infrastructure, companies were not keen to wait so long to see returns on their investments. “It is the terms of the contract, compared with other parts of the world, and the restrictions, and the possibility of seven years,” Takin said. “People want to get revenues from their expenditure they are not happy with just getting back their costs.” Iraq currently produces

about three million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, and exports around 2.5 million bpd, but is looking to increase both figures dramatically in the coming years after awarding several contracts to boost output in the previous three bid rounds. The country has proven reserves of 143.1 billion barrels of oil and 3.2 trillion cu m of gas, both of which are among the highest such deposits in the world. It was that level of reserves which motivated international firms to accept deals paying them as little as $1.15 per barrel of oil extracted from proven oil fields. Engaging in exploration, however, required a different calculation. “The Iraqis are working with a service contract model that is not conducive with exploration,” said Alex Munton, an analyst in Edinburgh with energy research firm Wood Mackenzie. “It works with a discovered resource basis, it works with proven reserves.” “It doesn’t work when the proposition is a significantly more risky undertaking, because you don’t know if you’re going to find anything. If you’re going to spend money on the basis you might not find anything, then the reward side of the deal has to be greater.” Husari summed up the auction as a “poker game”. “You cannot gamble on something you don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re going to find.” —AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Mubarak: From war hero to prisoner CAIRO: War hero. Savior of the nation. An anchor of stability in a turbulent region. And in the twilight of his life, a criminal convicted for his role in the deaths of those fighting to oust him. Hosni Mubarak was sentenced yesterday to life in prison after a court convicted him on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that forced him from power. His two sons - Gamal and Alaa - were acquitted on corruption charges. It was an inglorious end for a leader who rose to power after Islamic extremists assassinated his predecessor Anwar Sadat and then steered the nation through the turmoil that swept the Middle East buffeted by wars, terrorism and religious extremism. The frail, 84-year-old Mubarak heard the verdict from a gurney in the defendants’ cage, surrounded by his sons and former officials who stood in the dock to answer for the crimes of his nearly 30-year rule. The decision can be appealed. That scene was in stark contrast to the image Mubarak had sought to portray as the rock-solid “father of the nation.” In the early days of his rule, Mubarak’s stern, colorless demeanor was a welcome change from the destructive charisma of Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the mercurial style of Sadat. As Mubarak clung to power, the status quo that he personified became increasingly loathed. Like the Great Sphinx that sits immutable through the millennia, this ancient land once revered as the vibrant leader of the Arab world stagnated. Its masses struggled to feed and clothe themselves

while countries of the Gulf ‚Ä” once little more than desert oases ‚Ä” seized the role that Egypt once enjoyed. At home, Mubarak and his aging coterie of generals and business tycoons were unable to check boiling currents of popular fury, or harness the history unfolding in his nation of 80 million - the most populous in the Arab world. A former pilot and air force commander with a combative, stubborn streak, Mubarak took tentative steps toward democratic reform early in his presidency but pulled back toward the dictatorial style that eventually propelled the protests against him that began on Jan 25, 2011. A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Cairo, released by the secret-sharing WikiLeaks website, called him “a tried and true realist, innately cautious and conservative”, and with “little time for idealistic goals”. It noted that Mubarak disapproved of the 2003 US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein of Iraq, which he believed was in need of a “‘tough, strong military officer who is fair’” as leader. “This telling observation, we believe, describes Mubarak’s own view of himself as someone who is tough but fair, who ensures the basic needs of his people,” the cable said. “In Mubarak’s mind, it is far better to let a few individuals suffer than risk chaos for society as a whole.” Yet that very image of cautious stability was once welcomed in the West, which feared that Sadat’s death in a hail of gunfire at a military parade would unleash a wave of unrest that would scuttle the fledgling peace

with Israel at a time when America and its allies were panicked over the rise of militant Islam in Iran. Instead, Mubarak maintained the peace with Israel and kept Egypt free of the grip of Islamic extremism. He struggled with the problems that have long bedeviled the Arab world: choking corruption, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and religious militancy. Economic reforms spurred growth, but the fruits trickled only to a few. He engineered Egypt’s return to the Arab fold after nearly a decade in the cold over its 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Early on, Mubarak crushed an insurgency by Muslim extremists, whose ranks had produced Sadat’s assassins and some future AlQaeda leaders. In the 1990s, he fought hard against another resurgence of Muslim militants whose attacks included the slaughter of dozens of foreign tourists at the temple city of Luxor. Eli Shaked, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Egypt from 2003-2005, described Mubarak as “a strong presence, not charismatic but with a heavy body like a fighter bomber, and very levelheaded”. Shaked said Mubarak met visiting Israeli officials with at least three top advisers by his side, often consulting with them and demonstrating a detailed knowledge of Israeli politics. The Israeli said Mubarak liked “political jokes and witticisms”, but was short on creativity: “The man is completely status quo.” Mohammed Hosni Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in the village of Kafr el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia. His family, like Sadat’s and Nasser’s, was lower

middle class. After joining the air force in 1950, Mubarak moved up the ranks as a bomber pilot and instructor and rose to leadership positions. He earned nationwide acclaim as commander of the air force during the 1973 Middle East war - a conflict which many Egyptians see as a victory - and was vice president when Sadat was assassinated. Mubarak, who was sitting beside Sadat in the reviewing stand, escaped with a minor hand injury. In his early days, Mubarak made popular moves that held up promise of a more open society, including freeing 1,500 politicians, journalists and clerics jailed during Sadat’s last months in office. But hopes for broader reform dimmed. Mubarak was re-elected in staged, one-man referendums in which he routinely won more than 90 percent approval. He became more aloof, carefully choreographing his public appearances, and his authoritarian governance, buttressed by harsh emergency laws, fueled resentment. Age took its toll on the president, who was once an avid squash player with a consistent style that matched his personality. He became hard of hearing, and was so devastated by the death of a 12-year-old grandson in 2009 that he canceled a trip to the United States. Egypt’s influence in the Middle East, meanwhile, waned as the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and their patron, Iran, gained momentum and followers. The oil-rich countries of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates seized the mantle of leadership regional leadership. The growing

proﬁle of Turkey, a democracy led by an Islam-inspired government, also chipped away at Egypt’s heavyweight stature in the region. In 2005, Mubarak held the country’s ﬁrst contested presidential election, an event marred by charges of voter fraud and intimidation. He retrenched when opponents made gains in ensuing parliamentary elections, launching a harsh campaign of arrests against the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest and best organized opposition group that now dominates the parliament elected after Mubarak’s downfall. Before the protests began, Mubarak had been silent on whether he intended to seek re-election in September. But the quick rise of his son, Gamal, through the ruling party caused immense anxiety. The fear that Mubarak was grooming Gamal, a wealthy businessman, to succeed him left many Egyptians feeling trapped in the past, deprived of change and renewal. Then, the uprising in Tunisia delivered an electrifying message: an old order can be ousted. Mubarak initially responded to protests by saying he would not seek another term, and his government said Gamal Mubarak would not run, either. But the president rejected demands that he step down immediately, telling ABC News that he’d like to leave but feared the country would sink deeper into chaos without him. It was a persuasive argument for 29 years, but in 2011 it was overwhelmed by the cries of huge crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square: “Leave! Leave!” — AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

sp orts

Lambert new Villa manager

Flower power for men

Wayne feels ‘unwanted’

LONDON: Aston Villa appointed Paul Lambert as manager yesterday, following hot on the heels of Liverpool in looking to smaller Premier League rivals for the man to revive their faded fortunes. Lambert joins from Norwich City, having offered his resignation earlier in the week, after leading the Canaries to a very respectable 12th place on their return to the top flight last season. The 42-year-old Scot was reported to have signed a three-year deal with the 1982 European champions, who were founder members of the Football League in 1888 and last won a league title in 1981. Liverpool, five times winners of Europe’s top club trophy but without a league title since 1990, named Swansea City boss Brendan Rodgers as their new manager on Friday. Swansea and Norwich, one the most westerly Premier League club and the other the furthest to the east, were promoted together in 2011 and impressed last season with their young managers. Both clubs have small grounds, Swansea’s capacity is only 20,000, but their attractive style of play caught the eye of American owners at the two former European Cup winners. Both managers replace departed Scots, with Villa dismissing Alex McLeish the day after the season ended last month while Rodgers takes over from Anfield great Kenny Dalglish. McLeish, never popular with the fans after arriving from arch-rivals Birmingham City, left with Villa in 16th place and just two points off the relegation zone. —Reuters

LONDON: Only men will carry the trays of flowers and medals at the London Olympic podium ceremonies while women will have the role of escorting athletes and official presenters. “This is the first time in Games history where the flower and medal bearers will be male,” organisers LOCOG said in a statement on Friday after the various components to the 805 victory celebrations were announced. About 100 female escorts and 200 male flower and medal bearers, all volunteers dressed in purple outfits designed by students at the Royal College of Art, will be involved in the ceremonies once the Games start on July 27. The women will lead out the athletes and presenters, with the men following on behind with the trays of flowers and medals. The 4,400 victory floral bouquets, presented to the athletes along with their medals, will be made with Britishgrown flowers and herbs. — Reuters

LOS ANGELES: Lil Wayne said that after a recent NBA playoffs ticket dispute he felt unwelcome and “unwanted” at the Oklahoma City arena and isn’t planning to return. The rapper said two Thunder players - Kevin Durant and James Harden - had reached out to offer him tickets to late yesterday’s fourth game of the Western Conference Finals. “That’s not the point, though,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Friday night. “It’s the players stepping up but of course the players aren’t white. I don’t want to be sitting there on behalf of you and I’m sitting next to a (person) that’s like ‘I don’t want this (guy) sitting next to me.’ (Forget) you ... I’m in Forbes,” he said, laughing. Lil Wayne claimed in a tweet Thursday night that he had been “denied by the team to be in their arena.” The team responded by saying the seats he wanted were already taken. But the Grammy-winning rapper, appearing at a Macy’s store in Los Angeles to promote his Trukfit clothing line, described a more complicated scenario. He said he typically procures tickets for such games “from this guy named Mike.” Lil Wayne said Mike had requested special security, parking and entrance for the rapper, but Mike said the team responded that they would only sell the seats for Mike’s personal use. Lil Wayne said a manager had advised him not to return to the city’s arena for sports events or concerts, but “I never say never.” —AP

Mets thrash Cardinals NEW YORK: Johan Santana pitched the first nohitter in New York Mets’ history, helped by an umpire’s missed call and an outstanding catch in left field, in an 8-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday. After a string of close calls in their 51-season history, Santana finally finished the job in the Mets’ 8,020nd game since the team was born in 1962. He needed a couple of key assists to do it. Carlos Beltran, back at Citi Field for the first time since the Mets traded him last July, hit a line drive over third base in the sixth inning that hit the foul line and should have been called fair. But third base umpire Adrian Johnson ruled it foul and the no-hitter was intact. Mike Baxter made a tremendous catch in left field to rob Yadier Molina of extra bases in the seventh, getting injured in the process.

KANSAS CITY: Royals starting pitcher Felipe Paulino talks with catcher Humberto Quintero during the first inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics. —AP

Royals march past Athletics KANSAS CITY: Felipe Paulino kept the scuffling Athletics at bay for six innings Friday as the Kansas City Royals’ bullpen handled the rest in a 2-0 victory that gave Oakland its season-worst ninth straight loss. Yuniesky Betancourt came off the disabled list to provide an RBI double in the first, and Mike Moustakas added an RBI blooper to left later in the inning, helping Kansas City win for only the sixth time in 23 games at Kauffman Stadium this season. Paulino (3-1) has emerged as the ace of the Royals’ haphazard starting rotation, holding the opposition off the scoreboard through six innings for the fourth time in six starts. He allowed three hits against Oakland while striking out five and walking three. Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 2 At Toronto, David Ortiz homered and Clay Buchholz won his sixth straight start in Toronto as Boston earned its fourth victory in five games. Daniel Nava had three doubles and Adrian Gonzalez had three hits for the Red Sox, who have not lost consecutive games since May 8 and 9 at Kansas City. Buchholz (5-2) won for the first time in four starts, giving up two runs, both on solo homers, and six hits in a seasonhigh eight innings. The right-hander improved to 6-2 with a 1.72 ERA in eight career starts at Rogers Centre. His six consecutive wins in Toronto are the most ever by a Red Sox pitcher. Scott Atchison finished in the ninth for the Red Sox. Rays 5, Orioles 0 At St. Petersburg, Florida, David Price scattered four hits over 7 1-3 innings and Hideki Matsui homered as Tampa Bay beat Baltimore. Price (7-3), who struck out five and walked two, retired his first 13 batters. He got some defensive help when right fielder Matt Joyce made a full-extension, tumbling backhanded catch on J.J. Hardy’s drive to end the fourth. Price was charged with a fourth hit after a postgame scoring change that gave Wilson Betemit - the left-hander’s final batter - a single on a grounder first called an error on second baseman Ben Zobrist. Matsui hit a two-run homer off Chen Wei-yin (4-2) to put the Rays up 5-0 in the first.

start to help New York beat Detroit. Alex Rodriguez added a two-run homer in the ninth for New York. It was tied at 1 when Granderson cleared the bases with a drive just inside the pole in right field off left-hander Casey Crosby (0-1), who was making his major league debut. Sabathia (7-2) allowed three runs and eight hits in seven innings. New York used five relievers. Rafael Soriano came on with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth. He got Miguel Cabrera to ground into a double play for his seventh save. White Sox 7, Mariners 4 At Chicago, Alexei Ramirez drove in the go-ahead run with a two-out infield single in the eighth inning as Chicago beat Seattle for its ninth straight win. The White Sox scored three times in the eighth, helped by a Mariners misplay. Paul Konerko led off with a fly and the ball glanced off center fielder Michael Saunders’ glove and then hit him for a two-base error. With two outs and runners at the corners, Ramirez hit a slow grounder to shortstop Brendan Ryan and beat the throw as pinch-runner Brent Lillibridge scored. Alejandro De Aza added a tworun single. Angels 4, Rangers 2 At Anaheim, California, Mike Trout hit an RBI triple in the sixth inning and a tiebreaking two-run single in the seventh, leading the Los Angeles Angels to a victory over Texas. Jerome Williams (5-3) allowed two runs and seven hits over seven innings and struck out four against the AL West leaders. The Angels won for the ninth time in 11 games. An seventh-inning error by Texas second baseman Ian Kinsler helped the Angels score two unearned runs. — AP

Reds 4, Astros 1 At Houston, Jay Bruce homered and drove in two runs to back a solid performance by Mike Leake as Cincinnati beat Houston. Leake (2-5) had a season-high seven strikeouts in seven innings, yielding just one run and four hits. Aroldis Chapman struck out the side in the ninth for his fourth save. Houston has dropped seven straight in its longest skid since it lost seven in a row last August. Joey Votto hit a two-out single in the first and scored on Brandon Phillips’ double off the wall in center, putting Cincinnati up 1-0. Bruce then singled in Phillips. Pirates 8, Brewers 2 At Milwaukee, the Pirates scored six runs off Randy Wolf in the third inning, then went on to pound Milwaukee. Ryan Braun left the game with a right hip strain, after sitting out Thursday night’s game because of lingering tightness in his right Achilles tendon. Kevin Correia (2-5) gave up two runs and five hits in 5 2-3 innings for the Pirates, who have won six of their last seven games. The Pirates came into Friday’s game with a 4-38 record at Miller Park since the start of the 2007 season. Nyjer Morgan hit a solo home run in the first inning for Milwaukee, snapping his Major League record of 138 straight plate appearances without an RBI to start the season. But Morgan’s misplayed ball in the outfield played a critical role in the Pirates’ big inning. Phillies 6, Marlins 4 At Philadelphia, Hunter Pence hit a two-run homer and Hector Luna had three RBIs as Philadelphia beat Florida. Pence, Carlos Ruiz and Placido Polanco each had three hits as the Phillies won for the seventh time in nine games. Jonathan Papelbon got five outs for his 15th save in 15 chances. Kyle Kendrick (2-4) allowed eight hits in 5 1-3 innings, but held Miami to two runs. Mark Buehrle (5-5) gave up four runs and a season-high 11 hits in five innings for the Marlins. He had won his last four decisions. Padres 7, D’backs 1 At San Diego, Jesus Guzman’s pinch-hit tworun homer ignited a sixth-run eighth inning and lifted San Diego to a win over Arizona. Guzman’s shot broke a 1-all tie as San Diego sent 11 batters to the plate in the eighth off three pitchers. He connected on a 1-1 changeup off rookie Wade Miley (6-2) into the left-field stands to help the Padres snapped a six-game losing streak San Diego had managed just three hits off

NEW YORK: Mets’ Johan Santana (center left) hugs catcher Josh Thole as teammates rush to congratulate him after pitching the first no-hitter in Mets’ history in a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals. — AP Miley heading into the eighth before Alexi Amarista reached on a one-out bunt single that brought up Guzman. Andrew Cashner (3-3) pitched the eighth for San Diego, which was coming off a 1-9 road trip. The Padres have worst record in the majors at 1835. Rockies 13, Dodgers 3 At Denver, Wilin Rosario hit a two-run homer as Colorado took advantage of four Los Angeles to romp past the Dodgers for its season-high fifth straight win. Pinch hitter Chris Nelson and Michael Cuddyer added back-to-back solo homers off reliever Josh Lindblom in the eighth inning. Colorado scored four unearned runs and sent the Dodgers to their fifth loss in a row. Dexter Fowler added three hits and two RBIs and Carlos Gonzalez had two hits and drove in a

Giants 4, Cubs 3 At San Francisco, Melky Cabrera remained the hottest hitter in the National League and Madison Bumgarner picked up his ﬁrst win in nearly four weeks as San Francisco beat Chicago. Cabrera had two hits to raise his average to .376, tying him with Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox for the highest mark in the majors. That comes on the heels of his outstanding May when he tied a San Francisco franchise record with 51 hits. Ryan Theriot added three hits and scored twice while Buster Posey had two RBIs to give the Giants their fourth win in ﬁve games on the current homestand. Alfonso Soriano hit a three-run home run in the ninth for Chicago, but the Cubs fell short and lost for the 15th time in their last 20 games. — AP

MLB results/standings Cleveland 7, Minnesota 1; NY Yankees 9, Detroit 4; Philadelphia 6, Miami 4; Boston 7, Toronto 2; Tampa Bay 5, Baltimore 0; NY Mets 8, St Louis 0; Cincinnati 4, Houston 1; Chicago White Sox 7, Seattle 4; Kansas City 2 Oakland 0; Pittsburgh 8, Milwaukee 2; Colorado 13, LA Dodgers 3; San Diego 7, Arizona 1; LA Angels 4, Texas 2; San Francisco 4, Chicago Cubs 3. American League Eastern Division W L Tampa Bay 30 22 29 23 Baltimore NY Yankees 28 23 Boston 27 25 Toronto 27 25 Central Division Chicago White Sox 30 22 Cleveland 28 23 Detroit 24 28 Kansas City 22 28 Minnesota 18 33 Western Division Texas 31 21 27 26 LA Angels Seattle 23 31 Oakland 22 30

PCT .577 .558 .549 .519 .519

GB 1 1.5 3 3

.577 .549 .462 .440 .353

1.5 6 7 11.5

.596 .509 .426 .423

4.5 9 9

National League Eastern Division Washington 29 21 NY Mets 29 23 Miami 29 23 Atlanta 28 24 Philadelphia 28 25 Central Division Cincinnati 29 22 St Louis 27 25 Pittsburgh 26 25 Milwaukee 23 29 Houston 22 30 Chicago Cubs 18 33 Western Division LA Dodgers 32 20 San Francisco 28 24 Arizona 23 29 Colorado 22 29 San Diego 18 35

.580 .558 .558 .538 .528

1 1 2 2.5

.569 .519 .510 .442 .423 .353

2.5 3 6.5 7.5 11

.615 .538 .442 .431 .340

4 9 9.5 14.5

Stoner takes pole in Catalunya MotoGP

Indians 7, Twins 1 At Cleveland, Derek Lowe shut down Minnesota’s lineup with ease for the second time this season and Jason Kipnis hit a grand slam, leading Cleveland to a win over Minnesota. Lowe (7-3) carried a two-hit shutout into the seventh before the Twins scratched out a run on three hits. The right-hander pitched a shutout against the Twins on May 15. Kipnis connected for his slam in the four th oﬀ Carl Pavano (2-5) as the Indians, who have been rocked by injuries lately, won for just the second time in seven games. Lonnie Chisenhall hit a two-run homer in the second for Cleveland, which has won 11 of 12 over Minnesota. Yankees 9, Tigers 4 At Detroit, Curtis Granderson hit a grand slam against his former team in the second inning, and CC Sabathia made the lead hold up after a shaky

run. The Rockies are averaging 10.6 runs during their winning streak.

SPAIN: MotoGP Honda rider Casey Stoner of Australia steers his motorcycle during qualifying sessions ahead of today’s Spain Motorcycling MotoGP Grand Prix at the Montmelo racetrack near Barcelona. — AP

BARCELONA: World champion Casey Stoner will start on pole in the Catalunya motorcycling Grand Prix today after the Honda rider posted the quickest time in qualifying under the sun at the Montmelo circuit. The Australian picked up the 40th pole of his career Saturday and second of the season by edging Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo by 0.146sec with Lorenzo’s Yamaha teammate, Briton Cal Crutchlow, in third, at 0.253. Stoner is bidding to win here for the second year in a row in a season which will be his last in MotoGP after announcing at the French MotoGP last month his shock decision to retire. The 26-year-old set his pole-securing lap time of 1min 41.295 eight minutes from the end of the session. “We used the qualifying as an extended practice session as we don’t always have enough time to do everything during the 45 minute sessions,” Stoner told www.motogp.com. “This morning we did a lot of work with the hard tyre, so in the afternoon in these hot conditions, we worked more with the softer one to get a clearer understanding if we can run with it for race distance. “Tomorrow, for sure tyre degradation is going to play a role so we’re going to have to wait and see but I’m happy to start from pole.” Lorenzo said: “We would have liked to be on pole, but we are happy with the position.” Ducati’s Italian star Valentino Rossi was ninth fastest. — AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

sp orts

Sabbatini leads Memorial

EPSOM: Camelot ridden by Joseph O’Brien (left on horse) speaks to trainer Aidan O’Brien (third right) after he won the Epsom Derby on Derby Day at Epsom Downs Racecourse. — AP

O’Brien’s second-string filly wins Oaks EPSOM: Was, one of five runners in the race for trainer Aidan O’Brien, galloped on bravely to win the Oaks on Friday. Ridden by Seamus Heffernan, Was started at 20-1 but held on by a neck from 161 chance Shirocco Star with the fast-finishing 11-4 favourite The Fugue half a length away in third in the Epsom classic for fillies. It was a fourth Epsom Oaks success for O’Brien and a huge boost ahead of late yesterday’s Derby where the Irish maestro runs the heavily fancied Camelot, winner of the 2,000 Guineas last month. Winning jockey Heffernan, who took up the running with 400 metres to go, told reporters: “I had plenty of horse and I had enough under me to take two lengths when I needed it. I want to thanks the owners for having trust in me.” Heffernan, 40 next month, has been a long-time servant of the O’Brien stable and landed his first English classic. He said of Was: “She arrived there on the bridle (coasting) and I had plenty of petrol. When you have that you can go where you like.”

The race mirrored the Newmarket classic for fillies, the 1,000 Guineas, where O’Brien’s 25-1 outsider Homecoming Queen soundly beat stable mate and 13-8 favourite Maybe into third place. Maybe was well fancied on Friday with O’Brien’s 19-year-old son Joseph in the saddle and was sent off 100-30 second favorite but could do no better than fifth, beaten just under four lengths. Trainer O’Brien said: “Obviously all of my runners are seriously well-bred fillies so anything is possible. Seamus knows all these horses inside out and nobody deserves it more.” O’Brien said of Maybe: “She ran well, she was coming there and coming there but a mile and a quarter (2.0 km) might be as far as she wants to go.” The Oaks, like the Derby, is raced over a mile and a half (2.4 km). John Gosden, who trains third-placed The Fugue for composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd-Webber, said: “We got badly run into and were lucky not to be brought down early in the race.”—Reuters

Chiefs beat Blues AUCKLAND: Winger Alaesi Tikoirotuma scored four tries, equaling the record for an individual in a Super 15 rugby match, as the Waikato Chiefs beat the Auckland Blues 41-34 yesterday to consolidate overall first place as the tournament breaks for June test matches. Tikoirotuma scored his first try in a first half which ended in a 20-20 deadlock, then added three including the match-winner in a thrilling second half as the Chiefs built and rebuilt leads. The Chiefs started the match with a three-point lead atop the overall standings. Their bonus-point victory on Saturday ensured they would stay in first place when the tournament breaks for the international test season for four weeks. Waikato has won 11 of 13 matches this season but few of their victories were more hard-earned than this one, although it was achieved with five tries and gave them a valuable five championship points. Each time the Chiefs edged ahead with tries the Blues responded in kind to close the margin, creating one of the most exciting matches in the long history of border disputes between the Nor th Island neighbors. Auckland suffered its 12th loss in 14 matches to stay only one place off the bottom of the table, but took two points from the match - for scoring four tries and losing by fewer than seven points - and produced its most courageous performance of the season. “It was a tough game,” Chiefs captain Liam Messam said. “The Blues came out tonight and took it to us. Chiefs-Blues games are always tough and no matter what the media say about the Blues, they’re a good side.” For most of the game, the Chiefs led and the Blues responded. The Blues led for only a short period between the 12th and 15th minutes of the first half when a try to center

Francis Saili gave Auckland a 7-3 lead. Tikoirotuma’s first try, in the 15th minute, gave the Chiefs a 10-7 advantage and they held that lead to the end, though it was constantly under siege from the determined Blues who were galvanized by the return of backline stars Rene Ranger and Rudi Wulf. The Chiefs opened a 20-10 lead after 31 minutes when All Blacks midfield star Sonny Bill Williams crashed through tight defense to score his third try of the season. But Auckland showed the spirit that prevailed throughout the match when they struck back with a tr y, conversion and penalty to winger Lachie Munro to level the scores by halftime. Waikato drew away again with Tikoirorutam’s second try and led 34-20 - its widest margin - when Fijian-born Tikoirotuma completed his hat trick in the 55th minute. Again, Auck land rallied and refused to accept as inevitable its latest loss in a dismal season. When Chiefs lock Michael Fitzgerald was sin-binned after a fracas with an opponent, the Blues took advantage of their numerical advantage and scored tries through fullback Rudi Wulf and Ranger to tie the scores at 34-34. Ranger’s try was one of the best of the season: an outstanding feat of pace and athleticism which left in his wake a long string of attempted tacklers. But the Chiefs also showed spirit and they refused to give up hope of the victory that cemented their top placing in the tournament. All Blacks flyhalf Aaron Cruden put in a perfectly weighted kick for Tikoirotuma in the 70th minute and the winger won the race to the ball to seal the match. “We just fell short,” Auckland captain Luke Braid said. “A pass went down near the end which could have been a try under the sticks. Unlucky but I’m just proud that the boys stayed in the fight.”—AP

DUBLIN: Four-times champion Tiger Woods looked close to his very best in tough conditions at the Memorial tournament on Friday, ending a gruelling second round one shot behind pacesetting South African Rory Sabbatini. In pursuit of a 73rd PGA Tour victory and his second this year, Woods carded a three-underpar 69 at a wet and windy Muirfield Village Golf Club, finishing level with fellow Americans Scott Stallings (73) and Spencer Levin (72). “I’m pleased with the way I played today,” Woods told reporters after mixing five birdies with a double-bogey at the par-three 12th. “I missed a couple out there, but overall I knew in these conditions to shoot something in the 60s was going to be a pretty good effort.” Sabbatini was one stroke better at six-under on 138, having had to settle for a second successive 69 after missing a five-foot birdie putt at the last. Several big names, however, struggled on the soggy, ultra-long Muirfield Village layout with Masters champion Bubba Watson and world number two Rory McIlroy, winner of last year’s U.S. Open, among those missing the cut. American Steve Stricker, who clinched last year’s Memorial tournament, carded a 70 to finish at one under, one stroke better than British world number one Luke Donald (73). Woods began the day four shots behind firstround leader Stallings but drew level at the top with three birdies in his first six holes, pumping his right fist in delight when he sank a 26-footer at the par-four sixth. Out in three-under 33, he wasted a chance to snatch the outright lead by missing a four-foot birdie putt at the par-five 11th, his ball sliding past the left edge. Woods dropped out of the lead with a double-bogey at the 12th, where he overhit the green to the left and needed two chip shots

from tangly rough to reach the green before missing a 12-foot putt, but he swiftly recovered. He knocked in five-footers to birdie the 15th and 16th and parred the last two holes to remain one stroke off the pace. “I hit the ball well all day, and it was a day that I needed to,” Woods said, after play had earlier been suspended for just under two hours due to heavy rain and thunderstorms. “The wind was blowing out there and it was swirling in those trees. It was just a tough day. I figured anything under par was going to be a good score.” Sabbatini, a six-times winner on the PGA Tour, took over at the top when he drained an eightfoot birdie putt at the par-five 15th and then parred the last three holes to retain control. “It feels good,” said the South African, who has recorded only one top-10 in 15 starts on the PGA Tour in 2012. “It’s been a trying year, and it’s great to see some return on the effort I’ve been putting in. “The course out there today, it was a tough one. It was hard fought the whole way. There was nothing easy out there. It played tough and showed its teeth pretty well. “I’m happy to be where I am right now, and I’ve got two more days ahead of me. I’ve just got to continue to focus on what I’ve been doing for the last two days.” McIlroy missed his third consecutive cut worldwide after battling to a seven-over-par 79 to finish well down the leader board at six-over 150. He failed to record a single birdie and wound up with two double-bogeys, one at the par-five 11th where he remarkably hit a shot backwards into water and another at the 14th, where he drove into water. “I hit some good shots but it just seems like every time I go out there I make one or two big numbers and that sort of throws me,” McIlroy said.—Reuters

DUBLIN: Rory Sabbatini, from South Africa, hits to the 15th green from the fairway during the second round of the Memorial golf tournament at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin. —AP

Stacy tied with Miyazato

GALLOWAY: Michelle Wie chips to the 18th green during the first round of the LPGA ShopRite Classic golf competition. —AP

NEW JERSEY: Stacy Lewis and Mika Miyazato both shot 6-under 65 share the lead after the opening round of the ShopRite LPGA Classic on Friday. Paula Creamer and Mariajo Uribe are tied for third at 4 under at the Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club. Maude-Aimee Leblanc is at 3 under, while seven players are another shot back , including Lexi Thompson and Christina Kim. Yani Tseng shot an even-par 71 while defending champion Brittany Lincicome finished with a 72. The morning half of the field had the better of the weather, as skies darkened and the winds picked up around midday. Uribe was the only one of the leaders with an afternoon tee time. Miyazato, who is seeking her first LPGA title, played in the first group and got off to a fast start. She birdied Nos. 3 and 5, then took advantage of the wind to reach the par-5 ninth in two. She drained a 20foot eagle putt with a left-to-right break to make the turn in 3 under. “The second shot I think was 220,” Miyazato said. “I hit a 7-wood. I thought it was more short than on the green.” She birdied two par 3s on the back, Nos. 11 and 17. Lewis, who won her second LPGA title in Mobile in April, was in the middle of her round when the conditions started to change. Playing the back nine first, she made the turn in 2

under before starting her second nine with a birdie, a double bogey and an eagle. “The first nine holes were pretty nice,” Lewis said. “There wasn’t much wind. And then, I guess we were making the turn onto one, and the wind just came out of nowhere. “So it got a little crazy on the back nine but I played really well.” Lewis reached the green at the par-5 ninth in two but missed a seven-foot eagle putt that would have given her the outright lead. But she said she’s been playing with a lot of confidence over the last 14 months since claiming her first career win at the 2011 Kraft Nabisco Championship. “And it’s all confidence,” she said. “If I’m comfortable over a shot and I feel good about it I’m probably going to hit a good shot. And so good shots breed more confidence.” Creamer, who tied for second in this tournament as an amateur in 2004, reached No. 18 in two and drained her eagle putt. Creamer started her round just a few minutes ahead of Lewis and also felt the impact of the wind. “The golf course definitely played hard today,” she said. “It was very windy. “The harder holes on the golf course were even more hard. There were a lot of long clubs into par 4s where we’re normally hitting six or seven irons that now we’re hitting woods into.”—AP

Wales see off Barbarians CARDIFF: Wales just did enough to beat the Barbarians 30-21 at the Millennium Stadium here yesterday in their final match before a tour of Australia. It represented a likely last appearance at the Millennium for Wales greats Shane Williams, playing for the Barbarians, and Martyn Williams. By taking the unusual-and indeed controversial-step of awarding this match full Test status, the Welsh Rugby Union paved the way for back-row forward Martyn Williams to win his 100th cap as a secondhalf replacement. Teenager Harry Robinson, making his Wales debut, scored a fine try 10 minutes into the match but the hosts failed to build on the 19-year-old wing’s effort and it needed a 20-point effort from playmaker James Hook, plus a late Aled Brew try, to see the Six Nations Grand Slam champions to victory. Wales have not beaten the Wallabies in Australia since 1969, a record they have the chance to erase during this month’s three-Test tour. To that end, they have already sent an advance party of 16 players-featuring most of their Test regulars-Down Under with assistant coach Shaun Edwards, but a further 18 players from Saturday’s match are due to join them early next week. New Zealand World Cup-winner Stephen Donald scored two tries for the Barbarians, and fellow half-back Richie Rees also crossed, with the All Blacks hero kicking all three conversions. For wing star Shane Williams this was, he assured fans, a definite final appearance before retirement, after he bowed out in Wales colours against Australia during a 24-18 defeat by the Wallabies in November. Last week his try two minutes from time saw Welsh regional side the Ospreys beat European champions Leinster to win the Celtic League final. But there were no such heroics on Saturday in front of a decent-if far from capacity-crowd of 57,000. “I’m retired from rugby, it was my last, last game-honestly!,” Shane Williams told the BBC. Martyn Williams, asked if was his farewell too, added: “Yeah, definitely- I’ll be up there watching this time next year.” Barbarians coach John Kirwan, reflecting on the match, said: “We got off to a slow start but then the last 60 minutes were pretty special. “We adjusted to the pace of the game and we fixed things that were going wrong,” the former New Zealand wing added. “There were a couple of Barbarians-style decisions no to take shots at goals but that’s why we are here. “It was an outstanding performance and I am sure everyone is happy about the spectacle and the Welsh guys are happy to have had a good hit out before their tour,” explained Kirwan, the former Italy and Japan coach. The match was also notable for being Irish referee Alain Rolland’s first appearance at the Millennium since he angered Welsh fans by sending off captain Sam Warburton in Wales’s World Cup semi-final defeat by France in Auckland in October.—AFP

Conrad Smith

Hurricanes blow away Waratahs SYDNEY: Replacement hooker Motu Matu’u, captain Conrad Smith and scrumhalf Chris Eaton scored second-half tries as the Wellington Hurricanes beat the New South Wales Waratahs 33-12 in their Super Rugby match in Sydney yesterday. The win kept alive the Hurricanes’ slim playoff chances as they moved to 45 points, though several sides above them are still to play later yesterday. “”It’s the first time we have had a win here and I’m stoked with that,” Smith said in a pitchside interview. “We’ve got a couple more games to go but who knows? “We’re enjoying playing together and have defied a lot of the critics who wrote us off at the start of the year, so we’re loving it.” The Waratahs dominated possession and territory, particularly in the second half with their pack finally giving them momentum, and dominating the set piece, but could not crack the Hurricanes defence and made numerous handling errors. Matu’u’s try came after another Waratahs’ turnover while on attack and pressure from a kick chase gave the Hurricanes some rare field position in the second half. Smith scored with just over 10 minutes remaining to silence the modest crowd. Eaton grabbed the bonus point try right on fulltime after the visitors got a penalty at halfway and kicked into the corner to set up an attacking lineout, from which the replacement scrumhalf was able to burst over. Julian Savea’s try was the highlight of an error-strewn first half, in which wet conditions denied the crowd any chance of witnessing a display of free-flowing rugby. Waratahs flyhalf Berrick Barnes slotted three first-half penalties for the home side. Hurricanes flyhalf Beauden Barrett converted Savea’s try and slotted two penalties to give the visitors a 13-9 lead at the break. Barnes added an early second-half penalty for the Waratahs, but the home side squandered far too many opportunities, with audible sighs of exasperation from the crowd evident towards the end of the game. “We’re very disappointed with the way we played ...we can’t be leaking 33 points,” Waratahs captain Benn Robinson said. “They’re a good attacking side, they put 60 points on last week (against the Rebels) and defending they’re a top outfit.” —Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

S P ORT S

Olympic football needs Giggs and Becks LONDON: Butch and Sundance, Lennon and McCartney and ... Giggsy and Becks? Please, Stuart Pearce, make it so. Because we’re suckers for good double bills. Pearce, coach of the British Olympic men’s football team, should shortly announce who is on his 35-player shortlist. If Pearce has any sense - and given that he titled his autobiography “Psycho,” you’d have to be brave to tell him he hasn’t - the tough former defender for England and Nottingham Forest must pick David Beckham and Ryan Giggs. Seeing the former Manchester United teammates reunited at London 2012 would, to be frank, be one of the few good reasons - maybe the only good reason, aside from Brazil and its 20-year-old star Neymar - to get genuinely excited about men’s football at the Summer Games. Granted, at 37 for Becks and 38 for Giggs, these seniors - as President Barack Obama playfully pointed out when he hosted Beckham and the Los Angeles Galaxy at the White House in

May - are nearly old enough to have fathered some of the youngsters they’d play with on Team GB. Giggs even said that if they are picked, spectators shouldn’t expect to see them tearing up and down Olympic pitches as vigorously as they used to at Old Trafford, United’s stadium. “We might be able to get up but we won’t be able to get back down again,” said the only player to have scored in every Premier League season. And given how much time Beckham seems to spend in his underwear or topless (ladies, check out his barechested Ursula Andress “Dr. No” homage for the July issue of Elle magazine), the sensation of actually wearing clothes may take some getting used to for the former England captain. So, yes, if you had to pick a team of the best footballers in the British Isles, Beckham and Giggs shouldn’t be in it. But that’s not what Pearce is being asked to do. The Olympic format allows him to pick 15 players under 23, plus three others, like Beckham and/or Giggs, who are older.

In other words, this is essentially a youth tournament, a youth tournament with Olympic medals, yes, but not the World Cup. The truth is that Pearce’s managerial career won’t be ruined if the host nation doesn’t win this thing. Lionel Messi cherished the Olympic gold he won with Argentina at the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing in 2008, but until the three-time world player of the year hoists the World Cup, some fans won’t put him in the same bracket of greatness as Pele or Diego Maradona. So spare the moralizing about how Pearce should field only the best and pick solely on merit. He does have some leeway here. Besides, “merit” can have broader meanings than simply how well players kick footballs - which Beckham and Giggs, especially Giggs, still do just fine, by the way. There is merit in sentiment, too. Beckham has been waving the flag for London 2012 since before its bid beat Paris in an IOC vote in 2005. A cynical view would be that the ex-captain has been waving the flag for himself,

too, latching onto the Olympic bandwagon with the same deft sense of timing and opportunity that makes him so good at both football and self-publicity. Or, more honestly, one can acknowledge that Beckham has been a genuine, hardworking ambassador for London, lending his global brand to the games, generating buzz and generally being useful. Like on Friday, when he dropped by a London school and played the game he’s become as good at as football: delivering feel-good sound bites about the Olympics, Paralympics and, of course, David Beckham. “It’s going to inspire another generation of kids” (on the games). “I’d love to play. I’m very proud to have played for my country 115 times” (on whether he expects a spot on the Olympic team). “She’s very smiley at home. I’d prefer her to be smiling at home than the other way around” (on why Victoria Beckham tends to rarely smile in public). And, “It still amazes me every time I change the nappy, I’m like, ‘Oh my God,

we’ve got a little girl’” (on having a daughter after three boys). So that’s an argument for Beckham - that he deserves an Olympic place more than most. Now Giggs. Despite everything United’s most successful player has achieved in 909 appearances and 22 years for the Red Devils, his misfortune as a footballer is that he’s Welsh and that Wales hasn’t qualified for a major tournament since the 1958 World Cup. So it would be a thrill to see Giggs round out his astounding career with an international hurrah at the Olympics. In short, Beckham and Giggs together are box office. The Olympic tournament needs them. The really big thing in football this summer isn’t at London 2012, it’s in Poland and Ukraine, at the European Championship they’re cohosting from Friday. I, for one, can’t imagine having a huge appetite for more football at the Olympics in July and August after gorging on it at the Euros for three weeks in June. But if Giggs and Beckham play, I’ll be tuning in. —AP

Titles time for gold-hungry Bolt LONDON: Usain Bolt’s achievements are so extraordinary that the Jamaican’s sensational 9.76 seconds 100 metres victory in Rome on Thursday was greeted as a mere “return to form” after his sluggish outing in Ostrava last week. In fact only Bolt, American Tyson Gay and compatriot Asafa Powell have run faster and the time would have been good

told Reuters in an interview on Friday. “Yeah, it was good and I was happy with my technique but we were not really stressed about the time, we’re working on getting everything right for the (London) Olympics,” he said of his partnership with coach Glen Mills. “My start was good but my transition was not so good, my shoulders were slightly out and it’s that sketchy transition we’re

not quite sure why he had struggled to the slowest time of all his senior 100 metres finals. His Diamond league run in Rome quickly crushed any idea of vulnerability and he put his improvement down to simply a better sleep and eating pattern after a period of travel. Bolt continued his hectic schedule with a flying visit to London on Friday to help launch a

ROME: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt (center) chased by St Kitts and Nevis’s Kim Collins (left) and France’s Christophe Lemaitre, is on his way to win the men’s 100m event at the Golden Gala athletics meeting. —AP enough to win every Olympic and world championship final until Bolt’s world record 9.69 in the 2008 Games. But everything the Jamaican does is measured against the mind-numbing numbers he posted in Beijing and then the 2009 world championships in Berlin, when he set world records winning the 100 in 9.58 and the 200 in 19.19. Bolt too is past thinking 9.7 is anything to shout about as he

working on. “Everything’s getting better though. I haven’t had any injuries this year and I’m in good shape and spent some good time in the gym. Now it’s about getting back my fluency, but it’s still early in the season.” How dispiriting it must have been for all Bolt’s opponents who perhaps detected a chink in the armor as he labored to a 10.04 victory in the Czech Republic last week and said afterwards he was

Jamaican Puma kit and clothing line designed by Cedella Marley, daughter of the late reggae star Bob. Asked what that sort of comeback does to the mindset of his rivals, Bolt said he never thought about it. “All I know is what I’m capable of and if I can run 9.6 then nobody is going to beat me,” he said. His times, and the endless speculation about how much faster he can go, help fuel the Bolt bandwagon but for all the

razzmatazz he remains a true athlete at heart and what motivates him is titles and his place in the sport’s pantheon. Only Carl Lewis has successfully defended the Olympic 100 metres title and the American’s second gold came only after race winner Ben Johnson of Canada was disqualified for doping. “I want that Olympic gold,” said Bolt. “I want to run fast but winning it is what matters, that is the key, that is the focus.” “For me the 100 is the pinnacle, without a doubt, I have to win it. But I’ve told everybody I’m going to win the 200. I’m serious with the 200, I don’t play around,” he added. Nobody who witnessed his glorious world record runs in Beijing and Berlin would ever question his desire. “A lot of people are hung up on times - I’m not. I just want to go out there and defend my title because for me that’s what’s going to make me a legend,” said Bolt. He knows his sport’s history and is well aware of his position, not only for his spectacular performances but also for the way he engages the crowd and delivers a show to remember. Bolt is also aware of the background interest in him to move up to 400 metres, a distance he looks perfectly designed for. The 25-year-old, who said he was still developing physically, usually dismisses the prospect as “too much hard work” but added that Mills was not letting him off so lightly. “People remember me as a junior and say ‘Let’s see what you’ve got in the 400’,” he said. “I sense my coach wants me to run it, I think we’ll have a showdown at the end of the year. “I know that people have said that really would make me a legend (to add the 400 gold) but I think if I go out and run 9.4 and 18 something I’ll still set the bar pretty high.” —Reuters

Lynx eclipse Sun UNCASVILLE: Rebekkah Brunson had 14 points and 13 rebounds as defending WNBA champion Minnesota remained unbeaten with an 85-72 vic tor y over Connecticut on Friday. It is the best start in franchise history for the Lynx (6-0). S eimone Augustus had 23 points, six rebounds and t wo steals for Minnesota while Lindsay Whalen had 10 points, eight assists and six rebounds. Tina Charles had 20 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks for Connec ticut (3-1) and Renee Montgomery added 16 points. Silver Stars 85, Mercury 66 At San Antonio, Beck y Hammon made of 7 of 9 3-pointers and scored 30 points to lead San Antonio. San Antonio shot 53 percent from 3-point range and 46 percent from the field. Hammon made 9 of 14 from the field in setting her season-high for points. Sophia Young finished with 16 points and Jia Perkins added 12 for San Antonio. Candice Dupree and Nakia Sanford each scored 17 points to lead the Mercury (1-4).

Kiprop outruns Masai EUGENE: Wilson Kiprop never imagined he would be Kenya’s leading 10,000 metres medal hope at the London Games but on a drizzly Friday night in Oregon, the 2010 African champion timed his late surge to perfection to win his nation’s Olympic trial. Ignoring the controversy in Kenya over the race being contested on US soil, Kiprop passed former world bronze medallist Moses Masai with 50 metres to go and won in the year’s fastest time at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting. The 24-year-old bettered his personal best by a massive 25 seconds when he crossed the line in 27 minutes, 1.98 seconds. “I could not imagine I could win the race today,” Kiprop told reporters. “But I hoped in my mind maybe something would happen. It’s something very incredible.” Masai ran 27:02.25 and Bitan Karoki finished third in 27:05.50 to complete the Kenyan team for London. The Kenyans moved their trials to low-altitude Eugene with an aim to break a 44-year drought without an Olympic gold in the 10,000. Their last victory in the event came at the 1968 Mexico Olympics when Naftali Temu triumphed. Athletics Kenya chairman Isaiah Kiplagat was delighted the outcome. “We are pleased that the results have not been disappointing,” he said. “With no pacemakers, the times were very impressive.”

Asked if the Kenyans might hold future Olympic and world championship trials outside of high-altitude Nairobi, Kiplagat was a little more circumspect. “We will see what the results are in London,” he said. “If the results are good, we will say that is the way to go.” Despite the wet track and sometimes rainy conditions at the Diamond League meeting, a classy field also delivered the year’s top performances in the men’s triple jump and women’s 10,000m. World outdoor champion Christian Taylor outduelled US team mate Will Claye to win the triple jump at 17.62 metres. Global indoor winner Claye bounded 17.48 and British Olympic hopeful Phillips Idowu claimed third at 17.05 with only two fair jumps. Ethiopian Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba pipped Kenya’s Florence Kiplagat in the women’s 10,000m, running 30:24.39. Kiplagat clocked 30:24.85, the year’s second fastest. Fast times were also recorded in the middle distance events. Kenyan James Magut led 12 runners under four minutes in the mile, winning in 3:54.16, and American Alysia Montano sped to the year’s second fastest women’s 800 in 1:57.37. The meeting continues late yesterday with Ethiopian Olympic gold medallist Kenenisa Bekele facing British world champion Mo Farah over 5,000 metres and China’s Liu Xiang taking on a strong field of U.S. athletes in the 110m hurdles. —Reuters

Rondo, Celtics cool Heat

Sky 65, Mystics 63 At Rosemont, Illinois, Sylvia Fowles capped Chicago’s rally with a game-winning layup. With 1.8 seconds left, Swin Cash launched a successful inbounds pass to Fowles under the basket. Fowles had 19 points and a season-high 16 rebounds for Chicago (3-1). Epiphanny Prince scored a careerhigh 31 points, including 13 in the final 1:44 as Chicago rallied from an eight-point deficit. Washington (1-3) was paced by Monique Currie’s 15 points and 12 from Crystal Langhorne. Storm 76, Shock 58 At Seattle, Sue Bird scored 27 points and Camille Little added 19 points and nine rebounds to lead Seattle to its first win of the season. Bird hit 5 of 7 3-pointers for Seattle (1-3) after she had made just 5 of 17 in the first three games of the season. Bird and Little and had seven points each as the Storm outscored Tulsa 21-11 in the third quarter to break open a close game. Jennifer Lacy scored 12 points and fellow reserve Riquna Williams had 11 to lead Tulsa (0-5), which has lost 11 straight dating to last season. —AP

EUGENE: Wilson Kiprop celebrates with the Kenyan flag after he won the Kenyan Olympic Trials 10K in the Prefontaine Classic athletics meet. —AP

BOSTON: Miami Heat forward Shane Battier (left) falls back as he fouls Boston Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo (9) on a drive to the basket during the second half of Game 3 in the NBA basketball playoffs Eastern Conference finals. —AP

BOSTON: Kevin Garnett had 24 points and 11 rebounds and Rajon Rondo scored 21 points with 10 assists to lead the Boston Celtics to a 101-91 victory over the Heat in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals on Friday night, cutting Miami’s lead in the series to 2-1. Paul Pierce scored 23 points for Boston. Game 4 is today in Boston. LeBron James scored 34 points, but the NBA Most Valuable Player and the rest of the Heat went cold during a 7minute stretch at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second, when Boston outscored them 150 to turn a six-point deficit into a ninepoint lead. James scored 16 points in the first quarter but had just four points with one rebound and one assist in the fourth, when Miami cut a 24-point deficit to eight. Mike Miller hit consecutive 3-pointers during an 11-0 run that cut the deficit to 95-87. Miami still trailed by eight points, with the ball, when Dwyane Wade missed and Ray Allen grabbed the rebound, sending Rondo on a fast break that made it a 99-89 with 99 seconds to play. James threw the ball away underneath, then missed a 3point attempt the next time down -

one of only four shots he took in the fourth quarter. Pierce found Garnett for a long jump shot at the other end, and the teams began emptying their benches. Coming off his 44-point effort in the Game 2 loss in Miami, in which he played every second of regulation and overtime, Rondo was 9 for 16 from the field and grabbed six rebounds. Marquis Daniels led the Boston bench with nine points and five rebounds in 18 minutes. Wade scored 18 points and Mario Chalmers had 14 points and six assists for Miami. Shane Battier was scoreless, missing all six shots, and Ronny Turiaf had three points while tangling with Garnett under the basket for much of the game. The Celtics center, who has appeared rejuvenated during these playoffs at the age of 36, got called for another technical foul for a violent elbow but otherwise seemed to be enjoying himself. While waiting to inbound the ball in the second quarter, he high-fived a young child sitting courtside in a No. 5 Celtics jersey. At the other end, after falling to the court after his shot, he did a series of pushups to the crowd’s amusement. —AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

SPORTS

Ukraine rocked by racism controversy KIEV: Victor Chikelu, a Nigerian medical student, was punched and told to go back to Africa by a drunk in the Kiev subway two years ago. But he, like other Africans who have suffered racist abuse in Ukraine’s capital, has a message for soccer fans: Don’t boycott Euro 2012. “I don’t think this should prevent the fans from coming down,” said Chikelu. “People just need to take precautions and everything should be fine.” He points to no fatal attacks in the last 2 or 3 years as a sign that the situation is perhaps improving. Still, he says he plans to leave the country as soon as he graduates next year. A tall and muscular man, Chikelu says the memory of the attack haunts him whenever he’s out in public. “I have gotten used to this feeling ... If I notice anything, I am always ready to run,” he said, sitting by Kiev’s main avenue, which within days will turn into a fan zone with big screens, packed with people from all over Europe as the soccer tournament, co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland, kicks off. With a week to go until the tournament, Ukraine has been rocked by accusations of rampant racism. A British documentary showed thugs in one of the

Euro 2012 host cities violently beating dark-skinned supporters of the same team during a domestic league match. And former England player Sol Campbell warned fans to stay at home or risk coming back in a coffin. Ukrainian officials were outraged by the comments, saying the country has many sins but that racism isn’t one of them. They are vowing that foreign fans will be safe and will have fun. Experts and ethnic community leaders paint a different picture. They say several dozen ethnically motivated attacks take place here each year and that authorities are reluctant to investigate and punish the perpetrators and protect the victims. Dark-skinned students feel uncomfortable in public places, avoid public transport and prefer to hang out in groups. “If we talk about physical attacks and cases of hate crimes, it’s definitely a problem in big cities,” said Iryna Fedorovich, an activist with the Kievbased advocacy group No Borders. “If we talk about xenophobia, it’s everywhere.” But while racism exists in Ukraine, it’s not so rampant that foreign visitors should be scared of coming, community leaders say. In fact, they believe that

Most Brazilian clubs not after Ronaldinho anymore SAO PAULO: Ronaldinho’s chances of continuing to play football in Brazil have diminished significantly following his high-profile departure from popular club Flamengo. A day after Ronaldinho terminated his contract and sued the club for unpaid salaries, officials from most of the top Brazilian teams said Friday they don’t intend to try to sign the former Brazil star, who played below expectations and was criticized for unprofessional behavior off the field. The 32-year-old Ronaldinho said Thursday he wants to take some time off from football to take care of his sick mother. When he is ready to return he might have to look for a club in a different country after mostly poor performances in the S o u t h American nation. “There is no chance we will try to bring Ronaldinho,” said Roberto de Andrade, a football director for Brazilian champion Corinthians, which was one of the teams trying to sign the player in 2011. “He does- Ronaldinho of Brazil n’t fit into our style anymore. We have no interest.” Polls conducted by Brazilian media said most fans also wouldn’t want to see him playing for their clubs, including one published by the sports daily Lance on Friday which interviewed supporters from 11 clubs and showed the majority didn’t want Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho ended his stint with Flamengo on Thursday when he sued the club for a reported $20 million in past salaries, asking a judge to terminate his contract. Flamengo officials acknowledged difficulties paying for the player’s high salaries, although it denied it owed him $20 million in wages and other rights. Some top football names in Brazil defended Ronaldinho on Friday. Santos coach Muricy Ramalho said he should remain an idol for Brazilian fans, while World Cup winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, now with Palmeiras, said he would still want the player on his squad. But club directors dismissed trying to pay for the high costs of having Ronaldinho on the team. “Economically it’s not feasible anymore,” said Palmeiras club director Cesar Sampaio. Ronaldinho last made headlines throughout Brazil in 2010 when he announced he was leaving AC Milan to play in Brazilian football again after a decade thriving in European football.

Many Brazilian clubs pursued the former Brazil star, and Flamengo, Gremio and Palmeiras made high offers for the player. The fight for Ronaldinho lasted several weeks and was controversial, with Palmeiras saying at the time that Ronaldinho agreed to play for the club and Gremio preparing a party to announce his signing. But in the end Ronaldinho said he wanted to play for Flamengo, in part because of its huge fan base. In April, Flamengo’s biggest fan group published a letter on its website criticizing Ronaldinho and accusing him of being unprofessional for his alleged appearances at parties and nightclubs. “You must be kidding me,” Gremio director Paulo Pelaipe told local media after being asked if the club would seek the player a g a i n . “Thankfully he chose not to come to Gremio back then. Now he is Flamengo’s problem.” Local media has reported, citing sources close to Ronaldinho, that the player has already received offers from overseas clubs, including from China. Spanish media reported that Malaga may also be interested in the player. Flamengo president Patricia Amorim said Friday she instructed the club’s legal department aggressively fight the dispute with Ronaldinho. “We are extremely disappointed, I promise fans that we will fight until the end to defend the team’s rights,” she said. Flamengo began struggling to pay for Ronaldinho’s salaries after ending its partnership with sports marketing group Traffic, which had been in charge of the majority of the nearly $700,000 that the player reportedly received monthly. Ronaldinho disappointed in his first few months with Flamengo and was jeered by fans, but bounced back and was instrumental in Flamengo’s title in the Rio de Janeiro state championship in 2011. He then helped Flamengo earn a spot in this year’s Copa Libertadores and regained a spot in the national team, but began poorly again throughout this year. Ronaldinho helped Brazil win the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, but was in the team that was eliminated by France in the 2006 quarterfinals in Germany. He was not picked for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.—AP

Ukraine beaten by Austria INNSBRUCK: Euro 2012 co-hosts Ukraine were beaten 3-2 by Austria in Innsbruck on Friday in their penultimate warmup friendly ahead of the tournament. The visitors were caught cold after three minutes when Zlatko Junuzovic curled an excellent free kick beyond the goalkeeper. Ukraine levelled after 56 minutes, Oleh Gusyev tapping the ball in from close range following a through ball from Andriy Yarmolenko. Marko Arnautovic restored Austria’s

lead six minutes later with a powerful effort low into the corner. Gusyev, though, struck again in the 65th minute with a long-range thunderbolt of a shot into the top corner. Arnautovic then grabbed the winner with two minutes left to play. Ukraine, drawn with France, England and Sweden in Group D, take on Turkey in a final warmup in Ingolstadt on Tuesday. Their first match in the Euros is against Sweden in Kiev on June 11. Poland are also co-hosts.—Reuters

hosting a major international event will attract attention to the problem and promote diversity. “Racism is a problem in Ukraine, but I don’t think (Campbell) was right to say that you will return in a coffin,” said Charles Asante-Eboa, President of the African Center in Ukraine, which unites tens of thousands of African working and studying here. “They (fans) will come, they will be happy and they will go away with a lot of memories and nostalgia for the welcome they will receive in Ukraine,” AsanteEboa said. “I am sure Ukraine will meet them with open arms.” The accusations of racism - and Campbell’s comment in particular - have caused outrage and disbelief here. Authorities say Ukraine is being slandered by people who’ve never been to the country. “I am sure nothing is going to happen - we all need to calm down and return back to reality,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Voloshyn. Ukrainian authorities are so confident of a peaceful tournament that police officers won’t mix with fans during the games and will be discreetly positioned a few minutes away from the action.

“We will have a normal, safe atmosphere for foreign citizens,” said Oleh Motveitsov, an Interior Ministry official charged with security measures during the Euros. “Ukraine will be hospitable.” “The only piece of advice I have for foreign fans is not to get into trouble, not to get drunk and not to get involved with people they don’t know to avoid problems,” Motveitsov said. “Better to stay together as a group than going alone in dark back alleys.” Chikelu painted a grim picture of being an African in this former Soviet nation. Like many other African students, he chose Ukraine’s top medical school for his education because it costs him a relatively cheap $5,000 per year. But he said his female colleagues stay in their dormitories after dark - and that men tend to drive in cars or take taxis to avoid racist confrontations. Another Nigerian student, Olaolu Sunkalmi Femi, appeared in court this week to face attempted murder charges after he fought back against an attack by five Ukrainians in what he says was a racist crime. He fended off his assailants with a broken bottle, fearing for his life, and some of them suffered light cuts, his defense team says. If convicted he faces

a minimum 10-15 years, and up to life. “We hope that the court will do justice, but the very fact that he’s accused and in jail is lamentable,” said Maksym Butkevych, a human rights activist with the Kiev-based advocacy group No Borders. Most observers here agree that boycotting Euro 2012 would be a bad idea. Chikelu said many of his Ukrainian friends are unaware of racism being a problem and that being exposed to people from different cultures and backgrounds will boost tolerance. “Their coming is an instrumental way to solve the problem,” he said. “Staying away doesn’t help it.” Euro 2012 “will give an opportunity to Ukrainians to see that people of different colors live in other countries and that will help promote diversity in Ukraine,” said AsanteEboa, the African community leader. Activists say the Euros should also prompt Ukrainian authorities to investigate and prevent racist attacks and promote tolerance when the championship is over. “I would be more happy if they can guarantee that this country is racismfree after the Euro period,” said Fedorovich, the anti-racism activist.—AP

Czechs stumble against Hungary PRAGUE: The Czech Republic suffered a 2-1 home defeat by Hungary in their final Euro 2012 warm-up game despite domin atin g possession as Adam Gyurcso netted a late winner for the visitors on Friday. The un mar k ed Gy ur cso latch e d onto a long-range pass in front of goal and rifled a shot past goalkeeper Petr Cech. Hungary opened the scoring after j ust six min utes wh e n Balazs Dzsudzsak’s quick free kick fr om j ust outside the penalty area caught the Czechs out as th ey or gan ised th e i r defence. The hosts, who created several chances, equalised with a Michal Kadlec penalty midway through the first half after forward Milan Baros was dragged down inside the area. Czech Republic coach Michal Bilek fielded a full strength side exc ept for in j ur ed c aptain Tomas Rosicky, although the midfielder is expected to be fit for the tournament. Bilek said the Czechs could not find the final pass to penetrate a physical Hungarian side who spent most of the night concentrating on defending rather than looking to attack. He also lamented the two defensive breakdowns that gifted the visitors their two goals

PRAGUE: Adam Pinter (right) from Hungary challenges for a ball with Vladimir Darida (left) from Czech Republic during their friendly soccer match.—AP but said the Czechs would be ready for the tournament which starts next week. “The result will not affect our confidence,” Bilek told a

Italy’s troubles mount with 3-0 loss to Russia ZURICH: Italy’s troubles mounted as they produced some slapstick defending in a 3-0 defeat by fellow Euro 2012 finalists Russia on Friday in their only warm-up match for the tournament. The game at the Letzigrund in Zurich was played against the backdrop of a match-fixing scandal back home that prompted Italy coach Cesare Prandelli to say he would not mind his side pulling out of the European Championship if it was the right move. Friday’s performance was a defensive nightmare for Italy, who conceded only twice in 10 games during qualifying, with Russia’s second and third goals coming from defensive mix-ups involving substitute goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis. Italy had created more chances in the opening hour but their rearguard always looked shaky and they fell to pieces when Russia, who could have scored three times ahead of the break, went ahead through Alexander Kerzhakov just before the hour. Roman Shirokov then added two late goals. It was Italy’s third successive match without scoring following 1-0 defeats by Uruguay in November and the United States in February and their heaviest loss since Prandelli took charge following the 2010 World Cup. Italy have been drawn in a tough Group C at Euro 2012 with world and European champions Spain, Croatia and Ireland. Mario Balotelli drew a blank for the Italians, disappearing from the action in the last half hour after a bright opening. “I have to do tests, we didn’t have time for lots of preparations, there is not much time,” said Prandelli. “The first half was open, both teams could have scored and the first 10 minutes of the second half were also very good but when the goal came we lost all our energy. I’m not sure if it was physical or psychological.” “This is something I have to find out, to help rebuild the confidence. Perhaps it’s good to suffer a bad game now as it means we have our feet back firmly on the ground and know how much we have to work. “We have to regain our strength and fight for every ball, as in the qualification,” he added. Italy’s match-fixing scandal led Prandelli to drop left back Domenico Criscito from his squad after police said the player was formally under investigation. Criscito has denied any wrongdoing. Jeered off the pitch by the mainly Italian crowd, Italy’s nightmare began just after Antonio Cassano failed to turn Balotelli’s cross into the net. Russia broke down the other end and Kerzhakov, allowed too much space, fired the opening goal past De Sanctis, who had replaced Gianluigi Buffon at halftime, from Shirokov’s pass just before the hour mark.—Reuters

news conference. “We dominated the game but could not get over the (defensive) wall.” The Czechs, semi-finalists in 2004 and finalists in 1996, play

Russia on June 8 in their opening Group A game before facing former European champions Greece and co-hosts Poland.—Reuters

Problems mount for Euro 2012 contenders PARIS: With a week to go until the start of Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, injuries and off-pitch controversies have already begun to shape the outcome of the tournament. None of the 16 teams competing in the quadrennial showpiece have enjoyed a hiccup-free build-up to the event, and the main contenders have been among the most obviously inconvenienced sides. Reigning world and European champions Spain are bidding to become the first nation to win three consecutive major tournaments, but they must attempt to do so without record scorer David Villa and talismanic centre-back Carles Puyol. The Barcelona pair have both fallen victim to injury, obliging coach Vicente del Bosque to make unwanted adjustments to a team that have swept all before them since embarking on the road to glory at Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Victory in the final in Kiev on July 1 would give this Spain team legitimate claim to the title of the greatest international side in the sport’s history, but midfielder David Silva knows that La Roja’s rivals will not stand idly by. “We can always dream about it, of course, but we have to be conscious of the fact that the other teams are equally strong, of the potential of the other teams, and the fact that winning is very demanding and you must suffer a great deal,” said Silva. “It can happen, but nobody should think that it is going to be easy.” Drawn alongside Italy, Croatia and the Republic of Ireland in Group C, Spain begin their campaign in Gdansk on June 10 against an Italian side rocked by the impact of yet another investigation into match-fixing in the country. Left-back Domenico Criscito was forced to withdraw from the tournament after being implicated in the affair, while Juventus pair Gianluigi Buffon and Leonardo Bonucci have both had accusatory fingers pointed in their direction. Coach Cesare Prandelli subsequently made the startling declaration that “it would not be a problem” if Italy had to withdraw from the competition. However, the turmoil is not necessarily a portentous sign. Italy is no stranger to football controversies, and their World Cup successes in 1982 and 2006 both unfolded beneath the shadow of off-pitch scandals

linked to match-fixing. Whereas Prandelli will draw on a core of Juve players buoyed by their roles in the club’s first Serie A title success since 2003, his Germany counterpart Joachim Loew must hope his sizeable Bayern Munich contingent can shake off the disappointment of their penalty shootout loss to Chelsea in the Champions League final. Like Spain, Germany enjoyed a perfect record in qualifying, and having been drawn alongside Denmark, Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal and beaten World Cup finalists the Netherlands in a finely balanced Group B, they can afford no time for self-pity. Both Germany and Holland will have designs on the Henri Delaunay trophy, but habitual contenders England have had to downsize their ambitions after a build-up punctuated by setbacks. Roy Hodgson was only installed as coach on May 1, following the abrupt departure of Fabio Capello, and he has already had to witness the withdrawals of key midfielders Jack Wilshere, Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard due to injury. “I’m satisfied with the group we’ve put together. I believe in the group,” Hodgson insisted. “I’m disappointed to have lost two senior players (Barry and Lampard), but on the other hand, it’s a great opportunity for someone else.” He also has problems in attack, with Wayne Rooney suspended for England’s two opening Group D matches against France and Sweden. France continue to make steady progress under Laurent Blanc, but the scars of the 2010 World Cup-when they crashed out in the group phase following a player revolt-mean Blanc refuses to look beyond a place in the quarter-finals. Ukraine have their work cut out to reach the last eight, but Poland received a more favourable draw that placed them alongside Russia, the Czech Republic and shock Euro 2004 champions Greece in Group A. The Poles have also been largely spared the criticism aimed at their fellow hosts, amid concerns over security, high hotel prices and the threat of hooliganism in Ukraine. Poland open the tournament against Greece at the newly constructed National Stadium in Warsaw on June 8.—AFP

Most Brazilian clubs not after Ronaldinho anymore

Stoner takes pole in Catalunya MotoGP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Olympic football needs Giggs and Becks

Page 18

FRANCE: Russia’s Maria Sharapova serves to China’s Peng Shuai during their Women’s Singles third round tennis match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium.—AFP

Sharapova storms into last 16 PARIS: Maria Sharapova stormed into the French Open last 16 yesterday, brushing aside China’s Peng Shuai 6-2, 6-1, while semi-final rivals Li Na and Petra Kvitova labored to reach the second week. Second seed Sharapova fired 27 winners past 28th seed Peng in a 66-minute Philippe Chatrier court demolition. The Russian, a semi-finalist in 2011, and seeking a French Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, has lost just five games in three rounds. She will next face Czech veteran Klara Zakopalova who put out Russian 22nd

seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 7-5. “I came in knowing that I was facing a tough opponent who has beaten me before and against who I have played three sets,” said Sharapova. “She can really play, hits the ball really well, so I tried to keep her moving, tried to get her on the run.” Defending champion Li Na, the seventh seed, battled back to defeat America’s Christina McHale 3-6, 6-2, 6-1. The 30-year-old Li had to draw upon her 10-year age gap to prevail over the 36th-ranked American, who had fallen in the ﬁrst round in 2010 and 2011.

“She’s a very dangerous player. I was happy I could win the match today because I have more experience,” said seventh-seeded Li, who will face Kazakh qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova for a place in the quarter-finals. Italian 14th seed Francesca Schiavone, the 2010 champion and runner-up to Li last year, lost 3-6, 6-3, 8-6 to America’s Varvara Lepchenko, the world number 63, who has reached the last 16 of a Grand Slam for the first time. Schiavone, the oldest player left in the tournament at 31, will lose her place in the world top 20 as a result of her defeat.

Uzbekistan-born Lepchenko, who had defeated 19th seed Jelena Jankovic in the second round, squandered the opportunity to serve for the match in the ninth game of the decider, but held her nerve in the 14th. It was the 26-year-old’s second successive win over Schiavone, having also won in three sets in the second round of the Madrid claycourt tournament in May. “I was ﬁghting till the end. She played amazing. It’s her court. I knew that she’s not gonna give it for free. I had to work really hard, and I did,” said Lepchenko, who next tackles Petra Kvitova, the fourth-

made the most of his first senior start, but blazed over after eight minutes following James Milner’s cutback. Oxlade-Chamberlain was off-target again moments later after Ashley Cole released Welbeck down the left, shooting over once more. The festive mood amongst both sets of fans was not matched by players in the middle, meanwhile, and the opening exhanges were notable for a string of feisty collisions that led to bookings for both teams. Dries Mertens was the first to be cautioned on 17 minutes for a sly shove on Cahill that sent the Chelsea defender crashing into goalkeeper Joe Hart, forcing the Chelsea defender to withdraw. Scott Parker then earned a yellow card after a late challenge on Jan Vertonghen, the Ajax centreback who has been linked with a move to Tottenham Hotspur this summer. Belgium looked far more comfortable in possession but a forward line with no natural predator lacked the cutting edge to unlock a solid English back four. England, by contrast, looked happy to wait for openings, and their opening goal came with a rapier-like break from midfield. Welbeck and Steven Gerrard won the ball in midfield and fed Ashley Young, who in turn threaded a superb pass to Welbeck, who lifted the deftest of finishes above the advancing Simon Mignolet. Gerrard had two shots blocked in quick succession shortly before half-time after desperate defending from Timmy Simons and Guillaume Gillet but the score remained 1-0 at the interval. With England making a flurry of changes in the opening period of the second half, the game lost its rhythm, and the edge that had been present in the opening 45 minutes quickly dissipated. Welbeck made way for Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney on 53 minutes while soon

fine. But it wasn’t. She played much better than the first set. She had a better serve, and it was tough to return.” “She had pressure from the first shot that she played. I was running side to side and that’s not my game. So I had to change and be aggressive and put her a little further back.” Also making the last 16 was Shvedova, a quarter-finalist in 2010, who eased past Spain’s Carla Suarez-Navarro 6-4, 7-5. Later yesterday, former world number one Caroline Wozniacki, the ninth seed, meets Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.—AFP

Nadal leads Spanish charge at French Open

England down Belgium LONDON: England wrapped up their pre-tournament preparations for Euro 2012 with a 1-0 win over Belgium at Wembley yesterday courtesy of Danny Welbeck’s maiden international goal. Manchester United youngster Welbeck struck on 36 minutes to make it two wins out of two for new England manager Roy Hodgson following last weekend’s 1-0 victory over Norway in Oslo. However, the aftermath of England’s win was dominated by fresh injury worries, with defensive linchpins Gary Cahill and John Terry both picking up knocks that gave Hodgson cause for concern. Cahill needed an X-ray for a possible fractured cheekbone, which, if confirmed, would rule him out of the tournament, while Terry departed in the second half after complaining of a tight hamstring. “We’ve got another few injury concerns. Gary Cahill is slightly more of a concern because it’s a jaw injury,” Hodgson said. “We hope that the scan doesn’t show any fracture and that he can still play in the tournament. John Terry felt his hamstring. It wasn’t major but we still need to scan it to be 100 percent sure.” If either player was ruled out it would be another hammer blow to England’s preparations, after midfielders Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard both withdrew from the squad this week through injury. Belgium coach Marc Wilmots, meanwhile, said his side, who dominated possession for long periods, had not deserved to lose. “I saw a Belgium team that controlled the game. Unfortunately we gave away a goal but I don’t think we deserved to lose-a draw would have been a fair result. We controlled the match,” Wilmots said. Welbeck’s finish was a rare moment of class from England, who struggled to create genuine goalscoring chances in their last game before their daunting Euro 2012 opener against France in Donetsk on June 11. Arsenal teenager Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

seeded Czech. Wimbledon champion Kvitova, 22, reached the last 16 for the third time but she did it the hard way, serving up eight double faults and committing 37 unforced errors in her 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 win over Russian world number 109 Nina Bratchikova. She was only saved by her fierce, flatly hit groundstrokes which left the Portugalbased Bratchikova gasping. “I started well, had a set already, and then I was very aggressive and I knew what I had to do,” said Kvitova. “In the second set I was still like, okay, if I play like the first set, it will be

LONDON: Belgium’s Marouane Fellaini (left) fights for the ball with England’s Joleon Lescott yesterday during an international friendly football match at Wembley Stadium. —AFP afterwards Young, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Terry were replaced by Jermain Defoe, Theo Walcott and Phil Jagielka. The changes did nothing to increase England’s potency, and Mignolet did not have a save to make throughout the second half. Gillet went close to levelling for Belgium on 78 minutes when his thunderous long-range effort flashed off the post. Four minutes later England had their best chance of the second half; Walcott releasing Defoe, whose low angled strike cannoned back off the foot of the post.—AFP

PARIS: Rafael Nadal tightened a Spanish stranglehold on the bottom half of the French Open draw yesterday, while Andy Murray set up a last 16 round clash with Richard Gasquet. The top seed and defending champion coasted into the fourth round with a lop-sided 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 win over qualifier Eduardo Schwank of Argentina. Earlier sixth-seeded David Ferrer flattened Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 in just 101 minutes, whilst 12th seed Nicolas Almagro saw off the challenge of Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer 6-4, 6-1, 6-2. Marcel Granollers then edged a hard-fought 6-4, 6-4, 1-6, 4-6, 6-1 win over French wildcard Paul-Henri Mathieu to ensure that half of the qualifiers for the last 16 in the bottom half of the draw were from Spain. In contrast, there were no Spaniards through in the top half of the draw. Murray looked to be over the lower back problems that beset him in the previous round as he defeated Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Nadal, who turns 26 today, had Schwank on the defensive from the start, jumping out into a 4-0 lead that set the tone for the entire match. In the end he conceded just eight games, taking his total in three matches to a meagre 17. The Spaniard is set on winning the French Open for a record seventh time in eight years, having first played at Roland Garros in 2005 as an 18-year-old. With a match record of 48-1 in his favour Nadal next goes up against Juan Monaco of Argentina who defeated Milos Raonic of Canada 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-4. “I have started well the tournament - into the second week now, that is the most impor-

tant thing,” he said. “Now I have a big confrontation against Monaco. He is having a fantastic season.” The 30-year-old Ferrer, who has yet to make it past the quarter-finals at Roland Garros despite being one of the best players on clay for the last few years, had Youzhny by the throat from the start, winning the first set 6-0 and leading 2-0 in the second before the Russian got off the mark. Thereafter Ferrer conceded just another three games as he set up a last 16 round meeting with Granollers. “This match was easier than planned, and I was immediately into the match,” he said. “When the situation was a bit difficult, I managed to overcome these difficulties. Almagro’s routine win over Mayer was his seventh straight victory following his title triumph in Nice last week. His previous best at Roland Garros were quarter-final appearances in 2008 and 2010 and on both occasions he lost to Nadal who he will face again should the two Spaniards make it through to the last eight. On his rest day Friday, Murray had been left fielding criticism from such as British legend Virginia Wade and French champion Henri Leconte that he had acted in an unsportsmanlike manner in his win over Jarkko Nieminen on Thursday. In that tie he had looked down and out in the first few games, clutching at his lower back and legs and needing medical treatment three times. After dropping the first set 6-1, Murray suddenly settled down in the second and eventually ran out an easy winner. Many felt his actions could have destabilized his opponent whose game fell apart after the opening set.—AFP

Business

Older Americans learn new trades in tough jobs market Page 23 GM to cut one-fourth of US pension liability Page 25

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Unemployment breeds anger in ‘home of Arab Spring’

Page 25

Danger sign for US economy as job growth disappoints Page 26

MANDALAY: Workers unload rice grains from a boat anchored along the Ayarwaddy river in Mandalay, north of Yangon. Myanmar has signed an agreement with the International Labor Organization to end forced labor by 2015. — AFP

Myanmar banking’s ‘wow’ factor - ATMs Central bank to launch new nationwide ATM network YANGON: As Myanmar opens up after five decades of military rule, a country run on cash is finding a new alternative: plastic. Private banks in Myanmar have begun rolling out automated teller machines in recent weeks, revolutionary in a country where people often haul sacks and suitcases of cash to banks. And more ambitious plans are in the works. “It’s fantastic, so convenient,” Naing Lin Oo, a 26-year-old computer engineer, said after withdrawing about 120,000 kyat ($143) one recent afternoon. “It would be good to see more of these,” he added, pointing to a two-month-old blueand-yellow ATM run by Co-Operative Bank, one of Myanmar’s 13 private banks. That’s about to happen: the central bank is preparing to launch a new nationwide ATM network within two months and is in talks with Visa International’s Plus and MasterCard International’s Cirrus to introduce international banking within six months to a year, part of sweeping reforms in the former British colony, also known as Burma. Myanmar’s banking system is among the world’s most antiquated, crippled by years of sanctions and disastrous socialist policies. Moving funds abroad often requires help from ancient “hawala” underground money-transfer agents. Over the past two months, however, private banks have introduced basic electronic banking - with limits. ATM machines, for instance, cannot be shared between rival

MANDALAY: A woman unloads wood to be sold as firewood from a wooden boat anchored along the Ayarwaddy River in Mandalay, north of Yangon. — AFP

banks, and many are offline. Although US and European sanctions have been suspended, local banks still cannot connect internationally. “Our payment system is still quite simple. It’s mostly based on cash,” Maung Maung Win, one of two Central Bank of Myanmar deputy governors, said in an interview in the commercial capital Yangon. “Even some of the big companies or our government departments like to use cash.” Within two months, he said, a new department within the central bank, the Myanmar Payment Union, will introduce a new debit-card network allowing banks to share ATM machines and offer a wider array of services, among the biggest changes in the financial sector since the managed

float of the kyat on April 2. That will be followed by a second phase of international services by the middle of next year, or possibly as soon as six months, he added. The timing depends on the execution of Washington’s decision this month to suspend sanctions. WE’RE WAITING Since 1988, when the former military junta violently cracked down on student protesters, the United States has imposed what it calls “a web of overlapping sanctions”. This was done through five laws and four presidential documents. On May 17, the Obama administration announced it would ease those restrictions, allowing US investments and financial services in Myanmar for the first time in decades. This was in recognition of dramatic political changes. But Washington only “suspended” sanctions, instead of lifting them, to ensure no backtracking on human rights. The laws remain on the books. US businesses wanting to do business in Myanmar, including banks, must apply to Washington for a “general license”, a step that Myanmar’s central bank expects could take weeks or even months. “We’re waiting,” said Maung Maung Win. As a result, Western financial services are still non-existent in Myanmar and international credit and debit cards remain off limits - a frequent source of irritation for tourists and business executives now descending on the country. The restrictions also prohibit local banks from moving money to US and European bank networks - effectively freezing Myanmar out of global banking. Anticipating changes, Myanmar’s central bank has opened discussions with MasterCard and Visa, said Maung Maung Win. “From our side we are willing to start as soon as possible,” he said, adding the central bank wanted to connect to the international network ahead of the 2013 Southeast Asian Games, due to open late next year in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw. MasterCard is looking at opportunities in Myanmar, said Matthew Driver, division president for Southeast Asia at MasterCard Worldwide. “Electronic payments will be crucial in helping Myanmar connect to the global economy, facilitating business activity, and creating a better life for its citizens through financial inclusion,” he said in a statement emailed to Reuters. Local banking was not always so fraught. Dozens of local and foreign banks thrived in the 1950s, but the industry withered after a 1962 military coup introduced a disastrous “Burmese Way to Socialism” and sweeping nationalization. In 1988, the country’s former military rulers re-introduced a market economy. Soon after, in 1992, private banks were allowed. Foreign banks began opening representative offices, poised for a day when they could do business in the resource-rich country of about 60 million people. In 2003, shady money-lending practices caught up with the banking sector, sparking a crisis exacerbated by inept decision-making. Three banks collapsed. Accusations of money laundering have since begun to fade but other problems are entrenched, including restrictions that prevent foreign banks from doing little more than research at representative offices. Currently, 17 foreign banks maintain such offices, said the central bank. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, that number peaked at around 40. In recent weeks, it has started to rise again. Asked which banks were most keen to enter Myanmar, Maung Maung Win said Japanese banks led the pack, including Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd and Sumitomo Corp, followed by Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Ltd, DBS

Cash-strapped Morocco hikes fuel prices MARRAKESH: Cash-strapped Morocco will raise prices of refined oil products from today as the government seeks to reduce the growing burden of subsidies while facing persistent demands for more welfare spending. The ministry in charge of general affairs and public governance said industrial fuel prices would be raised by 988 dirhams ($110) to 4,666 dirhams per ton, a rise of 27 percent, according to a statement carried by official media. The price of unleaded fuel will increase by 2 dirham per liters, or nearly 20 percent, and those of gasoil will

be increased by one dirham, or about 16 percent, it added. The announcement marked the sharpest single increase in fuel prices in several years. The ministry said the move had been motivated by “the high cost of the subsidy and its likely impact on macroeconomic balances”. It said it would “mobilize necessary financing for public investments that will boost growth in the national economy, pending a radical reform of the subsidy system to make it more advantageous to social groups in need”. — Reuters

Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd , and then Malaysia’s CIMB Group Holdings Bhd . Banks from Vietnam, China and the United States also expressed strong interest, he added. He said foreign banks might be allowed to open joint ventures or subsidiaries as early as next year and no later than 2015, pending new foreign direct investment laws and the outcome of deliberations at Myanmar’s Finance Ministry, which oversees the central bank. In the meantime, domestic banks are rushing to roll out services ahead of foreign competition. Irrawaddy Bank,

owned by local tycoon Zaw Zaw’s Max Myanmar conglomerate, is less than two years old but aims to double in size to 45 branches and 1,500 staff next year from about 20 branches and 970 staff now, Zaw Zaw said in an interview. Some have started online bill payments and domestic remittances, adding to the thrill for card-holders such as Naing Lin Oo, who uses ATMs about twice a month. “It is far easier than using cash,” he said outside Yangon’s second-largest shopping plaza, itself a new phenomenon, open for just two months. “But we really need to see more of these,” he said. — Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

BUSINESS

Facebook to unleash more millions of shares NEW YORK: Facebook already unleashed millions of shares to wary investors. Now the technology giant’s early investors are about to see if they can force-feed millions more. Starting in just a few months, select insiders and early investors in Facebook will be free to sell their shares as the socalled lock-up period expires. Some fear the flood of stock available for trading could further inundate investors and water down Facebook’s share price, already well below the $38 initial public offering price. Facebook fell 6.4 percent Friday to $27.72.

“This is a big issue hanging over the price of the stock,” said Stephen Diamond, professor of law at Santa Clara University. Facebook’s “stock price still has a way to go on the downside as the market takes account of increased supply.” When an IPO lock-up period expires, more shares are available for trading, placing a greater supply of stock in the stock market. Investors are nervously watching the expiration of Facebook’s lock-up period because: - Lock-up expirations are significant events. IPOs suffer 2 percent declines, on average, in the wake of a

lock-up expiration, said Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida. In addition to the greater supply of stock, investors don’t like seeing executives and early investors selling, he says. - The coming supply of shares potentially sold is large. Facebook’s IPO unlocks an escalating number of shares for trading over time. The first lock-up expiration hits in less than three months, when 268 million shares are available for sale, or a tenth of shares outstanding. In less than six months, though, 1.7 billion shares will be unlocked. - Odds are that more shares could be

issued to pay for acquisitions. Not long before the IPO, Facebook announced it would be buying social photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion. To help pay for the acquisition, Facebook plans to issue nearly 23 million additional shares, according to the company’s filing. And investors are already braced for Facebook to freely issue even more shares to fund additional acquisitions, further diluting their stakes, said Josef Schuster of IPO tracker IPOX Schuster. Large institutions generally factor in lock-ups in the price they’re willing to

pay for a stock, Diamond said. But given that a larger-than-usual percentage of Facebook shares are held by individuals, who might not have factored in the lockup expiration, the stock price could face more head winds, Diamond said. One hope is that Facebook already boosted the number of shares sold in the IPO, reducing the future payload, Ritter said. The staggered lock-up expiration also slows the flood. “Facebook stock will continue to be volatile, but before long, there will be a 50-50 chance it will be up or down on a given day,” Ritter said. — MCT

candidates fail Greece companies 5toreasons impress in interviews seek Balkan refuge T Entrepreneurs move to Cyprus, Bulgaria RAKOVSKI: Iosif Komninakidis smokes nervously behind his desk in the sleepy Bulgarian town of Rakovski and contemplates plunging sales of his Greek company’s trendy jeans. Business in Komninakidis’s main market Greece was already in freefall when an election left Bulgaria’s neighbor rudderless and further threatened its solvency and euro membership. “Sales to Greece went down 30-35 percent. After the vote, they completely stopped. People just stand and wait,” said the energetic 57-year-old manager of Staff Jeans & Co’s sewing factory. But his business can’t wait. Staff Jeans & Co already has 800 people in Rakovski - some 180 km north of the border with Greece. It now plans to move more operations to Bulgaria to cut costs and ease shipping to markets in Germany and Italy. Several of Greece’s top companies spotted the Balkans’ growth potential back in the 1990s, when names like Coca-Cola Hellenic and snack maker Chipita moved in to grab opportunities in quickly developing post-communist economies. Now hundreds of small firms are following as Greek entrepreneurs abandon their shrinking home market with its uncertainty and high costs for lower taxes and cheaper labor in neighbors like Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. In a reversal of recent history, these countries communist until just over 20 years ago - now offer stability compared to Greece. “Here you have security you have a fixed tax rate of 10 percent, so that you know how much you can earn and how much you will have to pay - something that is not happening in Greece,” said Komninakidis, who moved to Rakovski in 1999. Cyprus, which offers European Union membership, strong cultural ties and is richer than Greece’s Balkan neighbors, may also be benefiting most from the trend thanks to its low taxes, though labor costs are higher. Lo c al press reported

1,500 companies moved headquarters there in the 20 months leading up to August 2011. More than a quarter of the 2,800 Greek-owned companies now operating in Bulgaria were registered last year, according to the national revenue agency. At the same time, the number of Greek-owned companies in

Greeks in the Balkans, shown in the firms which have a major presence in Bulgaria’s economy: from telecoms companies OTE and Intracom, to construction firm GEK Terna and steelmaker Sidenor and cement maker Titan. Greek-owned banks, led by National Bank of Greece’s UBB and EFG Eurobank’s Postbank, control a

ATHENS: Efgenia Tsindoukidi, 75, is shown preparing garlic at the family greengrocery business in Athens, Greece. She says business at the family greengrocery, now owned by her son, is the worst it has been in its 30-years of operation. In recent months, she has had to contribute from her own meager pension to help pay the rent, blaming politicians for her predicament and saying she doesn’t believe any of them any longer. — AP Romania has risen 12 percent since 2009 to more than 5,200 and nearly 200 Greek-owned businesses registered in Albania in 2010-2011, a jump of nearly a third from the previous two years. “The interest of Greek businessmen from different sectors - from IT companies to plastics, glass and food, as well as timber, has doubled in the past two years,” said Dimitrios Tourikis, managing partner at Callamus, a consultancy offering services to foreign companies in Sofia and Athens.

quarter of Bulgaria’s financial system and also have a major presence in Romania, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia. These big companies and others tapped the region’s rapid growth, investing 3 billion euros in Bulgaria since 1996, creating over 80,000 jobs and preparing the ground for the current influx of smaller businesses. These will create more income and jobs in Bulgaria and the region but economists say the impact will be gradual and is unlikely to give a major short-term boost to economies which have boomed and bust and are only slowly recovering. The wider concern is that the

GREEK PLAYGROUND The fall of communism opened up a wealth of opportunities for

Greek investment that has underpinned these emerging economies now makes them highly vulnerable to any Greek d e fault or exit from the euro zone, which has knocked their stock markets and currencies in the last month. Some observers see potential in that scenario as well because it will make Greek companies even more likely to find countries like Bulgaria attractive. “The coin has two sides, however, as I see several positives of the possible Greek exit from the euro zone,” said Yassen Ivanov, a fund manager at the Sofia-based DSK Asset Management. “The most straightforward one being ... (More) Greek enterprises moving to Bulgaria, thus bringing employment for the people and tax revenues for the country.” LIFESTYLE CHOICE In Bulgaria and Greece, consultancies and law firms offering registration, legal and accountancy services to foreigners have mushroomed. Flexi Hellas started only five months ago and already has 30 clients. One is looking for a way to bottle its high-quality olive oil in Bulgaria and ship from there to clients in western Europe to cut costs and avoid potentially delayed payments in Greece. Another wants to move his GPS system business after sales at home dropped 60 percent. “Some of them cannot meet their basic needs already, while the state is breathing down their necks. The insecurity makes them look for other solutions. They choose Cyprus or Bulgaria,” said Flexi Hellas executive director Stefi Della. Bulgaria, along with Cyprus, boasts the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU at 10 percent and starting a new business is easy and cheap. Romania has a flat tax of 16 percent. Corporate tax in Greece ranges between 20 to 25 percent and the minimum monthly wage is 586 euros, significantly higher than even the average of 350 euros in Bulgaria and Romania. —Reuters

he present job market is highly competitive, where each job opening receives hundreds of applications and among these hopeful candidates only a handful are shortlisted, and only one gets the coveted job offer. So what is it that differentiates some candidates from others when the final shortlisted candidates are so competitive? The answer to some extent lies in the interview stage. The career experts at the Middle East’s #1 job site Bayt.com have some key findings that shed some light on why some candidates with impeccable credentials can still fail to impress at the employer interview:-

POOR PREPARATION Employers have done their homework to find you and they expect you to do yours too. Candidates who arrive at an interview knowing little about the company, the industry and/or the role are in a poor position to compete with professionals who are well-prepared and have spent some time positioning themselves exactly as per the employer’s requirements. Employers want to know you are curious, energetic, resourceful and inspired and what better proof of that than arriving fully prepared and with keen insights into the employer and their brand/positioning/problems/news etc. If you have done your homework right you will be able to hit the ground running in the interview with answers tailored to suit the company’s particular culture, positioning, objectives, circumstances and situation. DISPLAYING A NEGATIVE ATTITUDE Poll after poll conducted by Bayt.com has revealed that attitude plays a crucial part in defining character and influencing the employment decision. Warning signs of bad attitudes include badmouthing previous bosses, companies and colleagues; giving defensive or rudely evasive answers to interview questions; or having a disinterested posture and demeanour. Remember people hire competent people they think they will really enjoy working with and who will spread a good positive vibe within the organisation and to external clients and stakeholders. Bad attitudes are highly contagious and employers know that. LACK OF ENTHUSIASM IN THE COMPANY Fewer things can alienate an employer

more than a candidate who is lukewarm or disinterested. The interview is not the time to give half-hearted and tired answers, nor is it the time to talk at length about how much you genuinely prefer the competitor brands. Employers are looking for nothing less than passion. If you cannot convince the employer that you will be as passionate about their company and line of work as they are, you will not be seen to possess the star quality they are looking for and they will not trust in your long-term loyalty, stamina or staying power.

VAGUE, COINED OR DISHONEST ANSWERS Employers can see right through a rehearsed, textbook answer, and dishonest answers are more than likely to be found out sooner or later and likely to backfire. By all means keep the conversation positive and constructive and don’t dwell over past failures or negative circumstances. Be vigilant of what the employer wants. They are looking for someone real, someone they understand and can trust, and they are likely to keep digging till they are comfortable in the fact that they really understand who you are, your strengths, weaknesses and your motivations. LACK OF CLARITY ON PERSONAL USPS If you are not very clear about what you are bringing to the table for that particular job role, chances are the employer will be even less clear. The employer is not a mind reader and your job is to make his/her life as easy as possible in mapping your key strengths, skills and competencies to the requirements of the role you are discussing. Be very precise and articulate when it comes to spelling out your personal strengths, why you are competitive, what sets you apart and makes you uniquely qualified to add value in that specific context. Practice beforehand. Make a list of all your strengths and find clear examples from your past achievements that demonstrate each of them. Remember to be relevant and to focus on transferable skills that are immediately applicable to the role being discussed.

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2735000 .4310000 .3450000 .2870000 .2700000 .2700000 .0040000 .0020000 .0758910 .7393880 .3840000 .0710000 .7248380 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2801500 GB Pound/KD .4348630 Euro .3480580 Swiss francs .2896060 Canadian dollars .2729970 Danish Kroner .0468340 Swedish Kroner .0387670 Australian dlr .2730760 Hong Kong dlr .0360850 Singapore dlr .2181170 Japanese yen .0035500 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0763040 Bahraini dinars .7433990 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0747270 Omani riyals .7279460 Philippine Peso .0000000

.2837500 .4430000 .3550000 .2990000 .2800000 .2810000 .0070000 .0035000 .0766540 .7468190 .4010000 .0770000 .7321220 .0072000 .0500000 .2822500 .4381230 .3506670 .2917770 .2750440 .0471850 .0390570 .2751230 .0363550 .2197520 .0035770 .0050570 .0021430 .0030190 .0034610 .0768760 .7489720 .3992220 .0752870 .7334030 .0065500

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency

Rate per 1000 (Tran)

US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah

281.300 3.002 4.995 2.125 3.439 6.480 76.690 75.170 747.800 46.500 440.900 2.950

Yemeni Riyal Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

1.550 354.200 279.000 3.130

UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

Al Mulla Exchange Currency

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal

280.950 351.650 433.450 272.350 3.650 5.035 46.510 2.127 3.428 6.470 3.002 748.250 76.550 75.050

SELL DRAFT SELL CASH

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro US Dollar Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

275.12 274.05 293.54 350.21 280.95 433.47 3.67 3.437 5.034 2.119.400 3.158 3.011 76.56 748.08 46.50 400.26 731.20 77.58 75.13

288.00 279.50 296.50 355.00 281.50 441.00 3.65 3.550 5.330 3.850 3.200 77.00 745.00 47.85 396.00 730.00 77.55 75.25

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer

Selling Rate

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar

281.300 276.795 436.320 349.055 290.575 744.730

COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound

SELL CASH 276.800 748.380 3.670 277.000 552.700 45.800 47.800 167.800 48.210 353.000 36.930 5.210 0.032 0.161 0.239 3.640 398.780 0.190 92.600 44.100 4.320 215.800 1.823 47.500 730.940 3.150 6.640 77.840 75.130 219.810 36.240 2.680 439.700 39.700 293.500 4.300

9.270 198.263 76.720 281.800 1.350

9.030 76.620 281.400

GOLD 1,651.080

10 Tola Sterling Pound US Dollar

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 437.700 281.400

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Bahrain Exchange Company

UAE Exchange Centre WLL COUNTRY

Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

76.565 77.215 74.975 395.975 46.510 2.124 4.991 3.018 3.440 6.450 690.030 4.565 8.905 5.925 3.259 89.245

SELL DRAFT 275.300 748.360 3.436 276.600

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Malaysian Ringgit

3.553 5.072 3.053 2.141 3.173 220.090 36.173 3.425 6.439 8.876 89.338 GCC COUNTRIES 74.883 77.158 729.380 745.850 76.464

219.800 46.576 351.500 36.780 4.995 0.031

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

398.740 0.169 92.600

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 48.250 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.466 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.309 Tunisian Dinar 176.65 Jordanian Dinar 396.190 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.884 Syrian Lier 4.899 Morocco Dirham 32.64

3.140 214.300 730.760 3.075 6.450 77.410 75.130 219.810 36.340 2.123 437.700 292.000 4.300

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 280.700 Euro 354.52 Sterling Pound 441.820 Canadian dollar 274.79 Turkish lire 152.400 Swiss Franc 295.01 US Dollar Buying 279.500 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

GOLD 293.000 148.000 75.250

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

BUSINESS

Older Americans learn new trades in tough jobs market WASHINGTON: When Joe Burklund of Des Moines, Iowa, lost his job at the depths of recession in 2009 after 30 years in the advertising and marketing industry, he never imagined another career. He was almost 60 and optimistic he would land another job in his field, where he was earning $65,000 a year. After collecting unemployment checks for a year, Burklund took a part-time job at grocery chain Trader Joe’s. As he watched his retirement savings bleed almost dry, he realized his situation would not turn around anytime soon. An acquaintance suggested he train for call center work, servicing banks and insurance companies. “I said, ‘Well, I may as well try that because nothing else seems to be working,’” Burklund said. Thousands of Americans aged 55 and older are going back to school and reinventing themselves to get an edge in a difficult labor market, hoping to rebuild retirement nest eggs that were almost destroyed by the recession. “I went into it thinking ‘I am not too sure I am cut out for call center work,’ and I never really wanted to sell insurance. But I was willing to try anything to gain full employment,” said Burklund, who has set aside hopes to retire at 65. Within two weeks of completing the program, he had three interviews and two job offers. In March, he started working at Marsh Insurance. A similar tale is recounted by Tom Halseth, about 380 miles east in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Halseth, 60, lost his job in May 2010 after 30 years as store manager with retail chain JC Penny. He spent 16 months unemployed. Today, Halseth is a quality assurance technician with dried fruit packer Mariani Packing Company in Wisconsin Rapids. He landed the job after a rigorous five-month program that included biology, chemistry and math classes and a two-week internship. According to the Federal Reserve, household financial assets, which exclude homes, dropped from a peak

of $57 trillion in the third quarter of 2007 to just over $49 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, the latest period for which data is available. A survey to be released this summer by the Public Policy Institute of AARP, an advocacy group for older Americans, found a quarter of Americans 50 years and older used up all their savings during the 2007-09 recession. About 43 percent of the 5,000 respondents who took part in the survey said their savings had not recovered. TOO YOUNG TO RETIRE Many older workers who lost jobs during the downturn are too young to retire and usually would not be considered ideal for retraining. Independent groups like the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, which is working with local communities and businesses to build skills and careers for workers and job seekers, are working to debunk that myth. In the last four years, the Fund has helped about 1,860 Americans 55 years and older retrain for new jobs. According to data from the Labor Department, 2.65 million people participated in its Workforce Investment Act programs in 2011. Those programs, which are also designed to help people find jobs, are separate from those run by independent groups like the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. About 345,000, or 13 percent of participants in the Workforce Investment Act programs, were 55 years and older. “If they have a 20-year record of being a great worker, companies will take them,” said Fred Dedrick, executive director at the National Fund. He said the Fund, which worked with the academy in Iowa that trained Burklund and with the Mid-State Technical College in Wisconsin, where Halseth received his food manufacturing science certificate, has a 60 percent to 70 percent success rate finding jobs for graduates. “It also depends on the labor market. If you

have an unemployment rate of 4 or 5 percent they will take them,” said Dedrick. “But if you have a high unemployment rate of say 10 percent, and you have the choice of investing in somebody who is 50 or somebody who is 30, of course you will invest in the younger worker because they will be around longer.” The unemployment rate for workers 55 years and older edged up to 6.3 percent in April from 6.2 percent in March. This age group accounted for 16 percent of the 12.5 million unemployed Americans last month. While the jobless rate for older Americans is much lower than the 8.1 percent national rate, it is double what it was when the recession started in December 2007, a statistic with which people like Paulette Gordon, 59, are all too familiar. Gordon, from Houston, Texas, lost her job as a technical analyst for energy companies two years ago after three decades structuring acquisitions of oil and gas wells. She brushed up her resume to include administration skills. So far that has not yielded anything and last month she sold her jewelry to pay rent. “I am surviving by the grace of God,” Gordon said. Productivity experts like Frank Lonergan say it is a mistake to overlook these so-called baby boomers, given their wealth of experience. Lonergan , whose company Ancile Solutions helps businesses to improve employee productivity through training, argues there is not much difference in terms of performance between a 25-yearold worker and a 55-year-old one if both are afforded the right opportunities. While it is a reasonable expectation that somebody hired at 55 would want to retire at 65, it could also be argued that a 25-year-old would probably not build a career at a single company, he said. “I think a 55-yearold worker who has the opportunity to come in and is given the right framework to help them get on board would have a much longer tenure than a 25-year-old,”

said Lon ergan. “The tendency for 25-year-old workers is to look at accelerating their career after two or three years.” MINIMUM WAGE SALARIES Even with new skills, older workers are re-entering the labor market at very low salaries, in most cases just above the minimum wage, which can be as low as $5.15 an hour and no higher than $9.04 an hour, depending on the state. Given the damage inflicted on their savings by the recession, this means many will probably continue to work well past the usual retirement age of 65, a fact acknowledged by both Burklund and Halseth. The share of Americans 55 years and older who are in the work force - which means either working or unemployed but looking for a job - is 1.4 percentage points higher than when the recession started. In contrast, the overall labor force participation rate dropped in April to a 30-year low. Last month, 4.6 percent of workers aged 55 and older held more than one job, according to AARP and government data. Halseth declined to specify his salary, but said it was a third of what he made as a JC Penny store manager. “While what I am making now is well above minimum wage, it would be hard to make a good living out of it,” he said. “At least I have a job and the possibility of going up. My 401k (retirement plan) was ravaged by the recession; that’s one of the reasons I will keep working,” said Halseth. “Before, I could have retired at 62 and retired comfortably, but I can’t do that anymore. I want to work until 70, if I could.” Similar sentiments were expressed by Burklund. “Right now I am making $32,000 a year and there is a bonus program. I may not retire until my late 60s,” said Burklund, who likes to joke that he will retire six months after his death. — Reuters

Easier credit, new models keep US auto sales solid 3 million cars, trucks sold in May

KARACHI: Pakistani men buy vegetables at a market in Karachi yesterday. The Pakistan government has unveiled its budget and pledged to narrow the deficit, but the announcement was overshadowed by opposition lawmakers shouting slogans and scuffles broke out. The $31-billion budget for the financial year beginning July 1 saw a 6.8 percent increase in defense spending, as Pakistan battles Taleban. — AFP

Dismal economic news sends Dow to 2012 loss NEW YORK: US stocks were sucked deeply into global economic downdrafts this week, as growth stalled across major economies and data from four continents painted an increasingly grim picture for the rest of the year. A big loss on Friday sent the Dow lower than it started 2012 for the first time, while the other major indices were near to giving up hard-wrought gains since January. The blue chips of the Dow ended the holidayshortened week at 12,118.57, down 3.3 percent for the four days and 0.81 percent off for the year. The broader S&P 500 gave up 3.0 percent in the week to 1,278.04, while the Nasdaq lost 3.2 percent, ending at 2,747.48. While Greece, Spain and the return to crisis of the eurozone was a constant dark cloud over trade, more data showing China’s slowdown, and figures confirming that the US remained stuck in its sluggish growth mode, were what really turned US investors into bears. On Friday, industrial activity indices in both countries showed slowing, and US jobs data for May came in as a real disappointment, with new jobs creation of a meager 69,000 positions less than half what was expected. “It’s an ugly day for US stocks, as a disappointingly weak report on May payrolls has thoroughly rattled investors,” said Elizabeth Harrow of Schaeffer’s Investment Research. In addition, investors’ hopes for a sign that China will move to stimulate growth were dashed when the government signaled that no such plan was in the works. Stocks sensitive to spending by American and Chinese consumers and industries took solid hits during the week: commercial banks, fast food franchisers like Yum Brands and McDonald’s, heavy equipment vendor Caterpillar and even Apple, the market leader by size.

The bad news also sent crude oil prices plunging and US government bond yields to new lows. “I don’t want to say we are at the panic stage, but investors are hard on selling off,” said Peter Cardillo of Rockwell Global Capital. US investors also still struggled with the debacle of Facebook’s May 18 initial public offering: on Friday, the stock closed at $27.72, 27 percent below the IPO price of $38. At least nine class action lawsuits have been filed against Facebook, its underwriters and the Nasdaq market over how the offering was handled. Economists debated the meaning of the week’s data but most argued that the negative mood in the markets was excessive. “The increase in Treasury prices and the decline in crude oil prices likely reflect the market’s ever-growing pessimistic view that the US economic recovery is stalling along with Eurozone weakness,” said Wells Fargo Securities. “While weaker-than-expected economic data may give merit to this argument, we contend there is likely a bit of noise in the data and continue to expect moderate economic growth.” The coming week will be lighter on data, though eyes will be on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for any signal the bank might be more open to add stimulus to the economy after demurring since the beginning of the year. Attention will also focus on developments in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and the eurozone. “The pervasive gloom is almost certain to provide a platform for bears to promote the possibility of a double-dip recession, further declines in home prices, global depression or similar enticing topics. Expect the bearish rhetoric to pick up sharply,” said Dick Green of Briefing.com. —AFP

TARNICHENE: Photo shows an elderly woman caring a sack full of rose flowers on her head as she walks in rose field near the village of Tarnichene, Bulgaria. Rose oil production in Bulgaria is set to increase by 25 per cent, according to experts in spite of the climate changes and economy crisis. — AP

DETROIT: Easier credit, hot new cars and falling gas prices kept Americans buying cars at a solid pace in May despite bad economic news. But sales could stumble in June as people weigh troubling headlines, like Friday’s report that US unemployment rose for the first time in 11 months. Car sales usually hew closely to the performance of the stock market and to consumer confidence numbers. But in May, they were strong, even though confidence was wobbly and the stock market had its worst month in two years. “We should have had a disastrous new vehicle sales month, but consumers are still interested in the new products,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence for the car buying site TrueCar.com. “This was an anomaly.” Toprak expects sales to slow somewhat this summer before picking up again at the end of the year as the economy improves and the presidential election ends political uncertainty. May sales totaled 1.3 million cars and trucks, up 26 percent from the same month a year earlier. It was the best May for the industry since 2008. Toyota led sales increases with an 87 percent rise from a year earlier, while Honda saw a 48 percent jump. In May 2011, both companies ran short of cars and trucks after the earthquake in Japan crippled their factories. But their showrooms are full again, and they’re rapidly gaining back the market share that they lost to competitors such as Hyundai and GM. Sales of the Toyota Prius hybrid tripled from a year ago, while Honda Civic sales were up 80 percent. Chrysler reported a 30 percent increase, followed by Volkswagen at 28 percent and Nissan at 21 percent. Ford and Hyundai both saw gains of 13 percent. General Motors Co was up 11 percent. Among the reasons car buyers put aside worrisome economic news: There’s pent-up demand. Consumers who held off buying new cars during the recession are reaching the point where they must replace their vehicles. The average truck on the road is a record 10.4 years old and the average car is 11.1, Ford economist Jenny Lin said. GM expects pent-up demand from the recession to boost sales into next year as long as the economy keeps growing. Carmakers are rolling out new models faster

than ever before, and they’re catching buyers’ eyes. New models usually fuel demand, even in a weak economy.GM sold 7,205 new Sonic subcompacts in May, for example, a 58-percent increase over Chevrolet’s old subcompact, the dull Aveo. Volkswagen’s new Passat helped the company to its best May since 1973. Sales of Honda’s new CR-V were up 54 percent. Auto financing is continuing to loosen up, even for people with questionable credit history. The required credit score for people buying cars has dropped to pre-recession levels, according to Experian Automotive. Interest rates have also fallen, from an average new-car loan rate of

HANOVER: Photo shows a Toyota automobile and light truck dealership Hanover, Mass. US auto sales remained a bright spot last month even as the economy darkened. — AP

4.83 percent in the first three months of 2011 to 4.56 percent in the same period this year. Loan terms are also longer, which lowers payments. “The financing costs have just been historically low,” said George Mokrzan, director of economics at Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio. Consumers have also spent the past few years paying down their debts. Lower rates and debt loads mean more and more consumers are “capable of taking on the obligation of getting a new car,” Mokrzan said. Even lower incentives didn’t deter most buyers in May. Carmakers offered an average of $2,392 in incentives per vehicle, down slightly from April. Buyers have a bit more money to spend now that gas prices average $3.61 a gallon - 33 cents below the peak of $3.94 on April 6. Some experts say gas could fall as low as $3.40 between now and Labor Day. Pickup truck sales were particularly strong last month. GM, Ford and Chrysler all reported sales rose more than 20 percent. Ford says demand for trucks has followed an increase in new home construction since the start of this year. Also, many truck owners would rather buy a new, more fuel efficient truck than repair an aging one, said Ford’s US sales chief Ken Czubay. Eighteen percent of trucks traded in for new Fords are more than 10 years old now, he said, up from 13 to 14 percent a year earlier. May’s annualized sales pace dipped to 13.8 million cars and trucks, which is the lowest level since December, according to Autodata Corp. But it was still strong enough that the forecasting firm LMC Automotive raised its 2012 outlook to 14.5 million, up from 14.3 million. That pace is above the dismal sales of 10.4 million in 2009. But it remains below what would be normal in a healthy economy, said Jeff Schuster, LMC’s senior vice president of forecasting. The monthly pace should be between 15.5 million and 16 million based on the number of households and the country’s population, Schuster said. Schuster said sales should get closer to that number next year, when LMC is predicting sales of 15.2 million. “As long as there isn’t a shock or a further deterioration of the economy on a broader scale, I think auto sales can power through right now,” he said. — AP

Romanian mining town suffers from gold riches ROSIA MONTANA: Nature has carved a humbling landscape of deep river valleys and reddish peaks in a corner of the Carpathian Mountains in western Romania. Rosia Montana town, made up of 16 villages that dot the slopes along the river Rosia, has hundred-year-old churches and houses, cemeteries and ancient Roman mine galleries. It also has gold. But for those who live here, that is more of a bane than anything else. Canada’s Gabriel Resources wants to build Europe’s largest open cast gold mine in Rosia Montana, a 15-year quest that has put the area at the centre of a national debate between heritage and development. The mine could bring billions of euros in taxes and potentially thousands of jobs to an economically depressed region. But it will also require blasting four mountain tops, relocating the community and flooding one village to create a 300-hectare pond for chemical waste held back by a 180-metre-high dam. The mine has the support of most of the 2,800 locals, the mayor and county administration and President Traian Basescu, eyeing the bounty the investment will bring. Those who oppose the project - a handful of residents, several church, environmental and human rights groups, the Soros Foundation and neighbor Hungary, which fears the consequences of any environmental damage - want to turn the area into a UNESCO heritage site focused on tourism and farming. Critics are concerned that concession rights were awarded without transparency and without exploring other options. Romania’s new leftist Prime

Minister Victor Ponta, a political opponent of Basescu, has openly criticized both the plan and the president’s support, and the topic will be a focus of debate in the run-up to a November parliamentary election. The issue also cuts to the heart of Romania’s economic problems, as the European Union’s second-poorest nation struggles to take advantage of its resources and strategic location between western Europe and the Middle East. “Basically it’s a choice between two world views set around the question of how we see Rosia Montana and Romania’s future in five, 50 or 500 years,” said Magor Csibi, country manager at the Romanian arm of environmental group WWF. “It’s a war of nerves,” said Csibi. “Whoever lasts longest wins.” TWO SIDES TO THE STORY When hundreds rally against the mine in the capital Bucharest, hundreds rally in Rosia Montana in support. When Greenpeace activists stormed the ministry chaining themselves to radiators in January, mine supporters gathered outside demanding jobs days later. Countless court cases challenging the permits are pending, as are many appeals by the company. Stuck in the middle, with no other source of employment, the community is slowly dying out. The villages lack central heating or running water and infrastructure is decaying, while previous mines have polluted the water. Most locals hope Gabriel Resources’ Romanian unit, Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), will restore jobs and the

economy. In fact, mining is the reason there is a community here at all. The town is in the Golden Quadrilateral, an area of about 900 sq km which holds one of Europe’s largest gold reserves and is also rich in copper and silver. The town was founded on mining before Roman times and enriched waves of foreigners who moved to the area under Austro-Hungarian rule. Nelu Oprisa grew up here and spent 17 years at the state gold mine, working his way up to chief engineer by the time it closed and he retired. He sold his property to RMGC in 2003 and moved to a nearby town, although he still comes back often to look after to a private tourist organization. “There used to be a time when Rosia was not necessarily thriving, but people had a routine, they worked hard at the mine ... drank a little brandy and went home,” said the 52-year-old, smoking and sipping coffee on the main square. “People had jobs. And we were a lot closer to each other.” But after the 1989 collapse of communism, Romania was left with an inefficient, heavily subsidized mining sector that employed hundreds of thousands and scarred the environment. It closed hundreds of mines and sacked workers. The government estimates it still needs 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) for ecological repairs. Many people left Rosia Montana. Others, like Oprisa, sold their properties to RMGC and moved to modern houses the firm built in the town of Alba Iulia, 80 km away. “The Romanian state cannot sit on the largest gold reserve in Europe without investing,” Oprisa said. —Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

business

KSE ends in the red zone BAYAN WEEKLY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the red zone. The price index ended last week with a decrease amounted to 2.30%, while the weighted index declined by 1.22% compared to the closings of the week before, where KSX-15 Index decreased by 0.69%. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover increased by 3.03%, compared to the preceding week, reaching KD 24.07 million, whereas trading volume average was 305.11 million shares, recording increase of 3.99%. Kuwait Stock Exchange witnessed mixed performance during the past week; the market three indices recorded different losses, whereas selling operations for a wide range of leading and small stocks continued, putting pressure on the market indicators during most of the sessions, especially the price and weighted indices. On the other hand selective buying operations, which focused on the Banking sector in particular, contributed in improving the performance of the Kuwait 15 index in relatively few sessions. In addition, more companies announced its first quarter financial results during last week, the number of declared companies reached 86% so far. The total number of declared com-

panies reached 175 out of 204 listed companies, realizing approximately KD484.44 million, with a decline of 22.24% compared to same companies’ results for 2011. By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,193.82 points, down by 2.30% from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 1.22% weekly loss after closing at 404.7 points. Moreover, the KSX-15 index recorded 0.69% weekly loss after closing at 969.4 points. SECTORS’ INDICES With the end of last week, most sectors of the Kuwait Stock Exchange closed Decline. The Consumer Goods sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 5.54% to end the week’s activity at 935.14 points. The Telecommunications sector was second on the losers’ list, which index declined by 4.61%, closing at 881.0 points, followed by the Financial Services sector, as its index closed at 924.37 points at a loss of 4.19%. On the other hand, highest gainer was the Health Care sector, achieving 4.22% growth rate as its index closed at 1,200.82 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Technology sector’s index closed at 1,183.14 points recording 3.29%

increase. The Insurance sector came in third as its index achieved 2.07% growth, ending the week at 1,117.87 points. SECTORS’ ACTIVITY The Financial Services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 798.10 million shares changing hands, representing 52.32% of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 18.15% of last week’s total trading

volume, with a total of 276.85 million shares. On the other hand, the Financial Services sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD41.20 million or 34.23% of last week’s total market trading value. The Industrials sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD20.67 million represented 17.18% of the total market trading value. MARKET CAPITALIZATION KSE total market capitalization decline by

1.28% during last week to reach KD27.52 billion. With the end of last week, most sectors of the Kuwait Stock Exchange recorded a decline in value, The Consumer Services sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization reached KD768.99 million, decreasing by 4.27%. The Industrials sector was the second in terms of recorded decline with 4.03% decrease after the total value of its listed companies reached KD2.91 billion. The third place was for the Consumer goods sector, which total market capitalization reached KD594.26 million by the end of the week, recording a decline of 3.02%. The Technology sector was the least declining with 0.41% recorded decrease after its market capitalization amounted to KD79.65 million. On the other hand, The Health Care sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD224.94 million, increasing by 2.77%. The Basic Materials sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 1.35% increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD651.21 million. The Banks sector was the least growing with 0.02% recorded growth after its market capitalization amounted to KD13.52 billion.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

BUSINESS

Bridgestone organizes Tyre Safety, Eco Station campaign KUWAIT: The Bridgestone ‘Tyre Safety and Eco Station’ (TSES) roadshow stopped at the Marina Mall and opened its multi-purpose station to the public in the Foot Bridge area of the mall. The station - open to visitors from 2pm to 10pm - as it ran its education and awareness campaign on Tyre Safety. The Bridgestone’s station was offi-

cially inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that was attended by Bridgestone Middle East & Africa FZE representatives as well as the team of Bridgestone Tyre Distribution Co WLL, the company’s trusted distributor for the Kuwait market that fully endorsed the initiative. The TSES campaign, which is touring the GCC with its

S Africans ignore calls to save - live for now JOHANNESBURG: Like many South Africans, Nkululeko Makhaya has only the most basic financial strategy for his future: a pension contribution deducted from his salary and 100 rand ($11.90) put aside each month towards family funeral cover. The 35year-old admits this is woefully inadequate, but with only a modest salary and obligations to both his immediate and extended family, there is barely enough each month to see him through to the next paycheck, let alone save. Cue the future: what happens in 30 years when he is still very much alive but retired, and inflation has eaten into his pension? “I’ll get by somehow. Hopefully my children will have good jobs and take care of my wife and me in return for the good education I’m paying for now,” said Makhaya, a salesman for a Johannesburg cleaning products firm. “I might not even live to retirement, in which case the funeral policy will come in handy.” In fact, Makhaya is setting aside more than most people in South Africa, where the majority of households are forced - or choose - to spend most of their income, and just keep their fingers crossed about the proverbial rainy day. The weak savings culture is a big headache for the government because it hampers speedy economic growth. With less cash sloshing around its banking system, South Africa cannot finance the infrastructure such as roads, ports and broadband Internet needed to move its economy up a gear. Tellingly, it fares poorly on both growth and savings when compared to peers in the BRICS bloc of developing countries. This year, South African GDP is forecast to grow at a rate below 3 percent, against 8 percent for China and 7 percent in India. And its savings rate of just 16 percent of GDP compares with 53 percent for China, 34 percent in India and 20 percent for Russia. Alarmingly, it appears to be getting worse. “A strong savings culture is almost a prerequisite for sustainable economic development and South Africa has in the last 10 years or so gone backwards very fast,” said Peter Dempsey, deputy CEO of the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa, a trade group for firms that provide savings products. SAVING NOTHING “Households basically save zero percent in aggregate, meaning at a national level household income equals household expenses. If you go back 10 to 15 years ago it was probably sitting at 6 to 7 percent,”

Dempsey told Reuters. Net household savings, mainly in the form of retirement funds, long-term insurance, unit trusts and bank deposits, have been in negative territory since 2005, the Treasury says. In contrast, household debt as a ratio of disposable income remains unsustainably high at 75 percent. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his predecessor, Trevor Manuel, both begged South Africa’s 50 million people to save more, but their entreaties were trumped by the power of bling - those with disposable income would rather spend it on the latest flat-screen TV or smartphone than put it away for the future. This partly reflects South Africa’s racially divided apartheid past in which millions of marginalised blacks had no access to credit and other financial services. They are now grabbing the chance to acquire assets at the expense of saving. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Colen Garrow, an economist at Meganomics. “Low savings levels should be seen in the context of assets such as homes and motor vehicles that new consumers purchased after the first democratic elections in 1994. Before that, most South Africans were simply not able to buy such assets. “But I can see why Pravin Gordhan is worried. If you can’t finance investment out of your savings - which we can’t - then you’re going to have to go out of South Africa and borrow on international capital markets. That’s exactly what’s happening.” Under apartheid, black South Africans with little access to traditional banking came up with informal savings schemes like “stokvels”, in which a small group of around a dozen people - usually women - gather once a month and pool their savings. Each chips in a small fixed sum, usually between 100 and 1,000 rand, and a different member each month gets to take home the whole pot. Peer pressure ensures all members contribute, providing a convenient way for women in poor townships to save up for big purchases like furniture. An estimated 40 billion rand ($4.8 billion) is invested in stokvels, a recent study shows, but the money rarely finds its way it into the formal financial system, denying the economy access to funds that could help fund crucial investment. Banks and investment companies are trying to get access to that money. Sluggish growth represents a major political threat for the ruling African National Congress, the former liberation movement which turned 100 this year but is still learning how to run a sophisticated emerging market economy.—Reuters

second annual roadshow, aims to promote Tyre Safety and eco-friendliness for the sustainability of future and current generations, by increasing awareness on the advantages of driving a vehicle that is in a suitable condition and with the correct tyre air pressure. Children accompanying their parents also par ticipated and

enjoyed the eco-themed drawing and entertainment ac tivities at the Kids Area of the stand. The 2012 Bridgestone “Tyre Safety & Eco Station” campaign has already visited Qatar, Oman and Bahrain; its tour will continue over the next few months, stopping in Saudi Arabia in June and in the UAE in July.

GM to cut one-fourth of US pension liability Changes will slash $26 billion in obligations DETROIT: General Motors Co will cut nearly a quarter of its US pension obligation by transferring the management of its pension plans for 118,000 white-collar retirees to a third party and offering lump-sum buyouts. The two moves unveiled on Friday will cut $26 billion from the automaker’s massive US pension liability of nearly $109 billion. GM’s pension overhang is a top concern for investors. It was one of a handful of issues left untouched during GM’s US-financed bankruptcy restructuring three years ago. “There are lots of companies with pension plans. Very few have plans in the absolute or relative size as us,” Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann said during a conference call. “We would like to get back into the category where this is sort of a non-issue for us,” Ammann added. “That doesn’t mean eliminating it completely, but obviously we’ve taken a big step in the right direction today.” The automaker also announced a third pension-related move. GM will shift most of its salaried employees and a small number of retirees who started receiving pension benefits on or after Dec 1, 2011, to a new pension plan that GM will continue to pay for. These retirees are not part of the 118,000 affected by the pension overhaul announced Friday. GM will buy a group annuity contract from a unit of Prudential Financial Inc, which will pay and manage benefit payments starting in January 2013 to retirees who are ineligible or elect not to take a lump-sum pension buyout. GM will also offer pension buyouts to about 42,000 retirees and their surviving beneficiaries, who will have until July 20 to make a decision. The company will start sending those offers to eligible retirees next week. To fund the transaction, GM will shift $29 billion from its pension plan assets to Prudential and put in between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion in cash. GM’s pension shortfall will also narrow by $1 billion. GM will take a special charge of between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion in the second half of the year. It will also result in a $200 million non-cash hit to earnings. “Although the transaction doesn’t come cheap, it serves a very important purpose of permanently de-risking 25 percent of GM’s US pension obligation,” Citi analyst Itay Michaeli said. The shift to Prudential and the buyouts are expected to be completed at the end of this year. The pension changes do not affect white-collar retirees’ eligibility for post-retirement healthcare, life insurance and a vehicle discount. UAW PENSIONS IN FOCUS A growing concern for decades as US automakers lost market share to foreign-based automakers in their home country, pension costs became an albatross for the US industry with the sector’s downturn five years ago. Over a 15-year stretch that ended in 2006, GM put $55 billion into its workers’ pension

plans, compared with $13 billion it paid out in dividends, according to the 2008 book, ‘While America Aged” by Roger Lowenstein. “We will be less exposed to the funding volatility and calls on cash we have experienced in the past, which in turn, will improve our flexibility to deploy cash for alternate uses,” Ammann said on Friday. The announcement is part of a series of steps that GM and its smaller rival Ford Motor Co have taken to manage the risks posed by their pension obligations, which have hit the stock prices and the credit ratings of both automakers. This summer, Ford will begin offering pension buyouts to the first wave of 98,000 white-collar retirees and former employees who are vested in their pension plan. The move could lop off one-third of Ford’s US pension liability. GM retirees represented by the United Auto Workers union are not affected by Friday’s announcement. Hourly retirees account for the bulk of GM’s US pension obligation. Last year, GM and the UAW agreed to discuss ways to cut the risk posed by GM’s pension plan during contract negotiations. During the conference call, Ammann declined to shed light on those talks, beyond saying that pensions were a “significant topic of discussion” during those meetings. “We have generally agreed with the UAW that we will maintain a dialogue on pensions going for-

ward and continue to look at de-risking alternatives, but anything we discuss with them on that remains private between us and them,” Ammann said. A UAW spokeswoman could not be immediately reached. GM MOVE COULD TRIGGER OTHERS Ammann said the pension moves represented an “important step” toward GM obtaining an investmentgrade credit rating. Fitch Ratings described the changes as “incrementally positive” to GM’s rating. “Today’s transaction could spark other companies to consider similar transactions in the future to reduce exposure to plan volatility,” Fitch Ratings analyst Stephen Brown said. Ammann said GM does not have an estimate for how many retirees would likely take the lump-sum offer. The company is offering free independent financial counseling and group meetings for those eligible for lump-sum payments. GM also has established websites to outline the pension changes. GM has also created two separate call centers to help answer retirees’ questions. Before the pension announcement, GM shares were down as much as 3.4 percent as the automaker posted weaker-thanexpected May auto sales. But the stock recouped its losses and rose as much as 5.1 percent on the news of the pension changes. GM shares closed at $22.01, down slightly less than 1 percent. — Reuters

BEIJING: Workers wash a customer’s car outside a restaurant along a street in Beijing yesterday. China’s export-driven economy has begun to slow this year, with growth falling to 8.1 percent in the first quarter from 9.2 percent in the same period in 2011, as woes in key European and US markets hit overseas sales. — AFP

Unemployment breeds anger in ‘home of Arab Spring’ BEN GUERDANE: Abdulwahhab Karti rummages in the living room that doubles as his bedroom and presents two diplomas. One shows the soft-spoken 27-year-old has a degree in applied mathematics. The other qualifies him to teach maths. Not only has Karti never taught, but he has been unable to find any job since he graduated in 2009. He supports his parents and four younger sisters by peddling goods in the Tunisian border town of Ben Guerdane, a precarious occupation that brings in a trickle of money, as his living conditions attest. Karti’s sisters sleep on the floor in a dark and stuffy room. His parents sleep in the next room on a bed, the only substantial piece of furniture in their concrete bungalow. Sixteen months after a revolution ousted leader Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali and set off the Arab Spring, young Tunisians say they have yet to see the fruits of the uprising they helped to spark. Unemployed, too poor to marry and often supporting large families, youths from deprived provincial towns are piling pressure on the government to provide the jobs that, along with freedom and better living standards, were a key demand of the revolution. “We keep saying after the revolution we hope things will improve,” says Karti’s mother, Mabrouka, flinging open the door to her bedroom to reveal a rough concrete floor and a tiny window devoid of any glass or even a plastic covering. “But our situation was the same before the revolution as it is after.” Tunisia’s economy has had a bumpy ride since last year’s revolt. Amid the messy work of building a new democracy, the economy shrank 1.8 percent, with persistent strikes and protests paralyzing factories and hitting the economy just as young people stepped up their demands for better jobs and conditions.

Though the economy returned to growth this year, unemployment figures have lagged, with the jobless rate rising to 18 percent in March, from 13 percent before the uprising. Unemployment among graduates is twice as high at almost 35 percent and the more educated Tunisians are, the more likely they are to be jobless, official statistics suggest, reflecting the lack of highly skilled jobs available. Though unemployment averages little over 13 percent in the capital Tunis and along much of the coast, it rises to 20 percent in the border region where Karti lives. Unemployment runs at 28 percent in central provinces, where the revolution began and where rioting continues to break out regularly. While the North African country has made a relatively smooth transition to democracy and has largely avoided the violence and wrangling that have destabilized nearby Egypt or Libya, analysts say the new Islamist-led government’s biggest challenge could come from the disenfranchised youths who set off the revolt. “There is a process of growing polarization in Tunisian society and politics because there are several political, social and economic groups that feel left out of the process,” said Riccardo Fabiani, London-based North Africa analyst at Eurasia, a political risk consultancy. “There are Salafi (Islamists) but also populations in inland regions, non-unionized workers or unemployed youths ... who don’t feel represented in the new system and resort to violence.” NO QUICK FIX At a mine in the arid centre of Tunisia, conveyor belts tip phosphate onto heaps, ready for eventual export. But the train that transports the earth has been paralyzed on and off for a year by protesters demanding that state-owned Gafsa Phospate

Company, the region’s biggest employer, provide them with jobs. Mountains of phosphate pile up with nowhere to go, robbing Tunisia of a key source of income at a time of record global prices. The company has pledged to recruit hundreds more locals since the revolution, but each recruitment drive only prompts new riots by the thousands of applicants who don’t make the cut. The government says it cannot provide jobs to all who apply or the firm will go out of business, but is mindful that the mining basin was the epicenter of a 2008 uprising that exposed deep discontent and was a harbinger of the revolution to come. Similar complaints plague the education sector, with thousands of graduates competing for the limited number of state positions that come up each year. Some 85,000 students enrolled in higher education in 2010/11, and their numbers have risen gradually in recent years, along with their expectations on graduation. “I graduated in 2006. I’ve taken three national tests, reached the final stage and not succeeded,” said Hussein Jouini, who moved to Tunis from the southeastern town of Gabes this year to take up an informal job teaching religious studies, which he says provides a low and unsteady income. “We are 13 people in my family and I’m the only one with a diploma ... I should get a public sector job. My sisters need my help to get married, with wedding or dress costs, but I can’t (contribute).” Economists say the problems facing Tunisia’s labour market are structural and will take years to untangle. Tunisians are among the best educated people in North Africa almost 80 percent of Tunisian adults are literate compared to 66 percent in Egypt and 56 percent in Morocco, according to UNICEF. But the economy has tended to create less-skilled

and lower-paid industrial work, or seasonal farming and tourism jobs shunned by graduates who expect stable and better-paid work in the public sector or white collar jobs in big private firms. It will take years to steer Tunisians towards more vocational courses or to push the economy higher up the value chain, creating the high-earning professional jobs they want. There is also a tendency for Tunisians to shun private sector employment in favor of stable public sector jobs, but stiff competition prompts accusations that only those with connections secure places, economists say. The government, whose payroll is already bloated, has promised to create 25,000 public sector jobs this year and to employ the many hundreds wounded in the revolt and one relative of each of more than 300 people killed. It has also announced plans to develop impoverished areas, improve housing quality and build roads to more remote regions, which it hopes will dampen anger in the country’s long-marginalized interior. But it is struggling to do more without pushing the budget deficit above its 2012 target of 6.6 percent of GDP and has called on unions to end continuing industrial action, mostly against pay and benefits, which it says is undermining efforts to boost growth and create jobs. Tunisia has secured cheap bilateral loans from Qatar, Turkey and Libya and US guarantees that will help it to borrow more cheaply. But the economic crisis in its main trade partner Europe, destination for 18 billion dinars ($11.2 billion) of exports in 2010, is hampering efforts to revive the economy. “Socioeconomic unrest is one of their biggest challenges ... I don’t see, without significant outside help, how they can make rapid progress,” said Gala Riani, head of Middle East and North Africa analysis at Control Risks in London. — Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

BUSINESS

Danger sign for American economy US Job growth disappoints WASHINGTON: The American economy is in trouble again. Employers in the United States added only 69,000 jobs last month, the fewest in a year and not even close to what economists expected. For the first time since last June, the unemployment rate rose, to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent. It was the third month in a row of weak job growth and further evidence that, just as in 2010 and 2011, a winter of hope for the economy has turned to a spring of disappointment. “This is horrible,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, a consulting firm. The job figures, released Friday morning by the Labor Department, dealt a strong blow to President Barack Obama at the start of a general election campaign that will turn on the economy. They also deepened the pessimism of investors, who even before the report was released were worried about a debt crisis in Europe with no sign of solution and signs of a slowdown in the powerhouse economy of China. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, its worst day of the year, and for the first time was down for 2012. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is almost 10 percent below its 2012 high, the traditional definition of a market correction. Mitt Romney, who on Tuesday cleared the number of convention delegates required to win the Republican presidential nomination, told CNBC that the report was “devastating.” He called for an emphasis on energy development, pledged to “kill” the health care overhaul that Obama saw through in 2010 and said he would reduce taxes and government spending. The clearest fix for the economy, he said, was to defeat Obama. “It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class,” said Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. Obama, in Minnesota, pushed a proposal to expand job opportunities for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the economy is not creating jobs “as fast as we want” but vowed that it would improve. “We will come back stronger,” he said. “We do have better days ahead.” Alan Krueger, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out that the country has added jobs for 27 months in a row, includ-

ing 4.3 million jobs in the private sector. Underscoring the challenge for Obama with five months to go in the campaign, a May poll by The Associated Press and GfK, a research company, showed that 52 percent disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy while 46 percent approved. Some financial analysts said that the dismal job figures put pressure on the Federal Reserve to take additional steps to help the economy, but it was not clear

record. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies this week before a joint committee of Congress, and the Fed next meets June 19 and 20. Complicating the challenge for the economy, tax cuts passed under President George W Bush will expire after Dec 31, as will a cut in the Social Security payroll tax. More than $100 billion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs also kick in Jan 1. Less money in consumers’ pockets next year

NEW YORK: People seeking jobs wait in line to speak to over 60 employers at an employment fair in the Queens borough of New York. —AFP how much good the Fed could do beyond trying to inspire confidence. The central bank has already kept the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low of almost zero since the fall of 2008, during the financial crisis, and pledged to keep it there through late 2014. It has undertaken two rounds of massive purchases of government bonds, starting in March 2009 and November 2010, to help drive longterm interest rates down and stimulate stock prices. Another program to lower long-term interest rates, known as Operation Twist, was announced last September and ends this month. But low interest rates, other analysts pointed out, are not the problem. An investor stampede into bonds on Friday drove the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note as low as 1.44 percent, the lowest on

and less spending by the government would be a significant drag on the economy. Congress could extend the tax cuts, but Republicans control the House, and they and Obama disagree over whether to do so for all or for everyone but the wealthiest Americans. The Congressional Budget Office has said the tax increases and spending cuts would cause the economy to shrink at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the first half of next year. The economy grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year. And there is little significant action that the White House can take on its own. The job figures in the United States added to evidence that the world economy is in peril again. Spain insisted Friday that it is financially stable, but its borrowing costs are

creeping close to the 7 percent level that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek international bailouts. Europe has grappled for more than two years with the crippling debt owed by many of its countries, and leaders remain divided over how to solve it. Stronger countries like Germany have insisted on government spending cuts, but voters in weaker countries are in no mood for further fiscal pain. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro currency is a record 11 percent. And even fast-growing economies in the developing world appear to be slowing. India reported Thursday that its economy grew just 5.3 percent in the JanuaryMarch quarter, slowest in nine years. And manufacturing in China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, barely grew in May. The US government uses a survey of mostly large businesses and government agencies to determine how many jobs are added or lost each month. That is the survey that produced the 69,000 number. It uses a separate survey of American households to calculate the unemployment rate. That survey picks up hiring by companies of all sizes, including small businesses, companies being started, farm workers and the self-employed. The household survey found that 422,000 more Americans had jobs in May than in April. But the work force grew by 642,000 as more Americans who hadn’t been looking for work started to look. That is why the unemployment rate inched up from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent. The economy lost 28,000 construction jobs, the worst for that industry in two years, and 13,000 government jobs. A category of employers called “leisure and hospitality” cut almost 9,000, mostly at amusement parks, museums and casinos. And March and April, already disappointing months for job creation, were not as strong as first thought. The government revised the job-growth totals lower by 11,000 to 143,000 for March and by 38,000 to 77,000 for April. From December through February, the economy added an average 252,000 jobs per month. “There is virtually nothing positive in this report if you are trying to build a case for an economy that is supposed to be in recovery mode and gaining

Agility approves a 30% cash dividends Agility’s net profit hits KD27 million KUWAIT: Agility yesterday held its Annual General Meeting where it approved all items on the agenda including a 30% dividend distribution for 2011. For the year ending December 31, 2011, Agility’s net profit was KD27 million with revenue of KD1.3 billion, and operating profit at KD19 million. Agility enjoys a healthy balance sheet with low leverage, a net cash position of KD57 million and free cash flow of KD22 million. Speaking to shareholders, Tarek Sultan, Chairman and Managing Director of Agility explained that 2011 was a year of transition for Agility, as they operated without defense and government business for the first time and spent the year heavily focused on strengthening their core commercial business. This included redeploying resources: selling the bulk of vehicle fleet in the Middle East and freeing up warehousing space for commercial customers. It also included restructuring the business, managing costs, and using technology as a driver of productivity improvements. The Infrastructure group of companies also continued to provide Agility with the ability to address profitable niches in the marketplace, and has showed steady growth in the last several years. In 2011, Agility successfully closed two deals: a merger of Agility Qatar operations with Gulf Warehousing Company (GWC) that realized a gain of KD8.2 million and a joint venture with France Telecom converting Korek debt into equity. Today, Agility has an indirect stake of 24% in Korek and $100 million debt, yielding 12% per annum. Profits grew by 8% in 2011 even though overall revenues fell. Excluding defense and government services, however, revenue grew by 3.2% in the commercial business and 18% in the Infrastructure group. Reflecting Agility’s commitment to financial discipline operating expense was reduced by 15% and working capital was converted into cash. “We are a different company today

than we were a year ago, and we consider 2011 a new financial baseline against which we will measure future per formance. Having undergone some heavy lifting in terms of restructuring over the last two years, the company anticipates solid gains in 2012 and beyond.” Sultan highlighted. GLOBAL INTEGRATED LOGISTICS (GIL) Agility’s core business is in commercial logistics, executed through the Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) business group. Revenue for GIL for the full year of 2011 was KD1.2 billion, a decrease of 1.4% from 2010. Excluding government and discontinued busi-

ness, however, GIL’s revenues grew by 3.2% relative to 2010, despite softened trade volumes that prevailed in the last two quarters of the year. Agility’s strong position in high-growth emerging markets was a major contributor to revenue, as reflected in double-digit growth in AsiaPacific region. In 2011, Agility opened a new warehouse in Seoul, South Korea, broke ground on a state-of-theart logistics facility in Melaka, Malaysia, and expanded its crossborder trucking network from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos and Thailand into China. GIL also continues to invest in strengthening its customer platform. 2011 saw important wins. Agility signed with Henkel to be the exclusive logistics partner for its mega HUB project, “Project Dragon,” in China; started a new initiative with Nokia to reduce supply chain costs and carbon

emissions by consolidating goods in transit; and joined a joint venture with Schmidt Heilbronn to provide dry bulk solutions for chemical manufacturing in the Middle East. The company has worked hard to engineer a sustainable, durable turnaround in its core commercial (GIL) business. “The message for customers is that we’re growing, healthy and here to support you. Our focus in 2012 will be to continue to grow business with existing and new customers by leveraging our global footprint and market-leading position in emerging markets. At the same time, we intend to drive efficiencies in our operating platform.” Sultan emphasized.

INFRASTRUCTURE GROUP Agility’s Infrastructure companies contributed KD156.7 million to 2011 revenue. Infrastructure revenue grew 18% from 2010, excluding government-related business. Agility’s Real Estate business, in particular, is an important contributor to financial performance, but other entities like National Aviation Services (NAS) have also shown healthy growth over the last several years. The company is taking a number of actions to further enhance the potential of these companies. OUR CULTURE AND GIVING BACK Agility has stayed committed to its culture of giving back to its employees, communities, and world. In 2011, Agility published its first Corporate Social Responsibility report, using the United Nations reporting framework as a guideline. “I am proud to share some of the key out-

comes with you.” Sultan said in his address. Agility’s humanitarian logistics program, which assists relief agencies in getting relief goods to the site of a natural disaster, has grown tremendously since it was first launched it in 2006. Agility has responded to more than 22 disasters in the last five years, in countries such as Myanmar, Haiti, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Lebanon and others. Its community volunteer program has also grown. They have implemented more than 550 projects in over 60 different countries, focusing primarily on youth and education and health. In 2011, those projects included building preschools in Cambodia and a school in rural Indonesia; training 8,000 high school girls in the Philippines; supporting an elderly home and cancer society in Lebanon; delivering more than 4,000 food packages across Jordan; transporting footballs to Uganda to put a smile on kids’ faces; and mentoring youth in Kuwait through Injaz. The company also continues to make progress in its environmental journey, working with customers to measure and manage carbon emissions, and finding ways to reduce impact in its own operations. “As a business, we work hard to maintain high standards in employment, customer service, and quality.” Sultan explained. FUTURE OUTLOOK Despite the changes over the last two years, Agility continues to be strong and financially stable. It has a strong balance sheet with over KD 1.4 billion in assets and KD 0.9 billion in total equity, a global network and a marketleading position in emerging markets that are continuing to grow. And above all, it has 22,000 employees who are committed to the company’s long-term success. “Although 2012 is likely to be another tough year for the global economy, we are committed to continuing to drive the company forward. Sultan reiterated.

momentum,” said Tom Porcelli, chief US economist for RBC Capital Markets. Investors made their disappointment clear. The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite index all fell by more than 2 percent. The S&P, which was up 12 percent for the year through March, was left with a slender gain of 1.6 percent. Homebuilder stocks fell the most, apparently because the dismal picture for the US economy outweighed a report that construction spending rose for a second month in April. The price of gold, which some investors have often bought over the past three years for safety in turbulent economic times, climbed $58 an ounce, to $1,622, the highest since early May. Anticipating weaker world demand, investors drove down the price of oil by $3.49 a barrel to $83.04, the lowest since October and 24 percent below its peak of $109.77 in February. That will at least provide help for American drivers: The price of gasoline, which peaked at an average of $3.94 a gallon in April, has fallen to $3.61. It is below $3 in parts of South Carolina, and the national average should be below $3.50 soon. Business owners cited a range of reasons for pulling back on hiring in May.

Some said sales had been hurt by the weak economy in Europe. Others, like a California road construction company, said slower government spending was costing them. But in interviews on Friday, most expressed general uncertainty about the US economy. Alan Gaynor’s architectural design firm in New York, Alan Gaynor & Co, isn’t hiring because his clients, real estate developers, are uneasy about starting projects. “It’s a wait-and-see attitude they have. Everyone’s a little nervous. The economy’s growing a lot slower than anyone would have liked,” said Gaynor, who has 15 employees, the same as a year ago. Still other businesses cited tight credit, a vestige of the 2008 financial crisis. Robert Stewart Inc., a 93-year-old New Jersey company that makes neckties, wants to add five or six workers to its staff of 18, and business is up, said Steven Wishnew, the company’s operations director. But the company can’t get the $50,000 to $100,000 in credit that would “kick-start our engine,” he said, and sellers that used to give them 90 days to pay now demand payment in advance. The bank wants the company’s owners to put up their homes as collateral for a loan or line of credit, he said.—AP

Mazda launches ‘lifetime service’ KUWAIT: Kuwait Automotive Imports Co WLL (Al Shaya & Al Sagar), a leading automotive and auto products distributor of international brands and the exclusive distributor for Mazda vehicles announced its exceptional first time offer on Mazda’s flagship crossover SUV Mazda CX-9. Ashish Tandon, KAICO’s General Manager explained the campaign is unique and made for the first time in GCC. When you purchase Mazda CX-9, you get peace of mind with ‘FREE LIFETIME SERVICE’. He said that Mazda CX-9 still continues to wow customers and

automotive critics alike with its dynamic styling, safety, versatility and performance with 273 HP, 3.7L, 6 cylinders, 6-speed Activematic transmission, rear camera and sun roof, 7 seats, 4wheel anti-lock braking system, traction control system and power ful front & rear A/C (Best in class). Mohammed Osman, Mazda Sales Manager added that the campaign is only for a limited time and will end on 31 May 2012. KAICO gives the best to customers through high quality products and services to gain customers for life. KAICO’s philosophy is based on “Customer is #1”.

ABK Emirates World MasterCard introduces Service Assistant Card KUWAIT: The ABK Emirates World MasterCard from Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait is recognized as the most prestigious and rewarding premium credit cards in Kuwait. As the only premium credit card nominated in 3 categories from Terrapinn Middle East ‘Best Smart Card’ Awards from a Kuwait bank, the ABK Emirates World MasterCard Stewart Lockie was a finalist for the ‘Best Premium Card’, ‘Best New Card’ and ‘Best CoBranded Card’ awards by Smart Card awards Middle East. ABK offers its most distinguished customers a priceless premium offering in a card with tailor-made exclusive privileges that compliment their discerning lifestyle. Symbolizing the sheer essence of luxury and comfort, the ABK Emirates World

MasterCard cardholders have a dedicated Personal Banking Officer to assist them with any banking queries. “ The ABK Emirates World MasterCard is by far the most prestigious and rewarding premium credit card in Kuwait, and our goal with this card with all its services and features is to empower customers; we are no longer just a financing tool, we are offering our customers a life filled with luxuries” said Stewart Lockie, GM, Retail Banking.” We pay special attention to our World cardholders, as we have recently introduced a Service Assistance card, that contains contacts for Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait Local and International Concierge, Travel Insurance, MasterCard Emergency Services and ABK Hotlines. A card designed for our World customers’ convenience; it is a small business card that they can place in their wallets and refer to at anytime they may require assistance”. For more information, please visit any of ABK’s branches, or call us at Ahlan Ahli on 1899899, chat live on Ahli Chat through our website www.eahli.com.

American Mattress Company launches biggest season offer KUWAIT: American Mattress Companythe leading retailer for mattress and bedding solutions in Kuwait since 1996, announced the start of the Summer Sales with discounts up to 60% in all American Mattress stores. The launch of the summer season promotion offer customers exceptional benefits; as they get to choose the mattress they desire with unbelievable discounts, in addition to other valuable privileges which can only be offered by American Mattress Company such as; superior patented technologies, all natural raw material, sublime design with distinguished quality and price in addition to warranty with exchange option, and free home delivery. Summer sales announcement at American Mattress Company showrooms coincide with the arrival of an exceptional new mattress collection for the season from USA such as Pure Latex Bliss, which offer customers unique balance of “uplifting” support and alignment for the body and spine, NexGel collec tion the new mattress from Natura which naturally regulate the mattress temperature for a cool, breathable sleep environment, in addition to American Mattress exclusive collection of Kluf t; the mattress with Royal

Standards, Aireloom; the handcrafted mattress in addition to the new collection of Latex International mattresses, Stylution, bedding collection, pillows and more. In addition to this season’s huge discounts, customers will also get to choose the mattress that suits their body and their lifestyle demands through the innovative and exciting

technology XSENSOR; the pressure mapping system that enables customers to find the best mattress which responds to his or her individual needs from the first time. No more doubts and no more what if. You will get it right the first time, guaranteed. American Mattress Company also announced the release of American Mattress Catalog where customers can view the latest collection of mattress, pillows, beddings and more. Customers can get their free copy from any of American Mattress showrooms.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

Phone calls taking a back seat NEW YORK: CEO of AT&T Inc. said Friday that cellphone plans that count only data usage are likely to come in the next two years. In such a scenario, phone calls and texts would be considered as just another form of data. Randall Stephenson didn’t say AT&T has such a plan in mind, but he suggested that someone in the industry will likely offer one. “I’ll be surprised if, in the next 24 months, we don’t see people in the market place with data-only plans,” Stephenson said at a Sanford Bernstein investor conference in New York. “I just think that’s inevitable.” Analysts see such plans as a logical extension of trends in wireless technology. Smartphones with data service can already use it for Internet phone calls and texting through services such as Skype. Phone calls are also taking a back seat to other

things people do with their smartphones. AT&T has been recording a decline in the average number of minutes used per month. However, phone companies still make most of their money from calling plans and texting, which use very little data. That means phone companies would want to compensate for the revenue fall-off somehow, perhaps by raising data prices. The switch would be complicated by the fact that phone companies charge each other to connect calls to phone numbers. That’s one reason calling plans are charged separately from data usage now. But at least in the US, connection fees are low, and phone companies could make up for the cost by raising their own fees. Connection fees for international calls are much higher. AT&T has said that it wants to introduce wireless

data plans that allow a subscriber to share a data allowance over several devices, such as a smartphone and a tablet computer. Another AT&T executive, wireless head Ralph De La Vega, has said these plans are close to being introduced. Such plans also represent an opportunity for phone companies to add more data revenue, but they are a possible pitfall as well, as consumers will effectively be getting a discount compared with buying separate plans for their devices. Stephenson said AT&T is determined to make more money from the plans, not less. When you have millions of devices such as tablets that lack cellular data plans, Stephenson said, “it seems to me it’s a lift, not a deterioration” to get them connected. Tablets such as the iPad are often available with cellular data modems, but the majority are used

only on Wi-Fi. AT&T has also floated the idea of letting websites or video services pay for the data used to access them, instead of having the data count toward the visitors’ allowance. That idea, similar to “800” tollfree numbers for websites, is more controversial, as it would let deep-pocketed websites make themselves more attractive than startups. Stephenson said he expects experimentation along those lines to begin in the next year. He didn’t say if AT&T would be the one to do it, but he said Web content providers are already contacting the company about setting this up. “It’s not us going out and mandating this. The content guys are coming in asking for it,” Stephenson said. “If you don’t allow those kinds of models to flourish, you’re going to inhibit the potential of these services.” — AFP

US, Iran dig in for long cyber war An intelligence tool

BEIJING: A Chinese woman takes a nap while her child plays tablet computer at a resting point near the Great Wall of China at Badaling, north of Beijing yesterday. —-AP

Megaupload wants piracy charges dismissed WASHINGTON: Megaupload has filed papers in US District Court to dismiss the federal government’s massive online piracy case against the file-sharing website and its founder, Kim Dotcom. “Megaupload believes that the US didn’t follow the rules,” Megaupload and Dotcom lawyer Ira Rothken told AFP, stressing that the company was based in Hong Kong. “The rules in this instance didn’t allow a foreign corporation to be served and indicted as it has not have a presence in the US. We believe the law is clear in that issue, and we’re asking the court to dismiss the case.” Megaupload’s lawyers filed a motion on Wednesday urging the court to dismiss the charges against the company and executives. The US indictment alleges Megaupload and related file-sharing sites netted more than $175 million and cost copyright owners more than $500 million by offering pirated copies of movies, TV shows and other content. US authorities allege Dotcom earned $42 million from his file-sharing websites in 2010 alone. “The court should dismiss the indictment against Megaupload to prevent any further injustice,” the company’s filing said. “Megaupload now finds itself in a state of abeyance, with no end in sight.”

It also called for authorities to unfreeze the website’s assets so that the company can pay the 30 lawyers who have assured its defense for free from New Zealand to the United States, as well as in Hong Kong, Canada and Europe. A hearing to examine the request is due to be held June 29 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in the city of Alexandria. The judge’s ruling could impact an August extradition hearing in Auckland. “There’s no justification to keep Megaupload’s assets frozen, and we believe that the court is going to make a reasonable amount of assets available to pay defense costs,” Rothken said. US authorities have seized $50 million in Megaupload assets. Dotcom and his co-defendants, who were arrested when New Zealand police raided the Internet tycoon’s sprawling Auckland mansion on January 20, deny any wrongdoing and have vowed to fight the charges. They are on bail as they await a court bid in August to extradite them to the United States. Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight extradition, labeling the case against him “misleading and malicious.” — AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States and Iran are locked in a long-running cyber war that appears to be escalating amid a stalemate over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. The Flame virus that surfaced recently may be part of the face-off, but Washington probably has more sophisticated tools at its disposal, security specialists say. “Large nations with large spy agencies have been using these kinds of techniques for more than a decade,” said James Lewis, a senior fellow who monitors technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Lewis said cyber espionage is “not a weapon” but can be “very effective” as an intelligence tool and can avoid some of the problems with traditional surveillance such as spy planes. “If you have to choose between this and a pilot being paraded through the streets of Tehran, this is much preferable,” he said. But Lewis noted that the Flame virus is more primitive than one would expect from US intelligence services. “I hope it wasn’t the US that developed it because it isn’t very sophisticated,” he said. He said Israel has quite advanced capabilities as well, and that this probably means Flame was developed in a “second-tier country.” Some analysts, however, consider Flame to be highly sophisticated. The International Telecommunications Union said the virus is “a lot more complex than any other cyber-threat ever seen before.” Johannes Ullrich, a computer security specialist with the SANS Technology Institute, said Flame is a rather “clumsy” tool compared to other types of malware, but that it may be a rough version or prototype which can be wrapped into a “more polished” version. “The technical part isn’t that great, and I

think it has been a bit hyped in some of the reports,” Ullrich said. Exactly where the malware came from is impossible to know from the code, Ullrich said. “It doesn’t look like one single individual,” he said. “Whether it is a government or some criminal group, it’s hard to tell.” Marcus Sachs, former director of the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center, said Flame “could be written by virtually anybody but it looks similar to targeted espionage from a country.” Sachs said Flame is not a sabotage tool like the Stuxnet virus that targeted control systems in Iran, but instead resembles spyware seeking “to gain intellectual property, but it could be surveillance by a foreign government.” Neither the US nor the Israeli government has openly acknowledged authoring Flame, though a top Israeli minister said use of the software to counter Iran’s nuclear plans would be “reasonable.” The US military has acknowledged working on both defensive and offensive cyber war systems. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has revealed few details about its “Plan X,” which it calls a “foundational cyber warfare program” that draws on expertise in academia, industry and the gaming community. But a DARPA statement said the program is “about building the platform needed for an effective cyber offensive capability. It is not developing cyber offensive effects.” Sachs said the US has been open about developing its cyber capabilities and that DARPA, which created the Internet, is looking at longer-term projects that may involve technologies not yet deployed. On the surface, it might be harder for the US to maintain superiority in cyberspace as it

does in the skies, for example, because the costs for computer programming is far less than for fighter planes. But experts say the US is investing in cyberspace through DARPA and other projects. Still, Sachs said measuring the capabilities of another country are not as easy as counting missile silos. “There’s no way to measure what a country has,” he said. The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama secretly ordered cyber warfare against Iran to be ramped up in 2010 after details leaked out about Stuxnet, which some say came from the US, Israel or both. Ilan Berman, an analyst at of the American Foreign Policy Council who follows Iran, said that with cyber war simmering, Tehran is boosting its defensive and offensive capabilities. “They feel like there is a campaign against them and they are mobilizing in response,” he said. And the US should therefore be prepared for cyber retaliation from Iran. “I think a cyber attack by Iran may not be as robust (as one from China or Russia) but politically it’s more likely,” he said. Lewis said the US and Iran have been engaged in struggles for the past decade, due to the nuclear issue and suspected Iran involvement with certain forces in Iraq while US forces were deployed there. But he said Flame and other cyber weapons are “not really warfare, it’s primarily intelligence collection.” Lewis said he was not surprised that the discovery of the virus came from a Russian security firm, Kaspersky, which worked with the ITU. “Flame is a way to drive Russia’s diplomatic agenda,” which includes bringing the Internet under UN control, Lewis said. —- AFP

Technology carries its own set of problems in a disaster MIAMI: Famed weatherman Bryan Norcross made his broadcasting bones when Hurricane Andrew was at its worst, remaining on the air for 23 hellish hours to provide storm updates and to counsel scared and stranded South Floridians whose only contact with the outside world was the sound of his steadying voice. Back then, Norcross’ station was one of just a few places to go for real-time hurricane information-something unimaginable to the Smartphone Generation, which has an app for most everything, severe weather alerts included. But with the official start of the hurricane season Friday-the 20th since Andrew killed dozens and causes billions in damage across South Florida-Norcross’ voice has turned from soothing to concerned. His worry: When your primary source of information is your iPhone, what happens when the power is out and there is no place to recharge it? And even if you do have juice, what if the network is down? “If you had a hurricane like Andrew hit now, (the cellular infrastructure) just wouldn’t work,” said Norcross, now a hurricane specialist for the Weather Channel. “It’s a monstrous public-safety issue that more and more of the emergency communication industry is electricity- and bandwidthdependent.” In the days after Andrew struck, people kept informed via transistor radio, landline telephone-and the newspaper, whose trucks continued to navigate through the wreckage. The paper served as sort of a printed precursor to today’s social media, listing who was unaccounted for, how to locate ice and water, and where the damage was worst. Phone service was spotty, and the power was out for days or weeks, depending on the neighborhood. People from out of town with relatives in South Florida couldn’t necessarily reach them to find out if all was well. Today, transistor radios and landline phones are increasingly rare. And the manner in which most people receive and relay information (mobile gadgets and broadband-based house phones, neither of which work for long without a power supply) is even more susceptible to the elements.

When Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast in 2005, the storm knocked out more than three million customer phone lines and over a thousand cellphone sites, according to the Government Accounting Office. It’s strange to think it now, but even that was a different era. The do-it-all iPhone was more than a year from its global unveiling, and most people used their phones for calls and little else. Now, smartphones are also mini-computers, mobile stereos, date planners and game centers. Many think PDAs-personal digital assistants-are the only communication devices they need. In an emergency, that’s dangerous, Norcross said. When power and cell service are blacked out-and after the most powerful acts of God, they most likely will be-so, too, is the flow of crucial information. When the waters were rising during Katrina, many of those stranded on their roofs communicated with painted signs and waving arms. For anyone who thinks that couldn’t happen again, consider this: Just how useful is an iPhone’s GPS if there’s no service? Among the top priorities for cellular providers after a disruptive event is reestablishing Enhanced 911, which allows dispatchers to locate distressed callers within 300 yards. “It’s what we stay awake nights trying to make sure we’re ready for,” said Chuck Hamby, a Florida-based spokesman for Verizon Wireless. “How people communicate has changed, and it’s continuing to change. We want to make sure we’re there for our customers.” As for widespread commercial power loss-which was a bigger problem during Katrina than actual equipment failureHamby said Verizon has made improvements in recent years. Now, most of the provider’s cell sites come with generators and backup batteries that will allow the towers to remain operational without commercial electricity for up to 10 days. Of course, that’s irrelevant to the customers whose phones go dead after the first day because they have nowhere to charge them.

NEW YORK: The spaceship Prometheus makes its way to a distant planet. This film image released by 20th Century Fox shows a scene from “Prometheus.” — AP

Cosmic smashup predicted, but Earth will survive WASHINGTON: Don’t worry about when the world as we know it might end. NASA has calculated that our entire Milky Way galaxy will crash into a neighboring galaxy with a direct head-on hit in 4 billion years. Astronomers in a NASA news conference Thursday said that years of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope provide grisly details of a long-anticipated galactic smashup. Astronomers had seen the Andromeda galaxy coming at us, but thought there was a chance that its sideways motion would make it miss or graze the Milky Way. Hubble readings now indicate that’s not the case. “This is pretty violent as things go in the universe,” said Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore that operates Hubble. “It’s like a bad car crash in galaxy-land.” Scientists say the Sun and Earth are unlikely to be hit by stars or planets from Andromeda because of the vast emptiness of the two galaxies. So Earth should easily survive what will be a 1.2 million mile per hour galactic merger. Even at that speed, the event would take about 2 billion years. Once it’s over, our solar system would be in a different place in the cosmos. The collision would dramatically change the view of the nighttime sky from Earth with Andromeda suddenly dominating, the astronomers said. The only way Andromeda could miss colliding with the Milky Way is if it were moving sideways about six times faster than Hubble indi-

cates it is, said van der Marel, who is publishing the latest findings in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal. Five years ago, Avi Loeb, head of Harvard University’s astronomy department, simulated this crash and pronounced a miss unlikely. He said the Hubble results strengthen his earlier findings. He calls the newly merged galaxy “Milkomeda.” Both the Milky Way and Andromeda are about the same size and same age - 10 billion years old. At times they’ve been considered virtual twins so it’s hard to tell which of the galax-

ies will get the worst of the collision, van der Marel said. When the collision is in full swing in 4 billion years, he said the sun will still have another 2 billion years before its expected death. However, by that time it will have grown so large and so hot that Earth might no longer be habitable without super-engineering techniques, he said. While this upcoming cosmic crash is dwarfed by the Big Bang which created the entire universe, van der Marel said this one could be called “the big smashup.” — AP

NEW YORK: This image provided by NASA shows the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft just prior to being released by the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm (top center) on Thursday, as it heads toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. — AP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

health & science

Scarcity affects anesthesia services, cancer patients US hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed

SOWETO: One-year-old Katakane is held on May 16, 2012 by her HIV-positive mother, Nandi, 32, at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa’s largest public hospital. —AFP photos

AIDS treatment in South Africa send baby infections plunging SOWETO: One-year-old Katakane laughs and coos in the arms of her HIV-positive mother as a doctor tries to examine her at South Africa’s largest public hospital, in Soweto township. But it is only a routine check-up. The little girl is healthy thanks to a treatment that has saved thousands of babies born to mothers with the virus that causes AIDS. “My baby, she’s fine! She’s playing, and she’s saying ‘mummy, papa’... Yes, she’s good, she’s fine,” said the beaming 32year-old Nandi (not her real name), recalling her relief when she learned her daughter was HIV-negative. Two years ago while she was expecting, Nandi took part in a state health program designed to prevent HIV-positive mothers from infecting their babies with the virus. The treatment has saved up to 70,000 children every year, according to officials-a massive success story in a country with almost six million people living with HIV and AIDS and a notorious treatment history. Pregnant women get tested at antenatal clinics, said pediatrician Avi Violari at Soweto’s Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital. “If she is HIV-infected, then we do a lot of intensive counseling ... and we offer to give treatment during pregnancy,” she said, as children dangled from blue chairs in the research unit, waiting with parents for testing or treatment. The HIV mothers are given antiretroviral (ARV) drugs during pregnancy and after birth, and possibly an extra dose during labor depending on the virus’ progression-all free of charge. ‘It’s unbelievable’-The medicines reduce the viral load in her body, which in turn reduces the infant’s risk of contracting HIV through the umbilical chord or by exposure to the mother’s bodily fluids during childbirth or breast feeding. The newborn also gets a few drops of ARV syrup as an extra boost to fight infection. The treatment’s success has been a boon in a country where half the 50 million residents live on less than $2 a day. While ARV drugs has downgraded AIDS from a deadly to a chronic condition in richer countries, allowing sufferers to carry on a decent lifestyle, the same is not true in poorer countries where survival can be a cruel, daily struggle for proper food and medicine. Until a decade ago, South Africa had also notoriously resisted giving anti-AIDS drugs to pregnant women. Former president Thabo Mbeki, in power at the time, drew worldwide criticism for his stance

challenging whether HIV causes AIDS and questioning Western diagnoses and medicines on how to treat the virus. In 2002, however, the Constitutional Court ordered that antiretroviral be made available, at no cost, to HIV mothers-to-be. Today, South Africa’s ARV program has moved beyond pregnant women and now serves 1.3 million people, the largest program of its kind in the world. Before the “Prevention of Mother-toChild-Transmission (PMTCT )” program was launched, almost a third of the country’s babies were born with HIV, contracted from their mothers. Infection rates have now dropped to under four percent, according to official figures released last year. “It’s unbelievable how the transmission rates have come down. It’s really dramatic,” said Theresa Rossouw, the country’s chief HIV doctor in the capital Pretoria. International health officials have hailed the success. “PMTCT program is a flagship of the South African government. It is something of which they can say, ‘We lead this program,’” said Thapelo Maotoe, a doctor with US aid agency USAID, which has put more than $3.3 billion into South African HIV and AIDS treatment since 2004. The results signal good news in a country where one in two HIV-positive babies-given widespread poverty-will still not reach their fifth birthday. But sometimes the medicines do not work. The youngest child of Lindiwe (not her real name) was born HIV-negative, but his older brother, three-year-old Siyabonga, contracted the virus despite administration of the drugs. “Siyabonga is no longer going to have a better life because he’s going to grow with this virus. And he‘s still young, so it’s too painful,” said the 22year-old who lives in a corrugated iron house on a dirty road in Soweto. At times, children may also develop resistance to the ARVs their mothers took during pregnancy but “the advantages of treatment are dramatically higher than the disadvantages,” said Rossouw. And even after birth, babies can still be exposed to the virus through their mother’s breast milk. Since 2010, however, South Africa has advocated that babies be breast fed exclusively for the first few months of life rather than bottle-fed with infant formula, as the mother’s milk protects better against diseases or potentially life-threatening diarrhoea, said Rossouw. “We know there will be more infections, but there will be more children that survive.” — AFP

Soweto: A mother gets on May 16, 2012 antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.

WASHINGTON: At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day. Most of the hospital’s medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in. A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer. “Now we have to go through the pharmacy and count those drugs on a daily basis ... to make sure we don’t run out,” said Ed Szandzik, director of pharmacy services at the hospital for over a decade. The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend. Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off patent is growing. Some drugmakers have been plagued by manufacturing problems that have shut down multiple plants or production lines, while others have stopped producing a treatment when profit margins erode too far. Some medicines have been periodically short in the past, doctors and pharmacists say, but the number of drug shortages has escalated in recent years, jumping from 56 in 2006 to 250 last year, according to US Food and Drug Administration figures. Generic drugmakers like US-based Hospira Inc and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries , an Israeli company, say they are building new facilities to prevent future shortages. But in the meantime, pharmacies around the country are counting pills, begging neighboring hospitals for extra supplies and scouring the Internet for news of additional supply disruptions. When rumors surface of an impending shortage, some pharmacies rush to buy up more than they need, likely leading to bigger

shortages, analysts and other pharmacists said. All of this requires regular attention from hospitals to manage the crisis. At Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, pharmacists and administrators meet weekly to discuss just how dire the situation is for different medicines. “Every Wednesday before we have that (meeting), I have a bit of anxiety,” said Ursula Tachie-Menson, acting chief of the hospital’s pharmacy division. She spends about 30 percent of her time each week addressing shortage-related problems. “Out of all the (21) years I have been practicing, these drug shortages have been one of the biggest challenges,” she said. Early warning system The FDA has been acting under an October executive order from President Barack Obama to fill in the gaps. It has had success getting an early warning from drug companies when they foresee a new shortage, allowing the agency to persuade other manufacturers to increase their production or look overseas to guarantee supply. “I can tell you that there’s not a single company I’m aware of out there that isn’t talking to the FDA,” said David Gaugh, head of regulatory sciences at the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, referring to the trade group’s members. The FDA said early notification has helped prevent shortages of 128 drugs in six months. It also estimates the rate of new shortages is slowing, with half the number of new scarce drugs this year compared with 2011. There are currently about 130 drugs in short supply listed on the FDA’s website. But surveys and anecdotes keep piling up, showing doctors’ efforts to find scarce drugs have not become easier. This month, a website for US oncologists, MDLinx, surveyed 200 doctors and found more than 90 percent of them have experienced shortages of key cancer drugs. Cancer, Anesthesia and Nutrition A clinical nutrition group, the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), found that 70 percent of its 800 members who responded to an online survey, said they had seen shortages of adult injectable multi-vitamins, used for basic nutrition for patients with intestinal issues. ASPEN members responding to the survey included doctors, nurses and pharmacists. More than a quarter were not giving their patients multi-

In Myanmar, stigma and neglect add to HIV misery YANGON: The mother and child who touch hands in an overcrowded Yangon hospice are not family, but their tragic history begins in the blood. Jam, 42, a mother of six, and Kanama, aged 2, are both HIV positive. Abandoned by their families, they must now find comfort in each other, although Jam still yearns for her husband to return to the private HIV hospice in the suburbs of Myanmar’s biggest city. “He promised to come back but I’m afraid he never will,” said the woman as she burst into tears. She is known in the hospice by her nickname, Jam. The hospice is home to 182 HIV patients, whose plight demonstrates the painful limits of Myanmar’s new democracy. A reform-minded government has vowed to overhaul a decrepit health system, but little change is likely for HIV/AIDS sufferers, who thanks to social stigma and medical neglect, are shut off in hospices that bring to mind leper colonies. In 2009, the United Nations estimated 240,000 of Myanmar’s 60 million people were infected with HIV and about 18,000 were dying a year. Neighboring Thailand, with a slightly bigger population, has more than twice the number of people with HIV but access to drugs and greater public acceptance mean that many can lead normal lives. Jam once lived in Kadon, a fishing village in the impoverished Irrawaddy Delta, with her farmer husband and their six children. In 2008, feeling unwell, she was treated by a self-styled medic, who injected her with a drug. The needle was dirty and had been used repeatedly. She was probably now HIV positive, although she didn’t suspect it, and her personal tragedy was soon subsumed by a national one: Cyclone Nargis. The typhoon slammed into the delta in May that year, killing at least 138,000 people, including Jam’s sons, aged 17 and 18. She narrowly escaped, clutching her youngest child, who is six. Nargis wiped her village off the map. Jam and thousands of other survivors struggled to rebuild their lives. Another four years passed before she fell ill again, this time more gravely, and a hospital referred her to the Yangon hospice. Tests confirmed she had AIDS. That was two months ago. Jam is mostly alone now. Apart from her six-year-old, her children shun her. Her husband, who is not HIV positive, returned to the farm. — Reuters

Drug slows advanced prostate cancer CHICAGO: A drug that is already approved for prostate cancer has been shown to slow the spread of advanced forms of the disease for the first time, according to research released yesterday. Zytiga, made by Johnson and Johnson, is being tested in a randomized phase III trial involving 1,088 men with prostate cancer at 151 cancer facilities in North America, Europe and Australia. On average, participants in the study were diagnosed five years prior to entering the research but none had begun chemotherapy. Their cancer had metastasized and had become resistant to initial hormone therapy, but they were not showing major symptoms. According to interim results, the drug, abiraterone acetate, given in combination with prednisone, delayed

vitamins because of the shortages, placing them at risk of severe vitamin deficiencies that can lead to issues like anemia, due to a lack of folate, or scurvy, which happens when people do not get vitamin C. In extreme cases, a deficiency of a type of B vitamin called thiamine can lead to cardiac arrest or death. “This is an act of daily living for people now,” said Jay Mirtallo, president of the group. “How that can be acceptable, I don’t understand.” When a drug is not available, doctors have to seek alternatives, which may not work as well or cost more money. Others have to ration limited supplies of a life-saving treatment to only those who need it most. Dr Steven Allen, a specialist in blood cancers at North Shore University Hospital in New York, recently treated a young woman who had suffered several relapses of a life-threatening cancer known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Allen found a combination that involved thiotepa, an older drug his patient had not tried and could tolerate. “When I ordered it, I was informed that there was none available, and it couldn’t be obtained,” said Allen, also chair of the committee on practice at the American Society of Hematology. He substituted a similar drug, but one that the woman had already taken. “We tried to make up a dose that was equivalent to thiotepa and hoped for the best. ... But I think it may have compromised her care.” On May 14, the FDA announced it would allow temporary imports of thiotepa made by Italian company Adienne Pharma & Biotech, to relieve manufacturing delays at Bedford, Ohio-based Bedford Laboratories, a unit of the private German company Boehringer Ingelheim that is the only approved manufacturer for the United States. Bedford said in April it did not know when further shipments would be available once its supplies ran out. Imports have not helped anesthesiologists like Dr. Jason Soch, who hears about a new shortage nearly every week during his rotations at several surgical centers in Philadelphia. These are often “workhorse” drugs such as fentanyl, midazolam and propofol, used every day during surgery. “It seems like as soon as one drug is no longer in shortage, we get an email from the hospital pharmacist that they’re on their last box of another,” he said. Every disruption forces doctors to change dosing, or give new drug combinations they may not be as familiar with. —Reuters

the onset of pain and helped improve quality of life in patients whose cancer had metastasized. In the Zytiga group, patients’ cancer did not worsen for 16 months, compared to 8.3 months in the group that did not get the drug, Ryan said. More analysis is needed to determine survival time. The full data set is expected in 2014. “This drug extended lives and gave patients more time when they weren’t experiencing significant pain from the disease,” said Charles Ryan, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. “It appears that this medication may lay a foundation for the use of this drug at an earli-

er stage of prostate cancer, and its benefits may be able to be delivered to a much wider population of patients as a result.” The research was to be released at the 48th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. “These results are the culmination of years of research, and will truly transform the way we take care of patients with advanced prostate cancer,” said Eric Small, chief of hematology and oncology at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. “This is a wonderful milestone in our progress in treating prostate cancer, and provides advanced prostate cancer patients everywhere with an important new weapon to fight their cancer,” he said. — AFP

Hong Kong: A woman arranges cages in front of a bird shop in Hong Kong yesterday. —AFP

Hong Kong sees first human bird flu case in 18 months HONG KONG: Hong Kong health authorities yesterday urged the public not to panic after the southern Chinese city reported its first human case of bird flu in 18 months in a two-year-old boy. Hong Kong officials said the Chinese boy was in serious condition after testing positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza and the city had raised the bird flu alert level to “serious”. Hong Kong and Chinese health authorities said investigations revealed that the boy, who lives in the neighbouring Chinese province of Guangdong, had visited a local wet market and had contact with a live duck in mid-May. He later developed a fever and runny nose and was taken for treatment at a Hong Kong private clinic on May 26. “The boy’s parents are all along asymptomatic, which means the chance of a human-to-human transmission is slim,” a spokesman from the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection said in a statement. The spokesman said the boy was in intensive care while his parents were being quarantined at the same hospital. A government spokeswoman confirmed it was the first human case of bird flu in Hong Kong since November 2010, which involved a 59-year-old woman. China’s state -run Xinhua news agency said Guangdong was on “high alert” but tests has so far found no signs of an outbreak. Hong Kong is particularly nervous about infectious diseases after an outbreak of the deadly respiratory disease SARS in 2003 killed 300 people in the city. The Asian financial hub was the site of the world’s first major outbreak of bird flu among

humans in 1997, when six people died from a mutated form of the virus, which is normally confined to poultry. Millions of birds were then culled. The latest infection prompted Hong Kong Health Minister York Chow to convene an emergency meeting as he announced a series of preventive measures while reassuring the public that it was an “isolated” case. “We feel that there is no need for panic among Hong Kong citizens,” he told reporters. Chow said there were no plans to ban live poultry imports for the time being, but inspection and disinfection would be stepped up at markets. Schools and various institutions have been asked to be on alert. “We think it is an important measure to take particularly for Hong Kong, because we had experiences of outbreaks of avian influenza in Hong Kong,” he said. “For this particular case, so far the chance of it being spread to other humans is relatively low. But we still need to go through the whole process of analysing the origin and channel of the infection and have to study the virology of the virus.” The H5N1 strain has killed more than 350 people worldwide since 2003, according to WHO statistics, with the latest fatality reported on Monday involving a 10-year-old Cambodian girl. Concerns about avian influenza have risen in the region with China, Vietnam and Indonesia all reporting deaths from the virus this year. The virus typically spreads from birds to humans through direct contact, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to kill millions in a pandemic. —AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

H E A LT H

PAKISTAN: (From left) In these Sunday, May 20, 2012 photos, Pakistani acid attack survivor Parveen Aslam, 42, is examined by Dr Hamid Hasan, at Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi. Pakistani acid attack survivor Sedra Javeed, 14, is examined by Dr Hamid Hasan. Another survivor, Shamma Maqsood, 24, looks at pictures of herself before the attack and Akhtar Yar, 9, during a surgery in his nose.—AP photos

32 years after attack, Pakistani woman gets nose Women can be targeted for suspicion of an affair PAKISTAN: After six years of abuse, Allah Rakhi was walking out of her marriage when her husband struck again. Snatching a knife, he sliced off her nose. “You’re no longer beautiful!” he shouted. He then slashed at her foot - brutal punishment for leaving the house without his permission. “A woman is only a woman inside the home, outside she’s a whore!” he yelled at Rakhi as she lay bleeding on the dusty street just outside her home. That was 32 years ago. All that time, Rakhi hid her disfigured face under a veil. Then in March, a surgeon took up her case. He cut flesh from her ribs and fashioned it into a new nose, transforming her life. While the details of every case of violence against Pakistani

Pakistani acid attack survivor Akhtar Yar, 9, center, holds the hand of his brother Rukhan, 23, left, standing next to eunuch and acid attack survivor, Zafar Iqbal, 23, while waiting other survivors outside Benazir Bhutto hospital.

woman differ, many are based on a concept of “family honor.” Women can be targeted for suspicion of an affair, wishing to divorce or dressing inappropriately. Hundreds women are murdered each year because of mere suspicions. The nose is considered the symbol of family honor in Pakistan - explaining why a woman’s nose is often the target of spousal abuse. A popular plea from parents to children is “Please take care of our nose,” which means, “don’t do anything that tarnishes the reputation of the family.” Rooted in tribal ideas that a woman’s chastity is the property of the man, honor killings are practiced in much of the Arab world and South Asia. They have also been carried out by immigrants from those regions to the West. Pakistani courts have a history of letting off offenders or giving them only light punishment, assuming the cases get to trial at all. Rakhi’s husband, for example, served just 10 months in jail before being released in exchange for a commitment to pay her medical bills. He never did. Accurate statistics on the extent of honor crimes are hard to come by, because many cases go unreported or are settled out of court under pressure from the families of the victim and the attacker. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in 2011, at least 943 women were murdered, nine had their noses cut off, 98 were tortured, 47 set on fire and 38 attacked with acid. Efforts to introduce stronger laws to increase punishments for violence against women have been blocked by an Islamist political party which publicly supports the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. The party, Jamiat Ulema Islam, is a member of the ruling coalition. The lower houses of parliament passed the bill, but the JUI is preventing its passage through the upper house. “We will never let it happen,” said JUI senator Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, who said the bill was an attempt to “Westernize” Pakistan. “It will ruin our family institutions,” he

said. Shad Begum, a Pakistani right activists who received the US International Woman of Courage award from first lady Michelle Obama this year, said firmer laws and better enforcement are the only solution to violence against woman. “Our leaders need to take a firm stand,” she said. “If a man makes a woman a victim, or makes an ‘example out of her’ as he believes, our courts should also make an example out of him.” Rakhi was attacked when she was 19, after being married at 13. Despite being illegal, child marriages remain common in parts of Pakistan. Following the attack, she worked to support herself and her daughter, painting flowers on pots in a factory and buying and selling clothes in markets across the country, all the time hidden behind a veil. “I died every moment,” Rakhi said in her three-room mud and brick house in a village hidden among the wheat fields of Pakistan’s Punjab province. Rakhi’s husband divorced her soon after he was released from prison, she said. In a bizarre twist, the 51-year-old woman now lives again under the same roof as him - something she claims as a “victory,” but also perhaps points to her poverty and lack of alternatives. Rakhi’s son persuaded her to return home, anxious for her to have a more comfortable life. On a recent visit, the husband scooted out of the house as Rakhi welcomed a reporter, and he did not made himself available for comment. She said she never stopped hoping for a new nose, but doctors were unwilling to operate because she suffers from hepatitis C, a liver condition that can complicate surgery. It was her daughter who gave her the chance. She was working in the capital, Islamabad, at an institute that provides training for woman recovering from having acid thrown on their faces. She introduced Rakhi to the Acid Survivors Foundation, which put her in touch with a surgeon. Dr Hamid Hasan took her case for free. Asked why he would take the chance, he

answered, “Her pleas. Her tears.” At a follow up appointment last month, Hasan touched the scars where the stitches once were on her nose and forehead. Rakhi winced slightly, and smiled as the surgeon took his hands away. Hasan said her positive attitude was important for the other operations she must undergo in the coming months. “Thank God I did not commit suicide,” Rakhi said. “Life is a blessing!”—AP

Pakistani acid attack survivor Zaiba Aslam, 10, is helped by her mother Parveen (unseen) who also an acid attack survivor, to adjust her scarf.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

WHAT’S ON

New summer menu at Cucina in Missoni Hotel otel Missoni Kuwait’s beautiful, award winning, signature restaurant, Cucina, has launched its new summer menu. Set in the very heart of Hotel Missoni, Cucina is true authentic Italian. Like the much loved Italian kitchen, Cucina is where life happens. The new menu features an array of dishes such as our Homemade Ravioli. Contemporary yet elegant, the effortlessly stylish restaurant can seat up to 106 people. Cucina changes its menu each season, importing the very best from Italy, using the finest, freshest ingredients, simply prepared. World renowned chef, Giorgio Locatelli, worked closely with Chef de Cuisine, Claudio Barzano, to create

a summer menu of contemporary dishes founded on the very principles of classic Italian cuisine. Italians are passionate about their food and this is shown through the careful balance of flavours, textures, and aromas of Cucina’s dishes. Michelin starred Locatelli’s culinary expertise combined with Rosita Missoni’s chic designs forms a unique experience, from the earliest of breakfasts to a late-night supper. Chef de Cuisine Claudio Barzano from Milan is Locatelli “Ambassador” at Cucina Missoni in Kuwait. Claudio brings and extensive international experience. He previously worked closely with Chef Locatelli at “Locanda” Locatelli in London and most recently at

‘Ronda” Locatelli in Dubai. Claudio’s inspiring passion for food resonates throughout the entire kitchen team, who are dedicated to providing the most authentic Italian dining experience. The new summer menu reflects true Italian classics, homemade pastas, selected variety of fish, meat and delectable sweets. Cucina restaurant is opened 7 days a week. Breakfast: 6:00 am - 11:00 am Lunch: 12:30 pm - 4:00 pm Dinner: 7:00 pm - 11:30 pm Reservation and Contact information: Tel: +965 25770000; Fax: +965 25770001 cucina.kuwait@hotelmissoni.com

X-cite By Alghanim Electronics wins Best Retailer -cite by Alghanim Electronics won the Kuwait Retailer of the Year award for the 4th consecutive year from Middle East Retail Academy (MERA). The award ceremony was part of the annual 2012 Distree channel networking event held at Furjairah, UAE. The award is bestowed to international retailers for excellence in retailing across a range of criteria that includes successful channel engagement strategy, implementation of best business practice in retailing and in being able to provide its customers access to the latest technology products within a world class retail environment. More than 300 senior executives from the vendor community took part in a live electronic vote at the MERA

Announcements ‘Leniency of Islam’ An unprecedented initiative of KTV2 (English channel) is the new program by the name ‘Leniency of Islam’ presented by Shaikh Musaad Alsane and directed by Hamid Al-Turkait. The program is mainly meant to address the expatriates living in Kuwait. Religious questions are received through the program email qislam@tv.gov.kw and sms can be sent to97822021 and answered by the lecturer and Imam in Awqaf Ministry Shaikh Musaad Alsane - a Master Degree holder in Sharia and fiqih from Kuwait University. So don’t forget to watch the program every Friday at 1:00 pm. Free Arabic course IPC is opening an Intensive Basic Arabic Course for ladies commencing from June 3 to July 8, 2012. The class will be from 5-7 pm for three days a week. Registration is on! For information, call 22512257. Open House for Indian Citizens The Ambassador of India will be holding an Open House for Indian citizens to address their problems/grievances on Wednesdays of the second and the fourth week of every month between 1500 hrs and 1600 hrs at the embassy. In case Wednesday is an Embassy holiday, the meeting will be held on the next working day. To ensure timely action/follow-up by the Embassy, it is requested that, wherever possible, Indian citizens should exhaust the existing channels of interaction/grievance redressal and bring their problems/issues in writing with supporting documents. It may be mentioned that Embassy of India’s Consular Wing is providing daily service of Open House to Indian citizen on all workings days from 1000 hrs to 1100 hrs and from 1430 hrs to 1530 hrs by the consular officer in the Meeting Room of the Consular Hall. For any unaddressed issues, Second Secretary (Consular) could be contacted. Furthermore, the head of the Consular Wing is also available to redress grievances. Similarly, a labor wing Help Desk functions from 0830 hrs to 1300 hrs and 1400 hrs to 1630 hrs in the Labor Hall to address the labor related issue. There is also a 24X7 Help Line (Tel No. 25674163) to assist labors in distress. For any unaddressed issues, the concerned Attaches in the labor section and the head of the labor wing could be contacted.

2012 Awards’ gala dinner. Farouk Hemraj, CEO at DISTREE Events, organizers of the ‘MERA: 2012 Awards’, said: “The Middle East ICT and CE channel continues to develop and mature at a rapid pace and the retailers picked out at the ‘MERA: 2012 Awards’ are all playing a key role in driving this development across the region.” The annual MERA Awards are now firmly established as a benchmark for retail channel excellence in the Middle East market.” X-cite’s dominance in the Kuwaiti market was underlined by its overwhelming success in this category with the retailer securing a hugely impressive 82% share of the live vendor vote. The award was announced after Xcite had recently opened its all new and

expanded outlet at the Avenues mall in Kuwait. The new and spacious X-cite showroom at the Avenues mall exudes a modern and sleek vibe. With X-cite’s signature touch-feel-interactive displays, more than 10,000 products are now easily accessible to customers. The multi-cultural bilingual trained product specialists ensure that customer can get a deeper insight into how the product works or how modern technology converges to make life easier and better. The retail environment and shopping experience at the outlet is the best example of how MERA endorses retail channel excellence in the Middle East market. X-cite with its network of 17 stores and online portal at www.xcite.com is the market leading

retailer for consumer electronics and home appliances in Kuwait and across the Middle East. Samer Sayegh, Vice President Alghanim Electronics said “The Retailer of the year award comes straight after the opening of the all new and expanded X-cite store at the Avenues Mall. The award recognizes our efforts to enhance the shopping environment and bring to market the most advanced electronics showroom in the region.” Xcite has won numerous awards from various international organizations in the past including being the Superbrand for Kuwait, Best Retailer Middle East at MERA 2011 as well as Super Retailer from Reseller Middle East 2011.

FAIPS - DPS Maintains Supremacy In X CBSE Exam 2012 AIPS has stamped its seal of authority in the firmament of Kuwait with academic excellence in the recently declared CBSE Class X Examination 2012. The stupendous result is a testament to the dedication and commitment of all concerned. Heartiest Congratulations to Teachers, Students, Parents and

all Support Staff! FAIPS can proudly boast of: ● Highest Average CGP of 8.9 ● Highest percentage of students obtaining 10 CGP - 41 (27.33%) ● Highest percentage of students obtaining 9 CGP and above - 88 (58.67%) ● Highest Average Grade Points in English, Hindi,

Mathematics and Science ● Second Highest Average Grade Points in Social Studies FAIPS stars who have done the school proud with a CGP of 10: A Goldan Nivethitha Anushka Anil, Mandava Ratna Manognya, Pragna Kodali, Aditya Vishwanath, Adwait Ambaskar, Afshan Arshad,

Aishwaryaa Vasudevan, Akanksha Sanjay Chandekar, Ananya Kashyap, Animesh Wasan, Anshuman Choudhuri, Anusha Sanjay Kumar Ashlin Lawrence Dsouza, Gaurav Ganesh Amin, Gaurav Manjunath Kudva Mohammad Ahmad Khan, Nehal Amit Jajal, Nilasis Bhattacharya, Puneet J Sharma, Rehana Mahfuz,

Sagarika Raina, Smitarani Panda, Twisa Pal, Ushaa Palaniappan, Vinaya Khandelwal, Aayush Naik, Aratrika Sanyal, Faeeza Alfiya, George Kurien, Navonil Datta, Ezhilarasu Preetham, Rahul Raju, G Mary Ridhima, Rohan Mahesh, Shruti Gupta, Tanushree Podder, Varghese Vadakumcherry, Tammanur Ravi Akshaya, Irits Anna Mathew,

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

WHAT’S ON ASSE awards Palagummi Safety Professional of the Year for 2012 ubba Rao Palagummi of American Society of Safety Engineers - Kuwait Chapter was honored with ASSE Kuwait Chapter SPY award - 2011 for his outstanding contributions to the chapter and to HSE profession. The award was handed over to him during the ASSE GCC HSE Excellence Award Ceremony on 24th May 2012 at Crowne Plaza Hotel. ASSE Kuwait Chapter SPY award is an honor acknowledging the dedication and outstanding contributions of a ASSE member to a Kuwait region Outstanding safety and health professionals are the driving force behind the 100year-old American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). In addition to working to prevent injuries and illnesses at work, members volunteer their time and resources throughout the year to protect people, property and the environment. The

Society is divided into eight Regions and ASSE- Kuwait Chapter falls under Region VI. This region consists of 15 Chapters within USA and

Kuwait is the only International Chapter among those. As per the Society Operating guidelines, each Region recognizes the one active member every

year with Safety Professional of the Year (SPY) Award. The Award is instituted by ASSE Kuwait Chapter in the year 2011 in line with the ASSE

Head Quarters, USA procedures and guidelines. During the ceremony, Amarnath B, Secretary of ASSE Kuwait Chapter briefed about the award and its evalua-

tion criteria. Fadhel Al Ali, Chairman of ASSE Kuwait Chapter handed over this prestigious award to Subba Rao Palagummi and appreciated his efforts and contribution to the chapter and HSE Profession. Subba Rao Palagummi, CSP, is a professional member of the Society’s Kuwait Chapter, He has more than 23 years’ experience in HSE Management in several industries with majority of the experience with Oil &Gas industry. He is presently the HSE Consultant in Deep Drilling Group of Kuwait Oil Co. Subba Rao Palagummi earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Occupational Safety & Health with Environment Management and MBA in Safety Management. He is also the Certified Safety Professional from Board of Certified Safety Professionals USA. Currently, Subba Rao Palagummi is the President of

ASSE Kuwait Chapter a nonprofit professional organization. He is also the NAOSH Champion for the year 2012 for enhancing awareness among Kuwait kids on the Safety-onthe-Job kids’ poster contest. ASSE Kuwait Chapter is constantly organizing events, such as conferences, technical meetings and training programs, and has been recognized as one of the most active professional organizations in the state and has continued to be a top supporter of ASSE’s mission to protect people, property and the environment. The Kuwait Chapter is one of the busiest and larger in terms of membership counts outside of USA. The chapter has represented the state of Kuwait at International arena at many occasions during the past few years and has been continuously recognized as best chapter outside USA as the largest international chapter.

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF BRAZIL The Embassy of Brazil requests all Brazilian citizens in Kuwait to proceed to the website www.brazil.org.kw (Contact Us Form / Fale Conosco) in order to register or update contact information. The Embassy encourages all citizens to do so, including the ones who have already registered in person at the Embassy. The registration process helps the Brazilian Government to contact and assist Brazilians living abroad in case of any emergency. ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is closed from 12:30 to 01:00 pm for lunch break. Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 on Sunday through Wednesday. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.uae.gc.ca. ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF CYPRUS The Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus would like to inform the public that from today (3rd June 2012), the Consulate section located at the premises of the Embassy will start issuing Visas. Address: SalwaBlock 3, Al-Mutanabbi Street Building No. 35, Tel : (965)25620350, Fax: (965)25620470, Email : info@cyprus-embassy.org.kw Working hours 9:00am till 12:00pm everyday except Friday & Saturday Hence, The Honorary Consulate of Cyprus in Kuwait city will stop issuing Visas from the same date. ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF FRANCE For the first round of voting for the French parliamentary elections, the French Embassy in Kuwait will be closed today (Sunday, June 3, 2012). ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF KOREA The Embassy of the Republic of Korea wishes to inform that it has moved to Mishref. New Address: Embassy of the Republic of Korea Mishref, Block 7A, Diplomatic Area 2, Plot 6 The Embassy also wishes to inform that it will be opened to the public on the following office hours: Saturday to Thursday Morning: 8:00 am to 12:30 pm Lunch Break: 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm Afternoon: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm

The Najla Al-Naqqi Forum hosted a seminar recently discussing the nanotherapy technology and ways to utilize its cell repair methods in Kuwait’s medical field. Dr. Osama Al-Awar from the Anross Group for Technologies and Nano Technology, and immunity diseases specialist Dr. Saleh Al-Harbi spoke during the event that was attended by a crowd of chemo sciences and alternative medicine enthusiasts.

Bhavans organizes family meet to honor CBSE toppers ndian Educational School (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) Kuwait hosted a dazzling and sumptuous get together in honor of all their prestigious prodigies who got CGPA 10 in the AISSE 2012 and those who made 90% and above in AISSCE 2012. 11 students in class 10 and 16 students in class 12 together with their families were invited for the occasion and all the invitees did honor the request with their presence, and made the occasion momentous. “Thirty five men can take a horse to a river, but even 45 cannot make it drink a drop of water. So the whole credit goes to the parents, children and my dedicated teachers,” said Ramachandran Menon in his address to the gathering. He reiterated the importance of a harmonious family atmosphere and its influence in a child’s academic career. Principal Premkumar went so metaphorical in his delivery of thoughts and compared the school life of a child to the game of chess where all pawns can be made kings but all kings are not pawns. He was highlighting the incontestable Bhavan philosophy of not laying the cruel hand of filtering at the time of giving promotion for students from one class to another. All children in this respect are precious and can be groomed into leaders and heroes. He compared the growth of IES Bhavans with that of a bamboo tree which takes years to sprout but once it starts its growth then it is rapid and grows tall trying to reach the skies. People enjoyed the bliss of satisfaction and excitement when the principal talked on the achievement of the students and the golden harvest the school reaped. The rhythm and music got virtually reverberated around the auditorium

■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF KENYA The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to request all Kenyans resident in or training through Kuwait to register with the Embassy. We are updating our database. This information is necessary in order to facilitate quick assistance and advise in times of emergency. Kindly visit in person or register through our website www.kenyaembkuwait.com. The Embassy is located in: Surra Area Block 6 - Street 9 - Villa 3 Tel: 25353362 - 25353314; Fax: 25353316. ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF MEXICO The Embassy of Mexico is pleased to inform that it is located in CLIFFS Complex, Villa 6, Salmiya, block 9, Baghdad street, Jadda Lane 7. The working hours for consular issues are from 9:00 to 12:00 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is closed from 14:00 to 15:00 hours for lunch break. The Embassy of Mexico kindly requests all Mexicans citizens in Kuwait to proceed to the e-mail: embkuwait@sre.gob.mx in order to register or update contact information. Other consultations or/and appointments could be done by telephone or fax: (+965) 2573 1952 ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF MYANMAR Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar would like to inform the general public that the Embassy has moved its office to new location at Villa 35, Road 203, Block 2, AlSalaam Area in South Surra. The Embassy wishes to advice Myanmar citizens and travellers to Myanmar to contact Myanmar Embassy at its new location. Tel. 25240736, 25240290, Fax: 25240749, email:myankuwait11@gmai1.com ■■■■■■■

when two talented dancers from the Rhythmscapes of Bhavans Dance School danced to the peak of sublimity. The recital of the veena by Sijitha the school music teacher in accompaniment of the melodious notes played on the mridangam by Arjun an expert in the field in

Kuwait supplemented the jollity and joviality of the hour. And the whole event ended on a delicious note sharing the delicacies served. Anita Sadanand gave the welcome speech and Miss Sonal Mashankar extended the vote of thanks. All the 16 Class-12 toppers who

scored 90% and above aggregate marks were presented with a memento thanking them to be a bhavanite by the Chairman Ramachandran Menon much to the delight of all the parents.

EMBASSY OF NEPAL The Embassy of Nepal has moved to a new location in Jabriya, Block 8, St. 13, House No. 514, effective from 15th April, 2012. Till the new telephone connections are installed, the Embassy may be contacted by email: info@nepembku.org ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Nigerian embassy has its new office in Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For enquires please call 25379541. Fax25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF THAILAND The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuwait, wishes to invite the Kuwaiti companies that deal business with Thai companies or those agencies of Thai commercial companies to visit the Embassy’s Commercial Office to register their relevant information to be part of the embassy’s business and trade database. The Royal Thai Embassy is located in Jabriya, Block 6, Street 8, Villa No. 1, Telephone No. 25317530 -25317531, Ext: 14. ■■■■■■■

Bhavans topped the toppers n the very second year of the IES students taking the CBSE class 12 examination, it has produced school toppers, country toppers and even Gulf toppers which is a matter of great value and pride for the Bhavans family. The fact that there

are many country toppers in the school in various subjects multiplied the magnitude of their victory. ● SANOY JACOB KOSHY, BINITHA ANNA JACOB, JOANNA BIJU GEORGE, NICHOLAS MANUEL PARMAR and DUSHYANTH

SHRAYES scored 95% and became the country toppers in English. ● ANIRUDH AGARWAL SCORED a stellar 100% in Math. ● SANOY JACOB KOSHY became the country topper in Informatics as well

with a 98%. ● ANJANA KRISHNA MOHAN scored a rare and only 99% in Business Studies and she is said to be the topper in the Gulf CBSE Schools and we are truly proud of this rare honor bestowed up on our school.

EMBASSY OF UKRAINE We’d like to inform you that in response to the increasing number of our citizens who work in the state and the need for 24-hour operational telephone in case of emergency the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait has opened “hotline telephone number” - (+ 965) 972-79-206.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

TV PROGRAMS

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

Untamed & Uncut Living With Wolves Ned Bruha: Skunk Whisperer Ned Bruha: Skunk Whisperer Great Animal Escapes Great Animal Escapes Karina: Wild On Safari Karina: Wild On Safari Great Ocean Adventures Dogs 101 Escape To Chimp Eden Crocodile Hunter The Planet’s Funniest Animals Growing Up... Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild Wild Animal Orphans Project Puppy Dogs 101 Wildest Africa Lions Of Crocodile River Wildlife SOS Safari Vet School Safari Vet School Must Love Cats Wild Africa Rescue Wild Africa Rescue Max’s Big Tracks Austin Stevens Adventures Great Ocean Adventures Baboons With Bill Bailey Baboons With Bill Bailey Wildwives Of Savannah Lane I Was Bitten Animal Cops South Africa

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

Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Cash In The Attic Cash In The Attic Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Cash In The Attic USA Cash In The Attic USA MasterChef Australia MasterChef Australia 10 Years Younger Gok’s Fashion Fix Gok’s Fashion Fix DIY SOS DIY SOS Holmes On Homes What Not To Wear Gok’s Clothes Roadshow Gok’s Clothes Roadshow Celebrity MasterChef Celebrity MasterChef Cash In The Attic USA DIY SOS DIY SOS Holmes On Homes

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

Duck Dodgers The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Tom & Jerry Kids A Pup Named Scooby-Doo The Jetsons Puppy In My Pocket Popeye Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races The Flintstones A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye Classics Wacky Races Pink Panther And Pals Dexter’s Laboratory Bananas In Pyjamas Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Ha Ha Hairies The Garfield Show The Looney Tunes Show What’s New Scooby-Doo? Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries Yogi’s Treasure Hunt Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch Wacky Races

11:30 Johnny Bravo Goes To Bollywood 13:00 Dastardly And Muttley 13:50 Looney Tunes 14:40 Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDoo 15:05 Tom & Jerry 15:55 Top Cat 16:20 Top Cat 16:45 Pink Panther & Pals 17:15 The Garfield Show 18:05 The Looney Tunes Show 18:30 Scooby Doo Where Are You! 18:55 The Scooby Doo Show 19:20 Pink Panther And Pals 19:45 The Jetsons 20:05 Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries 20:30 What’s New Scooby-Doo? 20:55 The Garfield Show 21:25 The Flintstones 21:50 Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch 22:15 Popeye 22:35 Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDoo 23:00 Wacky Races 23:20 Dastardly And Muttley 23:45 New Yogi Bear Show

00:30 Bakugan: New Vestroia 00:55 Bakugan: New Vestroia 01:20 Powerpuff Girls 02:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 03:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 03:25 Ben 10 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Powerpuff Girls 04:40 Generator Rex 05:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:30 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:55 Angelo Rules 06:00 Casper’s Scare School 06:25 Casper’s Scare School 07:00 The Powerpuff Girls 07:40 The Amazing World Of Gumball 08:05 Adventure Time 08:30 Regular Show 08:55 Eliot Kid 09:20 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 09:45 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 10:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:35 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 11:00 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 11:25 Grim Adventures Of... 12:15 Courage The Cowardly Dog 13:05 Generator Rex 13:30 Powerpuff Girls 14:20 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 14:45 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 15:10 Best Ed 16:00 Fantastic Four... 16:25 Ben 10 16:50 The Amazing World Of Gumball 17:15 Adventure Time 17:40 Regular Show 18:05 Powerpuff Girls 18:55 Ben 10: Alien Force 19:20 Ben 10: Alien Force 19:45 Ed, Edd n Eddy 20:35 Grim Adventures Of... 21:00 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 21:25 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 21:50 Cow And Chicken 22:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 22:50 Ben 10 23:15 Ben 10 23:40 Chowder

00:00 00:30 01:00 01:30 02:00 02:30 03:00 03:15 03:30 04:00 05:00 06:00

News Special World Sport World Report Talk Asia World Report Amanpour CNN Marketplace Europe CNN Marketplace Africa The Brief CNN Presents CNN Newsroom News Special

06:30 Inside Africa 07:00 World Sport 07:30 News Special 08:00 World Report 08:15 CNN Marketplace Middle East 08:30 Talk Asia 09:00 World Report 09:15 CNN Marketplace Europe 09:30 News Special 10:00 World Sport 10:30 News Special 11:00 African Voices 11:30 The Brief 12:00 World Report 12:30 The Royals 13:00 CNN Presents 14:00 World Report 14:30 News Special 15:00 Fareed Zakaria Gps 16:00 State Of The Union With Candy Crowley 17:00 International Desk 17:30 Inside Africa 18:00 Global Exchange 18:15 CNN Marketplace Africa 18:30 Global Exchange 18:45 CNN Marketplace Middle East 19:00 World Sport 19:30 News Special 20:00 International Desk 20:30 African Voices 21:00 International Desk 21:30 News Special 22:00 Fareed Zakaria Gps 23:00 World Report 23:30 The Royals

00:40 Nothing Personal 01:35 Kidnap And Rescue 02:30 How It’s Made 07:25 How It’s Made 07:50 American Chopper: Senior vs Junior 08:45 Desert Car Kings 09:40 X-Machines 10:30 River Monsters 11:25 Extreme Fishing 12:20 How It’s Made 14:10 How It’s Made 14:35 Auction Hunters 16:00 Auction Hunters 16:25 Auction Hunters 16:55 Border Security - Series 6 Specials 18:45 Border Security - Series 6 Specials 19:10 Soul Food Family 20:05 Unchained Reaction 21:00 James May’s Man Lab 21:55 Engineering The European Championship 22:50 Engineering The European Championship 23:45 Gold Divers

00:05 Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger 00:35 Prophets Of Science Fiction 01:25 Mega World 02:15 The Tech Show 02:40 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 06:10 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 07:00 Last Flight Of The Space Shuttle 07:50 Brave New World 08:40 Junk Men 09:05 Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger 09:35 Prophets Of Science Fiction 10:25 Sport Science 17:45 Sci-Fi Science 18:15 Junk Men 18:40 Brave New World 19:30 Prophets Of Science Fiction 20:20 The Science Of Star Wars 21:10 Last Flight Of The Space Shuttle 22:00 Prophets Of Science Fiction 22:50 The Science Of Star Wars 23:40 Dark Matters

00:10 Replacements 00:35 Replacements

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

Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents A Kind Of Magic A Kind Of Magic Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents A Kind Of Magic A Kind Of Magic Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Suite Life Of Zack And So Random Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Jessie A.N.T. Farm Austin & Ally Princess Protection Program Phineas And Ferb Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie A.N.T. Farm Austin & Ally Jessie Wizards Of Waverly Place So Random Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Shake It Up Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Luck Of The Irish A.N.T. Farm Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Jessie Princess Protection Program Phineas And Ferb Fish Hooks The Suite Life Of Zack And The Suite Life Of Zack And Sonny With A Chance

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:20 American Dragon 06:45 Incredible Hulk 07:10 Pokemon: Black And White 07:35 Phineas And Ferb 07:45 Phineas And Ferb 08:00 Iron Man Armored Adventures 08:25 Iron Man Armored Adventures 08:50 Mr. Young 09:15 Kickin It 09:40 Kick Buttowski 10:05 Pair Of Kings 10:30 Scaredy Squirrel 10:55 Zeke & Luther 11:20 I’m In The Band 11:45 Phineas And Ferb 12:10 Iron Man Armored Adventures 12:35 Iron Man Armored Adventures 13:00 Skyrunners 14:35 Kickin It 15:00 Phineas And Ferb 15:10 Phineas And Ferb 15:25 Kick Buttowski 15:50 Pair Of Kings 16:15 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 16:40 Zeke & Luther 17:05 Mr. Young 17:30 I’m In The Band 17:55 Rated A For Awesome 18:20 Kickin It 18:45 Iron Man Armored Adventures 19:10 Iron Man Armored Adventures 19:35 Pokemon: Black And White 20:00 Rekkit Rabbit 20:25 Zeke & Luther 20:50 Kick Buttowski 21:15 Pair Of Kings 21:40 Phineas And Ferb 22:05 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 22:30 Kid vs Kat 23:00 Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

00:55 Style Star 01:25 50 Most Insane Celebrity Oops 03:15 E! Investigates 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Then And Now 05:30 Then And Now 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Extreme Close-Up 09:45 Extreme Close-Up 10:15 THS 11:10 Ice Loves Coco 11:35 Ice Loves Coco 12:05 E! News 13:05 Style Star 13:35 Style Star 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:00 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 15:55 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 16:25 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 16:55 Behind The Scenes 17:25 Ice Loves Coco 21:55 Ice Loves Coco 22:25 Fashion Police 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

THE POSTMAN ON OSN ACTION HD

00:30 01:20 02:05 02:55 03:45 04:30 Jones 05:20 06:10 07:00

Mysterious Journeys Ghost Lab The Haunted A Haunting Mysterious Journeys True Crime With Aphrodite Mystery Diagnosis Disappeared Forensic Detectives

07:50 08:40 09:30 09:55 10:20 Jones 11:10 12:00 12:50 13:40 14:30 14:55 15:20 Jones 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:05 19:55 20:20 Jones 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40

Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry? True Crime With Aphrodite

01:35 03:15 04:50 06:35 08:00 10:20 11:55 13:25 14:55 PG 16:45 17:00 18:40 20:25 22:00 23:45

Dead Of Winter Lost Junction-PG Two Moon Junction Spellcaster-18 Avanti-PG Three Ninjas-PG Mannequin-PG Vera Cruz-PG Slow Dancing In The Big City-

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

Geo Sessions Geo Sessions David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 Food School Food School Somewhere In China Perilous Journeys One Man & His Campervan One Man & His Campervan Food School Food School Somewhere In China Racing To America Pressure Cook Pressure Cook Which Way To Bluelist Australia Bluelist Australia Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy One Man & His Campervan One Man & His Campervan Food School Food School Somewhere In China Racing To America A World Apart Geo Sessions Geo Sessions Around The World For Free Departures Banged Up Abroad Adventure Wanted Nomads

Disappeared Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry? True Crime With Aphrodite Disappeared Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Real Emergency Calls Mystery Diagnosis Who On Earth Did I Marry? True Crime With Aphrodite Disappeared Behind Mansion Walls LA: City Of Demons Scorned: Crimes Of Passion

Mgm’s Big Screen-FAM Across 110th Street-PG Stanley & Iris-PG Hardware-18 Neon City-18 Down Came A Blackbird-18

00:00 Air Crash Investigation 01:00 Taboo 02:00 Megastructures 03:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 04:00 Shark Men 05:00 Banged Up Abroad 06:00 Adventure Wanted 07:00 Departures 08:00 Air Crash Investigation 09:00 Taboo 10:00 Megastructures 11:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 12:00 Shark Men 13:00 Banged Up Abroad 14:00 Light At The Edge of The World 15:00 Departures 16:00 Air Crash Investigation 17:00 Taboo 18:00 Megastructures 19:00 Megastructures 20:00 Nat Geo’s Most Amazing Photos 20:30 Nat Geo’s Most Amazing Photos 21:00 Orca Killing School 22:00 Breakout 23:00 Inside

00:00 Wild Chronicles 00:30 Wild Chronicles 01:00 World Wild Wed 2

HOME ON OSN CINEMA 01:25 World Wild Wed 2 01:55 Cameramen Who Dare 02:50 Mother Croc 03:45 Expedition Wild 04:40 Will Work For Nuts 05:35 Wild Detectives 06:00 Wild Detectives 06:30 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 07:25 Swamp Men 08:20 Monkey Thieves 08:45 Monkey Thieves 09:15 Snake Wranglers 09:40 Snake Wranglers 10:10 Built For The Kill 11:05 Clouded Leopard 12:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 13:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 14:00 Monster Fish 15:00 Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild India) 16:00 Ultimate Shark 17:00 Snake Paradise 18:00 Animal Superpowers 19:00 Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild India) 20:00 Ultimate Shark 21:00 Snake Paradise 22:00 Animal Superpowers 23:00 World’s Deadliest Animals

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 13:45 15:15 18:15 20:00 18 22:00

Lake Placid 3-18 8 Mile-PG15 Shanghai Noon-PG15 Dangerous Flowers-PG15 Ballistica-PG15 Camp Hope-PG15 Ticking Clock-PG15 Ballistica-PG15 The Postman-PG15 Ticking Clock-PG15 30 Days Of Night: Dark DaysAlien-PG15

01:00 Page Eight-PG15 03:00 Miles From Nowhere-PG15 05:00 Yogi Bear-FAM 07:00 Stonehenge ApocalypsePG15 09:00 Miles From Nowhere-PG15 11:00 Home-PG15 13:00 Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil-PG 15:00 Coyote County Loser-PG15 17:00 Calvin Marshall-PG15 19:00 The Green Hornet-PG15 21:00 MacGruber-18 23:00 The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard-18

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 02:30 The Big C 03:00 Parks And Recreation 03:30 Bent 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Seinfeld 06:00 Dharma And Greg 06:30 10 Items Or Less 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:30 Parks And Recreation 09:00 Seinfeld 09:30 The Office 10:00 Breaking In 10:30 10 Items Or Less 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Dharma And Greg 13:00 Seinfeld 13:30 10 Items Or Less 14:00 Bent 14:30 Breaking In 15:00 The Office 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Seinfeld 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 The Simpsons 18:30 Last Man Standing 19:00 Two And A Half Men 19:30 Friends With Benefits 20:00 Whitney 20:30 Napoleon Dynamite 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 23:00 The Big C 23:30 Whitney

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Criminal Minds Sons Of Anarchy Top Gear (UK) C.S.I. Pillars Of The Earth The View Good Morning America The Practice Emmerdale Coronation Street The Martha Stewart Show The View Criminal Minds C.S.I. Top Gear (UK) Live Good Morning America The Practice Emmerdale Coronation Street Covert Affairs Bones Burn Notice Top Gear (US) Rescue Me

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Psych Top Gear (UK) Criminal Minds Sons Of Anarchy C.S.I. Eureka Psych Emmerdale Coronation Street Charlie’s Angels Top Gear (UK) Criminal Minds C.S.I. Emmerdale Coronation Street Charlie’s Angels Psych Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Charlie’s Angels Covert Affairs Bones Burn Notice Top Gear (US) True Blood

01:00 Bats-18 03:00 Shanghai Noon-PG15 05:00 Army Of Darkness-18 07:00 Stonehenge ApocalypsePG15 09:00 From Paris With Love-PG15 11:00 Iron Man 2-PG15 13:15 The Librarian: The Curse Of Judas Chalice-PG15 15:00 From Paris With Love-PG15 17:00 Triassic Attack-PG15 19:00 D.E.B.S-18 21:00 Alien-PG15 23:00 Dark Moon Rising-PG15

00:00 Pete Smalls Is Dead-18 02:00 The Joneses-PG15 04:00 Vice Versa-PG 06:00 Sgt. Bilko-PG 08:00 Rat-PG15 10:00 Feed The Fish-PG15 12:00 Double Wedding-PG15 14:00 Kuffs-PG 16:00 Feed The Fish-PG15 18:00 Labor Pains-PG15 20:00 I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry-PG15 22:00 Pretty Bird-18

01:30 Partir-18 03:00 Bobby Jones: Stroke Of Genius-PG 05:30 Exodus-PG15 07:30 Family Gathering-PG15 09:00 Secretariat-PG15 11:00 Too Big To Fail-PG15 13:00 Divorces!-PG15 15:00 Secretariat-PG15 17:00 My Enemy’s Enemy-PG15 19:00 Best Laid Plans-18 21:00 Talhotblond-18 23:00 Black Lightning-PG15

00:00 Bobby Jones: Stroke Of Genius-PG 02:30 Leap Year-PG15 04:30 My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend-PG15 06:30 Glorious 39-PG15 09:00 Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming-PG15 11:00 Hitch-PG15 13:00 At Risk-PG15 15:00 Celine: Through The Eyes Of The World-PG15 17:00 Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming-PG15 19:00 Date Night-PG15 21:00 Paranormal Activity 2-18 23:00 The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard-18

00:00 Pollyworld-FAM 02:00 Free Birds-FAM 04:00 Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure-PG 06:00 Open Season 3-FAM 08:00 Christopher Columbus-PG 10:00 Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown-PG 12:00 The Adventures Of Don Quixote-FAM 14:00 Open Season 3-FAM 16:00 Alex & Alexis-FAM 18:00 Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown-PG 20:00 Hop-PG 22:00 The Adventures Of Don Quixote-FAM

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 15:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Super Rugby Super Rugby NRL Premiership Trans World Sport Live NRL Premiership International Rugby Union Super Rugby Trans World Sport International Rugby Union NRL Premiership NRL Premiership Super Rugby

03:30 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 14:30 15:00 19:00 21:00

Futbol Mundial Trans World Sport WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line Live NRL Premiership NRL Premiership Super League Futbol Mundial PGA European Tour Weekly Live PGA European Tour WWE SmackDown PGA European Tour

01:30 04:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 11:00 11:30 13:30 17:30 18:00 20:30 23:00

Stockholm Marathon Top 14 World Cup of Pool Trans World Sport Live AFL Premiership Futbol Mundial Top 14 NRL Premiership Volvo Ocean Race Highlights AFL Premiership Stockholm Marathon Top 14

01:00 WWE Bottom Line 02:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter Prelims 04:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter Finale 07:00 WWE Vintage Collection 08:00 WWE Bottom Line 09:00 WWE SmackDown 11:00 WWE Experience 12:00 WWE This Week 12:30 V8 Supercars Highlights 13:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 14:00 UAE National Race Day Series 14:30 UAE National Race Day Series 15:00 WWE SmackDown 17:00 WWE Experience 18:00 WWE Bottom Line 19:00 V8 Supercars Highlights 21:00 V8 Supercars Extra 21:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 22:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter Finale

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

stars CROSSWORD 694

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) There could be some restrictions on your activity at home this morning. You may find that you tend to pace the floor much of the morning. Inactivity can be just as stressful as too much activity. Repairing machinery or perhaps performing some chores could be most beneficial. You and your friends have plans for a camping or fishing trip this evening and there is just enough time to get ready. Frankly, you hate routines and love the outdoors, travel and sports. An eternal optimist, you are open, friendly and lucky too. Close personal ties to other people are a focal point for your feelings—marriage and other partnerships could be a key arena for this. It is time to include the family in a future vacation plan. Set aside time for romance tonight.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Your outward seriousness and no-nonsense approach to things are obvious to all. This deliberate sense of responsibility comes across and is central to your personality and the way you relate to other people. You can be a stickler with details today. You are driven and passionate in your pursuit of change and inner growth. You possess, at the core, an intensity that burns through superficialities, searching for opportunities to face the truth and render the evident to view. This ceaseless analytical activity, while central to your nature, may be the source of discomfort to others. You will find opportunities to be with your friends this afternoon in some form of group sports. You are in a planning mood this evening. You will make all the right choices.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill. 5. Collect or gather. 10. A flexible container with a single opening. 13. (Norse mythology) God of war and strife and son of Odin. 14. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia. 15. A period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event. 16. The biblical name for ancient Syria. 17. (used of especially horses) Having a brownish coat thickly sprinkled with white or gray. 19. A wired or starched collar of intricate lace. 21. Tropical American feather palm having a swollen spiny trunk and edible nuts. 23. (Irish) Mother of the Tuatha De Danann. 25. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine. 26. A small cake leavened with yeast. 29. One thousand periods per second. 33. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth. 34. A nucleic acid consisting of large molecules shaped like a double helix. 38. A three-tone Chadic language. 40. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens. 41. (botany) Of or relating to the axil. 42. Chief port of Yemen. 43. Norwegian mathematician (1802-1829). 46. A master's degree in fine arts. 47. A United Nations agency to promote trade by increasing the exchange stability of the major currencies. 49. A sudden short attack. 51. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World. 54. Being ahead of time or need. 58. A unit of elastance equal to the reciprocal of a farad. 60. A hard gary-black mineral consisting of corundum and either hematite or magnetite. 61. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural). 62. Realistic Norwegian author who wrote plays on social and political themes (1828-1906). 65. A slender double-reed instrument. 66. The longer of the two telegraphic signals used in Morse code. 67. Lower in esteem. 68. New information about specific and timely events. DOWN 1. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers. 2. A small constellation in the northern hemisphere near Cygnus and Draco. 3. Decapod having eyes on short stalks and a broad flattened carapace with a small abdomen folded under the thorax and pincers. 4. A large fleet. 5. A city in northeastern Ohio. 6. An enzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of many body compounds (e.g., epinephrine and norepinephrine and serotonin). 7. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology. 8. The capital and largest city of Yemen. 9. A complete metric system of units of measurement for scientists. 10. A signal transmitted along a narrow path. 11. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa. 12. Offering fun and gaiety. 18. A room or establishment where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter. 20. A hard gray lustrous metallic element that is highly corrosionresistant. 22. Open-heart surgery in which the rib cage is opened and a section of a blood vessel is grafted from the aorta to the coronary artery to bypass the blocked section of the coronary artery and improve the blood supply to the heart. 24. Jordan's port. 27. In bed. 28. Denuded of leaves. 30. Any of various aromatic resinous substances used for healing and soothing. 31. French cabaret singer (1915-1963). 32. God of death. 35. A silvery soft waxy metallic element of the alkali metal group. 36. Having the leading position or higher score in a contest. 37. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily. 39. (Jungian psychology) The inner self (not the external persona) that is in touch with the unconscious. 44. Brake consisting of a combination of interacting parts that work to slow a motor vehicle. 45. Actually being performed (or--for the audience--present) at the time of viewing. 48. A crime syndicate in the United States. 49. A Chadic language spoken in northern Nigeria. 50. The friend of Phintias who pledged his life that Phintias would return (4th century BC). 51. Before noon. 52. An amino acid that is found in the central nervous system. 53. (of persons) Highest in rank or authority or office. 55. The compass point that is one point east of northeast. 56. Black birds having a raucous call. 57. Opinion or judgment. 59. North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. 63. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun. 64. A colorless odorless gaseous element that give a red glow in a vacuum tube.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) When it comes to your work or home your conservative values clash with whatever is unconventional and different. You may find, however, that this day brings about an opportunity for you to rearrange you personal space in a work environment. Some changes at work create that opportunity for you and you are a happy camper. Novelty items are never placed around your area but your favorite coffee cup is a conversation piece. There are regular infusions of change at this time but you are finding change is currently meeting with your approval. Occasionally you surprise others and today could be one of those exceptions. There are breakthroughs regarding relationships and social life in general. A partnership is positive.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) There are places to go, things to do and people to visit with today. Others may find you witty and eccentric. Much of your personal life hinges on pursuing your own growth and success. Your sense of discrimination, the ability to discern differences, is a crucial element in your personality. Your inner self and your goals are the most active facets of your personality. They receive more stress and attention than other areas of your life. There is a need to be the center of attention with a craving to give and to be appreciated for your gifts. This can be an expansive, creative and even romantic phase to remember for a long, long time. Real insight into your own inner workings or psychology could surface today—and in a manageable form.

NON SEQUITUR

Leo (July 23-August 22) You are a solid supporter, always gravitating to the heart of things. You may squeak a little as you get your human motor moving, particularly if you are not working today. Once you’re rolling, however, others should be prepared. You have a stick-to-itiveness that may often find you in the thick of things. Your energies run effectively toward making yourself felt in the world. You can be an action person if you want to be. Today may be the day you volunteer at a hospice, training center, community center, medical drive, etc. You are esteemed. Some circumstances of your life suggest extroversion and any volunteer activity is a most positive way to work off your extra energies. You enjoy life and value the gusto and enthusiasm around you.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You are a very feeling person and can sense the drift of a situation without a lot of analysis. This immediate hands-on approach might be contrasted with one that is more deliberate. You could be left with a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to matters of education, philosophy and conceptual ability. In a word, you revere this kind of stuff, not because it is natural to you but rather because it may not come easily. You have an interest in card games, chess or some other similar activity that can be enjoyed by several people. There is competition in the air and several of your friends might decide to gather around some game tables and make an evening of it. This could become a habit for the summer—make sure others share the host job.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You have an instinctive urge to save, salvage and safeguard. You may be teaching young people how to find work so they can put a bit of money into a safe place. Some of these young people have questions about investing and there are creative ideas for a small amount of money or a large amount of money and you encourage steady saving habits. For the most part, you understand about finances as well as organizing business matters. You may be a perfectionist to some degree. This afternoon is yours to enjoy and a shopping trip or just a drive around your area of town to see what is new or what might have changed lately could be a way to relax and feel informed. A used book store might be a fun way to spend a little free time.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You are a solid supporter, always gravitating to the heart of things. You may have to work at getting yourself motivated today, but others had better watch out once you get started! You enjoy being involved and motivated to achieve. Your focus is powerful. This is a good day for accomplishing whatever needs your attention. Lovers, children and other people or things dear to your heart are emphasized in the afternoon. Everything works together to frame you in a most elegant light, particularly in a social situation. This can be a creative and even romantic phase—a time you will look back on with pride and fondness. This is a time when you can expect a little boost, some extra support or recognition from those around you.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

Yesterday’s Solution

Try not to worry so much—your abilities are much more accurate than you credit yourself. Your general sense of concern for everything makes you valuable when anything needs to be accomplished. Given only a few facts, you are able to take in a situation and come up with a picture of what is happening. You are energized and productive. This afternoon you may find the opportunity to enjoy some relaxation time. Don’t bother looking for a plan. Enjoy the day with people you like to be around, and at least once during this day, enjoy a little exercise. A young person will be encouraged to step away from the television for a while and climb up on a bicycle to join you and your friends bicycling around the neighborhood.

Yesterday’s Solution

Yester

You may be socializing today. You can always put your ideas into words and describe or analyze situations for yourself and others. Your theories have a workable slant to them and many people will listen to you until you have completely described an idea or some method to the end. Others would like to have your ingenuity. Careful attention to finances will help you to see where you do not need to spend money. Earth colors are colors that you enjoy wearing and you look most professional in them. You may be able to let go of a little money today and shop for some new clothes today . . . take a friend. Although finances are not as tight as in the past, it is a good idea to keep a few dollars in your pocket. Little children bring big smiles this evening.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You may be thinking over a recent job proposal from this last week. You do not like making career decisions and you can get downright frustrated when it comes to making the right choice. You may have the opportunity to talk to a friend who knows about the field of work you prefer. This wise soul may have been where you want to go—there are ideas for you to ponder. Do something fun the rest of this weekend that will involve you and the people you enjoy being around . . . perhaps a play or movie or a grill competition . . . there is a sauce worth sharing. Close relationships are most important to you and you enjoy creating situations that will enhance and deepen that closeness. There is a feeling of uneasiness to be alone today.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

This is a good time to really get down to the business of taking care of loose ends and tending to any details you may have previously neglected. Health, food and physical activity come under your scrutiny today— you may be doing research to find the best items and techniques for your body and your lifestyle. Perhaps you can encourage loved ones to join you in a daily exercise routine. Your system of values may deepen, providing you with a better sense of discrimination and good taste. It should be easy for you to push forward with any projects. Past difficulties or differences can be set aside. Energy follows thought and your thoughts are positive! Things may seem almost magical in the way they work out in your favor this weekend.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

i n f o r m at i o n

112 GOVERNORATE Ahmadi

23915883 23715414 23726558

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

24812000 22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Rabiya

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Keifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Al-Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Kheitan

24710044

Fintas

3900322

PHONE

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

Jahra

Amiri Hospital

ADDRESS

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

website: www.moi.gov.kw

Sabah Hospital

PHARMACY

GOVERNMENT WEB SITES Kuwait Parliament www.majlesalommah.net

The Public Institution for Social Security www.pifss.gov.kw

Ministry of Interior www.moi.gov.kw

Public Authority of Industry www.pai.gov.kw

Public Authority for Civil Information www.paci.gov.kw

Prisoners of War Committee www.pows.org.kw

Kuwait News Agency www.kuna.net.kw

Ministry of Foreign Affairs www.mofa.gov.kw

Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affair www.islam.gov.kw

Kuwait Municipality www.municipality.gov.kw

Ministry of Energy (Oil) www.moo.gov.kw

Kuwait Electronic Government www.e.gov.kw

Ministry of Energy (Electricity and Water) www.energy.govt.kw

Ministry of Finance www.mof.gov.kw

Public Authority for Housing Welfare www.housing.gov.kw

Ministry of Commerce and Industry www.moci.gov.kw

Ministry of Justice www.moj.gov.kw

Ministry of Education www.moe.edu.kw

Ministry of Communications www.moc.kw

Ministry of Information www.moinfo.gov.kw

Supreme Council for Planning and Development www.scpd.gov.kw

Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation www.awqaf.org

Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Al-Jahra

25610011

Al-Salmiya

25616368

Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Khaled Hamadi

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist

25665898 25340300

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

25655535

Dentists

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

22618787

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

3729596/3729581

Neurologists Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888 Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

22666288

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

Dr Anil Thomas

Dr. Salem soso

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

Kuwait Airways Jazeera Airways Jet Airways FlyDubai Qatar Airways KLM Air Slovakia Olympic Airways Royal Jordanian Reservation British Airways Air France Emirates Air India Sri Lanka Airlines Egypt Air Swiss Air Saudia Middle East Airlines Lufthansa PIA Alitalia Balkan Airlines Bangladesh Airlines Czech Airlines

171 177 22924455 22414400 22423888 22425747 22434940 22420002/9 22418064/5/6 22433388 22425635 22430224 22921555 22438184 22424444 22421578 22421516 22426306 22423073 22422493 22421044 22414427 22416474 22452977/8 22417901/ 2433141 22456700 22958787 22453820/1 22404838/9

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

22418714

Indian Airlines Oman Air Turkish Airlines Aeroflot

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427

Al-Madena

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antiga Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African

0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345 00236

Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Cyprus (Northern) Czech Republic Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador England (UK) Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia Gabon Gambia

00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044 00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689 00241 00220

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

LIFESTYLE G o s s i p

Winfrey

Wayne

launches ‘Oprah’s Book Club 2.0’

prah Winfrey is back in the book club business, updated for the digital age. “Oprah’s Book Club 2.0,” a joint project of Winfrey’s OWN network and her O magazine, begins tomorrow with Cheryl Strayed’s popular memoir “Wild.” Along with the traditional paper version, featuring the circular Oprah book club logo, special e-editions will be made available that include Winfrey’s comments and a reader’s guide. An interview with Strayed will air July 22 on OWN’s “Super Soul Sunday” and on Oprah Radio. Readers will be able to share opinions through Facebook and Twitter and Winfrey’s website, www.oprah.com. “This is way different from the old book club,” Winfrey said in an online video announcement, taped in her Chicago office and posted Friday on her website. “This time it’s an interactive, online club for our digital world.”The new club will test whether Winfrey still has clout with the reading public, especially when her network audience is far smaller than what she enjoyed before. Starting in the mid-1990s, Winfrey made hits out of countless books through her previous club, featured on her syndicated talk show. But sales had fallen off by the time her show ended, in 2011. One of her last picks, a combined edition of Charles Dickens’“A Tale of Two Cities” and “Great Expectations,” was in part a victim of the ebook market as many readers simply downloaded free, publicdomain versions of the novels. The initial response to Friday’s announcement was slow compared to the former club, when the book would often top best-seller charts within hours of Winfrey revealing the title. As of Friday evening, “Wild,” ranked No. 173 on Amazon.com’s best-seller list and No. 265 on the Kindle e-book charts.”Wild” was published in March by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Inc.

says he feels ‘unwanted’ at Okla. arena il Wayne said that after a recent NBA playoffs ticket dispute he felt unwelcome and “unwanted” at the Oklahoma City arena and isn’t planning to return. The rapper said two Thunder players - Kevin Durant and James Harden - had reached out to offer him tickets to Saturday’s fourth game of the Western Conference Finals. “That’s not the point, though,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Friday night. “It’s the players stepping up but of course the players aren’t white. I don’t want to be sitting there on behalf of you and I’m sitting next to a (person) that’s like ‘I don’t want this (guy) sitting next to me.’ (Forget) you ... I’m in Forbes,” he said, laughing. Lil Wayne claimed in a tweet Thursday night that he had been “denied by the team to be in their arena.” The team responded by saying the seats he wanted were already taken. But the Grammy-winning rapper, appearing at a Macy’s store in Los Angeles to promote his Trukfit clothing line, described a more complicated scenario. He said he typically procures tickets for such games “from this guy named Mike.”

Kathleen Kennedy

Lil Wayne said Mike had requested special security, parking and entrance for the rapper, but Mike said the team responded that they would only sell the seats for Mike’s personal use. Lil Wayne said a manager had advised him not to return to the city’s arena for sports events or concerts, but “I never say never.” He said he felt welcome at other arenas including Miami, and likes being able to energize players many of whom are fans of his music - on their home court. “That’s like me going on stage and ... seeing LeBron (James) in the crowd with his hand up. I’m going to perform a little bit harder,” he said. But in Oklahoma, he said that while “the players want me there, I don’t want to feel - I’m going to still feel unwanted.” A team spokesman has said Lil Wayne’s representatives insisted that he sit in the front row, and none of those seats were available. Oklahoma City sold out every home game during the regular season and playoffs.

joins

Lucasfilm as co-chair athleen Kennedy will join George Lucas as a co-chair of Lucasfilm, the company announced yesterday. Though Lucas will remain CEO of the company he founded, the move advances his planned retirement, something he has mentioned on several occasions. Lucas and Kennedy will jointly run the film production side of the company while Micheline Chau will continue to run day-to-day operations as president and COO. Kennedy will leave her post at her production company, Kennedy/Marshall, which she founded with husband Frank Marshall. Lucas will transition over the next year or two, a company spokesperson told TheWrap. “I’ve spent my life building Lucasfilm and as I shift my focus into other directions I wanted to make sure it was in the hands of someone equipped to carry my vision into the future,” Lucas said in a statement. “It was important that my successor not only be someone with great creative passion and proven leadership abilities, but also someone who loves movies.”“So for me Kathy was the obvious choice, she is a trusted friend and one of the most respected producers and executives in the industry,” he added. Lucas and Kennedy have had a working relationship since “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which marked the beginning of Kennedy’s collaboration with another Hollywood legend, Steven Spielberg. The two have continued to work together; currently, Kennedy/Marshall is in post-production on Spielberg’s upcoming biopic, “Lincoln.” “George is a true visionary,” Kennedy said in a statement. “I’ve seen him build Lucasfilm from a small rebel unit inNorthern California to an international fully integrated entertainment company. George and I have talked about the enormous opportunities that lie ahead for the company, and as George moves towards retirement I am honored that he trusts me with taking care of the beloved film franchises. I feel fortunate to have George working with me for the next year or two as I take on this role - it is nice to have Yoda by your side.”

wants to move back to Canada

because I know Los Angeles is not real.” Pamela, 44 - who has two children, Brandon, 15, and Dylan, 14, from her marriage to rock drummer Tommy Lee also added because she has been a Playboy model people expect her not to be intelligent, but she actually comes from an extremely smart family. She added: “All my family is in [high IQ society] Mensa - you wouldn’t believe that one, would you? “But they are on both sides. It just skipped me but my kids are really smart.” Pamela is now using her fame and influence to help the world beat climate change and protect the environment, working with fashion designer Vivienne Westwood closely with a group called Cool Earth, who buy rainforest and give it to indigenous communities.

attached to ‘Treasure Island’ remake uy Ritchie may bring the same splashy touch to Long John Silver that he already applied toSherlock Holmes. The “Snatch” director is attached to “Treasure Island,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson told TheWrap. If the script by Alex Harakis comes to fruition, Ritchie would direct and produce the project. Lionel Wigram and Kevin McCormick are also attached as producers. The Robert Louis Stevenson adventure story has frequently been adapted for both the big and small screen over the years, perhaps most famously by Disney in 1950, with Robert Newton portraying a snarling Long John Silver. But the time could be ripe for a more modern take on the enduring novel. After all, partnering with Ritchie has been lucrative for Warner Bros. in the past. His re-imagining of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective series, “Sherlock Holmes” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” has racked up more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office. With numbers like that, it’s easy to see why the studio would want to raid the literary canon with Ritchie again. Ritchie is also working on a film version of the television show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” for Warner Bros.Deadline first reported Ritchie’s attachment to “Treasure Island.”

Anderson amela Anderson wants to move back to Canada permanently. The former ‘Baywatch’ beauty relocated to Los Angeles from her native British Columbia in the 80s when she first started modelling, but now divides her time between and the Californian city and Vancouver Island, where she says she will probably settle as she feels like she can be herself. She told The Sun newspaper: “In Los Angeles I feel like I’m playing a character. I’m going here and there and dealing with things that aren’t typical anywhere else. “At home I feel completely relaxed. My hair’s in a ponytail. I have my dad’s flannel shirt on and I’m running around. It’s great. I am so happy that I’m from there. “I think people who are from Los Angeles don’t always know what else is going on. That’s why I get involved in all these other things,

Ritchie

Bieber

can’t move eyebrow after concussion ustin Bieber can’t move his eyebrow after running into a glass wall on Thursday. The ‘Boyfriend’ hitmaker suffered a concussion after hitting his head backstage at a surprise performance in Paris, France, and it has left him with a “weird” sensation above his eye. He said in a video posted yesterday: “I got in a fight with a glass window yesterday, and in result I can’t move my eyebrow. “There’s no wrinkles on this eye. How weird is that? There’s some weird stuff going on there.” The 18-year-old heartthrob had managed to complete his performance after the accident, but passed out briefly in his dressing room afterwards. He tweeted: “Just smacked my head and needed some water. All good. I’m Canadian. We are tough. LOL. It’s all good. Just gotta take it easy the rest of the night. Back at it again for you guys tomorrow. Thanks.” This isn’t the first time Justin has hit his head walking into glass. The ‘Baby’ hitmaker was caught on camera walking into a revolving glass door in May 2010, leading him to jokingly tweet about getting revenge on the transparent material. He wrote: “I will see u again glass. I will have my revenge. Bieber vs glass. MGM Las Vegas 2013. LOL. Gotta Laugh At Yourself.”

Ora

‘went into shock’ when she met

ita Ora “went into shock” when she first met Jay-Z. The 21-year-old singer didn’t expect the media mogul to be present when she flew to New York to meet with his Roc Nation record label and was completely overwhelmed when she walked into the room and was greeted by the “legend”. She told Q magazine: “I went straight from the airport and I thought it was just a boring meeting. “He was sitting there and I went into shock. I mean, he’s a legend.” Rita is currently working on her debut album and though she is collaborating with a number of high-profile stars, she insists she has full control over the record. She said:

“There are a lot of co-writers, Chase & Status, Drake and Stargate, but the concept always comes from me. Even when it’s someone as big as Drake.” Rita was born on Kosovo but moved to the UK from the war-torn region when she was just one year old, and says her background has made her more driven. She said: “We were lucky to get out of there when we did. It’s made me strive harder.” —Agencies

Jay-Z

Clarkson has ‘high hopes’ for new romance elly Clarkson has “high hopes” for her new relationship. The ‘American Idol’ winner who has been single for six years - says her “fingers are crossed” in the hopes of a long-lasting relationship with boyfriend Brandon Blackstock. Kelly said: “After six years of having to say there’s no one special in my life, finally there is. Brandon is my manager’s son. I’ve known him for six years but he was married for most of the time. Then, suddenly, there he was at the Super Bowl and he was single. “Brandon understands my job, which is a major thing. He works as crazy-hard as me, if not harder and so doesn’t get in a mood if I can’t always call when I say I will. I’ve got high hopes. My fingers are crossed!”The couple began dating in 2011, but Kelly only confirmed her relationship with Brandon - who manages singer Blake Shelton and is country legend Reba McEntire’s stepson - in March 2012. Her relationship status is not the only thing Kelly is happy with; despite much criticism of her weight in the media, she admits she is delighted with her figure and claims she always has been. She said: “People imagine that being scrutinized for how I look only started when I landed on TV. Believe me, in small towns everyone’s got something to say about you - how thin or fat you are, how much you do or don’t go to church. I am well used to it!”

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

LIFESTYLE M u s i c

The 60th

M o v i e s

Catholic Centre

Egypt-based Tunisian actress Hind Sabri receives the Best Actress award for her role in Egyptian director Amr Salama’s film “Asmaa” at the closing ceremony of the 60th Catholic Centre Film Festival in Cairo late on June 1, 2012. —AFP photos

Egyptian author and director Amr Salama receives the best scenario award for his film “Asmaa”.

Film Festival

Egyptian actor Ahmed Helmi receives the Best Actor award for his role in Sharif Arafa’s film X-Large.

How ‘Lord of the Rings’ inspired ‘Snow White’ hat does Snow White, a fairly tale about the fairest woman in the land, have to do with “Lord ofthe Rings” and the battle for Middle-earth? Quite a bit, according to Evan Daugherty, who wrote a spec script nearly a decade ago that blended the two tales. Daughtery was enamored of the film version of “Lord of the Rings” trilogy while an undergraduate at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Lucky for him, Joe Roth and Universal soon shared his affinity for this fairy-fantasy blend, turning Daugherty’s script into director Rupert Sanders’“Snow White and the Huntsman.” TheWrap spoke with Daugherty about how Peter Jackson’s epic inspired his rendition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the surprising casting of the leads and what it was like getting kicked off his own project. Q: By the time this is published, your first feature will have debuted, but this project dates to your time at NYU. You haven’t been a student for years. What took so long? A: I wrote it for fun. This was only the second or third script I wrote, but I tried to make some things happen with it, with friends or contacts in the industry, and no one quite got what I was trying to do - an action-adventure version of Snow White. No one saw where that would fit into the marketplace. It existed on my hard drive for six or seven years and then Joe Roth’s “Alice in Wonderland” came out and it did really well at the box office. That sparked a bit of a trend, and I sold the script a year and a half ago. Q: Did you want to write about Snow White in particular or were you just interested in the idea of turning any

fairy tale into an action adventure movie? A: Snow White for some reason is the resident, evocative fairy tale. It’s the first movie that Walt Disney made, and Disney for the 20th century has been the primary interpreter of the fairytale. It’s the first fairy tale anyone would list. I also chose it because it’s so simple. Some of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales are really out there and don’t make any sense. They’re about talking animals and other things that don’t feel like simple stories. Q: As you say, revisionist versions of classic tales have become quite popular, but you wrote this almost a decade ago. Why take that approach? A: I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t inspired by “Lord of the Rings.” I was in college and my sophomore year “Fellowship of the Ring” came out. My junior year was “Two Towers.” My senior year was “Return of the King.” College was four years of Lord of the Rings fever. Q: So then what do you see as the audience for this movie? It seems like Universal has targeted women in particular, but it has a “Lord of the Rings” feel not exactly your “Twilight” audience. A: The Brothers Grimm intended Snow White to be for boys and girls, but because of the Disney filter - it’s one of the branded Disney princesses it’s seen as a girl’s story. I’m very proud of the script taking that more female, feminine character and making it appeal to guys as well, particularly with the huntsman character. Hopefully it will. That was one of big reasons I wrote the movie. I’ll do my small part

NY suit over Spider-Man musical airs in court judge warned lawyers at the end of a two-hour hearing Friday that she may narrow the scope of a lawsuit stemming from the Broadway production of “Spider-Man.” US District Judge Katherine Forrest said she had not yet decided whether to eliminate from the litigation a three-page outline that Director Julie Taymor created before the musical’s script was written and before she was fired last year and the script was rewritten. In a lawsuit, Taymor said the current hit Broadway production, “SpiderMan: Turn Off the Dark,” was based on the unlawful use of her copyrighted written works. It said producers did not honor her right to approve changes to her book of the musical, and they have refused to pay her contractually guaranteed authorship royalties. The lawsuit said damages would exceed $1 million, and included demands for profits resulting from the unauthorized use of her material. Taymor, who was not in court Friday, was fired in 2011 as the $75 million production sputtered despite three months of preview performances. The musical was rewritten and it successfully reopened. Taymor sued the producers in November and they countersued. The producers say Taymor’s treatment was based on pre-existing “Spider-Man” comics and films. During Friday’s arguments, attorney Dale Cendali argued on the producers’ behalf, saying what Taymor wrote in her original proposal for the musical assembled the most obvious elements of comic books and SpiderMan movies. She noted that Taymor cited the Spider-Man movie in her proposal, known as a treatment. Cendali said she had “never seen a case where someone made a more blatant admission that they were copying an earlier work.” She added: “They can’t monopolize Spider-Man. They don’t own Spider-Man.” Arguing on behalf of Taymor, attorney Charles Spada insisted that his client created new material for the Broadway production, including a new character playing a pivotal role. “There is originality,” he said. “This is not just a case about a compilation.” The judge said she would like to view a video of the Broadway production, though Cendali said she wanted precautions taken to ensure it does not appear on the Internet. At one point, Forrest noted that she has special expertise on the hearing’s subject. “I’ve got a 10-year-old son. I know a lot about superheroes,” she said. The judge also is deciding the fate of counterclaims brought against Taymor by the show’s producers. She did not hear arguments, saying she would rely on written submissions. A trial is scheduled for January.—AP

to insist it was written by a dude in his 20s who was very into “Lord of the Rings” and into muscular action-adventure movies. Q: How different is what you turned in from what’s on screen? A: The script I sold to Universal is fairly different from the movie that you see. At same time, it’s the same structure and same plot: Snow White will be killed by the huntsman, and instead the huntsman decides to protect her,

vision of the movie, seeing the visual. Q: And how did you feel when they brought in other writers to finish the job? A: It wasn’t fun. I worked on the script for a number of months, and it was fairly close to a finished product. That said, had that movie been given a green light, they’d be green lighting a movie written by a first-time writer and directed by a first-time director. With a $150 million movie, that’s just very

crafts her into a warrior who then takes on the queen. The very concept of an action-adventure Snow White is mine. Q: So what’s different? A: When I sold the script I was also hired to stay on board and rewrite. Rupert Sanders and the studio had strong opinions about the direction it could go, and I worked on couple of drafts closely with Rupert. At about that point Rupert was executing his

unlikely. Ultimately they brought in a number of very talented, very esteemed A-list writers. [The two other credited writers are John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini]. The biggest change is my original script had a more humorous tone like “Princess Bride.” As people will see in the movie, it doesn’t really have that vibe anymore. It’s very intense and gritty. Q: That’s especially true with the

dwarves. They’ve evolved a little bit from Sleepy and Dopey. A: “Lord of the Rings” struck me as a way to have tougher, more warrior dwarves. People will be surprised and intrigued by their grit and toughness. One of the things that was really cool in the casting of it was that all the guys in the movie who play dwarves, with exception of Nick Frost, are really well known, well-respected British gangsters. It enables them to be these tough cockney kind of dwarves. Q: You brought up the casting decisions. Of the stars, who did you see as being perfect for the role and who made you cringe? A: The first person cast was Charlize as the queen. It sounds like hyperbole, but there’s maybe three actresses in Hollywood who could play that queen and Charlize ranks as the very best. Beauty is integral to that character given her obsession with beauty and youth. She is also like a crazy killer and Charlize Theron won an Academy Award for playing a very real life serial killer. Q: And the cringe? A: The casting of the other two leads was a little surprising. With Chris Hemsworth, I love “Thor” and am obsessed with Norse mythology but the Huntsman began as more of a mentor with hints of love in my original script. With Hemsworth, he’s younger so they said, “Let’s shift that paradigm a little. He’s still a mentor, but play up the love story.” Kristen Stewart is the wild card. It’s a tough role; you need someone with oomph and grit. The director flew to Louisiana where they were shooting “Twilight” and was instantly won over. I’m not the target audience

Chesney, McGraw

begin 22-city summer stadium tour

his is no ordinary friendship - or concert tour. When country superstars Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw kick off their highly anticipated 22-city stadium tour yesterday in Tampa, it will be the high point of their careers and friendship. The two men met at a bar in Nashville more than 20 years ago. Chesney had just moved to the city and didn’t know anyone. McGraw had a record contract but had

ry attempted by very few music acts of any genre as they co-headline this tour together. Today they are two of country music’s top draws and by combining forces on “The Brothers of the Sun” tour they’re launching what some are calling country music’s biggest tour ever. “You don’t dream that,” said Chesney, pointing at the enormous stage inside the stadium. “I just wanted a song on the radio.” Added McGraw: “We wanted

Country singers Kenny Chesney, left, and Tim McGraw appear at a news conference to promote their “Brothers of the Sun” concert tour on Friday June 1, 2012 in Tampa, Fla. The pair will kick off their tour on Saturday night in Tampa, Fla. —AP yet to put out a single. McGraw joked in an interview at Raymond James Stadium on Friday that they would hang out at each other’s apartments “depending on who had paid the electric bill that month.”“That’s not a lie,” Chesney added. Neither dreamed they would ever headline a tour, much less enter territo-

to have big careers. We wanted to go out and set the world on fire. But you know, in the back of your mind, you always think, ‘If I could just get a hit song, I’d be happy.’” The tour, which also includes Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Jake Owen, is so much more than a hit song or even your usual arena show. It’s com-

prised of three complete stage systems, 85 tractor-trailers, 240 roadies and two culinary staffs, according to tour manager Ed Wannebo, who spoke to the media Friday as McGraw and Chesney joked and whispered in each other’s ears nearby like schoolboys. The tour and especially the stage set - “consumed” Chesney. It started with ideas scrawled on “a pen and napkin” and planning and preparation began months ago. “Building that,” Chesney said while pointing to the stage, “There’s a lot that goes into it. I have my hands on basically everything on that stage, the way it looks, the way it moves, everything. That’s just the way I am. I’m very hands-on. I care what it looks like, because I want to give the fans the best possible experience.” McGraw said he and Chesney initially wanted to do just a couple of large shows, but the plan grew. The first show in Tampa is sure to be a large one; when Chesney played there in 2011, he drew 50,548 fans. Each performer will have his own set and the pair, who released the dual single “Feel Like a Rock Star” in anticipation of the tour, will join together to top off the night. Potter will likely join Chesney for a rendition of their steamy hit “You and Tequila.” And McGraw, fresh off a new deal with Big Machine Records, will unveil new songs he’s been working on for his next album. “You try to entertain the last guy that you see in the very top row back there,” McGraw said. “Make him feel special, make him feel like his money was worth it.” —AP

for “Twilight.” In “Twilight” it’s mainly romance she’s dealing with, so the question was, “Can she strap on armor and lead men into battle and do an English accent?” When I saw the movie, she is probably my favorite and the most surprising part. Thankfully, as I’m reading some of these reviews, some people are realizing that. Some people still unfairly have some kind of hangup with Kristen Stewart because of the “Twilight” movies or something. Q: Having brought up reviews, are you nervous at all about the opening? A: I am interested in how well the movie does mainly for the sake of the movie. The plight of the screenwriter in Hollywood is a difficult one. There are a lot of legendary horror stories about how the screenwriter is treated. This has been by all accounts a very good process. One of nice things about it is that I don’t think the success or failure of movie at the box office impacts me as a writer too much. I’d hope to make more “Snow White and the Huntsman” movies, but obviously I’m working on other projects. Q: You’ve got “The Killing Season” with Robert De Niro and John Travolta coming out next year. What else? A: An adaptation of the young adult novel “Divergent.” I have to turn in a second draft to that movie, which Lionsgate/Summit is keen on making. Supp. —AP

International film festival opens in Transylvanian city he films of Japan’s Daisuke Miyazaki and Norway’s August Joachim Trier will be the first among 12 movies in competition to screen yesterday at the Transylvania International Film Festival. Miyazaki’s “End of the Night” and Trier’s “Oslo, August 31” will be showcased on the second day of the 10-day Romanian festival, one of the biggest in the Balkans. Other movies in competition are “Chapiteau Show” by Russia’s Sergey Loban, “Klip” by Serbia’s Maja Milos, “Lena”, a Dutch-Belgian co-production by Christophe Van Rompaey, and “Wetlands” by Canada’s Guy Edoin. Nearly 250 movies from all over the world will be screened during the festival. Hundreds of movie-lovers braved the rain Friday to gather at the central square of Cluj to watch the color version of French director Georges Melies’s “A Trip to the Moon”, a film made in 1902. The festival will also honour French director Claude Lelouche and British-American actress Geraldine Chaplin for their cinematic careers.Actors Michael York, Vanessa Redgrave and Catherine Deneuve were awarded lifetime achievement prizes at previous editions. —AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

lifestyle

Muscat

T R A V E L

The new tourism capital of the Arab world K

within the marina village. Already we are receiving enormous enquiries for this product from within the GCC region as well as Oman. Most recently we have launched Reehan Gardens, a new area of the development which includes a selection of our most popular villa designs and introduces a new twin villa product. The villas provide a modern interpretation of Arabic designs and are surrounded by parklands and pedestrian links to the beach. With more green public areas and walkways, the area will be one of the ‘greenest’ within The Wave, Muscat.

uwait Times had the chance to interview Abdulla Al - Shidi, Deputy CEO of The Wave, Muscat where he talked about the importance and the special location that the project is offering. With The Wave, is Muscat eyeing positioning itself as a tourist destination? Muscat is a beautiful city with a unique landscape. The beaches, mountains, oases and subtle blend of Islamic architecture and world-class modern infrastructure combined with a rich cultural heritage to make up Muscat a destination which is unmatched anywhere else in the region. Muscat is, and rightly so, the 2012 Tourism Capital of the Arab World. Furthermore, the new Muscat International Airport, the expansion of the Oman Air network, the Government’s emphasis on infrastructure and tourism projects will position Muscat and Oman as a genuine tourism destination in the region and the world. The Wave, Muscat is the most successful tourism infrastructure project in Oman. With facilities including the 18 hole PGA standard links golf course, Almouj Golf, and Almouj Marina, which is set to become Muscat’s largest private marina, the development has spectacular facilities. Almouj Golf is Oman’s only signature course; designed by Greg Norman, it is already attracting the attention of

What is the percentage of Kuwaiti investors in the project out of the total number of investors? marina, diverse retail opportunities and entertainment options. While supporting the growth of the project as a tourism destination, these components also provide fantastic facilities for The Wave, Muscat’s community. As an Integrated Tourism Complex, The Wave, Muscat was the first development to provide governmentapproved investment opportunity for foreigners to own freehold properties. How did The Wave manage to balance state-of-the-art infrastructure with ecological challenges? Thankfully modern technology has

What was the main objective behind this spectacular project? The Wave, Muscat is part of the overall Vision 2020 of the Government of the Sultanate of Oman, which aims to diversify sources of revenue for the country. The project has a number of important components such residential units, five and four star hotels, an 18 hole PGA Standard signature golf course, a 400+ berth

helped minimise the impact on the environment when building the necessary infrastructure to support a project like The Wave, Muscat. From the state-of-the-art centralised cooling systems for apartment buildings and hotels to cross-flow ventilation designs in the villas, world-class management systems for marina controls and storm water drainage and computer-controlled irrigation systems on the Almouj Golf course which ensure that all areas receive the right amount of irrigation to promote natural landscaping growth without wasting water, The Wave, Muscat is setting new benchmarks for the development industry in Oman. Keeping the needs of Omani residents and expatriates in mind, what special amenities will The

of beach front, close to the airport, with easy access to major road networks. The project has strong backing from its shareholders being the Government of the Sultanate of Oman, Majid Al Futtaim Properties and National Investment Funds Company. Their clear vision and continuous support to the company provides buyers with a true confidence in Oman and The Wave, Muscat project. What facilities the project provides that would attract investors? The Wave, Muscat has its own in-house leasing team providing a one-stop shop for investors including property management services. This onsite services ensure investors’ properties and their tenants are always looked after. Property owners are given freehold title and are eligible for a two year renewable residency in the Sultanate.

In 2011 almost 20% of buyers came from Kuwait which is not unexpected for our first year of marketing there. This year we will continue our presence in Kuwait and we are hoping to increase this percentage. The Kuwaitis are known to be shrewd investors and are professionals in their approach; we are happy to deal with them on a similar professional level.

the major tournaments. The international standard marina, Almouj Marina, will be able to berth 400 yachts of up to 65m. The Wave, Muscat is already hosting international water sports events including the Extreme 40 Sailing Series. Including the construction of the three 5 and one 4 star hotels, the project will become a tourist destination in its own right as well as a multicultural residential community.

Deputy CEO of The Wave, Muscat Abdulla Al - Shidi

Wave offer? Residents of The Wave, Muscat enjoy a modern lifestyle, supported by world-class amenities, all within the new heart of Muscat. The development offers residents a complete lifestyle: from drycleaning and laundry services to buying a book, having a meal out, playing a round of golf or spending the day at the beach, buying at The Wave, Muscat means more than just buying a property. What new releases the Waves Muscat is preparing? The Wave, Muscat always has a selection of product types available from apartments, townhouses, and villas across different price ranges and amenities. Later this year The Wave, Muscat will release for the first time at the development the marina front apartments, providing waterfront living

Did the recession have any impact on sales? The recession had an impact on sales regardless of property market, but The Wave, Muscat rode the storm well. We reviewed our product offering, in line with customer comments and market movements, and made our products more efficient which resulted in lower build cost and therefore lower prices to the market. Our ability to deliver and handover the units which were sold before the financial crisis to their owners made us more credible in the market and positioned The Wave, Muscat as real, credible developer who is able to deliver even during tough times. I am proud to say that The Wave, Muscat was able to withstand the test of time. The market is now very much about deliverable certainty, for which The Wave, Muscat has a strong track record, which provides great amount of confidence to investors. Today it is critical that developers deliver key public infrastructure like golf courses, hotels, marinas, retail and F&B if they want to achieve strong sales success.

How do you evaluate the real-estate market in the region? Oman? The Middle East property market has witnessed growth and maturity in the last ten years and is now considered an important international destination for property investors. New cities and tourism facilities are attracting people to the region and driving investment growth from the private sector. The emerging strength of the UAE property market is an evidence of the maturity of the values of properties and this is having a flow on effect in emerging markets such as Oman. Oman’s economy managed to escape the worst of the global financial crisis and its banks enjoy significant liquidity. This economic stability and strength has been driven by well planned government investment in infrastructure such as ports and airports, roads, water and electricity which is also driving population growth throughout the country. Of course with population growth comes demand for property, and Oman has positioned itself well through projects such as The Wave, Muscat to ensure strong yields and value for money for property investors. What is the percentage of sales in the project so far? Around 30% of all the residential units have been sold. Any additional information you would like to add? I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you and I hope to see more Kuwaiti nationals invest in the project.

What differentiates the project from others similar to it? Location, location, location. The project is in the new heart of Muscat, on 6km

German haute cuisine finds the right ingredients B

eyond the cliches of Bratwurst and discount supermarkets, Germany has built up a world class haute cuisine, even if many Germans still prefer to spend cash on their car rather than eating out. Second only to France at the European level since 2007 in terms of distinctions in the prestigious Michelin guide, Germany boasted nine restaurants with three stars in this year’s guide. It has also seen its two-starred restaurants increase to 32, or 10 more than last year, while the number of establishments that have been awarded one star in the world’s number-one food guide also rose. And the restaurants concerned are no longer based mainly in the south of the country which has a more established gastronomic tradition, but are found increasingly in northern Germany and Berlin. “Germany has never had such well made and ambitious cooking as today,” Madeleine Jakits, chief editor of the German monthly food magazine, Der Feinschmecker, said. The secret, she said, was that German chefs had pushed the boundaries of basic haute cuisine. “They, of course, learnt on the basis of French cuisine but they have freed themselves from it” and gathered new influences by work-

ing in far-flung places such as Singapore or Dubai, she said. And now they produce haute cuisine using German products, she added. Robert Oppeneder, president of the German Chefs’ Association (VKD), also sees several reasons to be proud about the way German cuisine has developed. “Our restaurateurs have more confidence in themselves,” he said. “Regional cuisine is just as varied as in France and when you throw in a touch of the international, it’s sublime,” he commented. Frank Rosin, 45, is one of this new generation of German chefs. His restaurant in Dorsten, in the former mining Ruhr heartland, better known for its industrial furnaces than its haute cuisine ovens, was awarded its second Michelin star this year. ‘I have a responsibility towards kale and goulash’ His menu reflects seasonal produce and includes, for example, asparagus-a customary spring-time hit in Germany-accompanied by salmon and almond curry, followed by a main dish of duck a l’orange with braised cabbage, another German favourite. “My generation still learnt from chefs born in the 1930s and 1940s. They used to say to us ‘This is how you cook,

and not like that’. We didn’t want that any more,” Rosin passionately recalled. “To be a Michelin-recognised chef means I am a leader in my field, culturally and professionally speaking, and, as such, I have a responsibility towards kale and goulash, not just towards caviar and truffles,” he added. He often appears on popular German TV cooking shows, and is mindful to try to make haute cuisine as accessible as possible, adding it “must be reasonably priced and not be scary”. His menus start at around 49 euros ($61). Despite this, haute cuisine remains an “elitist” issue in Germany, Jakits said, bemoaning that Germans still would prefer to dig deep in their pockets to buy a top-of-the-range car rather than to pay for high-end food. And while the situation of the 1970s when it was impossible to find basil or creme fraiche in Germany is a bygone era, chefs still regularly have to look abroad to find certain ingredients. “One always tries first to find German products, but it isn’t always possible,” said Otto Hendrik, the chef at Berlin’s Lorenz Adlon restaurant, who, at the age of 38, has just been awarded his second Michelin star. The fish he cooks is brought over from-Brittany, in northern France. — AFP

German chef Frank Rosin poses for a picture in front of his restaurant ‘Rosin’, on April 1, 2012 in Dorsten, western Germany. — AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

lifestyle T R A V E L

Slums seen in North Jakarta.

treads between aid and exploitation “I decided to experience the real Jakarta,” said a tourist, stepping gingerly between puddles of putrid water and a scurrying rat in a scene that would never make a postcard. Rohaizad Abu Bakar, 28, a bank employee from Singapore, said he could not believe his eyes as he wandered around the slum in the Indonesian capital, a jumble of hundreds of shacks, some less than a metre from a railway line. Nearby, a small girl picked up a discarded juice bottle in search of a sip while a man wearing tattered shorts lay slumped on a dirty old mattress. Only a blue plastic tarpaulin offered shelter from tropical downpours. So-called “poverty tourism” is on the rise in Jakarta. Organizers say it raises awareness and brings aid to the destitute of the city, but accusations of exploitation are never far away and critics say poverty should not be a tourist attraction. A few hundred families cram into the slum in the Tanah Abang neighborhood, minutes from gleaming shopping malls where the likes of Gucci and Louis Vuitton compete to lure the newly-minted beneficiaries of Indonesia’s economic miracle. Abu Bakar opted against the pic-

ers, but also businessmen, bankers,” he added before being cut short by shouting reverberating around the slum. “Kereta! Kereta!” (“A train, a train”) cried mothers rushing to grab children playing on the track as a roaring locomotive approached, whipping up clouds of dust and garbage as it surged towards the flimsy-looking shacks. The train recently claimed the life of one little girl who died as she ran after her cat.

A tourist hands out candy to slum children in North Jakarta.

turesque landscapes of other parts of the country to instead join a “Jakarta Hidden Tours” trip, which aims to show visitors the squalid conditions of the nation’s poor. “Tourists stay in their ghetto. We show what is really Jakarta,” said Ronny Poluan, 59, an Indonesian documentary maker who created the non-profit organisation in 2008. Recent years have seen “poverty

tourism” mushroom globally, from the favelas of Brazil to the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai, popularised by the film “Slumdog Millionaire”. “We have about 10 tours per month, with two to four tourists each time. More and more people are coming, some now even come just for my tour,” Poluan said. “I’ve had tourists from as far away as Washington. They’re not only backpack-

Poverty as a tourist attraction The slum dwellers, like half of Indonesia, live on less than two dollars per day. Each tourist pays 500,000 rupiah ($54) to visit, with half of that going to the tour company, and the rest funding doctor visits, microfinance projects or community projects such as school building. “I don’t give cash. I pay the doctors directly for example,” said Poluan. But that does not reassure some critics. “I’m against slums being turned into tourist spots,” Wardah Hafidz, an activist with the Urban Poor Consortium, told AFP. “It’s not about shame. People should not be exhibited like monkeys in the zoo. “What residents get from these tours, in cash or whatever form, only strips

them of their dignity and self respect, turning them into mere beggars. “They not only become dependent on handouts, but come to expect them. It doesn’t help them to believe they are capable of standing on their own two feet or getting them out of the spiral of poverty,” she added. Nonetheless, residents say they look forward to the daily influx of foreigners witnessing their lifestyles. “I like that foreigners want to know about us. It’s good they want to know about us,” said Djoko, a father in his fifties, as he removed labels from a pile of glass and plastic bottles before selling them for recycling. Tourists deny voyeurism, instead saying that what they witness inspires them to action. “If I had not seen it, I would not have done anything about it,” said Caroline Bourget. A teacher at Jakarta’s French school, she is now discussing setting up a mobile school in the slum to give disadvantaged children a better chance in life. “Here we are at the heart of reality,” she said. — AFP

Oprah Winfrey launches ‘Oprah’s Book Club 2.0’

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Strong & current

Choosing a new

swimsuit The Tivik The Bridget monokini.

n Southern California, where the abundance of sunshine can lead to numerous days at the beach and a summer full of pool parties, the purchase of a new swimsuit is serious business. For some women, it’s the toughest sartorial challenge of the summer. The shopping process often involves many trips to the mall, the nightmare of dressing room lighting and small pieces of stretchy fabric that will force a shopper to take notice of every bump and ripple on her body. This season, however, the less-is-more philosophy in swimwear is taking a back seat to a focus on smart, fashionable styling. “We are seeing less of your standard traditional string bikinis,” says Andrea Trujillo, owner of A.SweeT. Boutique in Beverly Hills, which carries swimwear, sportswear and accessories. “Designers are getting more creative with their pieces.” For the shopper, this translates into a season awash with retro references and ﬂattering silhouettes, prints and embellishments. You don’t need Brooklyn Decker’s curves or Kate Moss’ rail-thin physique to pull oﬀ the top trends — there are plenty of styles out there for the real woman who wants to be chic and comfortable by the water.

Fabric cutouts Some of the most ﬂattering swimsuits currently available are those with silhouettes that feature cutouts of fabric. Hints of skin are revealed in shapes that range from small triangles to plunging necklines, to bare hips. One of the bestselling cutout styles at Los Angeles-based retailing website Nastygal.com is the Diamond Back swimsuit by Tavik ($145), which features a deep cut V neckline, low back, exposed sides and fringe details. For a more subtle feel, the Diva twisted cutout swimsuit by Rachel Pappo ($235) at Nastygal.com features gathered bands of fabric and diamond-shaped cutouts.

A few swimsuits to choose from this summer include We Are Handsome, Flamingo bikini, clockwise, Eternal Sunshine Creations, pink crochet one-piece, Seafolly, Lola Rose bustier top and lace-up siren pant and Tivik, The Bridget monokini.

The Australian swimwear line We Are Handsome has made a name for itself with vibrant prints of horses, wolves and landscapes. This year, the company’s offerings include a style called the Bahamas Bikini (sold at A.SweeT. boutique for $87.50), with flamingos spray-painted against a bright pink sunset. — MCT photos

prints for a couple seasons, but this summer romantic florals and playful unexpected prints are trending. The Australian swimwear line We Are Handsome has made a name for itself with vibrant prints of horses, wolves and landscapes. This year, the company’s offerings include a style called the Bahamas Bikini (sold at A.SweeT. boutique for $87.50), with flamingos spray-painted against a bright pink sunset. (The line is also sold at Barneys.) Floral prints are popular with customers who shop at the nationwide chain and website Everything But Water (everythingbutwater.com), according to Melisa Belinger, vice president of merchandising. Among the offerings: A Betsey Johnson one piece monokini that mixes a blue and purple floral print with purple rose appliques on each shoulder strap ($178).

Asymmetrical silhouettes The one-shoulder style has been a popular dress sil-

houette for a couple seasons, and this spring it has emerged as a favorable style for swimwear as well. Oneshoulder monokinis and tops can be useful for shoppers who hope to draw eyes to certain parts of the body (the neckline) and away from others. The Becca by Rebecca Virtue top ($51.99) from Everything But Water recalls the shoulder draping of a Grecian toga, embellished with a piece of chain link hardware and a bold blue, black and brown pattern. For a one-piece, asymmetrical silhouette, the Miraclesuit Jenna suit ($150), also from Everything But Water, features a one-shoulder strap and mesh cutouts. The zig zags of fabric create an eﬀect similar to shirring, for those who may want to cover up their tummy area or add some ﬂare to a classic black suit.

High-waist retro High-waisted bottoms paired with bikini tops and

retro-inspired one pieces are making a comeback-againcalling to mind ‘50s style, a la Bettie Page. “We’ve definitely spoken to the trend with a few high-waist styles and retro colors,” says Jacqueline Pak, a buyer for Nastygal.com. Among the website’s suits with a retro feel are the Betty Swimsuit from Mandalynn ($100) and the Seafolly Lola Rose Bikini ($155), which comes in bright yellow with a bandeau bustier top and high-waist lace-up bottoms. Some designers are also adding modern twists to their retro-inspired designs. “Mara Hoffman, for instance, did a number of high-waist bottoms but added interesting details like beading or cutout and crocheted side panels on her bottoms,” says Trujillo. The Mara Hoffman Half-Top Bikini in Inca Sky offers a high-waist bottom and a ruffle-overlay top ($216). Hoffman’s designs are available at A.SweeT. boutique and MaraHoffman.com.— MCT

Crochet The crocheted top and sweater have become staples for the fashionable hippie set, and the trend has made its way into swimwear as well. At Nastygal.com, crochet suits are among the top sellers, which include a style called the Peacock from Lisa Maree. Prices for the crocheted suits range from $138 to $178 on the website. The crochet trend is also popping up at other retailers such as Old Navy, which carries metallic thread crochet bikini separates ($19.94); Kohls, which oﬀers Elle white crochet bikini separates ($24.99); and Target, which sells crochet halterkinis, one-pieces, bikini tops and bottoms, all priced from $13.99 to $20. Some of the styles can function as part of an outﬁt, eliminating the need for a shirt. And crochet coverups in the forms of tanks, bell sleeve dresses and tunics are part of the trend as well.

Bold prints Shoppers have gravitated to neon colors and tribal

The Mara Hoffman bikini in Totem violet.

The Eteran Sunshine Creations pink crochet monokini.

Lisa Maree, a Feathering Peacock crochet high neck one-piece suit.

Splash launches ‘Being

The Seafolly Lola Rose bikini.

The Diva by Rachel Pappo cutout monokini.

Human’ in Kuwait

Charity initiative to support a good cause

orking towards a charitable cause Splash, the region’s leading high street retailer Splash has inked a deal with ‘Being Human’ to launch the brand across its stores in the Middle East. Pioneered and promoted by Salman Khan, one of India’s leading actor’s the ‘Being Human’ collection is hip, cool and funky and where the message stands out loud and clear. Flaunting the symbolic message of Being Human, the tees which are part of the oﬀering from the brand use colour and style to highlight its dedication to the cause of education and healthcare for the underprivileged and proceeds from sales go to the Being Human Foundation. The collection which has become a staple fashion statement is produced and provided by Mandhana Industries Ltd, the exclusive licensee for ‘Being Human’ merchandise. Speaking on bringing ‘Being Human’ to the region, Raza Beig, CEO, Splash & ICONIC, said, “We are proud to announce the launch of ‘Being Human’ across Splash stores in the region. One of the few initiatives which beautiPhoto shows India’s leading actor Salman Khan.

fully combine fashion and charity, we strongly believe that the best way to bring awareness to a cause is by wearing a t-shirt that represents the cause. Affordable yet making a definite style statement like all Splash clothing, the ‘Being Human’ wardrobe will give Splash customers across the GCC a chance to contribute to the ‘Being Human Foundation’, which supports the twin cause of education and healthcare.” The line-up will offer 29 options in t-shirts for men while carrying the signature Being Human tagline which is the core and the underlying principle. Semi-formal trousers, denims, shorts and shirts in various styles are also part of the entire gamut of offering from the brand. Manish Mandhana, Managing Director, Mandhana Industries expressed his satisfaction with the deal and said, “It is our endeavor to promote the brand ‘Being Human’, in countries where Salman Khan is known and loved. The Middle East is our very first international destination and we are extremely pleased to partner with Splash as they not only have the required muscle in terms of stores and presence in GCC but will also portray the brand in a distinct manner. The ‘Being Human’ line is

designed to oﬀer comfort, quality and style while supporting an endeavor of good cause.” ‘Being Human’ is available in Centrepoint stores located at Al Rai, Salmiya, Fintas, Awqaf, Hawally & Fahaheel and Splash store at The Avenues, so all you fashion-savvy people, get ready to rock the collection and support a cause while having fun with fashion!