08 Feb 2012

CR IP TI ON BS SU

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Iran shrugs off latest US sanctions, trade suffers

40 PAGES

NO: 15353

150 FILS

7

www.kuwaittimes.net

RABIA ALAWAL 16, 1433 AH

Age, military ties mark Kim Jong Un’s inner circle

Commerce returns to Shatt Al-Arab waterway

Cavendish sprints to Tour of Qatar stage win

12

13

20

Gulf to expel Syria envoys, recall own

Kuwait won’t deport activists to Syria • Russian FM meets Assad conspiracy theories

Terminal 2 without Tom Hanks

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

T

his is the first time I am writing an article that everybody in the editorial room is against. Sometimes it happens in our work to bounce ideas forth and back before completing an article. I am sure that you are all smart and sophisticated enough to guess my topic today. When the news came that the GCC countries have decided to close their embassies in Syria and expel the Syrian ambassadors, I felt partial contradiction for the decision. Don’t misunderstand me, please! It is not because I am passionate about the Syrian nation. On the contrary, it is because I care for their welfare.

I have been against Assad’s regime since I was a teenager because I don’t believe in dictators. Of course, I condemn every act he has taken against his nation since the demonstrations started nearly a year ago. Now the situation is worsening. The Arab League tried to mediate and they failed; the international community also tried to isolate Syria. The Arab League is now thinking of resending Arab observers - a move that was rejected by the Syrian government. But, but, but.

Closing the embassy, in my opinion, will not harm Assad and his gang. It will harm the Syrian people more.

We had a similar experience with Libya but it was slightly different in the Libyan case. For the Syrian community, it will be harder as they represent a large expat population in the Gulf. When you close down the embassy who will take care of their paperwork, such as renewing passports and stamping birth certificates etc? How will they move if their passports expire? They cannot even renew their residencies in the countries they live. If they cannot renew residencies, what will happen to all the other matters that come after- their children’s school attendance, medical care, civil ID and driving licence renewal. We are not talking about one or two people. There are thousands of Syrians in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and everywhere across the Gulf.

Imagine the headache and pressure you will put on Syrian citizens in the Gulf if you go ahead with such a decision. Unless you are going to find an alternate solution for all these Syrians who live in the Gulf. I doubt it. What about if they decide to travel back to their country or anywhere else? They will be paralyzed. Some might be stranded at airports and ports. That would be a nice idea for Hollywood to make another movie like The Terminal with Tom Hanks. In the movie he comes from a country which is at war and stops existing. He is stranded at New York’s La Guardia airport. It was a nice movie to watch. In the movie, Hanks was speaking Bulgarian because he was supposed to be coming from an Eastern European country called Krakozia. In Syria’s scenario, they will have to choose an actor from the Arab world who speaks Arabic.

Forget Hollywood now. Let’s talk seriously. This issue should be studied thoroughly before it is implemented.

Think of balance and how much will be the harm for Syrians and what would be the impact on Assad?

KUWAIT: Palestinian Hamas Gaza premier Ismail Haniya meets HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlSabah yesterday as part of a regional tour that has already taken him to Bahrain and Qatar. — AFP

Amir meets Haniya, vows aid KUWAIT: Kuwait will help rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, HH the Amir said yesterday after talks with the head of the territory’s Hamas government, Ismail Haniya. Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah “expressed his country’s readiness to contribute to the rebuilding of Gaza and its infrastructure,” Haniya’s spokesman in Gaza Taher Al-Nunu said in a statement. Hamas-ruled Gaza has been languishing under a five-year Israeli blockade, which has stalled reconstruction efforts in the impoverished territory, devastated during a war with Israel over New Year’s 2009.

The state-run Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said the

meeting was attended by HH the Crown Prince, prime minister and foreign minister. Nunu said Sheikh Sabah welcomed the reconciliation accord signed in Qatar on Monday between the two main Palestinian factions. The groundbreaking deal brought Hamas and Fatah closer than ever to ending long-standing divisions triggered after Hamas won a landslide parliamentary victory in 2007 and just months later forcibly expelled Fatah-loyal troops from Gaza. Haniya arrived in Qatar last week on a regional tour that so far has included Qatar and Bahrain and will conclude with a visit to Iran. — AFP

Max 22º Min 12º High Tide 12:55 & 23:56 Low Tide 06:08 & 17:49

RIYADH: Gulf monarchies joined mounting international pressure on the Syria regime yesterday, deciding to expel its envoys and withdraw their own over the “mass slaughter” of civilians. “State members have decided to withdraw their ambassadors from Syria and ask at the same time for all the ambassadors of the Syrian regime to leave immediately,” the six Gulf Cooperation Council states said in a statement. The GCC said there was “no point in them staying after the Syrian regime rejected all attempts and aborted all honest Arab efforts to solve this crisis and end the bloodshed”.

Separately, Kuwait’s Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud said yesterday Kuwait will not deport activists who stormed the Syrian embassy back to their homeland due to fears about their safety. “We will provide all guarantees for a fair trial to them and after the ruling is issued, we will deport them to a country of their choice,” the minister said in a statement. The statement came after a large number of MPs in the newly elected parliament warned authorities the activists would be executed if they were deported to Syria.

The independent Kuwait Society for Human Rights also called on authorities to stop any plan to deport the detained Syrians because there is enough justification to believe they will be tortured or killed. The minister did not provide a figure for those arrested when Syrians and Kuwaiti activists stormed the embassy on Saturday, but a security source said that about 40 people were detained, two of them Kuwaitis. Sheikh Ahmad said the Syrians were being detained by the secret service police.

The GCC condemned “mass slaughter against the unarmed Syrian people” during the nearly 11-month crackdown by President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. GCC states “follow with sorrow and anger, the increase in killing and violence in Syria, which has not spared children, old people or women with heinous acts that at best can be described as mass slaughter,” the statement said.

Continued on Page 13

18 Islamist MPs back Saadoun Rashed drops out to boost Saqer’s chances

By B Izzak

China forges Gulf ties DUBAI: To celebrate Chinese New Year last month, Dubai’s swankiest hotel bathed its sail-shaped facade in red lighting accented with an image of a twisting golden dragon. The gesture by the $2,300-a-night Burj Al-Arab was a not-so-subtle nod to the tightening bonds Beijing is forging with the kings and sheiks who rule the oil-rich Arab Gulf states, even as it stands firm in support for their regional rival Iran. In many ways, China is following a course of keeping its business options open as it rolls ahead with securing the energy it needs to fuel its rapid growth. That complicates US-led efforts to force Tehran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program, but it also allows China to expand its influence in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states long allied to the West.

“If you were to look at the Iran-China relationship in a vacuum, you’d say China imports fairly large quantities of Continued on Page 13

DUBAI: In this Feb 5, 2012 photo, Arabs visit Dragon Mart. — AP

KUWAIT: Eighteen Islamist MPs yesterday declared their backing for prominent opposition MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun to become the next National Assembly speaker, making it almost certain that the veteran lawmaker will be the next speaker barring a major surprise. Based on a survey

by Kuwait Times, 33 MPs have so far publicly said they will vote for Saadoun, which is the majority required to clinch the post regardless how the government will vote.

The Islamist MPs, who held their first meeting after the general elections, also decided to back veteran Salafist MP Khaled Al-Sultan for the deputy speaker’s post, Islamist MP Mohammad Al-Hatlani as a secretary while newcomer Faisal AlYahya, also an Islamist, as supervisor. The Sunni Islamists and the Popular Action Bloc, headed by Saadoun, together along with supporters control around 30 seats.

Newly-elected Islamist MP Osama AlMunawer said after the meeting that the decision to back Saadoun came after the spokesman of the Popular Bloc MP Musallam Al-Barrak informed leading Islamist lawmaker Mohammad Hayef that

the bloc supports a move to amend the second article of the constitution. Islamists have been trying to amend that article in order to Islamize the constitution and all laws. The provision currently states that Islam is a major source of legislation and the Islamists want it to become “Islam is the sole source of legislation”, meaning that all legislations must comply with the sharia law.

But to achieve the amendment, strongly opposed by liberals, two-thirds of the Assembly (elected MPs and the Cabinet members) must support it and HH the Amir should approve it. The Islamists certainly do not have the support of twothirds of the house membership. If all the 16 Cabinet ministers and pro-government MPs combine to support a rival of Saadoun - they will not secure more than 32 votes, not enough to win the post. But the government is expected to either not participate in the voting or permit the ministers the freedom to vote for any candidate.

MP Ali Al-Rashed however withdrew from the race to boost the chances of Mohammad Al-Saqer. It also appears that Continued on Page 13

Maldives president quits after mutiny India refuses to intervene

MALE: Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed (center) attempts to address protesting policemen yesterday. Nasheed later resigned. (Inset) Mohammed Waheed Hassan gives a statement after being sworn in as the country’s new president. — AP

MALE: President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, widely credited with bringing democracy to the Indian Ocean archipelago, resigned yesterday after weeks of opposition protests erupted into a police mutiny and what an aide said amounted to a coup. Nasheed, the Sunni Muslim nation’s first democratically elected president, handed power to Vice-President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, and said that continuing in office would result in his having to use force against the people.

Protests last year over the faltering economy and scrambling ahead of this year’s presidential election,

have seen parties adopting hardline Islamist rhetoric and accusing Nasheed of being anti-Islamic. “I resign because I am not a person who wishes to rule with the use of power,” he said in a televised address. “I believe that if the government were to remain in power it would require the use of force which would harm many citizens. “I resign because I believe that if the government continues to stay in power, it is very likely that we may face foreign influences.”

It was not immediately clear to what influences he was referring but Hassan Saeed, leader of the Dhivehi Continued on Page 13

2

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

LOCAL

News

in brief

Vehicle ablaze at KIA KUWAIT: A vehicle fire was reported at Kuwait International Airport yesterday. It was successfully extinguished by firefighters, reported the head of the operations department at the airport, Isaam Al-Zamel.

No damage was reported, the official said, adding that the cause of the fire was an electric short-circuit within the towing vehicle.

Salary increase report ready KUWAIT: Mustafa Al-Shimali Minister of Finance, and Health said that the salary increase study is almost ready, as it was approved by more than one party after being sent to the council of ministers. He said an increment will be given to those who need it and deserve it, as approved by parties who prepared the study. He also said the announcement was due during the previous Cabinet meeting but the government’s resignation postponed it. He added that there won’t be a fixed amount but it will be calculated in percentage only.

No extensions for existing hospitals KUWAIT: The Ministry of Health (MoH) has rejected applications forwarded from various health zones on building extensions to hospitals or medical centers.

Sources said that the requests were denied owing to space crunches, pointing out that the ministry cannot construct new facilities that trespass its boundaries.

Protection of natural resources KUWAIT: The 13th meeting of the GCC media awareness on environmental issues committee concluded its 3-day run yesterday. The meeting underscored the importance of preserving the natural resources in the GCC countries and the promotion of environmental awareness among their general populace, Dr Khalid AlEnizi, Director of public relations for the EPA (Environment Protection Authority), told KUNA yesterday. He further added that participants in the meeting discussed plans to increase green spaces within the region as well as tree-planting in open areas within urban regions.

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah meeting owners of small enterprises yesterday.

Amir receives owners of small enterprises KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah, in the presence of HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, received at Bayan Palace yesterday Minister of Finance and Minister of Health Mustafa Al-Shimali, who was accompa-

nied by Chairman and CEO of Kuwait Industrial Bank Abdulmohsen Al-Hunaif along with owners of small enterprises.

They presented HH the Amir an explanation of a number of small enterprises financed by the Bank.

HH the Amir praised those in charge of such enterprises, extolling at the same time the noble objectives sought by those individuals, which focus on the encouragement of youngsters to actively participate in achieving the ambitious visions to upgrade the develop-

mental process and boost resources of the Kuwaiti economy, as well as finding job opportunities for Kuwaiti youths in the private sector. HH the Amir also urged them to do their best for the interest of the homeland.

For their part, the participants expressed their full pride in the

noble patronage of HH the Amir for his sons in all sectors, saying that HH’s directives are “the cresset they resort to in order to serve the dear homeland.”

At t h e e n d o f t h e m e e t ing, they presented HH the Amir with commemorative gifts. —KUNA

Nationalization ‘core’ option in resolving bedoon issue KUWAIT: Secretary General of the Ce ntral Apparatus for I llegal Residents, Sheikh Khaled Mubarak AlSabah, said that there is a follow up procedure for implementing the ministerial decree of 419/2011, which guarantees the provision of humanitarian services for illegal residents in the country. After a meeting with Deputy Director of Human Rights

Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, Joe Stork, Sheikh Khaled AlSabah added that “...the Central Apparatus is coordinating and supervising the implementation of this decree with the concerned governmental bodies.”

The option for the naturalization of some qualified groups is “accurately set ” within the government ’s

framework, Sheikh Khaled said in response to the inquiries of the human rights organization.

He further added that a new ID card will be issued for illegal residents, which will include all of their information.

“The right for employment of illegal residents will come to light in few weeks. It will be the outcome of the

overall cooperation made by the Apparatus, Civil Service Commission and the private sector,” Sheikh Khaled added.

For his part, Stork said that the issue of illegal residents has been continuing for many years in the country and that there should be collaborative efforts to end the problem.— KUNA

Election judges demand allowance KUWAIT: Judicial authority staff members who took part in monitoring and vote counting processes during elections are requesting the Ministry of Justice for extra allowance for their additional efforts. Minister Ahmad Al-Mulaifi reportedly sent a letter to the Civil Service Commission to approve the payment.

According to sources, at least KD 1.2 million will be required to pay allowances for more than a thousand staff members whose services were required during the election process. The amount a staff member is paid will depend on the designation they held. In that regard, the source explained that heads of vote counting committees will receive an allowance ranging between KD 1,250 and KD 2,500, while their assistants will receive KD 1,250, whereas observers will be entitled to a KD 750 allowance.

‘Air traffic unaffected by blackout’ KUWAIT: Air traffic was not affected by a blackout that plunged the Kuwait International Airport into darkness on Monday morning, said Essam Al-Zamel, Operations Director at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

“As soon as the blackout began at 9 am, backup generators automatically restored power supply to the airport’s terminal,” he said, adding that only an adjacent commercial area remained without electricity for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, a Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) insider said that the blackout took place as a result of an error that hit a main electricity transformer during a maintenance operation. Sources pointed out that the problem exposes a lack of coordination between the MEW and the DGCA on maintenance work to be conducted on power plants.

Sheikh Salman praises Kuwait-Italy relations KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Information Undersecretary, Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah, lauded yesterday the deep ties between Kuwait and Italy.

Sheikh Salman commented on the ties while receiving an Italian media delegation that was invited to the country to cover the 2012 elections.

He expressed hopes to promote media cooperation and encourage joint cultural and media events in both countries.

For their part, the Italian delegation praised Kuwait’s democracy and lauded the high level of intellect amongst its people.

Italy’s delegation includes Vice-President of the ItalyKuwait Friendship Association, Italian author Margherita Calderoni and other journalists. — KUNA

New Libyan envoy presents credentials KUWAIT: Dr Mohammad Omaish presented his credentials as the newly-appointed Libyan Ambassador to Kuwait to Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

The credential presentation ceremony, which was held at the Foreign Ministry yesterday, was attended by Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khaled Sulaiman Al-Jarallah, Director of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah and Director of the Protocols’ Department, Dhari Ajran Al-Ajran.

Sheikh Sabah also received outgoing Jordanian Ambassador Juma Al-Abadi and Poland’s outgoing Ambassador Janusz Szwedo, on the occasion of ending their tenure as in Kuwait.

Sheikh Sabah also met with Gennady Tarasov, the Highlevel Coordinator for missing Kuwaitis, third-country nationals and missing Kuwaiti property, on the occasion of visiting the country. Both discussed the latest updates regarding missing Kuwaitis. — KUNA

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

local

National Assembly elections result ‘prescription for deadlock’ Society more divided than ever

KUWAIT: A handout picture released by the press office of Hamas shows Palestinian Hamas Gaza premier Ismail Haniya shaking hands with His Highness the Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah in Kuwait late Monday as part of a regional tour that has already taken him to Bahrain and Qatar. — AFP

Registration of cancer patients in the offing KUWAIT: Kuwait will soon begin officially registering cancer diagnosis so that statistics can be obtained to prepare a study by comparing it with global average records. This announcement was made by Dr Ahmad Al-Awadhi, Director of Hussain Makki Juma Center for Specialized Surgeries.

He was speaking during an

open day held recently to celebrate World Cancer Day, where he asserted the importance of early diagnoses that can help cure 80 percent cancer cases.

I n other news, M inistr y of Health(MoH) recently inaugurated the Tenth Annual Surgeons Conference organized by the Kuwait I nstitute for M edical

Specialization (KIMS).

Several surgeons were invited to take part in workshops that were held as part of the conference, including two surgeons from the University of San Diego and a surgeon from Cleveland Clinic, in addition to Surgical Endoscopy Professor Alfred Cuschieri.— Al-Rai

KUWAIT: Last week’s election in Kuwait was the most interesting, but in many ways also the most depressing, in that country’s history. Technically, the process was better than ever, but the results are deeply troubling. Much of Kuwaiti society appears to have retreated to its most primal identity groupings, and it seems fractured as never before. Tensions between urban constituencies and more rural tribesmen boiled over into vandalism as the election tent of M ohammed AlJuwaihel-a candidate who repeated l y s ugge s te d t ha t B e d oui n tribesmen, especially of the large Mutairi clan, were fundamentally disloyal-was burned to the ground. He nonetheless won a seat in the Third Constituenc y (out of five in Kuwait, with 10 seats each), which has been considered a diverse constituency, either in spite of, or worse still because of, his aggressively intolerant rhetoric.

Religious sectarianism was also stronger than ever, with Shia candidates hoping, probably in vain, to protect their interests by continuing to ally with the royal family. The y now f a ce e m p owe re d opponents such as Mohammed Hayef Al-Mutairi, elected in the Fourth District, who specialize in vitriolic anti-Shia demagoguery.

The Muslim Brotherhood won four seats and their close allies another three, beating their alltime best of six. It marks a major comeback from 2009 when the Brotherhood was down to only one parliamentarian. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist politicians deftly claimed credit for protests late last year that finally brought down the deeply unp op ul a r a nd l ong-s e r v i ng prime minister, even though they were late -comers to the move ment and their grandstanding showed the crassest opportunism.

But clearly their strategy of hijacking the protests worked well at the polls.

Pro-government forces and liberals, such as they are, both took a severe drubbing at the hands of various forms of conservative and identit y- candidate s.

M ost depressingly, there are no women at all in the new parliament, with all four incumbent females ousted. This situation is a prescription for deadlock as the ruling family retains most power and can, and probably will, dissolve parliament before long if it goes too far in harassing the executive. Knowing this, the majority of opposition parliamentarians may keep their powder dry for now, not wanting to be seen as a source of constant deadlock. But sooner or later tensions will almost certainly again boil over. But the biggest scandal in Kuwait, and one that has received very little local, regional and international attention, is the plight of the stateless in that country. There are an estimated 120,000 people “without citizenship” (bedoon jinsiya), among 1.6 million citizens, who are themselves divided into a hierarchy of classifications that allot varying rights and responsibilities. Most bedoons are by any measure, and under stated provisions of Kuwaiti law, entitled to citizenship, but live in limbo without basic rights and legal status.

Ver y few Kuwaiti politicians and organizations pay the least attention to this issue, unless it is to attack the bedoon and oppose their rights. Bedoons have been i nc re a s i ngl y orga ni zi ng a nd protesting during the past year, but the government recently announced that they were not allowed to protest and that any who did would be deported. It is not clear, however, to where they could be deported.

I n Kuwait, even peaceful

protest is a right reserved solely to those classified as “citizens.”

U nl i ke p rote s t i ng “c i t i ze ns,” b e d oons have b e e n rout i ne l y beaten, tear gassed and rounded up without charge or legal representation.

Bedoon issues are handled by a committee headed by a noted opponent of their rights. This committee announced reforms in November 2010 that remain almost entirely unfulfilled. Last year the government promised to address the stateless issue, but added that only 34,000 bedoons were eligible to be naturalized. It is estimated that 100,000 applications are pending but only 16,000 have been approved in the past two decades. Kuwait has never approved more than 2,000 such requests in any given year.

The victory of Islamist and tribal opposition candidates, lack of sympathy for the bedoon in most of Kuwaiti society and in the royal family, and intensified divisions among Kuwaiti citizens do not bode well for the bedoon, who have precious few allies. The shameful silence on this issue by the United States, one of the only countries with any real influence in Kuwait, only makes matters worse. The Kuwaiti elections were fascinating, and in a grim way even entertaining. However, they offer little hope for the most vulnerable in the country-the bedoon and also the large numbers of migrant, and especially migrant domestic workers.

Government promises to address the plight of these communities have proven hollow in the past. Nothing in the election results gives any real hope that these urgent moral issues will be seriously addressed in the near future. Kuwaiti society appears more divided than ever, and suspicion, hatred and demagoguery are the order of the day. —Agencies

4

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

LOCAL kuwait digest

in my view

In the interest of the nation

Respect people’s choice

By Fouad Al-Obaid

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij fouad@kuwaittimes.net Twitter: @Fouadalobaid

t’s no secret that there are attempts today to revoke the parliamentary membership of two controversial third constituency MPs. The attempts are being carried out by individuals who count on people’s gullibility and, perhaps, desire to see the two lawmakers ousted. The fact remains, however, that only parliament has the authority to contest the legality of an MP’s election. However, the parliament cannot contest the eligibility of a candidate to run for elections, and this is the point being used in the bid against the two controversial MPs. Nonetheless, the contestation of election results should not be made selectively. In other words, an investigation to confirm the election results should not be exclusive to certain MPs, but should cover all MPs elected in their constituency.

What’s happening is that a certain party is calling for the election process of two MPs to be revised, thus giving themselves a fictional authority to

I

The elections produced a majority with a history of fighting freedoms and violating the law, in addition to taking part in outlawed primary elections. The parliamentary majority is composed of MPs with religious or tribal backgrounds who, therefore, generally, have conflicting interests when it comes to fully promoting constitutional freedoms. question the election of whomever they want.

If this party’s point of view became an accepted standard, I’m pretty sure that an investigation into the eligibility of all candidates to run for elections would, most likely, end with the conclusion that all MPs should’ve been disqualified. There are many reasons that lead me to believe that almost all of the elected lawmakers are not qualified to represent the nation.

The elections produced a majority with a history of fighting freedoms and violating the law, in addition to taking part in outlawed primary elections. The parliamentary majority is composed of MPs with religious or tribal backgrounds who, therefore, generally, have conflicting interests when it comes to fully promoting constitutional freedoms.

MPs Mohammad Al-Juwaihel and Nabeel AlFadhl are labeled as controversial because of statements deemed as being immoral and inappropriate. I don’t see much difference between that practice and the practice of lawmakers who violate the very constitution that they pledge to protect when they take their oath at the parliament’s inaugural session.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the election of MPs Mohammad Al-Juwaihel and Nabeel Al-Fadhl is a result of the third constituency voters’ free right of choice. Parties unhappy with the result don’t have much choice but to accept people’s right of opinion and admit that there are citizens who don’t share the same point of view as theirs.

That is, of course, if these parties actually believed in people’s constitutional right of free opinion; something I highly doubt they do. —Al-Qabas

s a citizen I cannot say that the current line up in Parliament - newly elected MPs - is negative, a clear majority are from the opposition to a government who find it hard to rule and govern in what many anticipate to be turbulent times.

Nevertheless, I fear that the electoral platform that brought various ‘opposition’ MPs - are against the government, and are not allowed to form a government despite being a majority!

Their campaign is focused on pointing fingers and blaming corrupt practices. I doubt that the Parliament will be able to solve the issues that our state faces. A general national clean up is necessary to attack the cause of our decay, and I believe that only a strong, educated, well-read and aware middleclass will be capable of uprooting the decay!

The Arab Spring on its first year anniversary saw sweeping reforms in a region that is not used to them. A year later, I must admit that the year was

A

kuwait digest

Ethics key to advanced society

By Jaffar Rajab hen Socrates was sentenced to death in ancient amounts of time off work, and actually feel proud of Greece, his followers encouraged him to flee, their ‘achievement’. We have people who are praised by but he refused. Instead, he chose not to violate their friends and colleagues for their ability to escape his own philosophy of the obedience to law, and chose from work for days, weeks, months and even years at a death over violating a principle he had called on people time, all the while still receiving their pay in full at the end of each month. There are also people who refuse to to follow.

There is absolutely no way that anyone can justify pay for the use of public services such as electricity and breaking the law, because a law that has been accepted water, and, when questioned about their behavior, simby society as a rule is applicable on all of its members. ply respond “Why should I pay when there are others who don’t?”

Regardless of whether it Do we really need more meets their personal views The problems we have here in examples to defend the fact or not, people are required Kuwait happen when people try to of the matter? Countless to follow general laws, at sugarcoat the illegal practices they reports have been written least from a moral standpoint. commit, attempting to make it seem about the forgery of official being forwarded The problems we have as if their action was the best option documents in transactions to state here in Kuwait happen given certain circumstances, some- departments - something when people try to sugarcoat the illegal practices times even trying to portray their people generally refer to as smart way to get what you they commit, attempting to action as something heroic. This has “A need.” Perhaps the most make it seem as if their brought us justifications such as appalling example of action was the best option given certain circumstances, “Yes, it was a mistake, but it was also immoral activity is the of those who fake sometimes even trying to a reaction to a heinous act”, “Respect behavior disability in order to obtain portray their action as us so that we respect you”, “If you privileges that the state something heroic. This has brought us justifications don’t implement the law, then we grants to people with special Such heinous actions such as “Yes, it was a mishave no other choice but take mat- needs. are unbelievable, yet they take, but it was also a reacters into our own hands” and “I only continue to take place. tion to a heinous act”, In the Western countries “Respect us so that we violated the law when I saw that it is we refer to as ‘advanced respect you”, “If you don’t not implemented properly.” countries’ a person can be implement the law, then we arrested for tax evasion have no other choice but take matters into our own hands” and “I only violated based on a tip to the police from their very own friend. the law when I saw that it is not implemented properly.” It is not betrayal, but a sense of responsibility in people The reason for our society’s backward ways is not a who believe that a failure to pay tax is akin to robbery lack of industrial or technological breakthroughs, but or theft. If you want a developed society, you have to simply a lack of the ethics followed in advanced soci- ensure that ethical practices are followed not only in eties. We believe that ethics only refer to respecting theory and claims but, more importantly, in practice.

Storming into a facility is illegal; whether the properthe elderly and feeding the poor. Yes, these are great ethics, yet they are not enough alone to achieve devel- ty is the parliament, a TV station building, a candidate’s opment when people who practicing them are also election camp, an embassy, a citizen’s home or even a sheep farm. All of these actions are crimes punishable violating the law.

The examples of how the law is undermined in by the law. If people feel a sense of pride in committing Kuwait are countless. For example, employees who fail such actions, they should at least show a similar degree to commit to their work schedule and duties, thinking of courage and admit their guilt instead of making that it’s ‘cool’ to do so and get away with it. Another attempts to justify their actions and plead for forgiveexample is those who fake sickness to take lengthy ness. — Al-Rai

W

The Arab Spring on its first year anniversary saw sweeping reforms in a region that is not used to them.

A year later, I must admit that the year was slow and is yet to bear any fruits. I wonder if it ever will. What many in the region are unable to understand is that ‘we’ as collective Arab League countries barely generate what a medium-sized European country generates a year in terms of GDP. slow and is yet to bear any fruits. I wonder if it ever will. What many in the region are unable to understand is that ‘we’ as collective Arab League countries barely generate what a medium-sized European country generates a year in terms of GDP. More pathetic - I am saddened to admit - based on the Arab Development Report, we as Arabs cannot compete with small developed economies which are able to develop new technologies and build industries based on knowledge, when we are not even able to thoroughly understand our main source of income!

We as Arabs are sentimental - it must be our eastern culture - we are sensitive, and would love to believe that we are the best when reality is otherwise. We Arabs are in dire need of consulting a doctor.

We need to be shocked into understanding the critical nature of our condition and of its dangers. We are unable to grasp the danger we are currently in. If we ask the religious to inform us on the outcome of a ongoing debate on whether our condition is to be blamed on destiny - in effect this is our predicament Allah’s will.

Are we the cause of our predicament due to our inaction and believe that we can get away with being lazy. Another socio-religious paradigm is the divinity of the ruler - does God appoint monarchs, or do monarchs use divinity to legalize their rule? What seems to be clear is that the religious class is keen on ensuring the good will of temporal rulers for their own gain. If we as a nation are honest and clear, we are living in one of the greatest bubbles of history with 99% of our income derived from one source. What will happen when this bubble bursts? What will we be left with? What will sustain our country? How will we live? How will we power our electric grid? With what will we desalinate our seawater to bathe? What will the new spiraling towers be used for? What will we fill our mini-palaces with?

kuwait digest

New council to be a fighting one

By Thaar Al-Rashidi have nothing to say about the election results except to comment that a “suspense council” has been formed - in spite of the optimistic cloud that a large number of national and opposition candidates have made it to the council, numbering 33 MPs, it does not mean that the optimistic cloud shall rain “growth” or that its rain shall solve all of our problems. The core of the problems will be subject to political agendas, which will run the council all over again. Each political group has its own program and political fights will be back even stronger than before if not countered properly. A technocratic government needs to be formed with reall ministers, and not ministers based on business quotas, but instead ministers who work away from centralization and not high ranking employees with ‘Beshet,’ the special ministerial dress.

Otherwise, we will be back to square one.

Fighting will take a different shape, with the loss of the largest group (before) the National Action Bloc to four seats, and now just three, they will end up resorting to fighting policy against the govern-

I

ment regardless of what it is. This council will be a fighting one, and its first victim will be the Prime Minister, whoever he might be. The first grilling will be geared toward him by unexpected MPs, especially those who are run by remote control.

In general, I believe, that the next Prime Minister shall be obliged to include all when forming the government in order to face the high tide of opposition that the elections created, which isn’t what we want at all. We want a technocratic government. here reality will impose itself on everyone and the policy of “inclusion” will force itself. As I said, it’s not what I want but it’s the reality of the situation, and ministers will be chosen based on the size of their political groups.

Note 1: The National Action Bloc now is similar to an injured tiger, and its members will be very violent politically during the coming period. It is a logical expectation.

Note 2: Where I started this article by saying that this is a “suspense council” I meant a council that might lead to dissolution in an unconstitutional way. — Al-Anbaa

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

local

Russian embassy slams ‘immoral act’ at demo Envoy calls for punitive action KUWAIT: Russia’s top envoy in Kuwait filed a complaint against the protests which took place outside the Russian Embassy building on Monday, during which protestors burned down a defaced portrait of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The complaint was filed with the state’s Foreign Ministry “in order to take all necessary measures against those who took part in this act”, said Ambassador Alexander Kinshchak, who described the incident in which protestors burned a poster showing Medvedev with a Nazi flag and Hitler-style facial hair as “immoral and uncivilized”.

The protests, led by Islamist MP Dr Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, were held against a Russian veto on a UN resolution to condemn the violence in Syria. “Russia is losing its popularity in all Arab countries. It’s strange that Russia and China who always offered support to Arab people are now supporting murderers of children”, AlTabtabaei said during the event.

But Ambassador Kinshchak said that using defaced portraits of President Medvedev during the protest is “a provocative and unacceptable act from a legal and moral standpoint”.

“Russia is a sovereign country which lost more than 20 million citizens during World War II in an effort to rid the world of Nazism and Fascism”, the ambassador said. “Comparing Russia with fascism is crossing a red-line which the hosting country is responsible for, as per the Vienna Convention”. Al-Tabtabaei also revealed plans to take part in preparing convoys carrying aid to the Syrian people, which he said will travel to Syria on February 15. He added that other MPs are expected to join him including Falah Al-Sawagh, Mubarak Al-Wa’lan, Mohammad Hayef, and Dr Jamaan Al-Harbash.

In the meantime, Al-Tabtabaei said that his

top priority during the Parliament’s inaugural session on Feb 15 is to make a proposal “to sever diplomatic ties with the Syrian regime and expel the Syrian ambassador”.

In the meanwhile, the criminal court released 31 bedoon residents on Monday, who were detained early last month for illegal demonstrations, property damage and resisting arrest. The detainees were released after the

constitution protects for the country’s residents.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Dherar AlAs’ousy ordered two people to be held for 21 days pending investigations in a case in which they were charged with defamation via their Twitter accounts. According to sources, one of the suspects is accused of insulting the state’s legal authority, and was arrested following a

Gulf-Turkey business forum begins in Turkey ISTANBUL: The Gulf-Turkey business forum began in Istanbul Monday with participation of 165 businesspeople from the Arab Gulf countries to explore investment opportunities between both sides.

Chairperson of the Arab Businesswomen Council Sheikha Hussa Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah, speaking on sidelines of the meeting, said participants discussed channels of communications between Turkish and Gulf businesspeople. They also discussed the establishment of small and medium-size projects, Al-Sabah, of Kuwait, added. The participation of women in the forum, she added, clearly reflected the role played by females in economic development in general. Assistant Secretary general of

KUWAIT: Kuwaitis stage protest in front of the Russian embassy on Monday. The protests, led by Islamist MP Dr Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, were held against a Russian veto on a UN resolution to condemn the violence in Syria. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat court found them not guilty of charges.

Attorney Fawziya Al-Sabah who represented the defense during the trial had challenged the illegal demonstration charge on the basis that public gathering is a personal right the Kuwaiti

complaint filed by a number of judges. The second suspect was arrested following a complaint from the State Security Service who charged him with insulting His Highness the Amir via Twitter. — Al-Rai, Al-Qabas

Banking accounts should be insured against internet piracy KUWAIT: Wethaq Takaful Insurance Company advised yesterday to ensure personal and business banking accounts against data loss due to increasing attacks of internet piracy.

Manager of the Reinsurance Department Al-Sadiq Al-Tawali said internet piracy is on the rise, recently, therefore it is very

KUWAIT: Interior Ministry Assistant Undersecretary for Special Security Lt General Sulaiman Al-Fahad lauded the efforts of the special forces during a visit to the directorate general of special forces and conveyed greetings from Defence and Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah.

important for clients to ensure the safety of personal accounts from any data loss. The insurance industry has played a vital role in compensating and reviving companies and individuals from any loss of properties and finances, he added.

Therefore, banks should impose simple insurance fees on

their clients as a precautionary measure from any attempt of penetrating banks’ security systems. He also urged investment companies and funds to be insured against piracy attacks as well. Al-Tawali explained that what drew companies and individuals away from adopting insurance systems, is due to their

reliance on the efficiency of their own internet protection programs. However, he emphasized that since the internet is becoming an integrated part of our lives, not only on a personal level but also on a much wider international scope, taking up such precautionary measures is a necessity as well. — KUNA

the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for economic affairs, Abdullah Al-Shebly, addressing the forum, underlined importance of economic and trade partnership between the six GCC countries and Turkey. He called for benefiting from Turkey’s expertise in backing development in the Gulf countries, and noted that Turkey is a giant consuming market specially oil, gas, petrochemicals and fertilizers.

Al-Shebly, speaking on behalf of his boss Abdullatif Al-Zayani, said the GCC could benefit from Turkish experience in agriculture, animal and water resource.

Trade exchange between Turkey and the GCC jumped to $20 billion in 2010 against $2 billion in 2000. — KUNA

Egyptian injured in fight

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A 36-year-old Egyptian had a head laceration during a fight in Hasawi area. He was taken to Farwaniya hospital.

Road accidents A 46-year-old Indian sustained various bruises when a car hit him on Mohammad Bin Al-Qassim Street under Sixth Ring Road bridge. He was taken to Farwaniya hospital. A 23-yearold Kuwaiti fractured his right thigh bone while a 12-year-old girl complained of pain in the back during a car accident near Mansouriya. They were taken to Amiri hospital. A 19-year-old Kuwaiti woman complained of back pain during a car accident behind Salwa co-op. She was taken to

Mubarak hospital. Two Kuwaitis in their 20s had head injuries and fractured legs during a car accident on Seventh Ring Road. They were taken to Adan hospital. A 49-year-old Jordanian sustained various bruises during a car accident on Istiqlal road. He was taken to Amiri hospital.

Journo vs journo A well known journalist filed a complaint against another journalist accusing him of slander during a program on Bahrain events. The body of an Asian was recovered by the coroner, with indications of an unnatural death.

A female citizen accused a man of behaving in an inappropriate manner with her. Shuwaikh customs foiled an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of fireworks and accessories from China.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

local

A new all-party group on Kuwait formed in Britain LONDON: A new all-party group on Kuwait was set up in the British Parliament yesterday, under the Chairmanship of Conservative MP, Conor Burns.

In an interview yesterday, Burns said “I am delighted and honored to become the Chairman of this group, which is aimed at fostering ties of friendship, trade and understanding between Britain and Kuwait”.

The MP paid warm tribute to the “great history of friendship and solidarity between our two countries, most tangibly shown in recent years when the UK was at the forefront of the alliance to help liberate Kuwait from the brutal and sadistic invasion by Saddam Hussain” in 1990.

Burns said that his “great friend Lady Thatcher, the former prime minister, who I still see very regularly, was at the forefront of forming that alliance”.

He said there should be greater ties today between the two countries, something that the all-party group would be able to focus on and foster.

Burns was full of praise for the Kuwait Ambassador to the UK, Khaled AlDuwaisan, who is also the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps here, saying he is “held in the highest possible esteem across all parties”.

“To be asked by him to play this role is both flattering and humbling”, Burns said. In answer to another question, he said that MPs from all political parties

have the opportunity to participate in this group, as a large number of them have an interest in Kuwait and indeed in the wider Gulf region.

Burns said that, in addition to this new role, he is also the Chairman of the Conservative Arab Network, which has an interest across the whole of the Gulf and the Middle East.

Burns pledged that the group will be “working quite hard to improve relations between Britain and Kuwait and to be able to welcome senior visitors from Kuwait here and give them the opportunity to meet parliamentarians both from the Houses of Commons and Lords.

The group will also work to promote the interests of Kuwait in Britain and vice versa, and to deepen the ties of friendship, trade, understanding and prosperity between both sides, he added.

In conclusion, Burns said he was looking forward to travelling to Kuwait soon.

For his part, Al-Duwaisan said that this new group is designed to further the historic links between Kuwait and the UK. In a brief statement, the ambassador showered praise on these ties, stressing that they go back for more than 200 years.

He revealed that a delegation of this all-party group is expected to visit Kuwait in the near future to meet members of the Kuwaiti leadership and parliamentarians, with a view to deepening cooperation between the two countries in various fields. —KUNA

KPC organizes workshop on energy alternatives planning K U WA I T: Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) organized here yesterday a workshop on a long-term energy alternatives planning system as part of its focus on the development of its programs to achieve the strategy aimed to produce four million barrels of oil per day, with the strengthening of its role in the environmental field.

KPC, in a press statement, said that the workshop was organized by the depar tment of I nternational Relations and inaugurated by M a n a gi n g D i re c to r o f R e s e a rc h , Development, Health, Safety and Environment Bader Al-K hashti in cooperation with the Environment

Public Authority (EPA) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) It added that a number of teams specialized in emissions and mitigation actions are taking part in the workshop, prompting the State of Kuwait to join the countries that use this program, a matter which promotes the Kuwait’s role in the environmental field at the global level.

It said this workshop complements a previous one that was held last July, stressing the need for the convening of such events as stemming from Kuwait’s commitment as a member of t he Fram ewor k Conven tion on Climate Change of the United Nations. —KUNA

KUWAIT: The Scientific Center recently held the screening of ‘Last Reef Cities Beneath the Sea’ documentary at its iMAX 3D theaters. During the event, CEO and Managing Director Mejbel Al-Mutawaa announced that the movie was released a week ahead of its planned worldwide release. The movie was shot in three years around shores of Cancun, Mexico, the Bahamas, Philippines and the United States. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Syrian attempts suicide over political tension KUWAIT: A Syrian woman was hospitalized in a critical condition following a suicide attempt. Investigations later revealed that the woman was upset over the tense political situation in her home country and overdosed on prescription medication. She was taken to Mubarak Hospital where she is currently recovering at the intensive care unit.

Fatal accident A motorcyclist was killed in Al-Mangaf after he was run over by a truck. Paramedics and police rushed to a street in the area after the accident was reported. The Asian motorcyclist was pronounced dead on the scene, while the truck’s Asian driver was taken in to custody. A case was filed for investigations.

Nurse hurt A nurse at the Psychiatric Hospital lost a finger during a quarrel with a female patient recently. The Pakistani victim was reportedly trying to calm the Kuwaiti patient down when she threw sharp objects at her. No details are mentioned in the news report about how the nurse’s finger was severed in the process. She was taken for an emergency surgery immediately after the incident, but surgeons failed to reattach the dismembered finger back on to the victim’s hand. After the nurse checked out of the hospital, she headed to the Shuwaikh police station and filed a case.

Policemen assaulted Four police officers were assaulted in two separate cases reported recently in Jahra. The first incident occurred at Jahra Hospital where two police officers engaged in a fight with a couple of security guards. The guards refused to allow the officers inside the surgery section to take the testimony of an Asian patient who took part in a fight earlier the same day. Police pressed several charges against the two guards. In the second incident, two traffic policemen were assaulted by two young men in Taima after the officers advanced to book one of them with a traffic ticket. Investigations are underway in the case filed as one of the young men reportedly pressed battery charges against the officers as well.

Bleaching disaster An infant is currently recovering at the intensive care unit of the Mubarak Hospital after accidently consuming cleaning bleach.

The one-year-old child’s mother reportedly called her husband when she found her baby unconscious and discovered he had consumed toxic substance. The child was rushed to the hospital where his condition stabilized later.

Beggars held Ahmadi officers arrested 15 women during a recent crackdown against beggars and roaming vendors around the governorate.

The detainees (13 Arab nationals, 1 Gulf

national and 1 bedoon) were found begging in market areas in Al-Fahaheel and AlMangaf. They were referred to the proper authorities.

KD 60,000 idea Search is currently ongoing for a man who disappeared after obtaining thousands of dinars from someone he fooled into believing he was interested in starting a joint project.

Rumaithiya police station officers were approached by a Kuwaiti man reporting a scam he became a victim of. He explained that the businessman disappeared after he paid him KD 60,000 to launch a joint business project. He gave police officers three contact numbers to follow up the case.

Family dispute Jahra police released a man shortly after he was arrested for physically assaulting his sister - after he signed an injunction that he won’t harm her again. Police rushed to a house in Taima where a 14-year-old girl reported being attacked by her brother who she said was going to kill her. When they arrived at the scene, the officers were confronted by the 20year-old man, who admitted that he did beat his sister during a family dispute and said she fled to her sister’s house in South Jahra. Police met with the injured teenager who decided not to press charges against her brother.

—Al-Rai, Al-Qabas, Al-Anba

Kuwaiti, Brazilian diplomats discuss UNSC membership WASHINGTON: Kuwaiti Ambassador to Brazil Yousif Ahmad Abdulsamad discussed with Director of the Middle East Depar tment at the Brazilian M inistr y of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Ceglia, here late Monday Kuwait’s nomination as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) for 2018-1019, to be voted on at the UN’s 72nd General Assembly, among a host of other issues.

The diplomats also discussed cooperation on issues of mutual interest and means to bolster bilateral cooperation, and Ceglia expressed his country’s interest in the nomination. He noted the good relations between the two

nations and said he would discuss support of said Kuwaiti nomination with the officials of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s concerned departments.

The officials also touched on Kuwait’s nomination for membership in the Economic and Social Council for 2013-2015, at the 67th UN General Assembly, a vote on which is set to take place in October.

The diplomats also touched on means to boost interaction and cooperation between the investors of the two countries with help of provision of investment protection and with the aim of establishing long-term partnerships. —KUNA

Kuwait, Indonesia keen to further relations: Al-Enizi KUALA LUMPUR: Kuwaiti Ambassador to Indonesia, Nasser Al-Enizi, met in Kuala Lumpur yesterday with Indonesian Minister of Economic Cooperation, Investment, and Trade, Gita Wiryawan, to discuss means to bolster bilateral relations.

Al-Enizi said that the meeting focused particularly on means to develop trade and economic relations between the two nations, affirming that Kuwait is ver y keen on boosting ties with Indonesia. He also revealed that Kuwait

and Indonesia were eager to develop non oil-based commercial exchange to reach the expectations of the two friendly nations.

Commercial exchange between Kuwait and Indonesia currently stands at $95 million. The Indonesian side stressed that the country was on a continued path of facilitating procedures for investors and incorporating regulatory changes that enhance the investment climate and facilitate the issuing of licenses, among other efforts. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Al-Shamiya Youth Club hosted a woodworking competition for club members, as part of annual activities organized by the Public Authority for Youth and Sports.

KUWAIT: A team from Police Academy graduates recently toured the police’s tracking division at the Ministry of Interior’s Central Department of Operations. The visit was held under the instructions of Assistant Undersecretary for Training Affairs, Lt Gen Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

Diplomats’ Day to be celebrated in Russia KUWAIT: On Feb 10 Russian diplomats mark their professional day - Diplomats’ Day, which was established by a Presidential Decree in 2002 to commemorate the founding of the Russian Diplomatic Service in 1549.

This date is closely associated with the history of Russia’s first foreign affairs agency - the Ambassadorial Department (or “Posolsky Prikaz” in Russian). On Feb 10, 1549 the Ambassadorial Department, established by Czar Ivan IV, was first mentioned in official chronicles.

The Ambassadorial Department successfully managed the Russian foreign policy throughout XVI-XVII centuries (with first permanent Russian diplomatic missions abroad opening in 1600s), when in 1718-1720 it was gradually transformed into the Collegium of Foreign affairs by Emperor Peter the Great. This marked the emergence of the Russian Empire and the establishment of Russia as a Great European power. The constellation of talented diplomats serving within the Collegium laid down the basic principles and methods of the Russian diplomacy.

Finally, in 1802, the modern form of foreign policy management - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was created by the manifesto of Emperor Alexander I. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in 1917-1946 - the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs) upheld state interests at every turning point of Russian and world history.

Russia’s diplomacy made crucial contributions

to the strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition during World War II and creation of the United Nations Organization, bolstered the UN authority in governing international relations, fought for peace and disarmament.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the foreign policy of Russia as a new democratic country became consistent and pragmatic and aimed at

Ambassador Alexander Kinshchak

formation of a lasting and stable multipolar system of international relations in the interest of all nations. Today the Russian Federation plays a significant role within the UN, G8, G20, APEC and other world and regional forums, promotes ties of friendship and cooperation with other states. To enhance its interaction with the States of the Islamic world, Russia will take advantage of its participation as an observer in the work of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the League of Arab States.

At the present time the Russian Federation has diplomatic relations with 178 countries and 140 Embassies abroad plus 12 representation offices in international organizations, 74 consulates general and 4 consulates. The main office of the Russian Foreign Ministry employs over 3,300 people.

A diplomat of our times is completely different from the one of the past centuries. Modern diplomacy has become diverse and dynamic. It requires a wider range of knowledge in various fields such as environmental issues, climate change, fighting terrorism and many others.

But the chief task remains the same - creating and protection security favorable external conditions for the national development. And the best fundamental traditions of the Russian diplomats are still going strong, and among them - high professional culture, profound knowledge of international relations, commitment to their own country and respect for the host countries.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Gunmen slay five in Libya refugee camp

Qatar holds reins of regional politics amid Arab turmoil Page 12

Page 8

DUBAI: A shopkeeper carries a mannequin as a woman walks into a shop at Dragon Mart in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Even as China rejects Western sanctions on its business partner Iran, it is forging deeper ties to Saudi Arabia and other US-allied Arab nations across the Gulf. — AP

US rains sanctions on Iran Tehran blasts US ‘psychological warfare’ TEHRAN: Iran yesterday denounced as “an antagonistic move” a tightening of US sanctions targeting Tehran’s central bank and giving US banks new powers to freeze Iranian government assets, and said it would have no impact. In further defiance of world pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program, parliamentarians said they would speed up passage of a bill to ban Iranian oil exports to the European Union well before an EU decision to bar Iranian crude would take effect.

The US sanctions step, in an executive order signed by President Barack Obama, was the latest measure against the Central Bank of Iran and was meant to close loopholes in existing sanctions Tehran has faced. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said such measures were doomed to fail.

“It’s psychological warfare which has no impact... There is nothing new, it has been going on for over 30 years,” Foreign Ministr y spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, referring to three decades of US-Iranian hostility. Tension with the West rose last month when Washington and the EU took direct aim at the ability of OPEC’s No 2 oil exporter to

sell crude to force Tehran to rein in its nuclear work, which the West suspects is meant to yield atom bombs. Iran said after the EU approved an oil embargo against Iran on Jan 23 that it would fight such sanctions with its own sanctions.

However, a parliamentary debate set for Jan 30 on a proposed halt to crude sales to the EU was postponed. But Obama’s move provoked Iranian parliamentarians, who said yesterday the assembly was ready to speed up passage of a bill to oblige the government to ban oil exports to some EU states - turning the tables on the EU which is to phase in its embargo on Iranian oil by July.

“In retaliation for the Zionist (Israel)backed measure of the European countries to ban Iran oil, we are ready to impose a ban on oil expor ts to some European countries,” lawmaker Mohammad Javad Karimi-Qoddusi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency. “ The draft bill has been almost finalized. It will oblige the government to immediately cut oil exports to the EU. The bill also will ban import of any goods from the EU,” lawmaker Par viz

Sarvari told Fars, adding that the majority of MPs backed the urgent legislation bill.

No date for a vote on the measure was given. Mehmanparast said the clerical establishment had no intention to change its nuclear course despite the mounting international pressure. Iran says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity and not to develop weapons. “Sanctions will not have any impact on our nuclear course and they (the West) will not achieve their aims,” Mehmanparast said.

“Our history has shown that sanctions, which are totally illogical, have accelerated our nation’s progress.”

In a letter to Congress, Obama said Iranian banks were hiding transactions to undercut the financial sanctions the United States and other powers have imposed in response to Iran’s nuclear energy program. Previously, US banks were required to reject, rather than block and freeze, Iranian transactions. Obama’s executive order requires American institutions to seize Iranian state assets they encounter instead of just turning them back. The total value of Iranian assets that would be affected by the new ban was not

clear, but Mehmanparast said “Iran does not have any financial transactions” with the United States. Washington and its allies have been cranking up pressure on Iran to cut off the government’s access to capital and oil revenues with the goal of pushing Tehran back into negotiations to resolve the nuclear stand-off through diplomacy.

Mehmanparast said Iran would soon send a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton about a resumption of talks with major powers. “Iran has always welcomed fruitful and constructive talks ...

But we have always said that our (nuclear) rights are not negotiable,” Mehmanparast said. The last talks in January 2010 failed because of Iran’s refusal to halt its sensitive uranium enrichment work , as demanded by the UN Security Council and six world powers. Washington and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve Iran’s nuclear row. I ran has warned of a “painful ” answer, saying it would hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf as well as block the vital Gulf oil shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz.—Reuters

Millions pushed into child labor Rising poverty forces more Pakistani children to work ISLAMABAD: Tears tracing lines of dirt on his face, six-year-old Pakistani boy Nabeel Mukhtar cries while crouching on a pavement to scrub motorbikes, his job for nine hours a day, six days a week. He is one of millions of children driven into labor by poverty in a country where the unpopular government is seen as too corrupt and ineffective to care for its citizens, even the young and helpless. “I want to study and become a doctor but we don’t have any money,” said Mukhtar, who helps his family make ends meet. Rising food and fuel prices and a struggling economy have forced many families to send their children to search for work instead of to the classroom. Frequent political crises in US ally Pakistan means the South Asian nation’s leaders are unlikely to end child labor, or a host of other problems from a Taleban insurgency to power cuts, any time soon.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to send my son to school but we have so many expenses ... We struggle to put food on our table”, said Mukhtar’s mother, Shazia, who also has a four-year-old son and a two-yearold daughter. Her husband, Mohammed, a street barber, earns only 7,500 rupees ($83) a month, not enough to support the family.

“He’s learning to work and he also earns around 300-400 rupees. So what’s wrong in that. We are poor,” Mohammed said of the

boy. Pakistan needs to take immediate measures to stabilize growing budget pressures and to raise interest rates to contain rising inflation, the International Monetary Fund warned on Monday.

Economic pressures are forcing young Pakistanis, like teenager Noor Shah and his three brothers, to leave home in search of work. They now live in a tiny room above a grimy tea shop where they toil all day in Pakistan’s biggest city and commercial hub of Karachi. “I have so many dishes to wash.

When I get tired the men ser ving tea become very angry with me. They swear and shout,” said Shah, who is from the underdeveloped Baluchistan province. Others, like 11-year-old laborer Kashif, are subjected to harsher treatment. “If he makes a mistake I’ll hit him,” said his 19-year-old supervisor, Tanveer Shehzad, who said he had endured the same hardship as a child laborer. Up to 10 million children are estimated to be working in Pakistan, says Mannan Rana, child and adolescent protection specialist at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The latest government figures, showing three million child laborers, date back to 1996, underscoring how scant attention has been paid to documenting the problem, which is likely to get worse given the makeup of the fast-growing population. The plight of child laborers in Pakistan came under internation-

KARACHI: A Pakistani child sorts prawns at a factory in Karachi. — AFP al scrutiny when it was discovered that children were hand-stitching soccer balls in the town of Sialkot.

Foreign sports equipment companies are wary of any hint of association with child exploitation. One stopped orders in 2006 from a Pakistan-based supplier of handstitched soccer balls, saying the factory had failed to correct labor compliance violations.

But the outcry hasn’t helped much. “The problem is that the whole industry has moved into private homes, which has made it a bit difficult to monitor if child labor is being used,” said Hussain Naqi, the national co-ordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “This is not just an issue in Sialkot, child labor is occurring all across Pakistan in very dangerous sectors like glass bangle manufacturing, cleaning of oil tankers, poultry farms, motor workshops, brick kilns and small hotels.”

On Monday, the collapse of a three-storey factory in the city of Lahore after a gas explosion highlighted dangers faced by child laborers. “I was inside the building when the blast happened. Two other boys were with me and they started running,” said eight-year-old Asad, a laborer in the veterinary product facility. “I don’t know where they went or if they are alive.” His sobbing mother said crushing poverty had left her no choice but to send her son to work in such conditions. Pakistan spends less than 2 percent of its gross domestic product on education, which translates into a lack of skills amongst the younger population, pushing them onto the street in search of work.

By comparison, just over 17 percent of 2011-12 state spending went to defense, though some experts put the figure at 26 percent. — Reuters

News

in brief

Iran jails blogger PARIS: A dissident Iranian blogger who is the son of a prominent conservative cleric has been ordered flogged and jailed for 14 years by a Tehran court, media rights group Reporters Without Borders said yesterday. The revolutionary court delivered the sentence against Mehdi Khazali, editor of a blog called Baran, on Monday, the group said. Khazali was also banned for 10 years from travelling outside of the southwestern city of Borazjan, it added. Reporters Without Borders said Khazali was arrested on January 9 - his third arrest in the past two years. A doctor and veteran of the 1980-1988 Iraq war, Khazali is the son of Ayatollah Abolqasem Khazali, a long-time member of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body tasked with appointing and overseeing the work of Iran’s supreme leader. Ayatollah Khazali has disavowed his son’s critical commentaries of the regime, which notably took Tehran to task for its policies and human rights violations. Khazali frequently poked fun at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies on his widely read blog, which has been hacked and is no longer accessible, Reporters Without Borders said. He was arrested in 2009 as part of the government’s crackdown on the mass street protests that followed the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad.

Turkey plans new initiative for Syria ANKARA: Turkey is preparing a new initiative with those countries who oppose the Syrian government, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday, describing a veto by China and Russia of a UN resolution on Syria a “fiasco”. “We are going to start a new initiative with those countries that stand by the people, not the Syrian government. We are preparing this,” Erdogan told a meeting of his ruling AK Party in Ankara, giving no further details on the initiative. “The process that occurred at the United Nations in relation to Syria is a fiasco for the civilized world,” he said. On Saturday, China and Russia vetoed an Arab-backed UN resolution on Syria, the only members of the 15-member UN Security Council to vote against it, prompting widespread condemnation from Western and Arab nations. Without naming any particular country, Erdogan said the vetoes gave a “green light” to the Syrian government to continue its crackdown on anti-government protesters. “The UN Security Council has once again held captive the conscience of the international community.

Possessing the power to veto is a great responsibility. Using this power gives a green light for the persecution to continue,” Erdogan said.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

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

Gunmen slay five in Libya refugee camp Black Libyans face persecution

WEST BANK: A Palestinian man carries a slab of stone as he walks past graffiti scrawled on the wall at a mason’s yard that reads in Hebrew, “Death to Arabs” yesterday, in the village of Al-Lobban Al-Sharqiyeh. —AFP

Jerusalem graffiti targets Palestinians, christians JERUSALEM: Vandals scrawled antiArab and anti-christian slogans on a monastery and a school in Jerusalem overnight, Israeli police said yesterday.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said unknown people sprayed graffiti reading “death to Christians” and “price tag” on the walls of the Greek Orthodox M onaster y of the Cross in west Jerusalem overnight. “Price tag” is the name generally given to attacks carried out against Arabs and Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government action against settlements in the West Bank.

There has been a spate of such attacks in the last year, targeting cars, schools, homes and mosques in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Arab villages in Israel. In a second incident overnight, vandales targeted a school that teaches Arab and Jewish children in both Arabic and Hebrew, the only institution of its kind in Jerusalem,

police said. They spray painted “Kahane was right, death to Arabs” on the wall of the school, which is in the Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa.

“Kahane” is a reference to Meir Kahane, the founder of an extremist anti-Arab Jewish movement called Kach, which is officially outlawed in Israel.

Kahane was assassinated in 1990, but his ideology continues to find favour among some of Israel’s most extreme right-wing settlers. Rosenfeld said an investigation into the incid e n t s h a d b e e n o p e n e d. Th e Palestinians accused Israel of failing to p u r s u e t h o s e b e h i n d “p r i ce t a g” attacks, saying that only individuals accused of targeting Israeli military facilities in such attacks have been charged. Israel says it pursues those cases where evidence is available and notes that its political leaders have condemned the attacks, particularly against mosques.— AFP

Sunni-backed ministers return to Iraq’s Cabinet BAGHDAD: M i n i s te rs fro m I raq’s Sunni-backed bloc ended their boycott of the Cabinet yesterday, a move that could restore some stability to the war-ravaged nation that has been mired in a security and political crisis since the US completed its military withdrawal from the country. The government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki set off the political crisis in December by issuing an arrest warrant against the country’s top Sunni official, Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, charging him with running death squads. Leaders of Al-Hashemi’s Sunnibacked Iraqiya bloc accused the prime minister of sectarian bias and of trying to push the bloc out of the government to consolidate his own grip on power.

In protest, Iraqiya launched a boycott of the parliament and Cabinet sessions that brought government work to a standstill. But seeking to defuse the crisis, Iraqiya lawmakers last week ended the boycott of the parliament amid Shiite rivals’ accusations that their absence was fueling instability and depriving the bloc’s supporters from the Sunni minority of participating in important decisions, such as the nation’s $100 billion budget that parliament has yet to approve. And yesterday, Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun Al-Damlouji said Sunni-backed bloc’s ministers attended a session of AlMaliki’s Cabinet. She said the decision is Iraqiya’s “second good will gesture” in efforts to ease sectarian tensions.

G ove r n m e n t s p o k e s m a n A l i A l Dabbagh confirmed Iraqiya ministers’ presence at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. Al-Hashemi has denied the charges against him. He escaped to the autonomous Kurdish area, out of reach of authorities in Baghdad. He

refuses to return to the capital for trial, saying he does n ot feel safe in Baghdad and is unlikely to receive a fair trial. He and other Sunni officials allege the judiciary is not independent of Al-Maliki’s government. On Monday, I raqiya parliamentarian Haidar AlMulla said he was informed that prosecutors were seeking to charge him for insulting the countr y ’s judiciar y by publicly questioning its independence.

Al-Mulla, who is a Shiite member of the overwhelmingly Sunni Iraqiya, said the efforts to strip him of parliamentary immunity to clear the way for his prosecution are part of a “vicious campaign against Iraqiya” that underlines the authorities’ resolve to squelch any criticism of Al-Maliki’s five-year rule.

The sectarian-based politician battles have been accompanied with a surge in attacks since the American soldiers left in December. More than 200 people were killed last month, raising fears of a reprise of a conflict five years ago that was close to all-out civil war. Iraq’s Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for most bombings last month, including the two deadliest attacks on Shiites since the US troops left.

A statement by Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq on Monday said “Sunni heroes of heroes” infiltrated Shiite processions with explosive vests, killing scores of “nonbelievers and Iranian agents” during Arbaeen commemorations, the most sacred times for Shiite Muslims. The bloodiest of the Arbaeen attacks that Al-Qaeda claimed responsibilit y for was the Jan 5 wave of apparently coordinated bombings in Baghdad and outside the southern city of Nasiriyah that killed 78 people. The second came nine days later in a blast near the southern city of Basra. At least 53 pilgrims were killed.—AP

TRIPOLI: Gunmen k illed five Libyan refugees at their camp in a Tripoli suburb yesterday, residents and hospital sources said, underscoring the volatility in the country months after Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow. Residents of the camp, black Libyans originally from the town of Tawergha, say they are being persecuted over accusations they collaborated with Gaddafi during the country’s revolution. Many say they are also regularly mistaken for sub-Saharan African mercenaries who revolutionary fighters said fought for Gaddafi in the war.

The attackers came to the gate of the makeshift settlement in a disused naval academy in Janzour saying they wanted to arrest young men, and opened fire as people gathered to protest, said residents. “Men from Misrata came to the camp at 10 o’clock. We knew they were from Misrata because it was written all over their cars,” camp resident Huda Bel-Eid said at Tripoli Medical Hospital. “Around 15 of them started shooting us. All the women escaped but the young men stayed. My brother was there and I went to help him because he was shot in the head and neck, then they shot me (in the leg),” she added.

Gaddafi’s forces used Tawergha as a base to besiege and shell the coastal city of Misrata during last year’s civil war. Its residents say they were held hostage by Gaddafi’s men and did not collaborate. Hospital staff said five people were killed

and two injured in the violence.

Officials from Misrata military council denied involvement.

“There is no way Misratans were involved,” Fathi Bashaga, a member of Misrata military council, said. Officials from the defense and interior ministries were not available for comment on Monday.

At the morgue at Tripoli Medical Hospital, an elderly man and woman lay dead. Both were identified by Tawergha family members and had gunshots to the chest. A resident in Janzour, who gave his name as Abdulrahman, said five people were killed. “We found two bodies of black people who had been shot on the beach. We told the police, and they have taken them now,” he said. Abdelhafid Suleiman, head of the military council of Janzour, said a group from the Tawergha camp later took to the streets to protest against the deaths. He said more violence erupted when Janzour fighters, who were on the streets to maintain security, tried to take k nives and sticks off the Tawergha refugees.

Once inhabited by almost 30,000 people, Tawergha is now a ghost town. Human Rights Watch has said Misrata rebels have looted and destroyed homes in Tawergha as well as the neighboring farming villages of K ararim and Tomina, and revenge attacks against the refugees and arbitrary arrests continue.

In addition to addressing the refugee issue, Libya’s ruling National

MISRATA: Libyan prisoner Ibrahim Sadeq Khalifa poses for a picture in prison in Misrata. — AFP Transitional Council (NTC) must quell regular clashes between rival militias, bring down youth unemployment and secure its

borders against arms traffickers, Al-Qaeda insurgents and migrants trying to reach Europe illegally. — Reuters

Philippine rescuers hunt for earthquake survivors GUIHULNGAN: Rescuers in the Philippines dug through rubble with their bare hands yesterday in a frantic search for survivors, a day after a powerful earthquake killed dozens of people. The 6.7magnitude quake hit a narrow strait between the heavily populated islands of Negros and Cebu around lunchtime Monday, triggering devastating landslides, tearing down homes and destroying roads vital to relief efforts. At least 48 people died and another 92 were missing, regional military commander Colonel Francisco Patrimonio said on Tuesday afternoon, and local government leaders warned the death toll was likely to rise.

“We are praying and hoping that we will get some survivors, but it’s likely that many of those missing in the landslides have died already,” Roel Degamo, the governor of Negros Oriental, the worst-hit province said. Dozens of people were confirmed dead in Guihulngan, a coastal city flanked by mountains with a population of 100,000, where the public market, court house and many private homes were destroyed or badly damaged. After the tremor brought down bridges and left deep fissures on asphalt roads, the area was only accessible by motorbike, foot or helicopter, and overwhelmed local police had few resources to search for survivors.

“We are using our hands and shovels to search in the rubble,” Guihulngan police chief Senior Inspector Alvin Futalan said.

Provincial governor Degamo said troops finally managed to reach the city and other remote communities on foot, more than 24 hours after the disaster. President Benigno Aquino ordered the air force to deploy helicopters to Guihulngan, as well as the Navy

LA LIBERTAD: Rescuers retrieve the dead body of a 21-year-old woman from a mountain slope after it collapsed at the height of the earthquake in the village of Solonggon, La Libertad town, Negros Oriental yesterday. — AFP and Coast Guard to transport relief supplies by sea, according to his spokeswoman, Abigail Valte. An AFP correspondent who reached Guihulngan by motorcycle said survivors were huddled in makeshift tents and refused to go indoors due to a series of terrifying aftershocks.

State seismologists said more than 700 aftershocks, some nearly as strong as the initial quake, had battered Negros, and warned residents to expect many more over the next few weeks.

Guihulngan mayor Ernesto Reyes said patients at the city’s main hospital were rushed out of the

building after a strong aftershock sent the walls rattling and split open a tennis court yesterday. He described a sense of despair and fear throughout the city. “Our water system is broken, there is not enough food, people are in panic and there is no electricity,” he said. Aside from the carnage in Guihulngan, regional commander Patrimonio said rescue efforts were focused on the nearby town of La Libertad where up to 40 people were feared buried in houses.

In Manila, the national government’s disaster office said its death toll was 15, with 71 miss-

ing, but acknowledged it had not yet been able to verify reports from local authorities as to the extent of the damage. Cebu, the Philippines’ second biggest city with 2.3 million residents and a popular tourist destination, was 50 kilometers from the epicentre and shook violently during the initial tremor but no deaths were reported there. The Philippines sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”-a belt around the Pacific Ocean where friction between shifting tectonic plates causes frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.— AFP

KRouge jailer’s life term ‘bad example’ PHNOM PENH: A life term handed to a feared Khmer Rouge jailer has elated Cambodians, but observers say the historic verdict violates the torture chief’s human rights and serves public opinion rather than justice. Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, who oversaw the deaths of some 15,000 people at S-21 prison in the late 1970s, had his punishment increased on appeal by Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal from 30 years to a full life term for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The long-awaited ruling last Friday, which dismissed Duch’s appeal against his conviction, was hailed by survivors of the brutal regime, with Bou Meng, 71, one of the

few to walk out of S-21 alive, calling it “perfect justice”. Legal experts and human rights campaigners however voiced dismay at the judges’ decision not to give Duch a reduction for the time he spent in illegal detention before the court was established. “I think there could be a perception that public opinion has trumped human rights,” said Rupert Abbott, Cambodia researcher for Amnesty International.

“We understand this life term has been welcomed

by Cambodians,” he said. “But we think it’s important that the human rights of Duch aren’t completely forgotten.” Duch, the first cadre to face the court, has been held in detention since he was

found working as a Christian aid worker in the Cambodian jungle in 1999 and held unlawfully until his formal arrest by the tribunal in July 2007.

No legal process was started during these years and no substantial investigation was carried out, leaving Duch to languish in jail while Cambodia figured out what to do with him. In acknowledgement of this the original verdict reduced the 69-year-old’s sentence by five years. Prosecutors had suggested a similar gesture on appeal, calling for a life term commuted to 45 years. In the end, the court’s highest body went even further in what Ou Virak, head of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said

“sets a very bad precedent” in Cambodia, where arbitrary pre-trial detention is routine.

As a Khmer Rouge survivor whose father was executed under the regime, he admitted the verdict left him with mixed emotions. “From a personal point of view I’m pretty happy to see a life term. But on a professional level, looking at the human rights aspect and the legacy of this tribunal, I’m reluctant to congratulate the decision. “It’s a violation of his human rights, however heinous the crimes may be.”

Appeal judges also gave no weight to Duch’s cooperation during his trial, when he repeatedly admitted responsibility.—AFP

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

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

Europe sends in ice-breakers to battle big chill BELGRADE: Authorities used everything from ice-breaking explosives to tractors yesterday to overcome Europe’s big freeze, as dozens more died of hypothermia and tens of thousands remained cut off by snow. A total of 389 people are now known to have died from the cold weather in Europe since the cold snap began 11 days ago and forecasters are warning there will be no early let-up to some of the lowest temperatures seen in decades. While there was some respite for people living in Ukraine-where more than 130 deaths have been recorded-the mercury plunged overnight to minus 39.4 degrees Celsius in the Kvilda region of the Czech Republic.

More bodies were found either on the streets, in their cars or in their homes in Germany, Italy, Poland and across the Balkans. Authorities in Serbia said that 70,000 people were trapped in snow-bound villages in the south as they declared an “emergency situation”. The order, which is one step down from a state of emergency, allows the government to order private companies to help in the snow clean-up with machines and people.

Predrag Maric, the head of Serbia’s emergency services, told B92 radio that the most critical situation was

now on the Danube and Ibar rivers were a thick ice layer is forming.

“Experts from the army will see if the ice cap (on the Ibar) can be broken with explosives in a way that is safe for people and the environment,” he said, adding that the government is calling in icebreakers to clear the Danube.

Large parts of eastern and southern Bosnia have also been cut off by the snow and avalanches.

There has been no contact since Friday with the hamlet of Zijemlje, some 30 kilometers from the town of Mostar. “We don’t know what is going on there. They have not had electricity since Friday and phone lines are cut, they have no running water,” Radovan Palavestra, the mayor of Mostar said.

“There are elderly people who are very fragile and children including a baby of two months, in total between 130 and 150 people,” Palavestra added. A helicopter which should have flown in aid to Zijemlje was unable to take off yesterday morning because of heavy snowfall, the authorities said.

In Romania, two heavily pregnant women had to be flown out by helicopter in the eastern area of Iasi after their villages were completely cut off by the snow. Another pregnant woman had to be ferried to hospital by tractor in the eastern Paltinis area

Teacher pays the price for exposing Putin rally sham YERSHOVO: A Russian headmistress lost her job because she revealed that her colleagues came under heavy pressure to attend a Moscow rally backing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presidential bid, she said. The allegations by the teacher at a school in Zelenograd outside Moscow add to concerns about the methods used by the authorities to ensure that the turnout at Saturday’s rally matched or exceeded a similar mass protest by anti-Putin movement on the same day. Elena Travina, 35, said she lost her job after being accused by regional officials of exposing an order by the local education committee that her school send eight teachers to the pro-Putin demonstration.

The regional education committee of Zelenograd declined to comment on her accusation. The rival pro-Putin and antiPutin rallies in Moscow both attracted tens of thousands of people ahead of the March 4 elections that the Russian prime minister is expected to win. “On January 30, along with dozens of my colleaguesthe heads of public schools in Zelenograd-I found out that every institution was expected to send eight people to the pro-Putin demonstration on February 4,” said Travina. “We were told by the regional education committee ‘if you cannot go to the demonstration, then warn us first’.”

“This well-organized operation outraged me because I wanted to take part in the opposition demonstration which was taking place on the same day in Moscow,” she said at her home village of Yershovo near the town of Zvenigorod outside Moscow. She found three Putin

supporters among the staff who were prepared to attend the pro-government demonstration in Moscow. But her problems started two days before the demonstration when one of her teachers went to a reception at Moscow city hall and was asked by a curious official if teachers had been put under any pressure over the demonstration. She replied that, yes, it was the case in her school. Travina said that the city hall rapidly got in touch with the local education committee over the matter. “I was accused of being the source of an information leak and my resignation was demanded.” A day later, Travina tendered her resignation without waiting to be sacked, as this would have left a black mark in her work register book that Russians are still required to carry. After she quit, she attended the February 4 opposition rally. “I was sacked because I did not demonstrate for Putin,” read her hand-made banner.

“In this system, everybody knows what is going on, but they don’t say anything.

People are aware, they are not stupid, but they are also very scared,” Travina said.

“These days they don’t want professional workers. All they want is obedient employees.” She said she worried how she would earn a living after taking such a tough stance. “When I got fired, I thought: ‘thank God I’m not in jail, but only fired from my job’. But now, I’m unemployed, and I have three kids to look after.” Over 200 state employees have now lodged complaints with Russia’s public chamber, a consultative body that advises the Kremlin, that they were obliged by their employers to attend the pro-Putin demonstration. — AFP

MOSCOW: Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin addresses his election campaign confidants during their meeting in the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow yesterday. — AFP

Ohio man pleads guilty to supporting Shabaab MINNEAPOLIS: An Ohio man pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Minnesota to US charges of helping raise money for Al-Shabaab rebels in Somalia, prosecutors said. Ahmed Hussein Mahamud, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a group designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.

He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced at a later date.

Mahamud, a US citizen who was indicted in June 2011, admitted to telling people in the Somali-American community in Minnesota the money would support a local Mosque or orphans but using it instead to help send men to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab, according to a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

Mahamud and others raised up to $1,500 in the effort, using some of the money on airline tickets or other expenses, according to the plea deal. In other

instances, Mahamud admitted to wiring $50 to a man in Somalia who was buying a firearm, $50 for other expenses to a second man and assisting someone in sending $100 to Somalia for a weapons purchase to support the organization, according to the plea agreement.

Mahamud, a Westerville, Ohio, resident who formerly lived in Minnesota, admitted to providing the support from 2008 through February of 2011. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali-American population in the United States.

Since September 2007, about 20 men have left Minneapolis for Somalia to join Al-Shabaab. Eighteen people have been charged in federal court in Minnesota so far in the investigation. Eight have been arrested and seven have pleaded guilty.

At least two of the men who have been charged in the Minnesota investigation are believed to have been killed in Somalia. — Reuters

after her ambulance became stuck in the snow. Schools were shut in large parts of the country, including Bucharest, while many train services were cancelled. Around 40 percent of roads were also closed, although flights did resume from Bucharest airport. Snowstorms lashed Bulgaria, a day after eight people drowned in rag-

ing rivers and the icy waters from a broken dam that submerged a whole village to the southeast.

The numbers killed by hypothermia in Poland now stands at 68 after the authorities there recorded another six deaths in the last 24 hours. The majority of those who have died were homeless, many of whom had been drinking

THURINGIA, GERMANY: A car drives through the snowy landscape on the Grosser Inselberg Mountain (916 meters) near Tabarz, eastern Germany.

The deadly cold snap that has gripped Europe for more than a week wrought more havoc across the continent, straining emergency services, grounding flights and pushing the death toll past 390. — AFP

heavily. The cold snap has also seen a sharp rise in the number of people being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty gas heaters. Polish police said there had been 22 victims of poisoning in the last 24 hours, two of whom died. According to the state weather forecaster in Ukraine, temperatures there were expected to range between minus six to minus 18 Celsius yesterday. But the respite will be shortlived with temperatures expected to plunge to minus 30 Celsius by the weekend.

And it was a similar message from Britain where forecasters said the cold spell could last for two more weeks.

Experts said temperatures could fall as low as minus 10 Celsius degrees in some parts of England overnight, promising more trouble on the roads and trains after heavy snow over the weekend.

And French authorities warned, that with around a third of the country still facing temperatures low enough to trigger weather warnings, electricity use could hit a record high later.

Generator firm EDF appealed to households to save power where possible. In previous bad winters the western region of Brittany and the Cote d’Azur in the south have been hit with powercuts. — AFP

Colombian former militia chief nabbed in Venezuela Capture strengthens Venezuela-Colombia ties BOGOTA: One of Colombia’s most-wanted former paramilitary commanders with suspected links to the cocaine trade has been captured in neighboring Venezuela, both nations said on Monday. After years of acrimony, improved relations between Caracas and Bogota since Juan Manuel Santos came to power in Colombia in 2010 have led to the capture of a growing number of fugitive Colombians by Venezuela.

Hector German Buitrago - better known by his alias “Martin Llanos” and a former commander of one of Colombia’s largest paramilitary groups - was arrested over the weekend along with his brother. “Martin Llanos played the leading role in one of the bloodiest wars in the Llanos Orientales and left hundreds, I’d say thousands, of victims,” Santos said. “He made deals with FARC (leftist guerrillas) to divvy up the drug business, a business that in the last few years has extended to many countries, from Venezuela to Bolivia.”

The 44-year-old was wanted for multiple counts of murder, terrorism, kidnapping and extortion. Santos said Venezuela would hand over Llanos along with his brother, alias “Horse,” to Colombia on Thursday, a day before a meeting between the nations’ defense chiefs. Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Tareck El Aissami, said the pair were caught in the central state of Anzoategui, but gave few

details of the operation. “They are implicated in multiple homicides and a network of important narco-paramilitarism,” he said.

Caracas broke off relations with Bogota in 2010 after Colombia’s then president, Alvaro Uribe, accused Venezuela of harboring FARC guerrillas, but ties immediately improved when Santos came to power later that year.

Increased security cooperation has led to the capture of senior Colombian FARC rebels and the leader of the criminal gang, the Paisas, in Venezuela over the last year. Many former Colombian paramilitary commanders and troops have formed or joined criminal gangs heavily involved in the cocaine trade since a demobilization process in the 2000s.

The new criminal gangs, known by the Spanish acronym “Bacrim,” include ex-members of traditional cartels that were smashed in the 1990s. Colombia’s major illegal armed groups are all involved in the drug trade and fight over transit routes and production sites in some regions while making deals in others.

Venezuela is a key route for drugs leaving Colombia for the United States and Europe, analysts say. While security in Colombia has improved drastically since a 2002 US-backed crackdown, experts and the government say new criminal gangs could become more of a threat than leftist guerrillas, which still stage sporadic attacks. — Reuters

Shocking pictures open detective’s murder trial LOS ANGELES: Shocking death pictures of a murdered woman were shown to jurors in the trial of former police detective Stephanie Lazarus huge close-up portraits of the battered face of Sherri Rasmussen, who died 26 years ago. One eye was swollen shut; the other wide open. Rasmussen’s mouth was agape, her hands held up as if in a defensive posture. Prosecutors suggested that this mayhem was inflicted by Lazarus in a fit of rage after her lover married this woman instead of her.

Another photo of Rasmussen ethereal in a wedding gown, holding a bouquet of flowers provides the motive prosecutors allege. “Sherri Rasmussen was wearing the gown that Stephanie Lazarus believed was hers,” Deputy District Attorney Shannon Presby said Monday in his opening statement to jurors. But a lawyer for the onetime top cop said she is being wrongly accused in a case so old that some of the witnesses are having trouble remembering it. And he said much of the DNA evidence has deteriorated over time.

Retired Los Angeles police officer Rodney W Forrest testified about going to Rasmussen’s town house when the killing was first reported. But after he gave details including a description of her distraught husband, defense attorney Mark Overland asked if Forrest had told prosecutors last year that he remembers nothing of the case. “Yes,” said Forrest who acknowledged that he asked to see his notes from a quarter century ago. “Did you remember then?” asked Overland. “I remembered what was on the report and a few other things,” he said.

Presby told jurors it was understandable that memories have faded.

Ronald Reagan was President and Bill Cosby was the biggest star on TV in 1986 when Rasmussen was found bludgeoned and shot to death. DNA analysis had not yet been discovered.

Lazarus, 51, sat impassively taking

notes as lawyers outlined the cases against and for her. They portrayed her as either a heartbroken, jilted lover driven to kill her romantic rival or an innocent woman snared in a web of mishandled scientific evidence.

In the courtroom audience sat Rasmussen’s relatives including parents and her sister, Teresa Lane, who testified about the loving relationship between Rasmussen and her new husband, John Ruetten. “They were walking holding hands like a happy couple,” she said of a visit the day before Rasmussen died. Outside court, the Rasmussen family lawyer, John Taylor, said they would be there every day even though “It’s tough” for them to view the evidence. “It took 26 years to get here finally. The family is pleased to get the trial going,” he said. Both sides said the proof of the cold case, would be in the forensic evidence. “A bite, a bullet, a gun barrel and a broken heart.

That’s the evidence that will prove the defendant Stephanie Lazarus murdered Sherri Rasmussen,” Presby declared in the crowded courtroom.

He said a bite on Rasmussen’s arm contained saliva that was matched to Lazarus’ DNA more than two decades after the killing. Lazarus’ lawyer, Overland, said the DNA material was corrupted over the decades, and a forensic dentist would testify that the bite mark does not match an impression taken of Lazarus’ teeth. Presby acknowledged the gun used in the killing wasn’t found but said the bullets came from the same type of weapon that was sold to Lazarus at the Los Angeles Police Department gun shop when she became an officer. Overland suggested police were correct when they initially suspected Rasmussen had been killed by burglars.

Presby told an age old story of love gone wrong. He said Lazarus was obsessed with her former boyfriend, John Ruetten, who did not return her feelings. — AP

Hector German Buitrago

Malian refugees in Niger await food and water aid CHINEGODAR: The thousands who fled the ongoing Tuareg rebellion in Mali to seek refuge in western Niger are suffering from a severe food-and-water shortage, local officials and aid providers say. “We must fear a humanitarian catastrophe, if nothing is done,” Boureima Issaka of the Niger-based aid group Timidria said in Chinegodar, a small village that has seen an influx of some 6,000 refugees in less than a month. They have sought shelter from a conflict in Mali between government troops and armed rebels that has caused dozens of casualties on either side. The combat began on January 17, when the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) launched an attack in northern Mali-the largest offensive by Tuareg rebels since 2009 - sparking clashes with the army.

Malian civilians have since fled to neighboring west African countries Mauritania and Burkina Faso, as well as Niger, which has struggled with its own Tuareg rebellions in the past. Western Niger’s small village of Chinegodar, 10 kilometers from the border, has grappled with a food crisis following a country-wide drought and the influx of refugees has further stretched resources. “We shared with them what little food we had, there is nothing left to eat,” Chinegodar village chief Abdoulaye Mohamed said.

The village, which normally numbers 1,600 residents, has also seen its only well dry up, prompting a severe water shortage, according to the village chief. Children are among those suffering from malnutrition and dehydration in the refugee camp. “These children are terribly hungry; we can hear their crying every night,” said Balki, a Chinegodar resident who is sheltering 10 of the refugees in her modest home.

According to officials and aid groups, about 10,000 people fleeing the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali and reprisal attacks in Bamako have crossed into Niger, more than 4,500 into Mauritania and 1,500 into Burkina Faso.

General conditions in the Niger refugee camp are also poor, according to Boureima Issaka, the aid worker. “The majority of people no longer bathe; they sleep under the stars at the mercy of wind, cold nights, scorpions and snakes,” Issaka said. Shelters made of blankets and cloth protect the refugees from the hot sun and cold nights, but the situation remains bleak.

A United Nations mission visited the village last week and found conditions to be extremely difficult and the hygiene deplorable, prompting fear of a cholera epidemic. The crisis is compounded by the fact that the Malian region of Menaka-one of the main flashpoints in the latest fighting-was the principal source of essential commodities for Chinegodar. — AFP

11

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

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

Marines ‘assault’ US beaches in amphibious drill CAMP LEJEUNE: With beach landings, 25 naval ships and an air assault, the United States and eight other countries are staging a major amphibious exercise on the US East Coast this week, fighting a fictional enemy that bears more than a passing resemblance to Iran. After a decade dominated by ground wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the drill dubbed Bold Alligator is “the largest amphibious exercise conducted by the fleet in the last 10 years,” said Admiral John Harvey, head of US Fleet Forces Command. About 20,000 US forces, plus hundreds of British, Dutch and French troops as well as liaison officers from Italy, Spain, New Zealand and Australia are taking part in the exercise along the Atlantic coast off Virginia and North Carolina. An American aircraft carrier, amphibious

assault ships including France’s Mistral, Canadian mine sweepers and dozens of aircraft have been deployed for the drill, which began on January 30 and runs through midFebruary. Monday was “D-day” for Bold Alligator, with US Marines stepping on to the beach from hovercraft, near the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina.

The American military, mindful that Marines have spent most of their time in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan since 2001, said the goal was “to revitalize, refine, and strengthen fundamental amphibious capabilities and reinforce the Navy and Marine Corps role as ‘fighters from the sea.’” With defense spending coming under pressure after years of unlimited growth, the Marines-which devoted a brigade to the exercise-also are anxious to pro-

tect funding for their traditional role as an amphibious force.

The exercise scenario takes place in a mythical region known as “Treasure Coast,” with a country called Garnet, a theocracy, invading its neighbor to the north, Amberland, which calls for international help to repel the attack. Garnet has mined several harbors and deployed antiship missiles along the coast. The threat of mines, anti-ship missiles and small boats in coastal waters conjure up Iran’s naval forces, but the commanders overseeing the drill, Admiral Harvey and Marine Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, say the scenario is not based on any particular country. Amid rising tensions with Iran and threats from Tehran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, naval officers and military planners are keenly aware of the Islamic Republic’s

arsenal of mines and anti-ship missiles. When asked by reporters last week, Harvey acknowledged that the exercise scenario was “certainly informed by recent history” and that it was “applicable” to the Strait of Hormuz, as well as other areas.

Harvey also said the exercise incorporated lessons from the 2006 Lebanon conflict, when Iran-backed Hezbollah forces hit an Israeli navy corvette with an anti-ship missile.

The Pentagon opened the drill to allied forces for the first time this year, with 650 French troops among those participating. In their AMX-10 wheeled reconnaissance vehicles and VAB armored personnel carriers, the mission of the French forces was “to land first to secure a path for the Americans,” said Second Lieutenant Chens Bouriche, a French military spokesman.—AFP

NORTH CAROLINA: French Army troops drive down the beach after coming ashore, during Operation Bold Alligator 2012, a multinational military exercise involving 14,000 Marines, Sailors, Airmen, and Soldiers with more than 25 ships and 8 countries. —AFP

Lockheed’s F-35 fighter program under scrutiny Senators blast Panetta

COLORADO: A supporter of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich displays an anti-Obama sticker at a rally in Golden, Colorado. —AFP

In shift, Obama’s campaign to support Super Pac fundraiser WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, worried about the influx of money to groups supporting Republican candidates, said yesterday it would start supporting the struggling Super PAC designed to help Obama stay in office. The decision to back Priorities USA, a fundraising group that has failed to gather steam, represents a tactical shift for Obama, who opposed the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that erased longstanding limits on corporate and union money in federal elections as an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina said in an email to supporters that campaign and White House officials as well as some members of Obama’s cabinet would now attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events.

The president, first lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden would not be part of the effort and would focus their fundraising activities on events specifically for the campaign. “Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads,” Messina said in the email. “With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spend-

ing and Democrats unilaterally disarm.”

Democrats had complained that Obama’s distaste for the Supreme Court decision in the so-called Citizens United case that spawned Super PACs had affected the success of the same groups formed to help him. Restore our Future, a group supporting Republican presidential frontrunner and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, raised $30.2 million in 2011 and had cash on hand of $23.6 million at the end of the year, according to filings submitted last month. By contrast, Priorities USA Action raised $4.2 million by the end of 2011 and had $1.5 million in cash on hand.

Those figures confirmed fears within the Obama orbit that the eventual Republican nominee and his supporters could outspend the president in the general election, despite the Obama campaign’s own fundraising strength. Bill Burton, a former White House deputy spokesman who helps run the Obama PAC, said the group was “committed to providing a balance” to the groups working on the Republican side. “As has become evident in the past month, the only enthusiasm in the Republican Party is among oil company billionaires and investment bankers on Wall Street looking to defeat President Obama,” he said in an email.—Reuters

WASHINGTON: Key US senators raised fresh questions about Lockheed Martin Corp’s $382 billion F-35 fighter program yesterday as the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer underscored deep flaws in the way the multinational arms program was set up from the start. The unusually blunt talk about the most expensive US arms program came a week before the release of a fiscal 2013 budget plan that is expected to postpone funding for 179 warplanes until after 2017, a move that has Australia and other international partners questioning their own procurement plans.

Cuts to the F-35 program are part of the Pentagon’s plan to start implementing $487 billion in defense spending reductions over the next decade. The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee blasted Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s decision to lift a “probation” imposed on the Marine Corps variant of the F35 a year ahead of schedule, saying the move appeared premature and was not vetted with Congress.

Senator Carl Levin, the committee’s chairman, and Senator John McCain, its top Republican, cited continuing cost overruns on the F-35 program and said Panetta had wasted a chance to “focus Lockheed Martin’s attention and disrupt ‘business as usual’ in this multibillion-dollar effort.” They said Lockheed’s fourth production contract for 32 F-35 jets was expected to overrun its target cost of $3.46 billion by $245 million, and that the cost of retrofitting planes already built would add $237 million more to the program’s budget.

Panetta last month threw his support behind the F-35B model, which takes off from shorter runways and lands like a helicopter, during a carefully orchestrated visit to a Maryland military base where the warplanes are being tested. But a week later, he told reporters the Pentagon would further slow procurement of new F-35s to allow more time for development and testing-news that could prompt the eight international partners to cut or delay their orders as well. Australia has already said it is rethinking its plans to buy 12

jets, Turkey has put off buying two jets, and Italy may follow suit, according to FlightGlobal.

The other partners are Britain, Denmark, Norway, the Netherland, and Canada.

ACQUISITION MALPRACTICE Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acting acquisition chief, said the US military was committed to the program, but he told industry executives at a Washington think tank that the United States was clearly “paying the price” for starting production of the new jets years before their first flight test. “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done,” Kendall said in remarks after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Initial development work on the fighter began in 1996 under the Clinton administration. Lockheed then beat out Boeing Co to win the program in 2001, early in the administration of former President George W Bush. Kendall said the plane’s problems so far were typical of those seen with other fighter jets and there was nothing that would prevent continued production at the current low rates.

The F-35 has completed about 20 percent of its required testing and should accomplish an additional 15 to 20 percent of testing in each of the coming years, Kendall said. Lockheed, which says the F-35 will account for 20 percent of its revenues once it reaches full production, insisted that the program was continuing to make good progress, citing Panetta’s decision to lifted probation for the Marine Corp variant and better than expected flight test results for 2011. Lockheed spokesman Michael Rein said the US government’s plan for concurrent production and development would have affected any winning bidder. He noted that most fighter plane programs had some degree of this concurrency.

“Lockheed Martin has worked hard during the past decade to cost effectively meet government procurement requirements,” he said, noting that each successive batch of F-35 jets

al cramps?’” she told the newspaper. “I have also been asked if I will have the courage to face criminals. My answer is that courage is not a matter of gender.”

Born in Mexico City on Jan 20, 1961, Vazquez Mota was educated at some of the country’s more costly private universities and graduate schools, then worked as a financial consultant and business columnist for several years. The fourth of seven siblings born to a paint store franchise owner and a housewife, she grew up in a middle class, traditional family.

She is married to businessman Sergio Ocampo, who was her first boyfriend. A religious woman, she asked PAN members to go to church first Sunday and then go vote for her. But she is not a typical conservative. Vazquez Mota told Univision in an interview last year that although she didn’t support abortion rights, she doesn’t think the practice should be criminalized. She also told the network she believed marriage was between a man and a woman but that gay couples deserve respect.

She told El Universal that she is sympathetic with Liberation Theology, which advocates activism on behalf of the poor, and admires slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, whose fight for the poor during El Salvador’s bloody civil war made him a national hero. Vazquez Mota formally jumped into politics when she was elected to Congress in 2000, part of a wave of political change that rolled across Mexico as Vicente Fox of her National Action Party captured the presidency and ended the 71-year hold on power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.—AP

TAKING AIM AT COSTS President Barack Obama last month nominated Kendall, who has held a series of jobs at the Pentagon since 1982, to permanently take over as chief arms buyer. The Senate must approve the nomination, but no hearing date has been set. Kendall, who had been the deputy chief arms buyer for the past two years, said he was already working on various initiatives to rein in chronic cost overruns and schedule delays on other major weapons programs, as well as service contracts that comprise about half of Pentagon procurement spending.

He discussed measures to train acquisition officials, review and analyze requirements to understand the full cost of programs before they are launched, and underscored the Pentagon’s commitment to maintaining the defense industrial base. Kendall also warned that there were no simple, single-point solutions, including the fixed-price contracts favored by lawmakers and Pentagon officials on the F-35 program and others. He said the United States was not facing another “procurement holiday” and cuts to weapons programs would not be as steep as after the end of the Cold War. But he said the cuts would approach those post-Cold War levels if lawmakers did not reverse another $500 billion in spending cuts that are due to take effect in January 2013. —Reuters

News

in brief

Mexican candidacy tests the culture of machismo MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s conservative ruling party is gambling that this country known for machismo is ready for a female president and have chosen a devout Roman Catholic and popular former congresswoman who says she sympathizes with the causes of the poor.

Josefina Vazquez Mota, a 51-year-old economist, became the first female presidential candidate from any of Mexico’s major parties late Sunday when she convincingly won the National Action Party’s primary.

Her victory marks a milestone for women in Mexico, a country where they were not allowed to vote until 1953. The first female governor did not take office until 1989. Only a handful have been elected since. National Action hopes Mexico is ready to follow in the footsteps of Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile and other Latin American countries that have elected female leaders recently. Vazquez Mota, who is still married to her high school sweetheart, won national attention after publishing a 1999 book titled “God, Please Make Me A Widow,” which is described as a call to women to stop being afraid of developing their potential.

She has said she wrote the book based on her own experience of being a woman who chose to work over staying at home to raise her three daughters, defying the role she was expected to fulfill. Vazquez Mota told El Universal newspaper in an interview published Monday that she has experienced Mexico’s machismo first hand during her campaign. “One of the hardest questions I have been asked is ‘How will you manage the army if you are having menstru-

had less “concurrency” costs-the cost of retrofitting already built planes to deal with problems found during testing. Kendall said the Pentagon had counted on improved design and simulation tools to catch possible problems before jets went into low-rate production, but those design tools failed. He said he hoped no more serious issues came up in coming years, which would allow Lockheed to increase output and cut costs. “The key to getting the cost down on the F-35 is getting the production rate up and we need to do that as soon as we’re ready to do it, but we’re not ready to do it yet,” he said.

HAVANA: Cuban ex-leader Fidel Castro seen during the presentation of the two volumes of his new book of memories ‘Guerrillero del tiempo (Time Guerrilla)’. —AFP

Former Cuban leader warns of bleak future, touts memoir HAVANA: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro painted a bleak picture of the future, saying the world was in its worst situation ever as Cuban television aired on Monday part of a six-hour event last week touting his newest memoir. The 85-year-old Castro, whose last known public appearance was at a Communist Party congress in April 2011, had to be helped to his chair, but was animated and engaged as summaries of the two-volume tome were read and questions were taken from an audience of admirers.

The two-hour program was the first of three parts to be broadcast on state-run television this week and, with its echoes of the lengthy speeches he once gave, appeared aimed in part at showing that the old comandante is in pretty good shape. Castro, who ruled Cuba for 49 years, was struck by an undisclosed intestinal illness that nearly killed him in July 2006. He resigned the presidency in February 2008, when younger brother Raul Castro replaced him.

Castro still occasionally writes opinion pieces for Cuban media and meets with visiting leaders, but he said he spends much of his time reading news stories and that what he reads is alarming. “What’s going to happen in Iran? What’s going to happen in the Near East? What’s going to happen in Syria?” he asked at the event, which took place on Friday. He said President Barack Obama no longer has power in the United States, that Cuba’s longtime ideological foe is being run by a “high command” and not even they can “contain the situation” of a possible nuclear war.

Castro has been warning of impending nuclear war involving the United States, Israel and Iran for some time. “The situation is difficult, more difficult than ever,” he said.

Castro remarked on the campaign in the United States for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, saying there was little voter interest in the race and no good candidates. —Reuters

‘Sovereign citizens’ threats WASHINGTON: Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday. These extremists, sometimes known as “sovereign citizens,” believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference. The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard. Routine encounters with police can turn violent “at the drop of a hat,” said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterterrorism division. “We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement,” he said. In May 2010, two West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers were shot and killed in an argument that developed after they pulled over a “sovereign citizen” in traffic. Last year, an extremist in Texas opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. The officer was not hit. Legal convictions of such extremists, mostly for white-collar crimes such as fraud, have increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 each in 2010 and 2011, FBI agents said.

Gingrich likens activist trials to hostage crisis MINNEAPOLIS: White House hopeful Newt Gingrich likened Cairo’s apparent plans to put 19 Americans on trial over charges of illegal funding of aid groups to the Iran hostage crisis. “The Obama administration is appeasing the elements that oppose us,” Gingrich said, deriding the Arab Spring for bringing “radical” Islamists to power in Egypt after the overthrow of US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak. “In Egypt you now have Americans being held hostage,” told a rally in Minneapolis ahead of Republican nominating caucuses.

“This is intolerable. This resembles Jimmy Carter and the Iranian hostage crisis.” Some 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days after the US embassy in Tehran was stormed and occupied during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The crisis undermined the presidency of Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and the hostages were not released until moments after President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, was inaugurated.

12

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

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

Malaysian jungle adventurers solve WWII mysteries KUALA LUMPUR: They trek for days through crocodile-infested swamps and up rain-lashed mountain jungles, but the members of the Malaya Historical Group are not seeking treasure or ancient artefacts. Instead, they’re after rusty wreckage. Over the past decade, the six amateur Malaysian military historians have helped locate the confirmed or suspected crash sites of 30 World War II aircraft-helping bring closure for the families of more than 40 missing British and American air crews.

Nearly 70 years after the end of the war, at least 100 British and American aircraft wrecks are believed scattered across the jungles of India, Thailand and Malaysia, along with the remains of their crews. As well as the battles for the Pacific Islands, allied forces waged war against Japanese forces whose regional conquests included previously British-held Singapore and Malaysiaknown then as Malaya. “What we do is to find whichever wrecks are in Malaysia and help identify them so that relatives can get closure after waiting for more than six decades,” says the group’s leader Shaharom Ahmad.

During the week, Shaharom, 37, is a technical engineer with Malaysian state news agency Bernama. But he and his fellow war buffs have carried out 40 weekend expeditions over the last

decade, searching for the wrecks of long-missing allied aircraft that crashed or were shot down. Such sites “are a crucial part of the story of the war in the Pacific,” said military historian Christopher McDermott, who works for the US Joint Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Accounting Command (JPAC).

He said at least 550 Americans went missing over the jungles and seas of

Southeast Asia as a result of air raids, patrols, and cargo and reconnaissance missions.

Finding crash sites, he adds, can provide “positive identification for the return of remains to the families of the missing service members.” Shaharom says the group’s research into American and British archives indicate the wrecks of at least 15 to 20 allied aircraft are still

NEGRI SEMBILAN: Malaya Historical Group leader Shaharom Ahmad stands at the crash site of a B-24 Liberator KL654/R aircraft in the central Malaysian state of Negri Sembilan, with the rear section of the aircraft’s fuselage behind him. —AFP

yet to be examined in Malaysia. Seven of the sites have been discovered so far, but the whereabouts of the others are not yet known. Guided by whatever, often sketchy, information is available from a flight’s last location, the group’s members search likely areas on treks that take several days, often in dense jungle.

Once found, sites are left undisturbed but meticulously photographed and the pictures are uploaded to their website, mhg.mymalaya.com. From there, a worldwide network of similarly minded amateur war buffs weighs in, analyzing the find. “Within a matter of days, sometimes hours, we are able to indentify the wrecks and even get hold of the family of the pilots who were missing for so many years to tell them that the remains of their loved ones have been found,” Shaharom said.

Started as a hobby in 1996, the group’s work soon became a passion after members were moved by the heartfelt responses of airmens’ families. Its work is funded by members or whatever private donations they can scrape together.

In one case, the group in 2009 reached and identified the crash of a US Air Force DC-3 transport that disappeared shortly after the war over the northern state of Perak during a routine flight in November 1945. Its

remains had first been spotted from the air in 1966 but nothing was done until the Malaysian wreck hunters found the site and pilots’ relatives were contacted via the Internet. JPAC is now planning an excavation in 2013.

Holding a pair of smashed aviator glasses that helped to identify the American wreck, Shaharom says the group has made all sorts of finds. “We have found exploded ammunition from the planes, landing gears, even the remains of several Japanese aircraft, of which there are 22 that crashed here during the war, with most still missing,” he said. As he spoke, Shaharom showed off a metal knob bearing a Mitsubishi logo and serial number. It came from the crash site of a Japanese bomber found by the group and since identified as part of the initial December 8, 1941 attack on Malaya.

The group has approached Japanese authorities about such finds but found little interest in pursuing identification. One particularly “heartwrenching” find was the discovery of two rings, a dagger and part of a watch that had melted and fused with the aircraft’s fuselage in the fiery crash of a British plane, he said. “Knowing that these items were on people who died in these very sites was really moving. It really connected us to these warriors,”

China sees ‘trust deficit’ US-China relationship ‘too big to fail’

BEIJING: In this file photo, China’s likely future successor to China’s President, Xi Jinping (foreground) delivers remarks as President Hu Jintao looks on during the plenary session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. —AP

BEIJING: China and the United States suffer a “trust deficit ” that Vice President Xi Jinping’s trip to Washington could help ease, a Chinese diplomat said in a speech published yesterday, playing down Chinese fears about a US “pivot” towards Asia. China’s president-in-waiting, Xi, will visit the United States starting next Tuesday, going to the farming state of Iowa where he stayed briefly in 1985 and to Los Angeles, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, confirming an earlier statement from the White House.

The speech by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai was the latest sign that Beijing wants Xi’s visit to keep to an upbeat tone, despite frictions that trouble relations, most recently over its decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution on the increasingly bloody conflict in Syria. But Cui said mutual misgivings have clouded relations bet ween the world ’s t wo biggest economies, despite deep trade ties and greater foreign policy dialogue. “ There is cer tainly a trust deficit between China and the United States,” Cui said in the speech in Shanghai on M onday that was posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministr y ’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn). “Each time the SinoUS relationship hits problems, there are voices that fundamentally doubt the relationship. There are constantly those who want to overturn this relationship that can truly be called too big to fail,” said Cui, whose portfolio includes overseeing ties with the United States.

“Therefore, nurturing and deepening mutual trust remains a major issue that

both sides must give full attention to and seriously address,” he added.

Xi’s visit to the United States, including a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House, appears unlikely to bring big advances on Syria, I ran and other sources of fric tion, including trade imbalances and human rights.

Xi will also visit Turkey and Ireland af ter the United States, Chinese Foreign M inistr y spokesman Liu Weimin told a daily briefing. He did not give specific dates for each stop. For Xi, the US visit will be a major step in signaling his readiness to take over as China’s next top leader. His growing prominence indicates he is virtually cer tain to replace Hu Jintao as Communist Party chief late this year and then as state president in early 2013.

Xi could help counter some of the distrust, Cui suggested. “We hope that both sides will seize on this visit as an opportunity to enhance communication, expand cooperation and deepen friendship,” said Cui. He did not mention Syria, and nor did he directly mention the Obama administration’s “pivot” to bolster the US economic and military presence in Asia, which some critics in China have called a strategy to fence in their country. But Cui stressed that China did not see conflict over regional influence as inevitable. “The Asia-Pacific is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States,” he said. “ There’s great potential for cooperation, and the key lies in mustering enough political will.” —Reuters

Age, military ties mark Kim Jong Un’s inner circle PYONGYANG: Wherever North Korea’s young new leader goes, they’re there: a group of graying military and political officials who shadow Kim Jong Un as he visits army bases, attends concerts and tours schools. As Kim Jong Un steps into the role of “supreme commander” less than two months after his father’s death, these officials can be seen in the background. They listen attentively as their leader speaks during “guidance visits” and stand at his side during group photos, smiling and clapping.

Since Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack in December, Kim Jong Un has assumed the mantle of leadership with apparent confidence. But this aging circle of advisers is never far behind, lending the young man gravitas and experience while making clear that he has the backing of the powerful military. The world has been watching for signs of trouble as Kim, believed to be in his late 20s, leads North Korea just three years after he was tapped to be his father’s successor. His ascension comes at a delicate time. Kim Jong Il died as diplomats were in the midst of negotiating with Washington on much-needed aid to alleviate a chronic food shortage. There were also discussions between North Korea and its neighbors on the prospect of restarting nuclear disarmament negotiations. The show of support by the nation’s core military and political leadership settles a major question about the new era under Kim Jong Un: Kim Jong Il’s “military first” policy will remain in place. And it’s clear that these men, many now in their 70s and 80s, will continue to advise Kim Jong Un after years of working with his father and even his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

The “central” leadership stepped into the spotlight most vividly during Kim Jong Il’s funeral in a tableau watched as closely here in Pyongyang as it was in Seoul and Washington for signs indicating who is in power in North Korea’s opaque political system. On that day, in a swirl of snow, eight men accompanied the black limousine bearing Kim’s flag-draped coffin: Kim Jong Un

and seven elderly men who represent the topmost levels of North Korea’s military and political circles. At the front of the hearse, opposite Kim Jong Un, walked Ri Yong Ho, vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army and the military’s General Staff chief. Ri wields power from his position at the intersection of three crucial institutions: the Korean People’s Army, the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party and the Standing Committee of the party’s influential Political Bureau. While the Workers’ Party of Korea has served as the backbone of the power structure since Kim Il Sung founded the country in 1948, Kim Jong Il elevated the military when he

watched a massive military parade marking the 65th anniversary of the Workers’ Party. He occasionally leaned over to whisper to the son, who was making his international public debut. And Ri stood at Kim Jong Un’s side following Kim Jong Il’s funeral. Ri is 69, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which provided the birth dates of all seven figures.

Walking directly behind the young leader during the funeral procession was his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, husband of Kim Jong Il’s younger sister, Kim Kyong Hui, who is also an important Kim Jong Un patron. Jang, 65, is a vice chairman of the National Defense Commission. Under the

PYONGYANG: New North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (center) is flanked by Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly (right) and Ri Yong Ho, a vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army in this file photo. —AP became leader after his father’s death in 1994. Ri, who has operational control of the army, also oversees an influential Kim Jong Un support group comprising officers in their 50s and 60s who commanders consider rising stars, according to Ken Gause, a North Korea specialist at CNA, a US-based research organization.

A stern figure, Ri stood between Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un in October 2010 as they

constitution, the commission is the country’s highest military body, and Kim Jong Il led the country as chairman. Jang apparently is involved in big economic projects and oversees internal security offices, according to Nicholas Hamisevicz, director of research and academic affairs for the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. Jang was a frequent companion to Kim Jong Il on field inspection trips last year.

“He is thought to be helping groom Kim Jong Un by providing him information as well as some political protection,” Hamisevicz said. Also escorting Kim’s hearse was People’s Armed Forces Minister Kim Yong Chun, who controls military logistics and training, according to Gause. In a Jan. 28 state media report, Kim Yong Chun, 75, was mentioned second only to Ri Yong Ho in a list of top aides who accompanied Kim Jong Un to a military concert. Kim Ki Nam, 82, is credited with orchestrating the legends surrounding the Kim family and serves as the main ideologue for the country, according to the World Institute for North Korea Studies in South Korea.

Kim Jong Gak is a senior political officer in the Korean People’s Army, while U Tong Chuk is a top state security official. On Jan 9, Kim Jong Gak was mentioned prominently at a massive rally of army, navy and air force troops pledging loyalty to Kim Jong Un. U Tong Chuk has attended two concerts with the new leader this year, according to state media. Rounding out the entourage in the funeral procession was Choe Thae Bok, the longtime chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly and a member of the Politburo who has led a number of North Korean delegations overseas. Choe is 81, according to the South Korean government.

Other important advisers include Premier Choe Yong Rim, who despite being in his 80s has been making the types of inspection trips to factories, construction sites and power plants that were once Kim Jong Il’s purview; and Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the country’s nominal head of state. Two other top officers, wearing gray parkas, have accompanied Kim on military inspections recently: Kim Myong Guk, a 71-yearold General Staff director of operations; and Kim Won Hong, a top political officer who is reportedly in charge of military personnel appointments.

Gause says Kim Won Hong heads one of the bodies that form an “inner ring for internal security inside North Korea.” —AP

Shaharom added.

Providing a dignified burial to the remains of the dead can be a challenge.

In central Negeri Sembilan state in 2006, Shaharom and his team found the August 1945 wreck of a Royal Air Force B24 Liberator bomber that research shows was carrying supplies for Force 136, a British Special Operations unit.

British officials initially rejected the discovery, relenting only after the wreck hunters went back and obtained engine serial numbers. They declined, however, to fund or recover the human remains. Shaharom’s group recovered them with private funding in 2009.

Sue Raftree, an official with a British defense ministry unit dealing with such issues, told AFP that British government policy is that it “does not actively search for remains and discourages unofficial excavations,” viewing such sites as war graves. However the crew’s relatives insisted that the remains be given a proper burial and they are slated to be interred in a Malaysian military cemetery early next year. Such delays can imperil wreck sites, says Shaharom, pointing to the crash of a Japanese fighter found by locals in northern Kedah state in 2001. “ They just removed the pilot, cut the aircraft into pieces and sold it as scrap. This is our worry.” —AFP

News

in brief

Afghan schoolbooks shun history of wars KABUL: The Afghan government has published new textbooks for schoolchildren that shun the country’s modern history of conflict in an effort to promote national unity, an official said yesterday. “In the past four decades we have had some topics that were controversial,” education ministry spokesman Amanullah Iman said-referring to Soviet occupation, civil war, the rise of the Taleban and a US-led invasion. “We have decided not to include them in the new curriculum,” he said. The books, published with the help of international donors who are believed to be mostly American, aim to avoid inflaming old enmities, he said. They are expected to be distributed in time for the beginning of the school year in spring. “In the new textbooks we have avoided naming individuals and par ties who were involved in conflicts in the past four decades-we have omitted topics that would create divisions among people,” said the spokesman. “We cannot let education be a battleground between people and parties. And the solution is to omit the names of these people and parties from textbooks in order to protect national unity.”

Suu Kyi hits the campaign trail PATHEIN: Crowds of suppor ters greeted Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi with thunderous applause as she embarked yesterday on her first campaign trip since becoming an official candidate for April elections. The Nobel Peace laureate traveled for the first time in two decades to the Irrawaddy delta, Myanmar’s rice bowl and the region most devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Crowds lined the roads to shout support to Suu Kyi at every major town along her four-hour drive south from Yangon to Pathein, the Irrawaddy’s regional capital. More than 10,000 people packed into a sports stadium under a sweltering sun to hear her speak. One giant banner strung through the stands hailed Suu Kyi, the longtime political prisoner, as “Mother Democracy.” Suu Kyi’s return to politics is another test of the reforms of the new nominally civilian government that took power last year after decades of military control. Her latest trip came a day after the Election Commission formally accepted her candidacy for an April parliamentary by-election. Suu Kyi last visited the Irrawaddy region during a campaign tour in 1989, when soldiers in the town of Danuphyu briefly pointed their rifles at her.

US paints false picture of Afghan war: Officer WASHINGTON: A US Army officer has accused the American military of painting a misleading picture of progress in the war in Afghanistan while glossing over the Kabul government’s many failings. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis deliberately broke ranks with the official portrayal of the war after spending a year in the country, issuing a grim assessment and accusing his superiors of covering up the harsh realities that plague the mission. “What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by US military leaders about conditions on the ground,” Davis wrote in an article published in Armed Forces Journal, a private newspaper not affiliated with the Pentagon. “Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level,” he wrote under the headline, “Truth, Lies And Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down.” Local Afghan government officials are failing to serve the Afghan population and their security forces are reluctant to fight insurgents or are colluding with the Taliban, he wrote. “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by US senior leaders in Afghanistan?” he said in his article.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

NEWS China forges Gulf ties Continued from Page 1 oil” from Iran, said Afshin Molavi, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation specializing in the Middle East. But “when you zoom out and look at it, (you see) the Saudi-China relationship is a strategic relationship.

The China-Iran relationship is a transactional one,” Molavi said. “The ChinaIran relationship is going to be really tested” as the US and Europe ramp up efforts to isolate Tehran.

As the world’s biggest energy consumer, China’s roaring appetite for stable oil and gas supplies is driving its Gulf push - a relationship made clearer last month when Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. In Saudi Arabia, Wen specifically called for the two countries to “deepen their energy partnership” and increase trade in oil and gas. State oil giant Saudi Aramco and Chinese refiner Sinopec just finalized plans to jointly build a refinery in the Red Sea city of Yanbu capable of handling 400,000 barrels of oil a day.

The two companies and Exxon Mobil Corp. are already partners in a refinery in eastern China.

Aramco last year signed a deal with PetroChina, China’s biggest oil and gas company, to supply 200,000 barrels of oil a day to a refinery planned for southern Yunnan province. Aramco CEO Khalid Al-Falih said at the time: “We don’t consider ourselves simply sellers of oil to China, but rather strategic partners.” Nearby Iran was not on Wen’s January itinerary even though China remains Iran’s top crude oil buyer and its powerful state energy companies have rights to exploit untapped Iranian oil reserves.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s most recent figures show $43 billion in Sino-Saudi trade in 2010, and a combined $49 billion more with the other five Gulf Cooperation Council countries. That compares with just over $29 billion in trade with Iran

over the same period. “China has been attaching greater importance to ... the Gulf countries, and there is bigger room for both to develop trade and economic cooperation,” said Ma Lirong, a professor at Shanghai International Studies University. “To maximize its interests, China will maintain the current relations with Iran, but in the meantime explore more sources for energy supply.”

Saudi Arabia’s smaller Gulf neighbors are getting in on the action too.

Kuwait and China recently began work on a $9 billion oil refinery and petrochemical complex in the southeastern Chinese city of Zhanjiang that will rely solely on Kuwaiti crude. Qatar is shipping liquefied natural gas to a new PetroChina terminal under a longterm supply deal. China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp won a contract in September to build 240 freight cars for the UAE’s new national train network. That deal followed China Railway Construction Corp.’s completion of the first phase of the so called Makkah Metro, which opened in 2010 to ferry pilgrims between holy sites outside the Saudi city.

Gulf nations are also betting big on China. The Qatar Investment Authority pumped $2.8 billion into Agricultural Bank of China’s 2010 initial public offering, while the Kuwait Investment Authority bought in for $800 million.

The Kuwait sovereign wealth fund has also snapped up stakes in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and government-backed brokerage Citic Securities Co. In October, it opened a representative office in Beijing - its first overseas outpost in nearly six decades.

Chinese visitors, meanwhile, are flooding through the Arab side of the Gulf. Dubai’s Emirates airline now flies 35 times a week to mainland China. It employs 350 Chinese staff and offers Chinese food and movies on some flights, said Richard Jewsbury, senior vice president for commercial operations in the Far East. Its smaller Gulf

rivals are adding China routes too.

Colm McLoughlin, executive vice chairman of Dubai’s massive airport duty-free operation, said his best-sellers are not locally produced dates or camel-milk chocolates, but cartons of Chinese-made Chunghwa cigarettes.

Sales of the smokes brought in $8.5 million last year, and more than $1 million just in January.

Dubai Duty Free is responding by doubling to more than 400 the number of Chinese staff it employs. Other employees are being issued Mandarin phrase books, and cashiers now accept Chinese currency and credit cards. “We would be silly if we didn’t take advantage of it and try to serve them,” he said of the increased Chinese customers. Perhaps nowhere are the flourishing China-Gulf links more evident than in the serpentine halls of Dubai’s DragonMart.

Described as the largest dedicated trading center for Chinese projects outside China, the 1.2-km-long mall houses nearly 4,000 shops selling an impossibly diverse range of products from clothing and electronics to plaques inscribed with Quranic verses.

One shop even sells forklifts.

Moneychangers and ATMs abound, though merchants like Mohammed Alamgir, a salesman at a Chineseowned store selling industrial-strength air compressors from Shanghai, say they are happy to take just about any currency. Many of his customers travel from as far as South Africa and Libya.

They often buy in bulk for resale back home, he said. Not far away, Bangladeshi tailors sit hunched over a row of sewing machines at Feilong Trading, stitching curtains made to customers’ orders. Jiamin Xia, the store’s manager, said products are fast to move - “cargo easy come, easy go”, he quips - and the opportunities are better than back home in Guangzhou.

“Here you have many customers, and they are very good” he said. “They have much money.” — AP

18 Islamist MPs back Saadoun Continued from Page 1 Sultan will easily win the post of the deputy speaker against soft challenges from newly-elected MP Obaid Al-Wasmi and Shiite MP Adnan Abdulsamad. If this scenario is achieved, the two oldest MPs will occupy the top two posts in the Assembly - the speaker and deputy speaker - which was ironically elected following street protests led by youths.

In another development, the Islamist MPs who met also called for forming a Cabinet that is in line with the results of the election in which the Islamist-led opposition scored a massive victory. The lawmakers said they

are prepared to cooperate with the next government if it is formed on the bases of qualification, ability, honesty and acceptance by the lawmakers and the people.

The Islamist MPs also stressed the importance of cooperation between opposition blocs and MPs in order to push with reforms and the implementation of development.

They also called for approving a number of key legislations necessary for political reforms and allocate specific sessions to approve them. In a related development, secretary general of the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) former MP Nasser Al-Sane said his group will not take part in the next Cabinet.

Gulf to expel Syria envoys, recall own Continued from Page 1 The GCC urged other Arab states to use an Arab League meeting next week to adopt “all decisive measures in response to this dangerous escalation against the Syrian people”. It regretted that “the lives of innocents were being wasted and heavy losses incurred, not in defending the homeland against a foreign assailant, but to satisfy personal interests in the struggle for power without caring about the dignity of Syrian citizens and their freedom.”

Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had already recalled their ambassadors from Damascus. Oman and the United Arab Emirates had not. The Gulf states’ announcement came after France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain said yesterday that they were following Britain and Belgium in bringing back their envoys for consultations. The United States has closed its Damascus embassy entirely. Turkey, which shared Western anger over the Russian and Chinese vetoes, said it would launch a “new initiative” with like-minded countries which “stand by the Syrian people, not the regime”.

The Arab League deployed an observer mission to Syria in December to oversee a plan to end bloodshed that has now lasted almost 11 months but suspended it in late January after the mission’s chief said that the violence had reached a new pitch of intensity. The 22nation League has since put forward a plan for Assad to hand his powers to Vice President Farouq Al-Shara and a national unity government to oversee the preparation of democratic elections. Syria roundly rejected the proposals and last week Russia and China used their Security Council vetoes to block UN action.

However, after talks with Assad in Damascus yesterday, Russia’s foreign minister said President Assad was “fully committed” to ending the bloodshed in Syria even as regime tanks pounded the city of Homs for a fourth straight day. Sergei Lavrov said he had had a “very useful” meeting with Assad and that Moscow was eager to work towards a solution based on the peace proposals of the Arab League. “We (Russia) confirmed our readiness to act for a rapid solution to the crisis based on the plan put forward by the Arab League,” said Lavrov, adding that Syria was ready to see an enlarged Arab League mission in the country, Russian news agencies said.

Shara, a veteran regime diplomat with a career that stretches back to the rule of Assad’s late father president Hafez Al-Assad, attended yesterday’s talks with Lavrov, the official SANA news agency said. Lavrov did not specify which of the two Arab plans he was referring to in his comments yesterday, although SANA quoted Assad as interpreting the reference to be to the earlier one. “President Assad said that Syria from the start has welcomed any efforts toward a solution to the Syrian crisis and is committed to the Arab League plan that was decided on November 2, 2011,” the news agency said.

Moscow had previously criticised foreign calls for Assad to step down but in an interview with Australian

television last week Lavrov insisted: “We never said that President Assad remaining in power is the solution to the crisis.” After yesterday’s talks, he said he believed Damascus had heard Moscow’s message but did not go into details. “We have every reason to believe that the signal that we’ve brought here to move along in a more active manner along all directions has been heard.”

Lavrov said Syria was pressing ahead with the reform program Assad promised in a series of speeches last year and would soon announce the timetable for a referendum on a new constitution to replace the current one which enshrines the dominant role of his Baath party. SANA said that Assad would receive the text drawn up by an appointed panel today. Lavrov said Assad was also ready for dialogue with all parties. “Today we’ve received confirmation of President Assad’s readiness to facilitate this work,” he said.

But on the ground, there was no let-up in the regime’s crackdown on protest hubs around the country, particularly the central city of Homs, Syria’s thirdlargest. Tanks and artillery pounded Homs for a fourth straight day, killing at least 15 civilians, according to activists, as the interior ministry vowed no let-up in the onslaught against “terrorist groups”. “Operations to hunt down terrorist groups will continue until security and order are re-established in all neighbourhoods of Homs and its environs,” pledged an interior ministry statement carried by SANA. Abu Rami, an activist in the city reached by AFP by telephone from Beirut, said shelling and rocket fire had continued through the night and into the day. “There are about four blasts every five minutes,” he said. “The humanitarian situation is dire. No one can move around.” At least nine civilians and four soldiers were killed as the army attempted to storm the Khaldiyeh neighbourhood of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. One of the slain civilians was a woman.

Another six civilians were killed in the Baba Amr district, the Britain-based watchdog said, adding that a further seven civilians and four security service agents were killed elsewhere in the country. Shooting thought to be from outgunned rebels fighters echoed across Baba Amr in response to the artillery barrage from besieging troops. The opposition Syrian National Council joined an appeal to businessmen across the Arab world to give money to the rebel Free Syrian Army to help rectify the imbalance in firepower.

US Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate in the 2008 election won by President Barack Obama, said it was time for Washington to think about arming the rebels. “We should start considering all options, including arming the opposition. The bloodletting has got to stop,” he said. Human rights groups say more than 6,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of the revolt. Moscow sparked Western anger last week by joining Beijing in using its veto at the Security Council to block UN action against the Damascus regime, in what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called a “travesty.” — Agencies

KARACHI: Pakistani fishermen use cranes to pull the carcass of a whale shark from the waters at a fish harbour yesterday. The 40-feet whale, weighing about 6-7 tons, was found dead in Arabian Sea in this port city. — AFP

Commerce returns to Shatt AL-NASHWA, Iraq: Commercial traffic has resumed on the strategic Shatt Al-Arab waterway after a threedecade break with the official opening of a port for oil giant Shell, an Iraqi official said yesterday. Part of the 200-km-long waterway forms a section of the border with Iran. An unresolved boundary dispute was a major reason for the 1980-1988 war between Iraq and Iran that resulted in the waterway’s closure. “The Shatt AlArab is reborn again after being closed for 31 years,” Mehdi Badah Hussein, head of a joint committee to develop Majnoon oil field, told AFP at a ceremony to open the port.

“There are other harbours on the Shatt Al-Arab, but commercially, this is the first time Iraq succeeded in turning the Shatt Al-Arab into a maritime passage which will help in transporting heavy equipment,” Hussein said. Dia Khalil, an Iraqi engineer and joint committee member, told AFP the journey up the Shatt AlArab to the new port is about 80 km, and that ships will pay customs fees in Umm Qasr to the south before heading to the new harbour.

A consortium of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell and Malaysia’s Petronas signed a contract with Iraq in January 2010 to operate the enormous Majnoon field.

“We believe this is the first jetty harbour to bring in ships that can come from all over the world back off the river with heavy equipment in 31 years,” Shell Majnoon general manager Ole Myklestad told AFP. “This is very important,” Myklestad said at the ceremony. “I hope that

ships leaving this harbour in the future will also be carrying goods.” Myklestad said the first ship arrived at the harbour on Jan 5 and clarified that the port would not be used to export oil which is to be carried by pipeline.

“This is a happy day,” said Khalaf Wadi, deputy manager of Iraq’s Southern Oil Co, a partner with Shell and Petronas. “We are officially opening the first commercial jetty in the Shatt Al-Arab since the start of the war with Iran.” The port’s main function will be to facilitate the transportation of equipment to the massive Majnoon oil field. But ordinance in the field, which was a major battleground during the eight-year war with Iran, poses a danger.

Simon Mawdslag, Shell’s Explosive Remnants of War Coordinator, said “over 4,000 individual items of ordinance” have been located and removed from a roughly eight square kilometre area - the only part cleared so far. “These items are handed over to the Iraqi armed forces and their explosive ordinance disposal team.

They actually do the destruction of the items,” he said.

The Majnoon field was discovered in 1975 by Brazilian firm Petrobras but its work was interrupted in 1980 by the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, after it had drilled 20 wells. In 1990, French firm total negotiated a contract for the field but was unable to sign due to international sanctions after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of that year. Oil sales account for the vast majority of Iraqi government income and around two-thirds of gross domestic product. — AFP

Maldives president quits after mutiny Continued from Page 1 Qaumee Party - a party in the opposition coalition, and an Indian diplomatic source in Colombo said Nasheed had asked India for help and been refused. India helped foil a coup on the islands in 1988 by sending a battalion of soldiers to back the government. A spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, said the rebellion was an internal matter for the Maldives “to be resolved by the Maldives”.

The recent unrest had also seen demonstrations by Islamic fundamentalists against the government, particularly over the transport ministry’s decision to allow direct flights from Israel. The DQP has accused Nasheed of being under the influence of Jews and Christians. Police spokesman Ahmed Shiyam told AFP by telephone that “anyone from the previous regime who worked against the constitution and laws” would not be allowed to leave the country.

Shiyam also said that alcohol - which is banned in the capital, but not on the holiday resort islands for which the Maldives is famous - had been found in Nasheed’s home. “Some bottles were empty. There were others filled with alcohol,” he said.

Late yesterday, tourists and air traffic were moving without disruption in and out of the islands’ main airport. Britain’s Foreign Office said a team of diplomats was on its way to the Maldives and that London viewed developments “with concern” and called on all groups “to find a peaceful way through these difficulties, in accordance with the Constitution”.

Nasheed swept to victory in 2008, pledging to bring full democracy to the low-lying islands and speaking out passionately on the dangers of climate change and rising sea levels.

But he drew opposition fire for his arrest of a judge he accused of being in the pocket of his predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled for 30 years. Protests at the arrest set off a constitutional crisis that had Nasheed - jailed in all for six years and arrested 27 times by Gayoom’s government while agitating for democracy - defending himself against accusations of acting like a dictator. “It’s a coup, I am afraid,” an official at Nasheed’s office said, asking not to be identified. “The police and Gayoom’s people as well as some elements in the military have forced the president Nasheed to resign.

According to my book it’s a coup.”

The new president told Reuters that Nasheed was in protective police custody for his security and said call-

ing the day’s events a coup was a “misrepresentation”. “The people have been out on the street demonstrating for weeks now and then finally it came to a point where the crowds (were) too overwhelming and the president tried to negotiate, was too late and the people prevailed on him to resign. “There was a moment when this morning there was a conflict between the military and the police that was happening while Nasheed was still president... The situation is now resolved. Both the police and the armed forces fully supported my taking office.” He said one priority was to create a “durable environment for tourism since it’s our main industry... We can assure all visitors to the Maldives the situation is perfectly normal”.

In an address after being sworn in, the new president said that the rule of law had been fully established. “I will not order the police, military or any person to do anything against the law....Everyone will have the protection of the constitution and laws,” Waheed said. He called upon all political parties, the military and citizens to “put aside personal hatreds” and pledged to “work to restore peace and prosperity of the nation, to deliver a harmonious and peaceful living to the people”. Maldivians waving flags poured into the streets to celebrate Nasheed’s resignation. Some playfully threw water at each other.

“This is a change which was long overdue. The country has lost its Islamic values and economy,” government worker Mohamed Muthalib said . “Corruption is very high and this has affected the economy.”

Waheed, who was educated at Stanford University in California, was the first television anchor in Maldives’ history and the first person shown live when local TV went on the air in 1978, according to his official biography. He became a top education official in the country, but eventually left under duress after getting elected to parliament and incurring the ire of the autocratic government ruling in the 1990s, his biography said. He joined UNICEF and rose to be its representative in Afghanistan, helping rebuild schools and provide health services after the fall of the Taleban.

Thomas Cook Germany, part of the London-listed group , said it was discouraging its 900 customers currently in the Maldives from travelling to Male. Airlines reported no cancellations of scheduled flights to the Maldives. Germany advised against all but essential travel to Male, while Britain’s advice to tourists was to “exercise caution, avoid demonstrations and beware of spontaneous

gatherings”. Overnight, vandals attacked the lobby of the oppositionlinked VTV TV station, witnesses said, and mutinying police attacked and burnt the main rallying point of Nasheed’s Maldives Democratic Party before taking over the state broadcaster MNBC and renaming it TV Maldives, as it was called under Gayoom.

Yesterday, soldiers fired tear gas at police and demonstrators who besieged the Maldives National Defence Force headquarters in Republic Square. Later in the day, scores of demonstrators stood outside the nearby president’s office chanting “Gayoom! Gayoom!”. “We will insist Nasheed is tried for his corruption, for his violation of rule of law,” said Saeed of the DQP. “...we will provide full support for the new president.” Gayoom’s opposition Progressive Party of the Maldives accused the military of firing rubber bullets at protesters and a party spokesman, Mohamed Hussain “Mundhu” Shareef, said “loads of people” were injured. He gave no specifics.

An official close to the president denied the government had used rubber bullets, but confirmed that about three dozen police officers defied orders overnight and attacked a ruling party facility. “This follows Gayoom’s party calling for the overthrow of the Maldives’ first democratically elected government and for citizens to launch jihad against the president,” said the official who declined to be identified.

The vice-president is expected to run a national unity government until the presidential election. The trouble has been largely invisible to the 900,000 or so tourists who come every year to visit desert islands swathed in aquamarine seas, ringed by white-sand beaches. Most tourists are whisked to their island resorts by seaplane or speedboat, where they are free to drink alcohol and get luxurious spa treatments, insulated from the everyday Maldives, a fully Islamic state where alcohol is outlawed and skimpy beachwear frowned upon.

Nasheed sought international help to stop the sea engulfing his nation and in 2009 held a cabinet meeting underwater, with ministers in scuba gear, to publicise the problem. An Asian diplomat serving in Male told Reuters on condition of anonymity: “No one remembers the underwater cabinet meeting. They remember Judge Abdulla Mohamed,” a reference to Nasheed having the military arrest the judge accused of being in Gayoom’s pocket. The judge was released yesterday. —Agencies

14

opinion

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

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

Pragmatism trumps Congo democracy

By Michelle Faul ongo’s presidential election was so fraud-riddled nobody knows for sure who won. Two months later, the international community that helped pay for the vote now seems content to simply keep the incumbent in power. The November ballot was considered a vital stepping stone on the road to democracy for Congo, subSaharan Africa’s largest nation. It was only the second democratic vote in a country that suffered decades of military dictatorship and civil war and still is wracked by conflict in the east. Congo is believed to hold 40 percent of the world’s cobalt, nearly a third of all diamonds and 70 percent of the coltan needed in mobile phones, according to the US Geological Survey. It also has massive amounts of tin, gold, copper and enough water for hydroelectricity to light up the entire continent. With incumbent President Joseph Kabila starting his new term in office even though it’s unclear if he actually won re-election, business and pragmatism now appear to be trumping democracy.

“The elections were deeply flawed, marred by massive fraud, intimidation and corruption. The international community, however, doesn’t care enough to resort to ... cutting off aid and calling for new polls,” said analyst Jason Stearns, formerly head of the UN experts panel on Congo and author of “Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.”

Congo’s sprawling borders reach nine other African countries, and conflict in this vast nation also threatens to spark instability in its neighbors. However, the international community hasn’t forcefully called for Kabila to step down, as countries did when other incumbent leaders clung to power after elections in Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe.

Theodore Tefron, a Congo expert at Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa, said that while the international community believes Kabila has problems, it feels veteran opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi is an unpredictable force that could be worse. “Western diplomats and businessmen prefer to have Mr. Kabila in power,” Tefron said. “They know who Kabila is and how to deal with him, even though he is not the perfect partner.”

Tshisekedi formed the nation’s first opposition party in 1982 and boycotted 2006 elections. Some find the 79year-old stubborn and irascible and seem unwilling to fight for him. “Whether the elections as we know was flawed, the future of Congo is not with Tshisekedi. His time has come and passed,” said U.S. Democratic legislator Donald Payne of New Jersey, who has traveled to Africa for decades, is the ranking member of the subcommittee on Africa and who met Tshisekedi back in the early 1990s.

Congo’s election dispute hasn’t sparked the kind of widespread violence seen after the 2006 vote, when soldiers belonging to the two top contenders fired rockets and automatic gunfire in downtown Kinshasa, the capital.

Soldiers and police have broken up any pro-Tshisekedi protests by firing tear gas and live ammunition. It’s not known how many people have been killed, detained, or disappeared.

This time, Tshisekedi’s supporters haven’t staged the kind of protests seen after disputed elections elsewhere on the continent, and he doesn’t have an army of rebels who could take on Congo’s military. So without the threat of civil war erupting, the international community isn’t prepared to use military force as it did in Ivory Coast, though Congo has the biggest UN mission in the world with 20,000 troops. Kabila took power in Congo at the age of 30 after his father’s assassination in 2001. He was lauded for calling the first democratic election in 40 years in 2006, but changed the constitution limiting presidential candidates to an age of 40, so that he could run at 35.

Congo’s Supreme Court - which Kabila loaded with his supporters last year - said Kabila won another five year term with 48.95 percent of votes to Tshisekedi’s 32.33 percent. Election observers documented widespread fraud, with Kabila taking an unlikely 100 percent of the vote at some polling stations and children being registered voters. Kabila acknowledges there were flaws, but denies the election lacked credibility. In an attempt to save results of legislative elections held the same day, the United States last month sent electoral experts. They left in disgust.

Hundreds of thousands of ballots were tampered with, at least 1.3 million completed ballots went missing.

Mountains of ballots were rained on. The experts “have consistent reports that ballots are not secured and that basically... recounting, for example, would hardly be possible,” said Gregory Kehailia, Congo director of the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems. — AP

C

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.

Abu Dhabi’s outsized cultural ambitions

By Rob L Wagner bu Dhabi’s resurrection of its three-museum project to promote the emirate as a go-to tourist destination will give a boost to its beleaguered local economy.

But the presence of local outlets of the Guggenheim and Louvre museums also highlights the prickly issue of what role Western cultural institutions should play in a Muslim country. In a surprise move, Abu Dhabi’s Executive Council brought back to life plans to complete the Zayed National Museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Louvre Abu Dhabi three massive repositories of art and culture slated for Saadiyat Island and aimed at making the tiny Gulf state a world-class cultural center.

The much-anticipated maritime museum and performing arts center remain in limbo, but the Zayed national museum is tentatively set to open in 2015, with the Louvre following a year later and the Guggenheim in 2017.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will join the foundation’s branch museums in New York, Venice, Berlin, Bilbao and Las Vegas.

The three museums’ future looked in doubt after the 20082009 global recession scuttled $30 billion worth of building projects in the emirate. Housing prices in Abu Dhabi fell by 45%, while in Dubai - the emirate next door whose breakneck development has served as both an inspiration and a warning for Abu Dhabi - the property market plummeted 65%.

Their size alone is enough for the three museums to have a major impact on the country that is hosting them.

At 260,000 square feet (24,000 square meters), Abu Dhabi’s Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre will be 40 percent of the size of the Paris original, whose collection took centuries to build. The 300,000-square-foot Guggenheim, designed by architect Frank Gehry, will be the largest of the institution’s international network of museums. All this to serve a country covering 26,000 sq miles of mostly desert with an indigenous population of 928,360 people.

Mo’ath Hussein, an economic consultant in Abu Dhabi, told The Media Line that he is confident that the museum projects will give an important boost to the region’s economy. The museum complex will cost $27 billion to build and will anchor a complex of golf courses, luxury hotels, and a park and theater, that will continue to bring in tourist dol-

A

lars years after the construction jobs cease contributing to employment. “The museums will provide an opportunity to all in the region to have easy access to that type of art,” Hussein said. “Not many art lovers can afford trips to Europe.”

Critics, however, say the initial economic benefit will be minimal. Foreign architects, construction companies and South Asian labor will perform the lion’s share of the work and take home the economic rewards, they argue. More importantly, there appears to be little evidence to suggest that the museums will help develop a strong cultural identity among Emiratis or bring about an efflorescence of local art.

Vali Nasr, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told The Media Line that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the seven-member federation to which Abu Dhabi belongs, is buying international prestige with the museums projects. But, he said, it is failing to invest in the culture of the region and serve the needs of the local population. “The problem is that cultural centers are not developed,” said Nasr, who is also a senior fellow of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “The local culture is very wealthy but not mature enough to engage in an arts culture. Dubai, for example, has its film festival but it does not have a local film industry. American institutions are being grafted into a society that does not have the infrastructure to promote local culture.”

Nasr likened the UAE’s eagerness to build big name museums to the alleged efforts last year by King Saud and King Abdulaziz Universities in Saudi Arabia to offer cash to well-known Western academics if they cited the Saudi institutions as a second affiliation in their research papers. The Saudis sought to acquire scientific prestige just as the Emiratis are trying to buy cultural prestige - quickly and easily without investing the time in developing human talent. The projects would create a “massive gulf” between Emiratis and the institutions, according to Nasr. Bridging that gulf depends on whether museum officials and Abu Dhabi leaders can agree on outreach programs to stimulate the region’s largely ignored arts community.

Hussein, the economics consultant, said he expects the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to follow the strategy of the

Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, which has a center for Arab and Islamic art. “The Guggenheim comes from Spain where every step you make in Spain has a trace of Islamic and Arabic art,” he said. The Guggenheim Foundation brought in Reem Fadda, a Ramallah-based art historian and former director of the Palestinian Association of Contemporary Art, as the associate curator of Middle Eastern Art. She is charged with organizing contemporary Arab art exhibitions and participating in regional cultural events for the Abu Dhabi branch. Fadda declined to comment and Eleanor R Goldhar, deputy director and chief of Global Communications for the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, refused to disclose the foundation’s regional strategy. “A museum of this size and scope takes a great deal of intellectual investigation and investment, and time, to create,” Goldhar told The Media Line. “Speaking about it before we are ready is just foolish.”

Unlike Guggenheim Bilbao, which exhibits Western and Arab/Islamic art without controversy, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi may find itself beset by controversy in a region where Islamic clerics can’t agree on whether images of humans and animals are prohibited. Timothy Furnish, an Islamic geopolitical analyst and lecturer at MacDill Air Force Base’s Joint Special Operations University, told The Media Line there is “no tradition in Islam of museums in the Western sense.” He said conservative interpretations of Islam might affect the Guggenheim’s relationship with the local community.

Although the Quran itself does not prohibit artistic renderings, several hadiths - the deeds and sayings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) - frown on visual human images, he said. Salafists, who practice what they regard as a pure form of Islam based on what the earliest Muslims did, have no doubts about the ban. “While the ostensible prohibition of art involving animal, human or prophetic figures is often overstated because the squeaky Salafist wheels always get the most journalistic grease, this idea has become a main current of Sunni Islamic - not just Salafist or Islamist thought,” Furnish said. Yet, the UAE may provide the best venue to test local community reaction. “If there is anywhere in the Arab-Muslim world that art could possible flourish, it might be in a more enlightened place like the UAE or one of the Gulf States,” Furnish said. — Media Line

Merkozy fights to prevent Merkollande

By Paul Taylor hings must be getting desperate if Angela Merkel is intervening in French politics to try to save Nicolas Sarkozy from defeat. The normally cautious German chancellor is taking a big risk by planning campaign appearances in support of the French leader ahead of the April 22 first round of a presidential election, starting with a joint television interview on Monday. If, as all opinion polls suggest, Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeats the conservative Sarkozy in a May 6 run-off, Merkel will have to rebuild the Franco-German European leadership duo from scratch with a man she has snubbed. She had a similarly awkward start with US President Barack Obama after refusing him permission to hold a rally at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate - a Cold War landmark and backdrop for a famous 1987 Ronald Reagan speech - while a presidential candidate.

Merkel aides cite two reasons for her decision to depart from diplomatic convention at Sarkozy’s request: * the need to preserve the close partnership the French and German leaders have developed in managing the euro zone debt crisis, which has earned them the collective nickname “Merkozy”, despite differences of temperament and policy; * alarm at Hollande’s anti-market rhetoric and his call to renegotiate a fiscal pact on stricter budget discipline in the euro zone agreed by European leaders last month.

“Hollande’s plans endanger the efforts to stabilise the euro,” Hermann Groehe, general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic (CDU) party, told Reuters on a visit to France. The Socialist candidate’s supporters say his attack on “the world of finance” in a keynote speech has been overblown. He aimed to sharpen his profile and rally the left, but he is not about to lead them to the barricades. Hollande says he will be firm on reducing France’s budget deficit, although he opposes writing a German-inspired “golden rule” on balanced budgets into the constitution. He wants to temper fiscal discipline and sanctions in the new European treaty with a commitment to promoting economic growth and jobs.

Sarkozy’s decision to play the “German

T

card” could backfire at a time when France is seen as having lost both economic and political parity with Berlin on his fiveyear watch, formalised by the loss of Paris’ triple-A credit rating last month. “Germany may be the salvation of France, but certainly not of Nicolas Sarkozy,” said Dominique Moisi of the French Institute of International Relations. French cartoonists have illustrated cruelly the increasingly unequal relationship.

Plantu of Le Monde depicted Merkel as a uniformed matron pushing a battered Sarkozy in a wheelchair. Liberation daily’s Willem drew a burly mother Merkel pulling a little Sarkozy child by the hand. “Ein Problem?” the Merkel figure asks sternly. “Non, non,” the tiny Sarkozy stammers.

While mention of the Germans no longer automatically arouses memories of World War Two occupation except among the elderly, voters may not reward the president for holding up Germany as an economic and social model for France. Sarkozy cited the German example to justify his latest proposals to reduce payroll taxes and raise value added tax (VAT) on consumption instead. The French left has countered that Germany’s export-led boom was built on a decade of declining or stagnant real wages, and a rise in social inequality and low-paid or part-time jobs. German workers are also represented in corporate boardrooms, giving them a stake in decisions, unlike their French counterparts.

Merkel may well be calculating that if Sarkozy is re -elected against the odds, he will owe her a big debt of gratitude, while if Hollande wins, he will have no choice but to court her for a share in European leadership. The FrancoGerman relationship has survived several periods of tension over 50 years when a leader changed in one capital or the other, but has always reasserted itself as the only motor capable of driving European integration. History books dwell on the partnerships between Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, and Francois Mitterrand and

Helmut Kohl. But there have been many hiccups along the way.

The Germans were horrified when Mitterrand, modern France’s only Socialist president, brought Communists into government in 1981 and nationalised swathes of industry in an expansionary economic and social policy that emptied French coffers. Only after a monetary crisis and two devaluations did Mitterrand change course, forging a close alliance with Kohl based partly on French support for the deployment of US nuclear missiles in Germany to counter Soviet rockets. It was Kohl and Mitterrand, from opposing political families, who drove the 1992 decision to create a single European currency, fighting off opposition at home to push it through a French referendum and the German parliament.

Since they left the stage, Franco-German ties have been repeatedly strained by unilateral decisions that upset the other partner. Jacques Chirac embarrassed Kohl by reviving French nuclear tests and abolishing conscription in 1995 without consultation. Gerhard Schroeder’s Red-Green coalition irked Chirac by deciding to phase out nuclear power, France’s key energy source.

Hollande, a middle-of-the-road disciple of Mitterrand, threatens no such radical departure. He would not, for example, reverse Sarkozy’s 2008 decision to return France to NATO’s integrated military command.

Indeed, he has told voters that because of the debt crisis, they will have to tighten belts for the first two years before any redistribution of wealth. He has reached out to Merkel allies on two visits to Berlin in the last two months and said his first visit if elected would be to Germany, although the chancellor has not yet agreed to meet Hollande before polling day. A “Merkollande” partnership might be cool at the outset, with the Frenchman seeking to balance out German hegemony by widening the decision-making circle, advisers to Hollande say. “The Franco-German couple is important but you can’t run things as two, you must include others like Italy and Spain, and that’s what Hollande wants,” said an academic who works with him on his Europe policy, asking not to be quoted by name. —Reuters

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

sp orts Mum tells Westwood to say sorry for swearing DUBAI: Lee Westwood was forced to apologise after his mum caught him swearing on live television at last week’s Qatar Masters, the world number three said yesterday. The incident occurred during the 38-year-old Briton’s closing 69 on Sunday, a round that left him in a tie for 12th place behind tournament winner Paul Lawrie who finished on 15-under-par.

“My mum was the first person on the phone and she said you might want to apologise,” Westwood told reporters ahead of this week’s Dubai Desert Classic.

“I didn’t think that down at four-under-par I would be on TV. It’s amazing how sensitive these microphones are.” After the conversation with his mum, Westwood issued an immediate apology on his Twitter account. “Sorry about swearing on the 16th tee. Came off like a rocket and thought it was going further!

Wash my mouth out! Perils of live tv!”, he wrote.—Reuters

NHL results/standings NHL results and standings on Monday. Toronto 6, Edmonton 3; Phoenix 3, Detroit 1; Anaheim 3, Calgary 2 (SO). (SO denotes shootout win) Eastern Conference Atlantic Division NY Rangers Philadelphia Pittsburgh New Jersey NY Islanders Boston Toronto Ottawa Buffalo Montreal Florida Washington Winnipeg Tampa Bay Carolina Detroit Nashville St. Louis Chicago Columbus Vancouver Minnesota Calgary Colorado Edmonton San Jose Los Angeles Dallas Phoenix Anaheim

W L OTL GF 33 12 5 141 30 16 6 173 30 19 4 161 30 19 3 149 21 22 8 125 Northeast Division 33 16 2 180 28 19 6 167 27 21 7 161 22 24 6 126 20 24 9 137 Southeast Division 24 16 11 131 27 21 4 145 24 24 6 129 23 23 5 147 20 25 9 137 Western Conference Central Division 35 17 2 172 32 17 4 149 30 14 7 126 29 17 7 169 14 32 6 120 Northwest Division 32 15 5 167 25 19 8 121 24 22 7 126 26 25 3 135 21 27 5 141 Pacific Division 29 15 6 145 25 18 10 115 27 22 2 136 24 21 8 139 20 24 8 135

GA 102 156 138 148 150

PTS 71 66 64 63 50

111 155 171 154 145

68 62 61 50 49

145 149 150 173 165

59 58 54 51 49

129 136 105 158 174

72 68 67 65 34

130 133 144 151 158

69 58 55 55 47

117 116 144 142 156

64 60 56 56 48

Newey’s loyalty to Red Bull JEREZ: Adrian Newey emphasised his loyalty to Red Bull yesterday, saying that walking out on the Formula One champions would feel like abandoning his children. In a clear sign he intended to see out his Formula One career with the British outfit, the design genius that every team in the paddock would like to poach said Red Bull felt very much like family. “So long as I am enjoying it and people want me to work here, I’ll carry on doing so,” Newey told reporters on the first day of preseason testing in southern Spain. “I can’t see myself going anywhere else.

“I’ve been involved in the team from very early on, I feel very centrally involved in it and proud we’ve managed to get from the ashes of Jaguar to

where we are today.

“That in itself brings a huge amount of satisfaction and the slightly paternal feeling of wanting that to carry on. To now leave for another team would kind of feel a little like walking out on your children in a way.” Red Bull, who renamed Jaguar after saving that team from being shut down at the end of 2004 when Ford pulled out, have taken both titles for the past two years with Germany’s Sebastian Vettel.

With those successes, Newey has now designed championship-winning cars for three separate teams after drawing world-beaters for Williams and McLaren. Ferrari have made no secret that he would be top of their wish list.—Reuters

Paes gets chance to beat dad NEW DELHI: London’s Olympics offer the seemingly ageless Leander Paes the chance to outdo his father in the medals stakes and to crown his doubles tennis career. Paes’s eyes still light up at the mention of the singles bronze he won at the Atlanta Games in 1996, ending India’s 44-year wait for an individual Olympic medal. The success put him on a par with his father, Vece Paes, who was part of India’s bronze medal-winning 1972 Olympic hockey team. “Oh yes, it’s a 1-1 draw and I better win another,” said Paes, who will turn 39 in June.

Fresh from completing his doubles career slam with the Australian Open victory last month, Paes is intrigued by his conspicuous lack of Olympic success as a doubles player.

“I came close to winning three times. One with Ramesh Krishnan in my first Olympics in 1992 and twice with Mahesh (Bhupathi) in Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008),” he told Reuters at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association Stadium. In Beijing, Paes and Bhupathi were eliminated in the quarter-finals by the eventual Swiss winners Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka.—Reuters

Coyotes defeat Red Wings GLENDALE: Mike Smith stopped 30 shots and Martin Hanzal scored twice as the Phoenix Coyotes ended a seven-game losing streak to Detroit with a 3-1 win over the Red Wings on Monday.

Boyd Gordon had a short-handed goal in the first period and Hanzal scored on a power play in the second for Phoenix. Detroit picked up the pressure in the third, but Smith made some difficult saves and Hanzal scored his eighth of the season into an empty net in the closing seconds to give the Coyotes consecutive wins over San Jose and Detroit, two of the Western Conference’s best teams. Johan Franzen scored his 20th goal for the Red Wings, who lost for the third time in 12 games.

the tiebreaker by a 3-2 margin. Jonas Hiller made 24 saves.

The Ducks haven’t lost to the Flames at home since a 5-1 defeat on Jan. 19, 2004 - Calgary’s only regulation win in its last 24 visits to Anaheim. The Flames’ last seven

games at Honda Center have resulted in one-goal losses, five of them either in overtime or a shootout.

Alex Tanguay and Jarome Iginla scored for Calgary.

Miikka Kiprusoff had 31 saves in the opener of a threegame road trip.—AP

Maple Leafs 6, Oilers 3 At Toronto, Phil Kessel scored twice and Mikhail Grabovski assisted on Toronto’s first two goals to lead the surging Toronto past Edmonton.

The Oilers played without coach Tom Renney, who stayed back at the team hotel after taking a puck in the head during the morning skate. The cut required stitches and left Renney experiencing headaches. Associate coach Ralph Krueger took over in his absence.

Clarke MacArthur, Jake Gardiner, Tyler Bozak and Joffrey Lupul also scored for the Maple Leafs. Kessel added an assist, passing the 300-point plateau for his career.

Jordan Eberle scored twice and Jeff Petry had a goal for Edmonton, which lost in regulation for the first time since Jan. 21.

Ducks 3, Flames 2 At Anaheim, California, Niklas Hagman scored the deciding goal in the eighth round of a shootout as Anaheim beat Calgary for its 14th straight home victory over the Flames.

Bobby Ryan and Matt Beleskey scored less than 2 minutes apart in the first period for the Ducks, who won

GLENDALE: Detroit Red Wings’ Pavel Datsyuk (13), of Russia, gets tripped up by Phoenix Coyotes’ Michal Rozsival (32), of the Czech Republic, and Keith Yandle (3) during the first period in an NHL hockey game.—AP

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

sp orts

Stage set for Drag Racing’s penultimate round Drivers from across the Gulf battle for supremacy SAKHIR: The fifth and penultimate round of the 2011/2012 Bahrain Drag Racing Championship gets underway tonight with a ‘Test and Tune’ session.

The event is being held as part of the National Racing Festival, which will be running all through the weekend at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

Action along BIC’s quarter-mile drag strip will be run by the Bahrain Drag Racing Club, which is under the umbrella of the Bahrain Motor Federation, and in cooperation with BIC. The evening’s events are scheduled

to begin from 7pm and continue until around 11pm. The tests will help the championship’s participants begin getting ready for the round’s qualifying runs on Thursday (February 9). Race day will then take place on Friday (February 10).

Thursday’s action is scheduled to begin at 7pm. Friday’s programme kick starts at 6pm. Close to a hundred drivers from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE are expected to take part in what is set to be a highly competitive meeting.

Scores of dragsters took part in the season’s fourth round last month,

which was cut short due to dangerous weather conditions. All uncompleted races will be taking place tomorrow as part of this weekend’s qualifying runs.

There were a pair of new World records set during round four: Gary White registered a mark of 6.504seconds during qualifying in the Outlaw Rear-Wheel-Drive (RWD) class while Adel Hassan Mohammed had a run of 9.871s in the final of the Street FrontWheel-Drive RWD category.

Many more records may be set in the upcoming battles at BIC, as the season draws closer to an exciting final round scheduled for mid-March.

Apart from the Bahrain Drag Racing Championship, this weekend’s National Racing Festival will also feature action in the Western Gulf Advisor y ( WGA) Supercars Championship Middle East and the BIC 2,000cc Challenge.

The WGA Supercars and the 2,000cc challengers will be out on track on Friday and Saturday (February 10 and 11).

All are welcome to attend the festival. To complement the racing, there will be plenty of off-the-track entertainment for the entire family. Children will be able to enjoy many fun activi-

ties such as game stalls, bouncy castles and carnival rides; while plenty of food and beverage stands will also be on hand throughout the day.

Tickets for the festival cost BD5 for all days for seats at the Batelco Grandstand. Children aged 16 years old and below will be able to enter for BD2.5. For seating along the Start Line Grandstand, tickets cost BD7 and BD3.5 for kids.

Ticketholders can watch all the heated action beginning from the WGA Supercars and 2,000cc Challenge in the morning, up until the drag racing in the evening.

Vonn off to fast start, opens big WCup lead

NEW YORK: Fans line the streets in lower Manhattan waiting for the start of the New York Giants Super Bowl parade. —AP

NY celebrates Super Bowl, New England Patriots suffer NEW YORK: After a late night of Super Bowl celebrations, New Yorkers kept the party going on Monday following a Giants victory that fans said was made sweeter because it was over the exalted New England Patriots.

Commemorative hats and T-shirts flew off the shelves at Modell’s Sporting Goods in Midtown Manhattan, while nearby a wax figure of Giants quarterback Eli Manning was a popular photo opportunity with fans outside Madame Tussauds.

Up to a million fans were also expected to line the streets on Tuesday to welcome back the Giants with a ticker-tape parade through the Wall Street district.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg will also present the team with the keys to the city.

Bloomberg said the parade would generate up to $38 million for the city and that almost 50,000 people had entered a lottery for 500 tickets to the City Hall ceremony. He said it was estimated that about one-third of those attending the parade would be visiting from outside the city.

“To beat (New England Patriots quarterback) Tom Brady twice in the Super Bowl and for Eli to have that on his resume, it makes it even sweeter,” said Jason Johnson, 38, a chef from Huntington, Long Island, who was wearing a Giants jacket marking the team’s 2008 Super Bowl victory-also over the Patriots.

The Boston Globe front page headline read “History Repeats” with a photo of a somber Brady leaving the field after the game. Four years ago, the underdog Giants ruined an undefeated season for the Patriots, who had won three Super Bowls with Brady at quarterback. Brady is still stuck on three.

“Brady got out-played by Eli Manning, which hurts to say,” said Ryan LeStrange, 29, a Patriots fan who traveled to the Boston area from Philadelphia to watch the game with family. “I didn’t really feel (the Patriots) had it in hand at any point.”

Not all Patriots fans handled the loss so well. On the campus of University of Massachusetts in Amherst police used smoke bombs and flash bangs to disperse an unruly crowd of about 1,500

after the game finished. Fourteen people were arrested.

A photo of Manning holding aloft the Lombardi Trophy graced the front pages of the New York Post and the Daily News, both with the headline “Champs!” New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger had a picture of wide receiver Victor Cruz under the headline “Again!”

“To beat New England itself is big.

Yankees/Red Sox and New England/Giants, it’s a big rivalry,” said Ricardo Arias, 39, restaurant owner from Weehawken, New Jersey, who had just bought a commemorative Giants cap.

“It feels like everybody is recovering this morning,” Arias, who watched the game at a bar in Hoboken, said of the late night celebrations by Giants fans.

Modell’s Sporting Goods flagship Times Square store sold memorabilia until 1 a.m. Monday and reopened at 5 am. “It was crazy, it was unbelievable.

We’re getting merchandise every hour, keeping it filled,” said Jim Buoni, vice president of Modell’s asset protection and innovation, adding that locker room caps and T-shirts were the hot ticket items. “It seems like there is a little bit more of a frenzy. Obviously in 2008 it was crazy and unexpected. Both games were very similar, last minute wins. We were a little more prepared and we have more merchandise than we did last time,” he said.

Nancy and Ed Chobrda, from Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, were in Modell’s buying T-shirts for relatives in Salt Lake City who were big Giants fans.

“It’s good for everyone’s moral,” Nancy Chobrda, 61, said.

“What would Mr. Modell do with all this merchandise if the Giants had lost?”

Ed Chobrda, 66, pondered. New York’s Bloomberg will also be collecting on a friendly wager he made with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. The City of Boston will provide a New York familychosen through an online lottery-with a super tour of the city.

“Giants won. It’s unbelievable, it’s awesome,” said Deedee Stephens, 28, from Brooklyn, as she handed out free newspapers outside the Times Square subway station. “People this morning have been excited, happy, a lot of smiles on their faces.” —Reuters

GERMANY: Lindsey Vonn is shining on the slopes and outracing the struggles in her personal life. The Olympic downhill champion may be going through a divorce with her husband and may be dealing with persistent rumors over who she’s dating, but the distractions have hardly affected her performance on the hill.

Vonn is off to one of the best starts of her career, leading the World Cup overall standings by a whopping 482 points as she tries to claim the title back from friend and top rival Maria HoeflRiesch of Germany.

Over the weekend, the 27year-old Vonn reached yet another milestone - earning her 50th career victory during a dramatic downhill run in GarmischPartenkirchen, Germany, where she momentarily went down on her hip, only to spring back up and glide through the finish like nothing had even happened.

With that, she joined a select few to reach the hallowed mark.

Among the women, only Annemarie Moser-Proell of Austria (62) and Vreni Schneider of Switzerland (55) are ahead of Vonn. On the men’s side, just three have reached 50 wins: Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden (86), Hermann Maier of Austria (54) and Alberto Tomba of Italy (50). To even be mentioned in the same sentence as Tomba was quite flattering for Vonn. “I never dreamed I would have reached the success that they’ve reached in their careers,” Vonn said. “I still have a lot of years of racing in me. I never expected it.” These days, the slopes have become Vonn’s sanctuary, her refuge from what’s going on in the rest of her life.

Earlier this season, she separated from Thomas Vonn, her husband of four years and her personal coach. Gone were the little things, too, like how he always made sure she didn’t conduct too many interviews or attend too many functions.

She realizes the integral role he played in her development.

“He has done a lot to help me.

We made a great team together,” said Vonn, who’s won nine races this season. Although they no longer work together, he’s proud of her success.

“I’m really happy for Lindsey,

50 World Cup wins is an amazing accomplishment,” Thomas Vonn wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “I know firsthand how much hard work went into this, and that it did not come easy. I have no doubt that 50 wins is just the beginning for her and that she will go down in history as one of the greatest skiers of all time.” After the breakup, Lindsey Vonn began working with another coach, Jeff Fergus, who has been with

the situation is. I don’t think that will ever change.”

Vonn also is in the process of rekindling her relationship with her father, Alan Kildow, after a falling out a few years ago. He was the person who introduced her to skiing and even moved the family from Minnesota to Colorado to hone her talent.

And he was on hand to see his daughter capture such a historic win. “It’s something special to get 50 wins, but even more

Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, celebrates on the podium. the U.S. speed team for six years.

“No matter who my coach is, I still know how to ski race,” Vonn said. “It’s definitely been difficult in many ways. It’ a different routine now, different coaches around, different emotions.

There are different personal aspects that I have to take care of every day that are not fun.

That’s what my life is now. “But I know how to ski no matter what

special to share that with your family,” she said.

And not to mention teammates. Her struggles away from the race course have brought her closer to the squad. They’ve been a shoulder to lean on through the hard times. “They realize how difficult this situation is for me,” Vonn said. “It’s brought us as a team of girls closer together. I just feel like

the attitude and energy on the team is really good right now.

“It’s been really great for me to have so much support from everyone, from my teammates and coaches. I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it without them.”

Vonn has been dialed in with very little rattling her on the course. Part of that has to do with her health - other than a sore back earlier this season, she’s been basically injury free and the rest to her determination. “When I’m in the starting gate, I’m not nervous at all. I know what I have to do to ski well and I just go out there and do it,” Vonn said. “I don’t really second guess myself. “I think that’s the reason why I’ve had more success this year than maybe in past years.”

Plus, there’s always this incentive dangling in front of her getting her crown back. Vonn lost last season when HoeflRiesch beat her by three points after the season’s final race was called off because of poor course conditions. She’s attempting to lock this title up early so that it doesn’t come down to Mother Nature again.

Vonn has accumulated 1,350 points so far this season, putting her ahead of Slovenia’s Tim Maze (868) and Hoefl-Riesch (796). Soon, Vonn & Co. will be heading to Sochi, Russia, to test out the Olympic course. Vonn can’t wait to catch a glimpse of the slope where she will try to defend her downhill title. “I’ll ingrain it in my mind,” Vonn said.

“I’ll do the same thing as Vancouver and visualize it over the next two years and hopefully be ready for the Olympics in 2014.” For now, she will keep her focus on smoothly gliding down the slopes even with her turmoil away from the mountain.

“I feel like no matter what’s going on in my personal life, I can always put my skis on and go out and clear my mind and really have fun. Skiing has been honestly the best thing for me at this point in my life,” Vonn said. “It’s hard to describe.

Things, on the personal front, they’re not any better than they were a few months ago. “But I feel very clear minded when I’m skiing and I am enjoying it more than I ever have.” —AP

Djokovic, Barcelona win at 2012 Laureus Awards LONDON: The dominant forces in tennis and football were honored Monday, with Novak Djokovic winning the top individual prize and Barcelona capturing the team trophy at the 2012 Laureus Sports Awards.

The top-ranked Djokovic won sportsman of the year at the ceremony in London, one week after the Serbian triumphed at the Australian Open to become the fifth man in the Open Era to win three Grand Slam titles in a row. He’s already targeting a fourth at the French Open in Paris in June.

“I have to stay optimistic, believe in what I can do, believe in my abilities and believe that I can win on all surfaces,” Djokovic said. “I have proven on numerous occasions that I can really be one of the candidates to win every Grand Slam on every surface. I need to keep that up. Roland Garros is the one to win this year.” Barcelona was recognized as the best team after a stellar 2011 in which Pep Guardiola’s players won the Spanish league and Champions League.

But Barcelona trails Real Madrid by seven points in the domestic title race and coach Pep Guardiola is yet to sign a new contract to keep him at the club beyond the end of the season. “It is not affecting the team,” Barca president Sandro Rosell said. “We are used to this way of renewing his contact. He likes to do it year by year. We 100 percent respect what he think he wants.

“The reason he is doing that is something

easy to understand: he wants to be motivate himself and (ensure) the players are motivated. We think both are happening. We hope that in the coming weeks he will renew - but one day it will not happen.”

Kenyan distance runner Vivian Cheruiyot, who won the 5,000- and 10,000-meter titles at the world championships last year, took the sportswoman’s award.

Darren Clarke was honored with the comeback of the year award. The 43-year-old Northern Irishman won his first golf major by capturing the British Open at Royal St. George’s last year. Compatriot Rory McIlroy

LONDON: Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic holds the trophy he won for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year at the Laureus World Sports Awards in London, on Monday. —AP

won the breakthrough of the year award for the 22-year-old’s eight-shot win at the US Open at Congressional, becoming the second-youngest player to win a major since 1934. “It was a great year to win my first major and to get into the top three in the world rankings,” McIlroy said. “I think 2012 is going to be a really exciting year. I’d love to back up my US Open win with another major this year, and hopefully try and get to No. 1.”

Bobby Charlton was supposed to attend to receive the lifetime achievement award 54 years to the day after surviving the Munich air disaster that killed eight members of his Manchester United team.

But the 74-year-old Charlton, who won the 1966 World Cup with England and the European Cup two years later with United, fell ill on Sunday and returned to Manchester on Monday for unspecified minor surgery, Laureus said. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson accepted the award on Charlton’s behalf.

“Sir Bobby is fine, but it was felt he should go back to Manchester - he is very annoyed not to be here to receive this award,” Ferguson said. Double amputee Oscar Pistorius won the disability award. The South African 400-meter specialist won a silver medal in the relay at the able-bodied world championships last year in Daegu, South Korea. The winners were chosen by 47 sports stars who make up the Laureus sports academy. —AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Years

S P ORT S

1-in-10 athletes may be doping WADA supports research projects

DAR EL SALAAM: Chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, Sebastian Coe (right) takes part in sports activities with a Tanzanian pupil from the Kibasila school during an Olympic delegation visit. — AP

Londoners looking to make money out of homes LONDON: Harriet Howse is one of many Londoners looking to make a profit out of their property during this summer’s Olympics, leaving the city and their homes to strangers to avoid the anticipated mayhem of an overcrowded capital.

One property website’s survey says an estimated one-in-three Londoners are considering packing their bags and moving in with family and friends or heading abroad when 11 million sports fans, media and corporate clients descend on the capital for the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza. You don’t have to hate sport either to be thinking about moving out.

Behind her blue door in northeast London, Howse, a fan of tennis who keeps herself fit, is planning to move out of her four-bedroomed terraced house and stay with her family. A housemate will be travelling to Japan.

“The cost of the tickets was so high that we couldn’t afford to put a bid in for any of them ... and I think the mayhem and chaos caused by the Olympics would be a good reason to get out of London,” Howse told Reuters. “I’m pro-Olympics but I think the crowds are going to be crazy.”

Her minimalist house, with its neutral colours alleviated by orange sofas and large paintings, is expected to fetch up to 2,000 pounds ($3,200) per week, four times the rent the 26-yearold university international officer could normally expect. Other London homeowners are looking to ask for six times the usual rate.

A survey by property website FindaProperty.com last year estimated the total Olympics rental market for flats, apartments or houses could be worth 314 million pounds, based on one-in-three homeowners considering letting out some or all of their properties.

Estate agents say the number of short-let clients on their books has risen sharply. Even high-end service specialists such as onefinestay.com, which handles properties typically worth 1.5 million pounds, is receiving between 100-150 calls a week from people looking to rent out their property during the Games.

“We’re expecting it to be by far the busiest time we’ll ever have had,” said Greg Marsh, co-founder of the site.

“People are going to be taking off for the period of the Games in order that they can earn a bit of extra income while they are away.”

Renting can prove attractive for visitors because it offers more flexibility while prices are likely to be cheaper than London’s notoriously expensive hotels.

“You could have a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast and you don’t have all the associated costs of living in a hotel,” said Sarah Tonkinson, lettings director at estate agents Foxtons.

Block booking has reduced the number of available hotel rooms, with the danger that it will push up prices, though London Olympic organisers (LOCOG) recently released more than 120,000 unwanted hotel room nights for resale.

Some hotels are reportedly hold-

ing customers on long waiting lists before releasing prices, but some tour operators have said the industry’s expected visitor numbers are hugely inflated.

The trick for both hoteliers and homeowners is getting the timing right when looking to charge a premium. “It’s better to take something at the lower price earlier and know you have definitely got something secure rather than run the risk and try to achieve a higher price later on,” said Darren Rebeiro, head of Olympic services at Keatons estate agents.

Prices advertised before the Sydney 2000 Olympics were seven times the market rate. “I think it is unlikely anyone achieved that,” he said.

Renting is proving popular with foreign media, security firms, embassies and athletics federations, some of whom will look to book 200 rooms at a time. Others who are renting are corporates, especially from the US, Asia and Russia.

Demand has focused on historic Greenwich, with its maritime history and open spaces as well as its proximity to the equestrian events and other Olympic riverside venues. One sevenbedroom property is on the market for 24,000 pounds per week.

Other popular areas, especially among Americans, include west London, with its upmarket shops, museums and luxury properties.

Wills Thomson, 48, is renting out a room in his two-bedroom flat in Chelsea to a father and son who booked last year on Crashpadder.com.

The archivist said it was an opportunity to meet “charming people from all walks of life from around the world” as well as earn a little pocket money. “It’s like staying with a friend of a friend, though they are paying for that privilege,” he said.

Stephen Rapoport, founder of Crashpadder, said he expected to double the site’s 2,100 hosts by Games time, while bookings were up by 245 percent compared with the same period last year.

People living in Stratford, gateway to the Olympic Park, are also looking to cash in. But estate agents in the formerly run-down part of east London, once home to noxious industries and slaughterhouses, are warning locals they may not be sitting on gold mines.

They urged caution against the expectation among some that “Mr and Mrs American” would be prepared to pay bloated rents for their properties.

Residents are likely to lose out to developers and buy-to-let property tycoons who moved in after London was chosen to host the Olympics, investing in new modern luxury apartments, which are proving more desirable.

“It’s going to be the investors that earn the money,” said Daniel Barbanel, sales and marketing director at local independent residential property agents Outlook.

“Because ultimately, the local people-with respect to them-their houses and flats aren’t particularly well decorated.” — Reuters

LAUSANNE: The World Anti-Doping Agency is warning that new research findings expected before the London Olympics could suggest that as many as 1 in 10 athletes who compete internationally may be doping.

Accepted wisdom until now, drawn from annual testing statistics, was that “maybe between 1 and 2 percent of athletes who are tested are cheating,” WADA director general David Howman said yesterday.

However, WADA is supporting research projects into the prevalence of doping among international-level athletes, with findings expected before the London Games open in July, Howman said.

Based on the initial results, “we think those numbers are more in the double digits. Now that’s a concern. If there is more than 10 percent of the athletes in the world being tempted to take the shortcut by taking prohibited substances, then we’ve got an issue that is not being confronted as well as it should be.”

Howman gave no details about how the research is being conducted, the methodology, or who is conducting it. In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Howman stressed the research is not finalized and suggested it would be wrong to conclude that 10 percent of athletes who compete in London might cheat.

“People go to the Olympic Games very well prepared for a big event, knowing if they are going to make a

mistake it is the worst shame they can bring upon themselves, their family ... (and) therefore less likely for people to take the shortcuts,” he said.

“The dopey guy is going to be picked up, and probably going to be picked up in pre-games testing. The real sophisticated guy might try to get away with it. But the program is going to be extensive.”

WADA president John Fahey said in an AP interview there was “a concerted effort being made by most countries to weed out any cheats before they get to London; that’s to be encouraged.” “The likelihood of cheats succeeding in the London Olympics is somewhat remote.”

Howman also said, however, that “we should not be complacent, sit back and think, ‘We are only dealing with 1 percent or 11/2 percent of the elite athlete population’” who are cheating. “It could be much higher, and the initial responses from this research indicates that it is.”

He said it was “very easy to catch the dopey doper,” but “the sophisticated doper is becoming harder to detect and that’s a big challenge for the anti-doping movement.”

WADA wants more testing of blood samples from athletes, not just urine, and more testing for the banned performance-enhancer EPO. The 258,267 samples analyzed by WADA-accredited labs in 2010 produced only 36 positive cases for EPO, even though the substance is favored by cheats. The reason for

Tour wants second Desert Swing: Bjorn DUBAI: European Tour officials are keen to launch a second ‘Desert Swing’ in the future, tournament committee chairman Thomas Bjorn said yesterday.

This week’s Dubai Desert Classic represents the final leg of the tour’s annual three-week stint in the Middle East that also takes in the Abu Dhabi Championship and the Qatar Masters.

Bjorn told Reuters in an interview yesterday that senior officials also wanted to branch out to other Gulf states in the coming years. “We hope places like Oman and Kuwait and maybe Saudi Arabia can also be hosts of European Tour events,” said the 40-year-old Dane. “ That would be the tour ’s dream, that we could have an extended tour in the Middle East maybe two times a year ... preferably have a swing at the beginning of the year and a swing at the end of the year.” The Dubai Classic is the oldest of the three existing tournaments, having started in 1989.

“Abu Dhabi at the moment probably gets the strongest field but this event in Dubai has the history,” said Bjorn. “They are all fantastic events, with great golf courses and facilities. From a players’ point of view that’s what we look for.

“We accept that not everything can be perfect but this is as close to perfect as it comes. I think that’s why it’s so popular with the players - it’s a great start to the season.”

Bjorn said he was delighted to see world number two Rory McIlroy, third-ranked Lee Westwood and number four Martin Kaymer in this week’s field.

“When you look at the entry list here it’s strong,” he added.

Rory McIlroy

“When you have guys like Lee, Rory and Martin - they have other options.

“They could easily take this week off and go and play in Los Angeles next week (at the Northern Trust Open). It shows how much support they want to show for these events that they come here.”

Bjorn enjoyed the best season of his career last year, winning three times, but he said he would not let September’s Ryder Cup dictate his approach to 2012.

He was a member of Europe’s victorious side in the biennial match against United States in 2002 but has not appeared since.

“I’m at an age where I don’t sit down and say the only thing I want to do is make the Ryder Cup team,” said Bjorn. “I’m playing good at the moment and I want to enjoy that because I’ve seen how quickly it can go the other way.”

Bjorn is just outside the top 10 automatic places in the Ryder Cup points table. “At 25 or 28 that would have been the only thing on my mind but now I just want to have a good, strong, enjoyable end to my career,” he explained.

“The difference between 10 years ago and now is you could play well and make the Ryder Cup team, now you have to play great,” said Bjorn, referring to the way Europe dominates the top of the world rankings.

The Dane has won 13 times on tour, including the Qatar Masters, Johnnie Walker Championship and European Masters in 2011, and has started this season in reasonable form. Bjorn was joint third in last month’s Abu Dhabi Championship and tied for 25th at the Qatar Masters which finished on Sunday. — Reuters

that “very disappointing” low number seems to be that labs aren’t actually looking for EPO in many samples, apparently to save costs.

Testing for EPO is considerably more expensive than for standard urine tests.

“Of course, you’re not going to get positive cases if you’re not even undertaking the analysis. That’s regrettable also and we’re going to do something about that,” Howman said. He added WADA would prefer labs “do fewer tests and make sure that each test counts.”

Fahey added: “It just seems to me

to be a tragedy that we are taking a sample and we are effectively saying there’s a percentage, that despite there being ingredients in that sample that are in the prohibited list, we are not going to find out because there are dollars involved.”

Fahey also warned that mounting concern in sports about illegal gambling and match-fixing should not detract from efforts to catch drug cheats. He urged sports bodies and governments not to take their eyes off anti-doping “simply because there is another threat that seems to be gaining some momentum.” — AP

LAUSANNE: Australian John Fahey, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, speaks during a WADA Media Symposium. — AP

S Korean envoy meets Sheikh Talal Al-Fahad K U WA I T: A m b a s s a d o r o f t h e Republic of Korea to Kuwait, K im Ky u n g S i k o n M o n d ay m e t w i t h Pre s i d e n t o f t h e Ku w a i t Fo o t b a l l Federation, Sheikh Dr Talal Al-Fahad Al-Sabah. During the meeting, the two sides reviewed preparations of the Kuwaiti national football team for its upcoming match against S. Korea in Seoul on Feb 29 in the third round of Asian Qualification for FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014.

The Ambassador stressed that the for thcoming match is crucial and important for the Korean and Kuwaiti soccer teams, wishing them success and good luck. He also wished all members of the Kuwaiti football dele g a t i o n a p l e a s a n t s t ay w h i l e i n Seoul.

Sheikh Talal expressed his thanks and appreciation for this visit. The ambassador thanked Sheikh Talal for his warm reception.

Why not win both Roland Garros and Olympic gold, asks Djokovic LONDON: The French Open title and an Olympic gold medal are the only major prizes in tennis to have eluded Novak Djokovic, and for the Serb, there is no point discussing which he would rather win this year.

“Why not both?” the confident Serb shot back when asked to choose, looking dapper in a suit and bow tie after collecting his Laureus sportsman of the year award in London on Monday.

As with most of the five -times grand slam winner’s public appearances, the 24-year-old’s swagger is tempered with a smile, suggesting he is not getting too carried away with his huge success over the past 14 months.

In Dec. 2010, Djokovic spearheaded Serbia to their first Davis Cup triumph then went on to win three of the four major titles in 2011, before outlasting Rafa Nadal in the longest grand slam final played to defend his Australian Open crown last month.

Jokes and smiles aside, when Djokovic addressed the question seriously, his response was ominous. “I’ve learnt how to handle my schedule, how to handle myself on and off the court and to prepare for the biggest events. That is going to be the case this year,” he said.

“I will tr y to set up my form for Roland Garros first of all, where I want to get the title and go all the way through, and then I’ll start thinking about Wimbledon and the Olympics.”

Djokovic has honed his craft alongside two of the game’s most successful male players in 16-times grand slam champion Roger Federer and Nadal, a 10-times major winner.

The Serb’s dominance in 2011 was briefly interrupted by Swiss Federer at Roland Garros, who snapped his 41match winning streak in the semifinal.

Djokovic has never made it past the last four in the year’s second grand slam and would likely have to beat Nadal to claim the title in Paris, where the Spaniard has reigned supreme in six of the last seven tournaments.

Should he come out on top on the red dust in June, Djokovic would join an elite crew of players to have won all four grand slams, comprising Federer, Nadal, Americans Andre Agassi and Don Budge, Briton Fred Perry and Australians Rod Laver and Roy Emerson.

Out of his contemporaries, though, Federer’s record haul of 16 grand slam titles remains the benchmark, while Nadal holds the coveted Olympic gold medal from Beijing four years ago.

Djokovic has beaten Nadal in seven consecutive finals, including the title match at Melbourne Park, and is also set on taking the Spaniard’s gold in London, despite some worries the Wimbledon sur face may not be in great shape af ter the year ’s third grand slam in June and July.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how the grass will recover, but I’m informed already that they have everything prepared,” said Djokovic, who chewed on a piece of the turf after winning last year’s final against Nadal.

If Djokovic’s demeanor and play carry on in this vein, he will be taking a bite out of a gold medal come August. — Reuters

18

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

S P ORT S

76ers triumph over Lakers

Saeed Ajmal

Pakistan clarifies confusion over Ajmal’s bowling action DUBAI: Pakistan cricket authorities and the International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday clarified the confusion over Saeed Ajmal’s bowling action, saying the spinner had been cleared within the specified limits.

Ajmal himself created more confusion, by claiming he has special dispensation from the ICC to straighten his arm beyond the allowed 15 degrees.

The 34-year-old off-spinner, who took 24 wickets in the 3-0 Test series whitewash of England, claimed that the ICC has allowed him extra leniency, up to 23.5 degrees.

As per the ICC rules a bowler can only straighten his arm up to 15 degrees, beyond which his action will be deemed illegal.

“I don’t know about my bowling action, but somebody was telling me your action is bad. ICC has allowed me 23.5 because my arm is not good because of an accident, that is why a problem,” Ajmal told BBC television on Monday after being declared man-ofthe-series.

“Otherwise no problem, straightaway cleared by ICC.” The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said Ajmal was referring to elbow extension, and not the arm.

“Ajmal was referring to the angle of elbow abduction i.e. the angle of the upper arm to the forearm and not the degree of elbow extension. This angle is approximately 23 degrees in Ajmal’s case,” the PCB said in a statement.

“The ICC’s level of tolerance of 15 degrees relates to the degree of elbow extension that is permitted in the bowling action i.e. the amount by which the arm is straightening,” it added.

The PCB said the previous tests conducted on the action of Ajmal showed that the degree of elbow extension is well within ICC’s tolerance levels.

ICC general manager cricket David Richardson also backed the PCB’s stance.

“There is a big difference between the elbow carry angle (elbow abduction) and the degree of elbow extension.

There is nothing preventing a bowler bowling with a bent arm, provided he does not straighten it beyond the permitted degrees of tolerance,” said Richardson. Pakistan won the third and final Test here by 71 runs.

Ajmal’s bowling action, reported by match officials during a one-day series against Australia here in 2009 before it was cleared after remedial work by experts, once again came under suspicions following his career-best 7-55 in the first Test, also played in Dubai.

Former England paceman Bob Willis raised suspicions over his ‘doosra’ (second one) — a ball which turns the other way than a normal off-break-while England coach Andy Flower said he has his own opinion and left the matter to the ICC. But after Ajmal’s claim on relaxation, Flower yesterday showed surprise. “If that’s the degree, then there’s a problem, said Flower when asked about Ajmal’s claim of special dispensation. “That’s ridiculous.” “That is an ICC issue, though.

They are there to police the game, and make sure that it is played within the rules, so they’ve got to scrutinise his action. “We’ve all got our own views, but our job is to combat whoever is put against us, and part of it is also to play the game in the right spirit.” —AFP

Afridi in, Razzaq out of Pakistan one-day, T20s KARACHI: Pakistan yesterday included all rounders Shahid Afridi and Hammad Azam in its one-day and Twenty20 squads for the rest of this month’s series against England in the United Arab Emirates.

Opener Taufiq Umar will return home after the three-Test series which Pakistan won 3-0. The first of four oneday matches will be played in Abu Dhabi on February 13. The one-days will be followed by three Twenty20 internationals.

Misbah-ul Haq will lead Pakistan in both the formats. All rounder Abdul Razzaq, part of the team in the one-day series against Sri Lanka in the UAE last year, has been dropped for poor performance.

He missed the Bangladesh series in December due to a shoulder injury but failed to get a nod post-recovery. He has so far played 265 one-days and 46 Tests for Pakistan.

Fellow all rounder Azam gets another chance and hard-hitting batsman Awais Zia will make his international debut in the T20 team after doing well in the newest form of the game in domestic competitions. Azam, 20, has played five one-day games but last appeared against Ireland in June 2011.

Paceman Wahab Riaz, part of the Test squad but who did not play in any of the matches, retains his place in both the one-day and T20 squads, while Test specialist Azhar Ali will be part of the one-day squad only.

Discarded former captain Shoaib Malik was also included in both squads.

“On the request of Misbah, the selection committee has agreed to send Malik to join the one-day and T20 squads,” Pakistan Cricket Board said.

Malik’s inclusion comes as a surprise after he flopped in his last five one-day innings, scoring a mere 33 runs. He managed just 22 in three Twenty20 innings.

One-day squad: Misbah-ul-Haq (captain), Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Umar Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Adnan Akmal, Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Aizaz Cheema, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Wahab Riaz, Azhar Ali, Hammad Azam, Shoaib Malik.

Twenty20 squad: Misbah-ul-Haq (captain), Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Umar Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Adnan Akmal, Awais Zia, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema, Junaid Khan, Hammad Azam, Shoaib Malik. —AFP

PHILADELPHIA: Lou Williams scored the go-ahead 3-pointer, scored 14 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter, and spoiled Kobe Br yant’s record-setting night while leading the Philadelphia 76ers to 95-90 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday.

With “Beat L.A.!” echoing through a second straight sellout crowd, Williams hit the equalizing jump shot, then followed with the 3 for a 91-88 lead. He hit another floater to make it 93-88, part of a fantastic fourth that saw him hold off Bryant and help the Sixers improve to 13-3 at home.

Br yant scored 24 of his 28 points in the first half. He passed former teammate Shaquille O’Neal and moved into fifth place on the NBA’s career scoring list. Bryant got 24 points in a hurry to pass O’Neal, but stumbled down the stretch and missed nine of his 10 shots in the fourth.

Andrew Bynum had 20 points and 20 rebounds for the Lakers.

Pau Gasol had 16 points and 11 rebounds.

NEW YORK: Utah Jazz’s Al Jefferson (25) reaches to recover a loose ball as New York Knicks’ Jared Jeffries (9) and Tyson Chandler defend during the first half of an NBA basketball game. —AP

Knicks 99, Jazz 88 At New York, Jeremy Lin scored a career-high 28 points in his first career start and Steve Novak added a season-best 19 as New York overcame the absence of Amare Stoudemire and early loss of Carmelo Anthony to beat Utah.

Stoudemire left the team to join his family in Florida after older brother Hazell was killed there earlier Monday in a car crash, then Anthony left after just six minutes with a strained right groin.

Al Jefferson scored 22 points in a disappointing effort for the Jazz in the opener of a brief twogame road trip.

Suns 99, Hawks 90 At Atlanta, Steve Nash scored 24 points as Phoenix broke open a close game with a 24-6 run to close the third quarter and beat Atlanta.

Nash, whose 38th birthday was yesterday, had 11 assists and shot 9 of 12 - including each of his four 3-pointers. Channing Frye had 19 points, including a 3pointer and another basket in the closing minutes to help the Suns stop Atlanta’s final comeback attempt.

Smith had 18 points, and Johnson had 17 for the Hawks, who suffered their third straight loss, all at home, after a 4-1 road trip.

Kings 100, Hornets 92 At New Orleans, DeMarcus Cousins had 28 points and 19 rebounds as Sacramento erased an 18-point deficit en route to a victor y over slumping New Orleans.

Tyreke Evans scored 11 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, when Sacramento took its first lead on Marcus Thornton’s free throw with 6:24 left. Isaiah Thomas scored 17, including a 31-foot 3-pointer with 2:15 to go that gave the Kings a 94-88 lead.

Thornton added 12 points.

Greivis Vasquez scored 20 points and Marco Belinelli 18 points for New Orleans, which has lost six straight.

Clippers 107, Magic 102 At Orlando, Florida, Chris Paul scored 29 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter and overtime, as the Los Angeles Clippers overcame a 15-point first-half deficit and slipped by Orlando. Blake Griffin and Chauncey Billups each added 18 points for the Clippers.

The Clippers have won six of the last seven games and snapped a nine -game losing streak to the Magic. But they may have lost Billups for an extended period after he slipped and left in the fourth quarter with a left Achilles injury. Dwight Howard had 33 points and 14 rebounds, and Jason Richardson 20 points for the Magic.

Bulls 108, Nets 87 At Newark, New Jersey, Carlos Boozer scored 24 points to lead Chicago to an easy victory over New Jersey. Luol Deng scored 19 points and CJ Watson added 14 points and 10 assists in place of Derrick Rose. The reigning league MVP played less than 11 minutes in the first half and the Bulls said at halftime that he would not return because of back spasms.

Deron Williams scored 25 points for the Nets, who only dressed nine players.

Spurs 89, Grizzlies 84 At Memphis, Tennessee, Tony Parker scored 21 points, and Tim Duncan added 19 points and 17 rebounds to lead San Antonio over Memphis.

Duncan scored 13 of his points in the second half as the Spurs opened a nine-game road trip with a win. Marc Gasol scored 22 points to lead Memphis, which led 73-67 entering the final period. Mike Conley scored 19 and Rudy Gay had 18 for the Grizzlies.

Wizards 111, Raptors 108 At Washington, John Wall scored 31 points, Nick Young had a season-high 29 and Trevor Booker added a season-high 19 as Washington hung on to beat Toronto.

Young’s two free throws with 1:06 to play gave Washington a 109-106 lead. The Raptors’ Amir Johnson hit two free throws with 27.2 seconds left to make it 109108. Booker hit the first of two free throws with 6.7 seconds left.

Young rebounded Booker’s miss, was fouled and hit the second of two free throws with 1.5 seconds left to make it 111-108. Linas Kleiza’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer fell short. Jerryd Bayless and Kleiza both had a seasonhigh 30 points for Toronto.

Rockets 99, Nuggets 90 At Denver, Luis Scola scored 25 points as Houston handed injuryriddled Denver its third straight loss. The Nuggets not only lost for the fifth time in six games but they lost budding star forward Danilo Gallinari, who rolled his left ankle in the third quarter. Xrays revealed a chip fracture of the foot and he was scheduled for further tests late yesterday “for a definitive diagnosis,” the team said. Kyle Lowry added 20 points for Houston, which won for just the fourth time in a dozen road games.

Thunder 111, Trail Blazers 107 At Portland, Oregon, Kevin Durant had 33 points, including a dunk with 2.9 seconds left in overtime, as Oklahoma City defeated Portland.

Russell Westbrook added 28 points and 11 rebounds for the Thunder, who upped their NBAbest record to 19-5.

LaMarcus Aldridge had 39 points for Portland, who led 103101 with 6 seconds left in regulation before a goaltending call that drew the ire of the Rose Garden crowd and seemed to take the energy out of the Blazers. —AP

NBA results/standings LA Clippers 107, Orlando 102 (OT); Philadelphia 95, LA Lakers 90; Washington 111, Toronto 108 (OT); Phoenix 99, Atlanta 90; Chicago 108, New Jersey 87; NY Knicks 99, Utah 88; Sacramento 100, New Orleans 92; San Antonio 89, Memphis 84; Houston 99, Denver 90; Oklahoma City 111, Portland 107 (OT). (OT denotes overtime win)

Philadelphia Boston NY Knicks New Jersey Toronto

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L 18 7 13 10 10 15 8 18 8 18

Chicago Indiana Milwaukee Cleveland Detroit

Central Division 21 6 16 7 10 13 9 13 6 20

Miami Atlanta Orlando Washington Charlotte

Southeast Division 18 6 16 9 15 10 5 20 3 21

PCT .720 .565 .400 .308 .308 .778 .696 .435 .409 .231 .750 .640 .600 .200 .125

GB 4 8 10.5 10.5 3 9 9.5 14.5 2.5 3.5 13.5 15

Western Conference Northwest Division 19 5 15 10 13 10 14 11 12 12

.792 .600 .565 .560 .500

4.5 5.5 5.5 7

LA Clippers LA Lakers Phoenix Golden State Sacramento

Pacific Division 15 7 14 11 10 14 8 13 9 15

.682 .560 .417 .381 .375

2.5 6 6.5 7

San Antonio Houston Dallas Memphis New Orleans

Southwest Division 17 9 14 11 14 11 12 13 4 21

.654 .560 .560 .480 .160

2.5 2.5 4.5 12.5

Oklahoma City Denver Utah Portland Minnesota

Skateboarder Hoffart living the dream in California

Jordan Hoffart in action in this file photo

LOS ANGELES: Ever since Jordan Hoffart decided to turn his back on the seemingly incessant rain of his native Vancouver, he has been living his dream as a professional skateboarder in the perpetual sunshine of southern California.

The 27-year-old Canadian, who briefly worked in construction and also as a stunt man in the movie industry to help pay off a mortgage, is now able to twin his ideal career with a near-perfect lifestyle.

Whether he is competing on the professional circuit, filming video footage for one of his brand sponsors, giving advice to up-and-coming skateboarders or simply trying out a new trick, he is exactly where he wants to be.

“Eat, sleep and skate, it is just how I pictured it,” Hoffart, who has lived full-time in the United States since early 2009, told Reuters. “You get this feeling when you skate, a sense of freedom to create and do whatever you want. It’s like a thrill.

“When I first stepped on a board, it just struck me as very intriguing. It was the only thing that held my attention long enough for me to progress at something. And now here I am, living the dream.

“I believe San Diego has the best weather in the world. It’s sunny and 80 degrees every day. I was miserable working up there in Vancouver and sick of the rain.”

Hoffart, who is renowned for his “Big Spin Heel Flip” where he blunt slides down a handrail, has excelled in competition but he is happiest when

exploring the more artistic side of skateboarding.

“My priority is to keep it interesting, new and fun as opposed to being competitive and making a lot more money,” said the Canadian, who played a minor role as a vampire skater in the film “Blade: Trinity”, which starred Wesley Snipes.

“I love doing all the contests but to win, you either have to be a freak of nature or you have to really concentrate on the contest season, concentrate on those 10 or 12 tricks you have and go to the park every day and just repetitively do them over and over and over.

“I don’t think I have the attention span to do those same tricks 100 times every day. I’d rather just get a normal job,” Hoffart added with a broad grin.

Asked how he developed new skateboarding tricks, Hoffart replied: “A lot of the time it will be through inspiration from skating at a new spot.”

“Other times, you will end up skating that spot and maybe by accident you will slip out of the trick you are trying and land into something else and think: ‘Wow, I didn’t even think of that.” Then it spirals into a whole other trick.

“When you skate with new people and see how they skate spots differently from you and what they think of, you can also get a bunch of inspiration.”

Born in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, where he was introduced to skateboarding at the age of six by his freestyle skating uncle, Hoffart loves passing on tips to his younger fans. —Reuters

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

S P ORT S

Capello’s roller-coaster ride lurches into another crisis LONDON: Fabio Capello’s roller-coaster ride as England soccer coach could come to a screeching halt this week for his role in another controversy surrounding his now deposed team captain John Terry.

England’s preparations for the World Cup in South Africa were overshadowed by a dispute surrounding Terry two years ago and their build-up for this year’s European Championship in Poland and Ukraine could be disrupted to an even greater degree if Capello loses his job.

The 65-year-old Italian, who has coached England for the last four years, is due to meet the FA Board later this week and his comments to the Italian TV channel RAI will be top of the agenda.

Capello let it be known on Sunday that he disagreed with the decision taken by the Football Association’s board to strip Terry of the England captaincy while he awaits trial for alleged racial abuse of Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League match last October.

The FA has not said Terry cannot play in the tournament if he is picked. His trial is

set for July 9, eight days after it ends and he is pleading not guilty. But rather than keeping his own counsel, Capello told RAI channel in a live interview from London on Sunday that he “absolutely” did not agree with the decision taken by FA chairman David Bernstein and his board.

Capello said that Terry should not have been dealt with by the FA now, reiterating his earlier stance that the 31-year-old Chelsea skipper was, as far as he was concerned, innocent until proven guilty of the charge. Capello, who is leaving the job after the Euros in any case, has always appeared to have a good working relationship with Bernstein, especially after the FA continued to back him despite public and media calls for his departure following England’s poor showing in South Africa.

They barely scraped out of their group, winning only one of three games, and were eliminated in the second round by Germany following a 4-1 defeat, their worst ever loss in the finals.

Their fortunes have improved since and they qualified for the European finals with ease, winning five and drawing three of

their eight qualifiers. Capello said he had discussed the Terry situation with Bernstein before the FA made its decision, and when asked by RAI if it was right that Terry lost the armband he replied: “Absolutely not.

“I talked to the chairman. I said that in my opinion a person cannot be sanctioned until it is official. It will be for the court to decide, the law, not the sports court but the civil law.

“They will say whether John Terry has committed the offence of which he is accused. I maintain, and I maintained, its right that John Terry was able to keep the armband.

“The fact that the board decided on this, is something that is within their competence when dealing with ethics.”

Capello’s reported remarks typically caused a media storm in England and ignited the old dispute when Terry was first stripped of the captaincy following an alleged relationship with the ex-girlfriend of his former Chelsea team mate Wayne Bridge. Rio Ferdinand, Anton’s older brother and Terry’s long-time partner in the cen-

tre of England’s defence, took over as captain, but was then replaced by Steven Gerrard after being injured just before the World Cup began.

Commentators are now saying Terry should never have been re-instated as captain by Capello last year and whoever is now named as captain will know he is only second choice.

As if that was not enough to worry about, David Davies, a former executive director of the FA, told the BBC on Monday that Capello could have breached his employment terms by showing disloyalty to the FA. “It is being taken very seriously by the FA because it may be that Fabio Capello has breached his contract. You have to ask what his motive is,” Davies said.

“You have to suspect he wants to prevent John Terry retiring as a player before Euro 2012, but there are wider issues. You could have what some of the media are calling a morality circus while England are trying to win the second major tournament in football.” All this is strikingly familiar to what occurred in 2010 when Capello decided to strip Terry of the captaincy

because he could not be a role model, leader and ambassador for England and the FA following the extra-marital allegations. One former England captain, Alan Shearer, said he thought the FA had actually done Capello a favour by making the decision for him.

“I think the FA have been strong and decisive,” Shearer told the BBC. “They were never going to please everybody. I have been lucky enough to be the England captain leading up to a major tournament and I know the demands of an England captain. “It will be very very difficult for John to continue with his duties as captain, to help with the FA, on their commercial side, with the campaigns that they have. They have made the right decision. “I think it might actually help Fabio Capello because of his relationship with John Terry. The decision has been taken away from him. If he stays in the squad, it could have caused a problem between him and the manager, so I think it has helped Capello.” The FA has refused to comment further on the matter but everyone else will be in the days ahead.—Reuters

Preview

Heat on Ghana as Zambia plot ambush SPAIN: Kimi Raikkonen of Finland drives the new Lotus E20 during Formula One winter testing at the Circuito de Jerez. —AP

Raikkonen shakes off cobwebs in style SPAIN: Finland’s 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time in his Lotus-Renault during pre-season testing here yesterday.

The 32-year-old Raikkonen — winner of 18 grands prix — is putting this year’s model through its paces as he returns to Formula One after two years away.

Raikkonen won his 2007 crown with Ferrari before switching to the World Rally Championship in 2009 followed by a spell in Nascar racing.

“I did exactly as the team predicted, well almost everything,” said the driver known as the ‘Iceman’. “We tried different things, checked others, and that is normal on the first day of testing in a new car. “My first impressions are really good and I am very happy with the manner in

which I drove. “There are areas where we can still improve the car, but I’m not worried. “After three weeks of testing, we will see much more clearly how things will be when the season begins.

“I feel good in the car and I’ve experienced far less successful first days of testing, in other cars, during my career.”

Double world champion Sebastian Vettel of Germany arrives here on Friday to test the RB8, with his Australian teammate Mark Webber, who is testing the car earlier in the week, clocked the fourth fastest time for Red Bull-Renault on Tuesday.

Testing runs until Friday with fur ther sessions at Barcelona from February 21-24 and March 1-4, before the GP opener in Melbourne, Australia on March 18.—AFP

BATA: The heat will be on Ghana and off Zambia when they clash in this steamy port city today with a place in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations final at stake. “Playing in the final is the least everyone expects from us,” admitted Serb coach Goran Stevanovic ahead of the semi-final showdown at the 35,000-seat Estadio de Bata.

“We relish being among the favorites and there is additional pressure on the team because I have told them many times that Ghana must win the Cup of Nations for the first time in 30 years.”

Severely depleted Ghana finished runners-up to Egypt in the 2010 final and later that year became only the third African country to reach the World Cup quarter-finals before losing on penalties to Uruguay. By reaching the penultimate stage of the biennial African football showcase for the first time since 1996, Zambia have met the pre-tournament target of French coach Herve Renard.

“There is no more pressure on us,” said Renard, “and now we can dream of going all the way to the final. Ghana are favourites, but we will be prepared for them.” Playing in the February 12 decider would have special significance for the Copper Bullets as it will be hosted by Gabon, off whose coast a plane carrying the 1993 Zambian squad crashed with no

survivors among the 30 on board. “Imagine if we could lift the trophy in Libreville-it would be a fantastic way to honour the memories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving the land they loved,” added Renard.

Although Ghana have won two of three previous Cup of Nations matches between the countries, Zambia are likely to be the fresher outfit come the late afternoon kick-off in the most populous Equatoguinean city. While Zambia cruised to a 3-0 quarter-final win over Sudan in Bata last Saturday, Ghana were taken to extra time a day later before overcoming 10-man Tunisia 2-1 in south-eastern Gabonese city Franceville.

Renard also has a more settled line-up with 10 starting in all four matches against Senegal, Libya, Equatorial Guinea and Sudan while full-backs Francis Kasonde and Davies Nkausu have made two appearances each. Goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey, defender John Boye, midfielders Andre Ayew, Anthony Annan and Emmanuel Agyemang Badu and striker Asamoah Gyan are the six Black Stars who started against Botswana, Mali, Guinea and Tunisia.

Captain John Mensah scored the winner against Botswana but was also red carded, ruling him out

be too complicated because the absence of matches is going to start becoming a problem in terms of rhythm. For the moment, my players are well and they worked in good spirits at Stade Bonal.”

Right-back Mathieu Debuchy insists the club’s triumph last year has made them eager to repeat their success this season.

“Wednesday’s match won’t have the same flavour as the Championship. It’s a very important Cup match for us because we have the desire to return to the Stade de France. “The only way to achieve it is to qualify. We want to win at any cost to continue to dream. Last season, what happened was magical. It gives us the means to re-live it,” said Debuchy.

Elsewhere, Lyon host Bordeaux, who are unbeaten in 2012. Ligue 2 side Chateauroux are out to emulate Guingamp’s improbable 2009 triumph, but they face a tricky encounter against Ligue 1 high-flyers Montpellier. Third division Gazelec Ajaccio take on fourth-tier Drancy in Corsica, while Tuesday’s lone tie sees Rennes welcome Evian to Brittany.—AFP

France makes four changes for Ireland PARIS: Toulouse lock Yoann Maestri will get his first start in a France pack with four changes for the Six Nations home match against Ireland on Saturday.

Forwards Imanol Harinordoquy, Dimitri Szarzewski, and Jean-Baptiste Poux were recalled, while coach Philippe Saint-Andre made no changes yesterday to the backline that scored four tries in last weekend’s 3012 win over Italy.

Saint-Andre decided to strengthen his lineout by replacing flanker Julien Bonnaire with Harinordoquy and lock Lionel Nallet with the 2.01-meter Maestri.

Maestri earned his first cap last weekend by replacing Nallet at Stade de France. “He has improved a lot in his discipline and defense,” Saint-Andre said of Maestri.

“When he came off the bench, he was flawless, he did what was expected from him.

“When the Italians wanted to carry the ball, he stopped them. He was also exceptionally clean at the breakdown.” Maestri will play a key role in preventing Ireland lock Paul O’Connell from dominating in the air. “He has everything to be a great lock,” Saint-Andre said. “He’s an interesting option for the lineout. With him, (Pascal)

Pape and Imanol, we have three quality jumpers.”

The World Cup runner-up was penalized in scrums and rucks against Italy, leading Saint-Andre to drop hooker William Servat and prop Vincent Debaty and give the nod to Szarzewski and Poux.

However, Saint-Andre kept faith in flyhalf Francois Trinh-Duc despite his average performance against Italy and concerns over Ireland’s kicking game.

“He played an important role in three of the four tries,” Saint-Andre said. “In the kicking game, we were poor in our strategy. He missed two short restart kicks, but in the kicking game, we have two or three players who must also kick.” Ireland lost 23-21 to Wales last weekend.

France: Maxime Medard, Vincent Clerc, Aurelien Rougerie, Wesley Fofana, Julien Malzieu, Francois Trinh-Duc, Dimitri Yachvili; Louis Picamoles, Imanol Harinordoquy, Thierry Dusautoir (captain), Yoann Maestri, Pascal Pape, Nicolas Mas, Dimitri Szarzewski, Jean-Baptiste Poux. Reserves: William Servat, Vincent Debaty, Lionel Nallet, Julien Bonnaire, Morgan Parra, Lionel Beauxis, Maxime Mermoz.—AP

Matches on TV (Local Timings)

AFRICAN NATIONS CUP

Big freeze hits French Cup PARIS: Arctic conditions throughout France have forced the country’s football authorities to postpone three last-16 encounters in the French Cup. Last year’s runners-up Paris SaintGermain had their tie against Dijon — originally scheduled for yesterday in Burgundy — pushed back to next Wednesday, while Marseille’s trip to fourth division BourgPeronnas was rescheduled too.

The tie between Quevilly and Orleans — a battle between third and fourth-tier sides respectively — also fell victim to the subzero temperatures.

Of the games still going ahead, defending champions Lille travel to Ligue 1 rivals Valencinnes today. Rudi Garcia’s side are third in the league but have won just one of their past four matches in the top flight.

Lille’s match against Sochaux on Sunday was postponed because of snow, and Garcia believes his players will be the “fresher” of the two sides.

“We know that we will without doubt be fresher than Valenciennes, who confronted Dijon this weekend. “We hope that it won’t

of the impressive win over Mali, and injury sidelined him for the Guinea game before he returned and scored against Tunisia.

Should Mensah be selected, his battle with rival captain Christopher Katongo is set to be a key clash in the struggle for victory and a final date against Didier Drogba-skippered Ivory Coast or Seydou Keita-inspired Mali.

While Ghana boast footballers with Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga and French Ligue 1 clubs, Switzerland-based striker Emmanuel Mayuka is the only Zambian playing top-flight football in Europe.

But big names do not scare the Copper Bullets as they launched their campaign with a shock victory over a Senegalese squad that included Demba Ba and Papiss Demba Cisse of Newcastle United and Moussa Sow then of French champions Lille and now of Fenerbahce. “We have no big names and our star is the team,” says Renard while Stevanovic counters that “we have a chance to win trophies because my players are fantastic professionals.”—AFP

Zambia v Ghana Al Jazeera Sports +9 Al Jazeera Sports +10 Al Jazeera Sports 2 HD

19:00

Mali v Ivory Coast Al Jazeera Sports +9 Al Jazeera Sports +10 Al Jazeera Sports 2 HD

22:00

SPAIN COPA DEL REY BATA: Ghana national team players gather in a circle at the start of a pre-match training session at Bata Stadium. Ghana will face Zambia today in their African Cup of Nations semifinal soccer match.—AP

Barcelona v Valencia Al Jazeera Sports +2 Al Jazeera Sports 1 HD

23:00

Preview

Mali out to defy history LIBREVILLE: Mali will have to defy history if they are to overcome the mighty Ivory Coast in today’s Africa Cup of Nations semi-final.

The Ivorians have met Mali 21 times, winning 14 with the Eagles emerging victorious just the once, in a friendly back in 1995.

Twice their paths have crossed in the Nations Cup, with the Elephants prevailing 3-0 in the first round in Ghana in 2008 and 3-1 in the quarterfinals in 1994.

Yet Mali’s Seydou Keita, following the Henry Ford approach about history being ‘bunk’, dismissed the significance of the lopsided statistics, the Barcelona star saying: “The past?

In football the past doesn’t count for anything.”

Keita’s return to the national team after a 20 month hiatus has proved instrumental in Mali’s progress at the 2012 Cup. He converted the decisive spot kick in Mali’s 5-4 penalty shoot out defeat of co-hosts Gabon in Sunday’s quarter-final which had ended 1-1 after extra time.

The 32-year-old veteran, reflecting on the Eagles’ presence in the last four, commented: “We deserve our qualification. Everything isn’t perfect, we’re not Barcelona nor Brazil but we’re in the semi-finals and we’ll play to our strengths. “We have nothing to lose.” Mali, after escaping from the first round as group runners-up to Ghana, know only too well they will have to raise their game to a higher level to topple the competition favorites.

Didier Drogba and company left their plush Equatorial Guinea base in Malabo to fly to the Gabonese capital

GABON: Mali’s soccer players during their training at INJS stadium in Libreville. Mali will play their African Cup of Nations semi-final soccer match against Ivory Coast today. —AP Libreville on Sunday with a perfect four wins out of four.

The Ivorians’ results make seductive reading - eight goals to none conceded. Coach Francois Zahoui has injected a newfound pragmatism in a side that for so many years has flattered to deceive, earning the unwanted tag of ‘chokers’.

Zahoui has come to this Nations Cup with the sole objective of claiming the title with the Jose Mourinhostyle philosophy of the results justifying the means.

A style of play based on efficiency and economy has replaced the brilliance of before, and it has led them

to within 90 minutes of the final.

Zahoui expressed satisfaction in seeing his side develop since their arrival. “I’m extremely happy with the spirit of this team which moves forward and makes progress from match to match. we’ve got a side of mature players.”

Drogba, who missed a penalty then scored in the 3-0 quarter-final defeat of Equatorial Guinea on Saturday, commented: “In 2008 (Egypt beat them 4-1 in the semifinals) we were dazzling, scoring lots of goals but we didn’t manage to get to the final. “In 2006 we were in the final and we lost. Here, we are show-

ing character.” His Premier League colleague, Yaya Toure, added: “We know that defensively we have to be strong because offensively we have nothing to fear as we have super strikers.” “We have two ‘finals’ to play, it’s going to be really tough but inshallah we’ll make it,” the Manchester City midfielder added.

“We want to do something for our people. We want to reach the final and bring the Cup back to our country. “We must remain concentrated, but we’re ready both physically and mentally. “Each morning when I wake up I see the Cup, I think of nothing else.”—AFP

Heat on Ghana as Zambia plot ambush

76ers triumph over Lakers

19

18

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Pakistan clarifies confusion over Ajmal’s bowling action

Page 18

QATAR: German rider Rudiger Selig of the Katusha Team celebrates on the podium with the best young rider’s white jersey at the end of the 146 kilometer third stage of the Tour of Qatar cycling race. —AFP

Cavendish sprints to stage win DOHA: British rider Mark Cavendish of the Sky team won a sprint finish for the third stage of the Tour of Qatar here yesterday ahead of Belgian Tom Boonen.

Lithuanian Aidis Kruopis finished third just ahead of Australian Mark Renshaw. It was Cavendish’s first success since winning the world road race title last September.

“It’s obviously an extraordinary feeling,” said the Isle of Man rider. “I’m very happy. I was feverish two days ago, so I’m not 100percent. And despite that I managed to beat a very impressive Boonen.”

Boonen, who rides for the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team, holds the overall race lead after the 146km stage between Dukhan and the Al Gharafa Stadium here.

Today’s fourth stage will cover 144km from Al Thakira to Madinat Al Shamal in the north of the gas-rich Gulf state.

Meanwhile, a visibly indignant twotime Tour de France champion Alberto Contador said yesterday he “totally disagreed” with his two-year doping ban but vowed to pursue his career.

Banned Contador vows to pursue career

Speaking for the first time since the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s sanction handed down on Monday, the 29-year-old Spaniard said he had lived through torment. “I cannot understand the sanction that has been imposed on me,” the cyclist told a news conference at a hotel in his hometown of Pinto just south of Madrid.

“As for the decision, I totally disagree,” he said, wearing a dark jacket and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. “I am going to continue cycling. I am going to continue practicing it cleanly, the way I have my entire life. My mood right now is not the best but I know this will make me stronger in the future.”

Contador said he had committed no crime and yet had been hit with the heaviest penalty of a two year ban. “Anyone who reads the decision will see clearly that I did not take drugs,” he said.

He said his lawyers were looking into a possible appeal. “There have been speculations, leaks, it is been a real torment. But the hardest thing has been to see my family, the suffering they have had, my wife, for what they have

accused me of,” Contador said.

“And it is for something that goes against everything that has been instilled in me.” The Spaniard said he even gave

a real criminal.”

Contador thanked his fans and his sponsor for their support, after Saxo Bank chief Bjarne Riis told the news conference

British rider Mark Cavendish evidence under polygraph-popularly known as a lie detector. “That is five hours sitting in a chair answering questions like

he backed the cyclist “100 percent” because he clearly did not deliberately take drugs. He was repeatedly applauded

by the crowd. Considered the most gifted racer of his generation, Contador was handed a two-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) following a positive test for the banned substance clenbuterol.

Backdated to August 2010, when he announced the news of his positive test weeks after his third yellow jersey triumph, the ban means Contador can return to competition on August 6, 2012.

As well as ruling him out of this year’s Tour de France and the Olympic Games in London, he will be stripped, among other wins, of his 2010 yellow jersey which will now be handed to runner-up Andy Schleck of Luxembourg.

His determination to carry on means he may compete at the Tour of Spain in September, a race Contador won in 2008 when he also won the Giro d’Italia.

Two months after his positive test, the Spaniard, claiming he was the victim of a contaminated steak eaten during the Tour de France, and had said he would consider quitting if banned.

If he is to find any kind of succour from

Suarez’s return fails to spark Liverpool Liverpool 0

Tottenham 0

LIVERPOOL: Luis Suarez’s return from an eight-match suspension failed to inspire Liverpool as they were held to a goalless draw by Tottenham at Anfield on Monday.

Suarez received a rapturous reception from Liverpool fans when he came on in the 66th minute — his first action for six weeks - after serving a ban for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra.

But the Uruguay striker was left frustrated as third-placed Tottenham secured a point in the absence of their manager Harry Redknapp in a scrappy contest.

All the hype surrounding the game had been about the return of Suarez following his lengthy ban after an FA board found him guilty of making a racist comment towards Evra.

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish said he had never planned to start him. “I’m delighted that the wee man is back,” said

the Scot, who along with the club were heavily criticised for their defending Suarez even after he was found guilty.

“He should never have been away but we’ve taken the punishment and we’ve moved on. It would have been unfair to start him, he’s not played since Boxing Day.” In the end, Suarez’s return was third billing on a night that saw Redknapp forced to abandon his flight to Anfield due to technical problems having earlier appeared at Southwark Crown Court in the closing stage of his trial on tax evasion charges. Redknapp might have failed to make it but England manager Fabio Capello, fresh from publicly criticising the Football Association’s decision to oust John Terry as captain, did make it to Anfield.

With Terry having been stripped of the armband pending his trial in July over alleged racial abuse of Queens Park Rangers’s Anton Ferndinand, Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard has been tipped to lead England at Euro 2012.

Tottenham’s Scott Parker has also been mentioned as a potential candidate. But in a game briefly stopped when a cat ran across the pitch, the fur was really flying after Parker’s wild 39th minute challenge floored Gerrard just outside the visitors’

penalty area. Liverpool made the stronger start but it spoke volumes about the scrappy nature of the game that home fans were chanting Suarez’s name after just half an hour. The hosts came flying out of the blocks with Gerrard slipping a delightful through ball to Andy Carroll only for Michael Dawson to make a goalsaving fifth minute challenge.

In a game punctured with misplaced passes by both sets of players, Niko Kranjcar forced the first save in the 32nd minute when his 25-yard effort was comfortably saved by Pepe Reina.

With Craig Bellamy and Carroll struggling to trouble the Tottenham defence, it was left to midfielder Jay Spearing to go closest for Liverpool with a curling 25-yard effort which whistled narrowly wide of Brad Friedel’s post in the 34th minute.

The second half started with Gareth Bale booked for pushing Daniel Agger after the Tottenham player’s blatant dive before Friedel denied Martin Kelly with a full length dive to keep out the Liverpool’s defender’s angled drive. With the game drifting towards a stalemate, Dalglish introduced Suarez. It did not take long for the 25-year-old to get booked after leaving Parker in a heap while challenging inside the visitors area. —AFP

the CAS decision, it is the fact doping experts believe he did not ingest clenbuterol intentionally. They deemed the Spaniard was likely a victim of a contaminated food supplement.

The loss of Contador could also have huge ramifications for his team. Run by Riis, a former Tour de France winner who owned up to cheating with drugs to win the race in 1996, Contador is the team’s marquee rider in stage races.

But more importantly, his WorldTour ranking points are crucial. Affiliation to the WorldTour series-via a system governed by ranking points, financial viability and sound ethical principles-guarantees entry to cycling’s biggest races.

On his own, Contador has racked up a massive amount of the points required by the team for entry to the series-a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the International Cycling Union (UCI).

The sport’s ruling body was also due to ask its licences commission yesterday to gauge whether Saxo Bank has the right to remain in the UCI WorldTour.—AFP

Granada revival continues with victory over Malaga

LONDON: Liverpool’s Luis Suarez (right) vies for the ball against Tottenham Hotspur’s Benoit Assou-Ekotto during their English Premier League soccer match.—AP

MADRID: New Granada coach Abel Resino made it two wins from two with a 2-1 home victory over Andalucian rivals Malaga in La Liga on Monday.

Odion Ighalo and Inigo Lopez netted to drag the promoted club out of the bottom three and up to 14th with 25 points from 21 games, three above the relegation zone.

Malaga, who have only won once in their last eight league outings were eighth with 28 points, four short of the Champions League qualification berths.

Real Madrid top the standings with 55 points after a 1-0 win at Getafe on Saturday, and they hold a seven point lead over their arch-rivals Barcelona who overcame Real Sociedad 2-1 at home.

Resino replaced Fabricio Gonzalez in Granada’s dugout two weeks ago and debuted with a 2-1 win at Real Betis last weekend. Nigerian striker Ighalo, their top scorer last season when they won a second consecutive promotion, powered in a closerange header in the 57th from a Mikel Rico cross.

Malaga levelled after a clever back heel from Sebastian Fernandez released Nacho Monreal into the area, and he crossed low for Salomon Rondon to sweep the ball home in the 68th.

Granada defender Lopez reacted quickest to put away the winner from a loose ball in the 81st, however, and Malaga’s chances of a comeback were checked when Argentina defender Martin Demichelis was sent off soon after a reckless challenge.—Reuters

Qatar growth to slow in 2012 as LNG expansion completed Page 22

UBS warns of poor Q1 as bank struggles Page 25

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

KSE stocks edge lower

India expects slowest growth in three years Page 24 Page 23

Tensions keep investors wary of Gulf Mideast’s ‘alternative appeal’ drains amid crises LONDON: Tensions over Iran, unrest in Syria and concern about refinancing of upcoming Dubai debt are making international investors wary of Gulf and other Middle Eastern markets this year, just as developed markets enjoy fresh gains.

Storming oil prices and healthy balance sheets among energy-producing Gulf economies kept these markets on a relatively even keel last year, as international investors saw the region as an alternative to the debt-laden euro zone and United States.

But liquidity injections by the European Central Bank in the form of its long-term refinancing operation and quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve have boosted developed markets, partly draining the Gulf of its “alternative” appeal. Iran’s threat to block the

Straits of Hormuz and increasing unrest in Syria have reined in market enthusiasm. “It’s well-known that tensions have risen, whether you are looking at Iran, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan,” said Andrew Brudenell, fund manager at HSBC Global Asset Management. “All these things have been so much in the news, you can understand there is some concern.”

Several Middle Eastern stock markets have risen this year but their gains have been modest compared with a stomping 15 percent rally in broader emerging markets. Qatar , one of the few markets to rise last year, with a 1 percent gain, has dipped 1 percent this year. The cost of insuring Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s debt against default hit its highest in 21/2 years in early January after Iran threatened to close the vital Straits of

Hormuz Gulf oil export route, in response to tougher sanctions from the West.

Tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program have helped push up Brent crude prices by about $8 a barrel in the past six weeks. While higher oil prices usually help the markets of the Gulf’s energyproducing economies, this time it is different. Five of the six Gulf Cooperation Council members - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Kuwait - rely on the world’s most important energy shipping lane being open to export most of their oil or gas. “If Iran blocks the Straits of Hormuz, these countries will not be able to deliver their exports,” said Dina Ahmad, emerging markets strategist at BNP Paribas. “There is still somewhat of a risk

Global sukuk issuances reached $20bn in Jan KUWAIT: The momentum of global sukuk issuances has continued during January to reach $20.2 billion an annual increase by 23.1 percent, Kuwait Finance House Research LTD. (KFHR) reported yesterday.

According to the report, this huge figure of issuances is due to the $9.7 billion issuance announced by Plus Expressways Berhad, the biggest company in construction and operation of highways in Malaysia.

Other notable issuances for the month included three sukuk from the UAE, all of which representing the financial services sector, added KFHR. It noted that the Emirates Islamic Bank launched its $500 million sukuk priced at par at 350 basis points over mid-swaps, with a profit rate of 4.7 percent. Also, the deal received an order book of $1.5 billion, despite achiev-

ing a tight price relative to Dubai government bonds, KFHR said.

Also, Dubai’s outstanding 2015 note was quoted at 483 basis points over mid-swaps, while its 2020 is 511 basis points. Similarly, First Gulf Bank successfully placed its $500 million sukuk under its $3.5 billion program and was oversubscribed 2.8 times. Tamweel too decided to issue its $300 million papers during the month. All three issuances were structured as Wakalah with five-year maturities. In addition, Saudi Arabia witnessed the launch of the much awaited first quasisovereign issuance from the country as General Authority of Civil Aviation placed its SAR 15 billion, equals $4 billion, papers, continued KFHR. Sukuk is the term used for bonds issued according to Islamic Sharia law. — KUNA

Too early to offer IMF contribution: Saudi RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf said yesterday that it was too early for his country to offer a fresh financial contribution to the International Monetary Fund.

Alassaf, speaking to reporters at a business conference in the Saudi capital, said the issue would be discussed at a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations in Mexico City on Feb 25-26. Decisions may be made at a later date to boost the IMF’s capital and for some IMF member states to provide additional funding, he said.

The IMF is seeking to more than double its war chest by raising $600 billion in new resources to help countries deal with the fallout of Europe’s debt crisis.

Wealthy oil exporters in the Gulf, as well as big emerging economies such as China, are expected to be asked to contribute much of the increase.

“The other member states believe that the main and first role should be the European Union’s, and then the other states can provide support,” Alassaf said.

However, he also said: “Although the cri-

sis is mainly European, it is in the interest of everyone that the crisis doesn’t deepen and to ensure the return to growth of Europe. “What will be discussed at the G20 meeting is what the role is of the European Union and the member states in the IMF.” Alassaf did not link any future Saudi contribution to the IMF to the idea of giving Saudi Arabia and other major emerging economies more representation and authority at the Fund, which has been dominated by Western powers. But in a speech last month, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, who no longer holds government office but is still seen as influential, said big emerging economies would not aid the West unless they were given more say in running the global economy.

Ending a visit to Riyadh on Saturday, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde publicly praised Saudi Arabia’s role in stabilizing the global economy but said nothing about the possibility of a fresh Saudi contribution to IMF resources. — Reuters

ATHENS: A protester takes part in a protest during a 24-hour strike in Athens yesterday. A general strike against the impending cutbacks stopped train and ferry services nationwide, while many schools and banks were closed and state hospitals worked on skeleton staff. — AP (See Page 23)

premium priced in CDS in relation to geopolitical risk, in particular the sanctions in Iran.”

Bright spot Another worry for investors is the ability of Dubai entities to refinance their debt, following Dubai World’s debt standstill in November 2009 which sent shockwaves through global financial markets. While an initial test has passed, after Dubai Holding said it was repaying a $500 million bond maturing last week, the focus has now switched to further flashpoints this year.

Investors say Dubai and Abu Dhabi are likely to come to the aid of struggling entities, as they have done in the past, but uncertainty remains. Investors say the region’s markets did well last

year given the Arab Spring unrest, and that it may only be a matter of time before they bounce back.

“Frontier markets do perform with a bit of a lag during periods with a significant change in sentiment,” said Brudenell. “You had a surprising outperformance in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets in 2011. Given what happened last year, that’s pretty amazing.” One bright spot is Saudi Arabia, where the stock market hit multi-month peaks this week, buoyed by expectations the country will press ahead this year with plans to open the Saudi exchange, the region’s largest, to foreign investors. Gulf regional investors are likely to continue to provide support for the region’s markets, and are less likely to be scared off by geopolitics.

But, with stock exchange volumes remaining low in the aftermath of the 2008/09 global crisis, the markets need a bigger push.

“Significant international flows are one factor that would cause these markets to pick up, but headline risk has them mostly on hold,” said Florence Eid, Chief Executive of research and advisory firm Arabia Monitor. There was also disappointment after UAE and Qatar failed to be upgraded to emerging market status from frontier market in MSCI’s flagship stock indices at the end of last year.

Although many investors had not expected an upgrade so soon, and still hope for it within the next two years, the move would probably have drawn broader emerging market funds to the region. — Reuters

22

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

business

Qatar growth to slow in 2012 as LNG expansion completed

Iraqi businessmen shy away from Iranian currency BAGHDAD: Huge numbers of Iranian pilgrims visit Shiite holy places in Iraq each year but businesses have grown wary of transactions in the Islamic republic’s rial as it declines in value under sanctions.

In Kadhimiyah in northern Baghdad, restaurants and shops that sell gold and clothes around the two shrines of Shiite imams Musa Kadhim and Mohammed Jawad are crowded with visitors.

Ali Mohammed, a 42-year-old who owns a money exchange shop, said the rial’s value has declined sharply. “This decline has caused losses for us,” he said, seated behind a glass barrier and holding paper money bearing a picture of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“A month and a half ago, I was dealing with around 20,000 dollars of Iranian rials every day, but now I am only dealing with 1,000 dollars” a day, the trader said. “I will stop buying (rials) gradually, and if it keeps declining, I will stop dealing with it completely. Iran has been hit by sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe over its controversial nuclear program, and its currency has suffered. Jassem al-Amli, 55, who also owns a money exchange shop in Kadhimiyah, said that “the value of the rial is now around 18,000 for one dollar,” while “two months ago, the value was 10,000 rials per dollar.”

At the border with Iran, the value of the rial is even lower, with a dollar trading for 20,000 rials at the Zurbatiya border crossing to Iran. One of the officials at the crossing told AFP that “dozens of Iranian (currency) traders are working on a daily basis to buy dollars.”

“Before the collapse of the Iranian rial, they were ... not looking for dollars,” the official said. Amli, who has worked in money exchange for 10 years, said: “I knew this from the beginning and I stopped dealing with large amounts of (Iranian) money because I knew there would be pressures and more sanctions ... “We feel sorry for the Iranian visitors because they came to Iraq holding a specific amount of money, and then

KUWAIT: The Qatari economy looks set to have registered another year of rapid growth in 2011 driven by further expansion in liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, elevated oil prices and increasing output in the non-oil sector. LNG production, upon which so much of Qatar’s fast growth was predicated over the last decade, reached its maximum capacity of 77 million tons per year in 2011, and, in view of the moratorium on new hydrocarbon projects in the North Field until 2015, is likely to have therefore reached its peak in 2011.

Qatar is also making headway, however, in utilizing and marketing associated products including gas to liquids (GTLs) and natural gas liquids (NGL) projects as well as downstream processes such as petrochemicals and fertilizers.

Meanwhile, a concerted effort is being undertaken to diversify and develop the non-oil sector, as articulated in the National Development Strategy 2011-2016 and the broader Qatar National Vision 2030.

Spearheaded by spending in excess of $125 billion over 5 years, $65 billion of which will be directly funded by the government, infrastructure

suddenly, they were taken by surprise by the decline of their local currency.” In the central shrine city of Najaf, visited by two million Iranians a year, the decline of the Iranian currency is frustrating for the money exchange shops and also for hotel owners who depend on Iranian visitors. Hussein Ikhwan, a 36-year-old who works for an exchange firm in Najaf, said that “the price of exchanging the Iranian (rial) is starting to be a problem for us,” due to a lack of profit in dealing with the currency.

Uday Bahash, 35, who owns a shop in Najaf’s main market, said that prices in rials for goods have doubled without any additional profit for shopowners.

Iraqi Tourism Minister Liwaa Smaisim told AFP that: “The decline of the Iranian currency has had only a slight impact on religious tourism, but even so, this has not much changed the number of Iranian visitors.”

Khaled Abu al-Hijaj, 40, who owns a hotel in central Najaf, said: “Travel agencies are starting to lose money and trying to recover these losses by paying us with Iranian (rials), while they used to pay with dollars.” The shortage of foreign currency in Iran is pushing its traders to try to buy from outside sources, and Iraq, which has billions of dollars in trade with Iran per year, is a potential source.

Iraq’s central bank has since February 1 enacted measures to identify those who buy dollars, as some are believed to be frontmen, Mudher Mohammed Saleh, deputy governor of the central bank, told AFP. Banks that buy dollars from the central bank must now provide the identity of whoever placed the order and “prove that they have an account in the bank and the origin of their income,” Saleh said.

“We are concerned that some people buy dollars on behalf of others,” he said, without elaborating. Asked if Iranian and Syrian traders were trying to buy dollars, Saleh said: “This increase in demand for dollars, while the region has serious problems, led us to put the new procedures in place.” — AFP

investment (including World Cup 2022 development spending) and manufacturing will drive non-oil sector growth alongside financial services, trade and tourism.

sion and associated gas projects (including GTL). Growth in gas production itself is projected to slow to 7% in 2012, while oil output is forecast to remain stable over the com-

Real GDP Given the current dynamics of Qatari output, real GDP growth is therefore projected to accelerate by 19.9% in 2011 before moderating to 9.8% in 2012 as a result of the final completion of LNG expan-

ing two years at 0.8 million barrels per day.

Following on from the deflation of 2009 and 2010, Qatar’s CPI in 2011 has continued to be affected by falling rental prices (which comprise 32% of the CPI) despite

Dolphin Energy eyes up to $1bn bond sale

UNB Q4 net profit falls on provisions

Emirates Air to raise $517m Islamic loan DUBAI: Dubai’s Emirates airline has hired three local banks to arrange a 1.9-billion dirhams ($517.3 million) Islamic loan facility to finance three aircraft, the chief executive of one of the banks confirmed yesterday.

The Dubai government-owned airline has asked Dubai Islamic Bank, Ajman Bank and Al Hilal Bank to arrange the financing deal for two Airbus A380 superjumbos and one Boeing 777-300, Mohamed Berro, chief executive of Abu Dhabi governmentowned Al Hilal Bank told Reuters.

“I can confirm the amount,” said Berro.

The loan will be a 12-year facility and the paperwork for the deal is expected to be completed by the end of the month, he

NBK GCC BRIEF

said. Local newspaper Al Bayan reported earlier in the day that the airline had hired the banks to arrange a loan for financing two planes.

Emirates’ officials were not immediately available for comment.

The rapidly expanding Gulf Arab carrier said in November that it was eyeing the more resilient Islamic finance market to fund aircraft deliveries, as international banks back out of plane deals because of the euro-zone debt crisis. Emirates placed a blockbuster order for 50 Boeing 777 jetliners at the Dubai Air Show last year and is the largest customer of the Airbus A380 superjumbos. — Reuters

DUBAI: Abu Dhabi lender Union National Bank’s fourth-quarter profit fell 19.2 percent after the bank set aside more money to meet potential loan losses arising from exposure to Dubai Holding Group entities.

The fifth-largest bank in Abu Dhabi by market capitalization saw its fourth-quarter net profit drop to 135 million dirhams ($36.76 million)from 167 million dirhams in the final three months of 2010, according to Reuters calculations.

Reuters calculated the fourth quarter profit from previous financial statements. UNB did not provide quarterly figures.

“The increase in non-performing loans and advances in the fourth quarter of 2011 was due to the classification of the bank’s exposures to some entities that are part of the Dubai Holding Group and certain other credit exposures,” UNB said.

The lender recorded a 2011 net profit of 1.5 billion dirhams ($408.4 million), compared with 1.35 billion dirhams in the previous year, according to a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse.

UNB, which is 50-percent owned by the Abu Dhabi government, said general provisioning

signs that downward pressures were easing. Given that excess capacity in the real estate sector will only gradually be unwound, depressed rental prices will persist in 2012 and temper demand-driven inflationary impulses that are on the rise as a result of the country’s rapid growth and accommodative fiscal and monetary policies.

The recent 60% increase in the salaries of Qatari nationals is not expected to contribute to inflation significantly, however. We therefore expect inflation to average 1.9% in 2011 and 2.0% in 2012.

Qatar is forecast to record fiscal surpluses in both 2011 and 2012, at 3.7% and 1.9% of GDP, respectively, as a result of high oil prices and maximum annual LNG production. A slowdown in hydrocarbon revenue growth coupled with increasing public sector spending - including capital expenditures and wages - will make a greater impact on the central government balance in 2012 than in previous years. Meanwhile, strong export revenues are expected to translate into sizeable current account surpluses in both 2011 and going forward in 2012.

DUBAI: Abu Dhabi’s Dolphin Energy, majority-owned by state fund Mubadala, plans to raise as much as $1 billion from a ten year bond issue, with the offering set to price as early as yesterday, a statement from lead managers said.

Proceeds from the bond issue will be used to refinance the existing bank debt belonging to the company and to also pay a distribution to Dolphin’s shareholders, a presentation document to investors said.

Initial price guidance for the offering, which is benchmarksized but earmarked for between $750 million and $1 billion, has been given at 5.75 percent, the document noted.

The issue, which is set to mature on Dec. 15 2021, is 144a-compliant, meaning it is also open to institutional US investors.

Dolphin Energy, in which France’s Total and Occidental Petroleum Corp own stakes, completed a series of investor meetings in June but delayed plans to issue to bond citing market conditions.

The same banks which organized these roadshows are listed as lead managers on the impending deal: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank , BNP Paribas, Mitsubishi UFJ, Royal Bank of Scotland and Societe Generale. Dolphin raised around $3 billion in July 2009 to help finance a 244-kilometre gas pipeline between Taweelah and Fujairah to provide gas to two power stations in the north of the United Arab Emirates.

The overall deal consisted of a $1.6 billion bank loan, a $1.25 billion bond and a $218 million bank loan supported by the SACE export credit agency. The current Dolphin bond traded to yield 4.63 percent on the bid side at 1015 GMT, equating to 330 basis points over equivalent US Treasuries, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Current price guidance for the potential new bond would see it trade at 484 bps over ten-year US Treasuries, according to one regionally-based bond trader.

Having been agreed and signed in the aftermath of the global credit crunch, the loan debt is now regarded as expensive so a bond issue-at a time when rates are at historic lows-will help reduce Dolphin’s borrowing costs. — Reuters

for 2011 had risen 65.8 percent to 783.3 million dirhams.

The bank is one of the six institutions on the unsecured creditor committee for the $10 billion restructuring of Dubai Group.

Sources told Reuters last week the Dubai government, acting through the Supreme Fiscal Committee, had walked away from talks to solve the unit’s debt problems.

Bankers had warned in November that a lack of resolution to the restructuring would force banks into significant provisioning at the end of 2011. An increase in net interest income and income from Islamic financing, up 22.5 percent in 2011, was partly offset by a 25.7 percent decrease in non-interest income, the bank said.

Deposits at the bank rose 4.1 percent in 2011 - to 60.3 billion dirhams from 57.9 billion dirhams in 2010, while net loans and advances rose slightly, to 57.6 billion dirhams at the end of 2011 from 56.6 billion at the end of the previous year.

The board of UNB has proposed a cash dividend of 15 percent, the statement added. UNB shares dropped 2.5 percent in early Abu Dhabi trading. — Reuters

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

.2730000 .4360000 .3620000 .3000000 .2760000 .2990000 .0040000 .0020000 .0752140 .7327900 .3830000 .0720000 .7183680 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2770500 GB Pound/KD .4384870 Euro .3647500 Swiss francs .3023570 Canadian dollars .2783160 Danish Kroner .0490610 Swedish Kroner .0413540 Australian dlr .2997960 Hong Kong dlr .0357300 Singapore dlr .2224590 Japanese yen .0036150 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0754600 Bahraini dinars .7351730 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0739000 Omani riyals .7198910 Philippine Peso .0000000

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. ASIAN COUNTRIES

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

3.598 5.337 3.154 2.436 3.341 213.250 35.672 3.580 6.336 8.873 0.271 0.273

.2805000 .4440000 .3700000 .3080000 .2850000 .3060000 .0070000 .0035000 .0759700 .7401550 .4000000 .0770000 .7255880 .0072000 .0500000 .2791500 .4418110 .3675150 .3046490 .2804260 .0494320 .0416680 .3020680 .0360010 .2241450 .0036430 .0057530 .0024510 .0030920 .0033330 .0760320 .7407460 .3948370 .0744600 .7253480 .0066350

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

GCC COUNTRIES 74.150 76.402 722.230 738.540 75.715

Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 47.500 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.282 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.272 Tunisian Dinar 189.860 Jordanian Dinar 392.670 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.865 Syrian Lier 6.003 Morocco Dirham 33.814 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 277.950 Euro 370.650 Sterling Pound 431.930 Canadian dollar 268.420 Turkish lire 153.940 Swiss Franc 300.620 Australian dollar 277.000 US Dollar Buying 277.750 GOLD 315.500 159.000 81.500

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

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

SELL CASH

304.300 740.140 3.640 282.800 546.600 45.400 50.200 167.800 48.110 370.400 36.580 5.860 0.032 0.195 0.249 3.740 394.880 0.188 94.580 46.500 4.280 236.300 1.803 49.300 722.890

SELL DRAFT

302.800 740.140 3.307 281.300

225.700 46.177 368.900 36.430 5.695 0.032

10 Tola

75.780 278.300

Currency

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 442.400 278.300

Sterling Pound US Dollar

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Selling Rate

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

278.200 280.595 439.850 366.650 302.195 736.705 75.720 76.360 74.145 391.605 46.169 2.432 5.721 3.082 3.307 6.524 682.414 3.720 9.090 5.855 3.665 92.330

443.07 3.68 3.304 5.671 2.434 3.568 3.080 75.74 740.13 46.18 395.86 723.15 76.73 74.30

444.00 3.70 3.600 5.840 2.650 4.250 3.240 76.35 741.00 48.20 395.00 728.00 77.25 74.60

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro

Currency

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

304.50 283.49 307.01 367.82

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 Yemeni Riyal Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

278.200 3.070 5.695 2.445 3.310 6.570 75.845 74.340 739.900 46.120 444.400 3.190 1.550 369.800 285.300 3.690

Al Mulla Exchange

UAE Exchange Center WLL Currency

722.710

304.600 4.300 9.200

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

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co.

394.360 0.187 94.580 3.570 234.800

3.085 6.530 76.560 74.310 225.670 39.240 2.435 442.400

GOLD 1,799.380

Rate for Transfer

Bahrain Exchange Company

3.160 6.800 76.990 74.310 225.670 39.240 2.658 444.400 42.600 306.100 4.300 9.370 198.263 75.880 278.700 1.300

304.00 284.00 307.00 370.00

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 *Rates are subject to change

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

277.850 367.500 441.800 281.100 3.650 5.681 46.100 2.430 3.310 6.523 3.070 740.040 75.700 74.200

23

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

BUSINESS Profiting from Iran

Sanctions or no sanctions, oil market doing the best LAUNCESTON: For all the headlines over the threat to oil shipments from Iran as Western sanctions ramp up, it seems the crude market is doing what it does best: getting on with business.

That is to say both buyers and sellers are adapting to the new realities and seeking to maximize their advantage while ensuring that everybody gets the oil they need. Take the Chinese for example.

They are the top buyers of Iranian crude, usually taking about 20 percent of the Islamic republic’s exports, or some 550,000 barrels a day. But this was cut by 285,000 barrels a day in January and February, and according to sources the Chinese will extend the reductions for a third month in March.

At the same time China’s refiners appear to be putting the knife into Iran, presumably as they seek better terms, the nation’s political leaders are saying the West should back off from Iran and that putting sanctions on the oil trade

isn’t the solution to the nuclear problem.

What this shows is that China is seeking to maximize its own position in the situation. It cannot stop Europe and the United States from trying to end Iran’s nuclear program, but China can benefit from the process. And it would be wrong to think the Chinese are alone in this: virtually everybody in the physical oil markets is also trying to work out how best to profit.

Record amounts of West African crudes will be shipped to Asia in the first quarter, with estimates reaching 1.82 million barrels a day, up from 2011’s average of 1.57 million.

Russia, the world’s top oil producer, is also eyeing selling more oil in Asia, adding to its existing market for its Eastern Siberian Pacific Ocean (ESPO) crude.

Indian refiners, the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil last year at 341,000 barrels a day, are apparently happy to keep buying, but at the same time mak-

ing it clear the Iranians will have to keep their prices low in order to get the business.

It’s also likely that Saudi Arabia is seeking to maximize its position as the world’s top exporter, making extra cargoes available and cutting the premium it charges Asian refiners over the benchmark Oman/Dubai average for its March official selling price. What this tells you that behind the drama of the news headlines, the oil market is getting on with the job.

The main impact of the headlines seems to be in the paper market, where oil futures have been rallying, with front-month Brent up 12 percent since mid-December to trade near its highest level in six months. What’s driving the oil price higher doesn’t appear to be extra demand, with expectations that the International Energy Agency will this week trim its demand growth forecast for 2012 to as little as 300,000 barrels a day.

With Europe staring at recession, if not already there, a slowly recovery in the United States and an easing of growth in Asia, it’s hard to be bullish on the oil price in the short term based on fundamentals. It’s also not hard to see the Iran premium remaining in the oil price for months to come.

There doesn’t seem to be what could be a termed a “circuit-breaker” on the horizon: in other words, all the main parties are continuing along their present paths, resulting in escalating tensions.

The West seems determined to hurt Iran economically with sanctions that make it difficult to pay for oil, while equally, the authorities in Tehran seem determined to maintain their nuclear program is for electricity only, while vowing to continue its development. If you look at the history of similar conflicts, there are a variety of ways that the Iranian situation can reach end game.

The real problem for the oil market would be if tensions erupted into full-

scale war, with the Western powers and Israel attacking Iran, and Iran doing its best to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes.

The more likely scenario, for the time being, is that matters escalate until the pain becomes too much for somebody to bear. In practical terms, this could be the West backing down if Iran manages to withhold its oil for long enough to cause economic agony in what is, after all, an election year in the United States and France.

Alternatively, the sanctions and economic hardship in Iran could result in its own internal conflicts coming to the fore in the form of some sort of regime change, followed by a compromise with the West. In all but the all-out war scenario, the physical oil market will be able to fairly quickly adjust, in fact, there may even be too much crude floating around as the Iranians will no doubt try to continue selling. —Reuters

India expects slowest growth in three years Economy suffers reform paralysis

ATHENS: Protesters march towards the Greek parliament during a 24-hour general strike in Athens yesterday. A general strike gripped Greece in protest against new austerity measures demanded with increasing urgency by the European Union as part of a debt rescue deal with banks. —AFP

Strike hits Greece, EU raises pressure ATHENS: A general strike gripped Greece yesterday in protest against new austerity measures demanded with increasing urgency by the European Union as part of a debt rescue deal with banks.

Thousands of protesters braved a light rain on Syntagma Square in central Athens, a landmark of Greek anger against austerity measures from the EU and International Monetary Fund. A group of protesters burned a German flag in front of parliament, and tried to set fire to one that portrayed the Nazi swastika, in reaction to calls from Berlin for strict budgetary discipline.

Greek media gave voice to the anguish.

“Sacrifices with salary and pension cuts,” the daily Ethnos said. Daily Kathimerini wrote the country was being choked by “Merkel and Sarkozy”. Greece is at the limit of a timetable to agree new budget action, and to conclude a debt write-off with banks, under a second rescue to avoid default in about six weeks’ time. Athens is under intense pressure from European Union leaders, but EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso stressed that Greece’s place was in the euro-zone. “We want Greece in the euro,” Barroso told reporters in Brussels. Earlier yesterday, Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant quoted EU Commissioner for New Technologies, Neelie Kroes, as saying that it was “not a train crash if someone leaves the euro-zone”.

In Athens, demonstrators marched under banners that read: “No to public sector layoffs!”, “No to cutting the minimum wage!” The protest was part of a 24-hour strike against severe budget action that had begun under the slogan “That’s enough, we can’t take any more.”

Schools, ministries, hospitals and banks operated with skeleton services. Commuters using buses and metros faced major delays in Athens. Air travel was expected to be unaffected however.

Yiannis Panagopoulos, leader of the GSEE union, has described the measures, aimed at slashing salaries further by 20-30 percent, as a “death sentence” for the country.

Later, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, caught between conflicting pressures for the soul and solvency of the nation, was to hold key meetings. He was set for talks with heads of the Greek socialist, conservative and farright parties that form his unwieldy coalition and reach agreement on strict budget action demanded by Greece’s creditors.

An EU diplomatic source suggested all was not lost and that negotiators hoped talks would be wrapped up by today. The EU source said that euro-zone finance ministers had been asked to be on standby for talks, probably via teleconference, late today or tomorrow.

Greece must pay 14.5 billion euros in bonds due March 20 to avoid default. Athens and its private creditors are under intense pressure from the “troika” to cut the country’s total debt burden down to what is seen as a sustainable level of 120 percent of GDP in 2020 from 160 percent at present.

Athens, which has been shut out from raising long-term debt on the markets, raised 812.5 million euros in six-month debt paying 4.86-percent interest, a slightly lower rate than in a similar auction a month before.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Monday blamed the political parties for the failure to reach consensus and described the situation as a “tragic dilemma”. —AFP

ArcelorMittal reports Q4 loss of $1.0bn PARIS: ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel maker, posted yesterday a net loss for the last quarter of 2011 but expected better results this year owing to its global presence and growing mining business.

The group reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $1.0 billion owing in large part to $1.3 billion in charges comprising taxes, asset devaluations and restructuring costs arising from the closure of unprofitable operations.

ArcelorMittal had posted a loss of $780 million in the same period of 2010. “Looking ahead to 2012, the situation in Europe remains a live concern,” Lakshmi N Mittal, ArcelorMittal chairman and chief executive acknowledged in a statement.

“Despite the continued uncertainty in this market, however, we are seeing an improvement in sentiment compared

with the fourth quarter,” he added.

The group expected core operating profit, its benchmark measure, to be higher in the first half of 2012 than in the last six months of 2011, when it came in at $4.1 billion, the statement said.

Core profit would probably fall below the equivalent figure of $6.0 billion for the first half of 2011 however. The results were expected to be underpinned by coal and iron mining output that was forecast to gain 10 percent this year.

ArcelorMittal shares jumped by 2.07 percent 16.50 euros in morning trading in Amsterdam, where the AEX index of leading shares was essentially flat overall.

The steel giant had nonetheless reported a 22-percent drop in full-year 2011 profit to $2.3 billion, on sales that gained 20 percent to 94 billion. —AFP

NEW DELHI: India forecast yesterday economic growth would fall below seven percent for the first time in three years, hit by an aggressive string of interest rate hikes and economic reform paralysis.

Asia’s third-largest economy will probably grow by 6.9 percent in the year to March-far below a budget projection of nine percent-and down from last year’s 8.4 percent expansion, the government’s central statistics office said. “The slowdown story is clearly evident,” said Indranil Pan, chief economist at India’s Kotak Mahindra Bank. “Mining and manufacturing growth has slipped sharply.”

The 6.9 percent growth would be the slowest since 2008-2009 when India was reeling from the global financial crisis and the second weakest in nine years.

Economists expect growth to be even lower the following year at around 6.3 percent-more than three percentage points below the peak of 9.6 percent hit in 2006-2007 during India’s last economic boom.

India had hoped to attain double-digit growth within the next couple of years-seen as key to easing crushing poverty-but tight monetary policy, the fresh global downturn and reform gridlock have dashed those hopes, analysts say. The central bank has raised interest rates 13 times since March 2010 to curb stubborn inflation, which at 7.47 percent is still the highest among the BRIC grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Manufacturing was expected to grow by just 3.9 percent in this

fiscal year, slightly over half last year’s level of 7.6 percent. The weaker growth outlook may prompt the central bank to start reducing interest rates sooner and more aggressively than anticipated, Credit Suisse economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde.

afford a chance (for India) to pump-prime the economy,” said Kotak Mahindra’s Pan. Global credit agency Standard & Poor’s warned on Monday that India’s prized investment-grade credit rating could be at risk due to slower growth, “weak” govern-

Ogawa said he did not expect to change his “stable” outlook on India’s “BBB-” sovereign credit rating in the near future but added that “negative factors... may lead us to a tipping point.” But even with the slowdown, India’s share market has risen 15 percent this

KOLKATA: An Indian girl assists her mother to collect cow dung - to be used as cooking fuel outside a construction site at ‘New Town’ on the outskirts of Kolkata. India forecast yesterday economic growth would fall below seven percent for the first time in three years. —AFP On top of slower growth, analysts expect the government to overshoot its deficit target of 4.6 percent for the current year by at least a percentage point due to ballooning public subsidies to support India’s poor. Unlike during the last global financial crisis, “the fiscal space also does not

ment policy-making and stubborn inflation.

India’s economic reform process has been paralyzed by a string of massive corruption scandals that has taken the sheen off Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party-led government.

S&P credit analyst Takahira

year and its currency has recovered from lifetime lows amid expectations of rate cuts that investors hope could spur an economic turnaround. “India is cooling-it is not collapsing,” Standard Chartered chief economist Gerard Lyons told the Economic Times. —AFP

Iran defaults on rice payments to India NEW DELHI: Iranian buyers have defaulted on payment for about 200,000 tons of rice from their top supplier India, exporters and rice millers said yesterday, as trade between the two countries comes under mounting pressure from a new wave of Western sanctions against Tehran.

While a sharply weakening rial has made forward purchases costlier, financial sanctions are making it difficult for Iranian traders to continue using an unofficial route involving middlemen based in Dubai to keep paying Indian suppliers.

The defaults, totaling about $144 million, were for shipments under term deals in October and November free-on-board Indian ports, Indian traders said. Most Indian rice exporters allow 90 days credit. India is Iran’s top rice supplier, accounting for some 70 percent of its annual requirement of 1-1.2 million tons of the grain, mainly the aromatic variety called Basmati.

“It is a serious issue and we do not rule out further payment defaults by Iran,” said Vijay Setia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association. “We have requested the government to step in.”

Setia said India should not send any more rice to Iran on credit, adding suppliers such as those in Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan had already stopped doing so. Traders and officials in Iran could not be immediately reached to comment.

The United States slapped fresh sanctions on Tehran from the start of this year, targeting financial institutions that deal with the central bank, hoping to stem oil revenues and persuade Iran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons program.

The European Union followed with a ban

on Iranian oil this week that is expected to take full effect within six months. The rice defaults could be the latest sign that those sanctions are biting, hampering staple food supplies to Tehran as Iranian importers find it increasingly difficult to settle payments.

Grain ships are docked outside Iranian ports, traders are not booking fresh cargoes and exports of staples to Iran such as maize are falling due to problems collecting payment from buyers.

The rice default is the latest snag in IndiaIran trade, which is heavily skewed towards Tehran. India is Iran’s second-largest buyer of crude and it has struggled to settle payments worth some $11 billion annually after New Delhi scrapped a long-standing mechanism in 2010 under pressure from Washington.

While New Delhi has switched to a payment conduit for its Iranian oil using a Turkish bank, Indian rice exporters have been using a loose, unofficial route involving a network of middlemen based in Dubai. The middlemen receive payments from Iranian importers in rial and pay Indian exporters in US dollars. The consignments are sent directly from India to Iran.

But Indian traders said the defaults started after the rial plunged over the past month, making previous purchases costlier for Iranian importers. The cost of transactions also went up for the Dubai middlemen as they use US dollars to pay Indian exporters.

On Jan 26, Iran announced an 8 percent devaluation of the rial and said it would enforce a single exchange rate, aiming to stamp out a black market where the dollar’s value has soared due to fears over new sanctions imposed by the West.

Indian traders said about 20 Iranian compa-

nies have failed to clear their dues during the past month. “It threatens to jeopardize the trade with them, hurting both India and Iran,” Anil K. Mittal, chairman of KRBL Ltd, a leading Indian rice miller and exporter, told Reuters.

“Due to sanctions on Iran, currently banks are not involved in payments to Indian rice suppliers. The payments are direct and at times on credit, making Indian exporters vulnerable to defaults. Indian traders must avoid supplying on credit.”

The defaults could also put a question mark on the willingness of any Indian traders to take part in plans by India to step up exports in a range of goods, including farm products such as wheat and rice, to settle part of its oil dues to Iran. New Delhi will send a delegation to Iran this month to explore boosting exports to smooth use of the restricted rupee currency, which the two sides have agreed to use to settle 45 percent of India’s $11 billion a year oil bill.

But this would give Iran large amounts of a currency which is difficult to use for international trade.

An Indian ministerial panel on food exports meets yesterday to review rice and sugar shipments. The issue of exports to Iran is not on the agenda, government officials said, seeking to knock down reports that the panel could discuss the possibility of boosting rice and wheat exports to Tehran.

India, is expected to produce 102.75 million tons of rice in the crop year to June 2012, a farm ministr y forecast said last month.

Basmati makes up around 5 percent of India’s total rice production.

India’s Jan 1 rice inventory at government warehouses was 29.8 million tons against a target of 11.8 million tons. —Reuters

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

business

KSE stocks edge lower GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) stocks logged their second consecutive loss yesterday on a heavy trading day. Both bluechips and small caps edged lower. The retreat was narrow-based with six out of the eight sectors edging lower. Investors remained unsettled by political tensions in the Middle East.

Global General Index (GGI) ended the day down by 0.03 percent, at 178.79 point. Market capitalization was down for the day, reaching KD29.3bn. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 5,827.2 point, shedding 13 points (0.22 percent) from its previous close.

Market breadth On the broader market for equities, declining stocks outnumbered advancing stocks by a margin of 39 to 23. Even though the market moved southward, activity continued to grow.

Volume and value of the shares traded on the exchange increased by 19.39 percent and 22.06 percent respectively.

Investment companies accounted for 47.49 percent (166.21mn shares) of the market’s total volume, out of which 56.48mn shares were attributable to International Financial Advisors.

The company traded 109.52mn shares this week so far. IFA registered an 5.66 percent gain yesterday. But it was a 2.41 percent losses posted by National Investment Company that drove the Global Investment Index down by 0.18 percent.

In terms of top gainers, Union Real Estate Company was the top gainer for the day, adding 9.26 percent to its share value and closing at KD0.118. On the other hand, share price of Kout Food Group retreated by 8.77 percent and closed at KD0.520, making it

the biggest decliners in the market for the day in a row.

Sector wise Sector-wise, six out of the eight sectors edged lower during the day. Insurance stocks led the losses with a 1.47 percent pull back. The sector’s. performance was undermined by 3.16 percent slide in the equity price of AlAhleia Insurance Company.

However, investors continued to shy away from component stocks, with only 0.5mn shares changing hands yesterday.

Food stocks too were notable losers. The sector as a whole dropped by 0.55 percent, on the back of Kout Food Group’s 8.77 percent decline. On the flip side, banking stocks led the pack of

advancers during the day, clocking a modest 0.12 percent in sector gains.

Kuwait Finance House saw its share value 1.18 percent.

Updating its previous announcement dated February 5, 2012, Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) declares that the appeal lodged against the court ruling for lawsuit No 3201/2011 (Administrative Plenar y) of Kuwait Finance House (KFH) will be heard on Monday, March 19th.

The case had been filed by the lender against top Kuwaiti officials, including Minister of Finance, Minister of Justice and Head of Real Estate Authentication Department. KFH requested not being liable for the fees stated in Law No 8/2008.

Oil news The price of Kuwaiti crude oil put on $1.62pbon Monday to trade for $111.96pb, compared to last Friday’s price of $110.34pb.

Oil prices keep to an upward trend started last week due to factors including developments on the Iranian nuclear dossier, Iranian threats against the west, sanctions on Tehran, the violence in Syria, in addition to the severe cold weather that overtook Europe in recent days.

Minister of Oil and Minister of State for Parliament Affairs Dr Mohammad Al-Busairi predicted that oil prices in the first half of 2012 would top $100pb and stay close to a max of $115pb, “unless sudden geopolitical factors come into play.

Brent hits 6-month high on Iran, cold LONDON: Brent crude oil rose above $116 per barrel to a six-month high yesterday as threats from Iran to ban exports to some European states stoked supply concerns, overshadowing fears that Greece’s debt crisis was worsening.

Brent’s premium to US crude oil stayed around $19 a barrel, near its highest since November, as a severe wintry weather spread across Europe and as simmering tensions between the West and Iran escalated. But Greece’s wrangling over a bailout fund helped cap those gains.

Front-month Brent touched $116.70 , up 77 cents and its highest since early August, before easing back to trade around $115.68 a barrel by 0920 GMT, down 25 cents. US oil slipped 30 cents to $96.61.

“The geopolitical events surrounding Iran and the Middle East and the severe cold weather sweeping across Europe are providing support for Brent,” said Victor Shum, senior partner at oil consultancy Purvin & Gertz. “We continue to see more upside risks for oil, but Europe’s debt crisis will weigh.”

Supply worries and Europe’s cold weather offset a slightly firmer dollar index. A stronger dollar typically weighs on oil as it pressures dollardenominated commodities by making them more expensive for consumers using other currencies. Iran’s parliament said yesterday it was ready to impose a ban on oil exports to some European states, the country’s Englishlanguage Press TV reported, pre-empting a ban announced by the Union slated to begin from July 1.

President Barack Obama tightened

sanctions on Iran another notch, the White House said on Monday, targeting its central bank and giving US banks new powers to freeze assets linked to the government.

Iran responded to the announcement by calling the decision an “antagonistic move”. Analysts said the widening premium for Brent over its US counterpart was largely due to supply fears. “Without Iran and other worries over supply, Brent would be more likely to follow US crude,” said Carsten Fritsch commodities analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “Perhaps $6 to $8 of the Brent premium is attributable to supply risks, mostly concerns about Iran but also worries about supply disruptions from Sudan and Nigeria.

South Sudan and its northern neighbor Sudan, from which it separated in July, are locked in a row over disentangling their oil industries.

South Sudan took three-quarters of the oil production but needs to pay for using northern pipelines and the Red Sea port of Port Sudan. South Sudan has shut down its entire output of 350,000 barrels a day in response to the row.

Clashes in Nigeria are also worrying investors about possible supply disruptions after a pipeline belonging to Italy’s Eni was blown up. Escalating violence in Syria is adding to concerns over the stability of the Middle East.

Heavy bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs resumed yesterday after at least 95 civilians were killed on Monday in an offensive to put down a popular revolt against President Bashar Al-Assad’s rule. — Reuters

Dinar stable against dollar KUWAIT: Exchange rate of the US dollar against the Kuwaiti dinar was unchanged at KD 0.277 with the rate against the euro also remaining unchanged at KD 0.363 compared to Monday’s rates, said the daily bulletin of the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) yesterday.

The sterling pound also remained

unchanged at KD 0.438. The Japanese yen was unchanged at KD 0.003, as was the rate of the Swiss franc, KD 0.301.

General absence of new data on main world economies caused drop in trading in currencies, and unease remains among investors due to the continued euro-zone crisis. —KUNA

25

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

business

Chinese village exports cheap labor abroad LUJIAZHUANG, China: Xie Guolu proudly shows off the two-storey home he is having built in the small Chinese village of Lujiazhuang, paid for by money his son earns thousands of kilometers away in Algeria. The 63year-old’s son is one of more than 300 people in the village-about three hours from Beijing by road-who work in sometimes unstable countries, lured by better pay and firm contracts.

“In China, it’s difficult to get paid regularly. If, for example, work on the construction site stops, we don’t get any more money. So if he can sign a contract abroad, my son will do it,” Xie said. The dangers faced by migrant workers abroad came under the spotlight at the end of last month when dozens of Chinese laborers were kidnapped in Egypt and Sudan.

While those captured in Egypt were subsequently released, 29 workers were still being held in southern Sudan, where the body of another missing Chinese worker had also been found, according to China’s state media.

But the risks have not deterred the residents of Lujiazhuang-a village where working-age men are in short supply and the work of tending the arid fields and raising pigs and poultry

mostly falls to women and the elderly.

Village chief Guo Zhanyong said Lujiazhuang had been sending its young men abroad since the 1980s, when a large group of workers went to Sudan. It has a reputation for sending an unusually large number of its people overseas.

“Out of fewer than 3,100 inhabitants, we have more than 300 abroad.

They are scattered in most European countries, but also in Singapore, Angola, Congo, the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius,” said Gu. Some construction workers toil away around 10 hours a day, 30 days a month, and with few opportunities to spend their hard-earned cash they send it back to the village where plush new homes are being built with the proceeds.

Most residents in Lujiazhuang have relatives working overseas. They earn between $8,000 and $11,000 annually, well over the average annual salary for construction workers in big cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which was 40,500 yuan ($6,400) last year.

Jing Liying, another villager in her forties, says her husband is in Cameroon and her two sons in Singapore. “I live with my daughter-inlaw,” she said. “The recruiters come

here as they know people here are ready to leave. They take those who are under 45,” she added. Officially, more than 810,000 Chinese people

went overseas-including 243,000 people employed by Chinese firms-and few of these have any substantial contact with locals.

HEBEI, China: Children in the village of Lujiazhuang, Hebei province. In the small village south of Beijing, working-age men are in scant supply and the arid fields nearby are tended mostly by the elderly and women. — AFP currently work abroad, according to the commerce ministry, the majority on short-term contracts of one or two years. In 2011 alone, 452,000 workers

Africa, where China has emerged as a major funder of infrastructure projects, is growing particularly attractive for migrant workers seeking to earn

good money. But the work does not go without its share of risks, as was illustrated last week by the abduction of the road-builders in Sudan and the technicians and engineers working for a military-owned cement factory in Egypt. Last year a dozen workers from Lujiazhuang were involved in the mass evacuation of 36,000 Chinese nationals from Libya as civil war raged.

Gao Baohu, for his part, has just returned from three years in Singapore. “Our firm arranged accommodation for us. Ten of us would sleep on bunk beds in a room, and we had our food delivered or would make it ourselves,” he said, adding he was able to expand his house in China thanks to his earnings. “We often worked overtime, from eight in the morning to around 10 or 11 at night, with an hour for lunch. On Sundays, we finished at five in the afternoon.” Wang Peng, a carpenter in Lujiazhuang, earned 60,000 to 70,000 yuan a year between 2002 and 2005 in South Korea, but now hopes to be able to earn almost as much at home. With the gap in earnings shrinking, the numbers working overseas may start to decline.

“Salaries are on the rise in China,” said Wang. “So it’s becoming less interesting to go abroad.” — AFP

UBS warns of poor Q1 as investment bank struggles Q4 net profit 393m Swiss francs vs poll’s 737m

CAPE TOWN: South African Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu leaves after addressing yesterday delegates at the investing in African mining conference at the International Convention Center in Cape Town. — AFP

Mine nationalization not viable: S Africa CAPE TOWN: Nationalizing South Africa’s mines is not a viable option for the country’s key sector and has been ruled out by the ruling party, the mines minister said yesterday, in a move welcomed by industry. “We have consistently maintained that nationalization is not the policy either of government or the ruling party,” Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu told delegates at a conference on investing in African mining.

The African National Congress (ANC) has dismissed a state takeover of the industry, which has been pushed by the party’s fiery youth league, and will adopt a policy position that is in South Africa’s best interests, said Shabangu, who is also a member of the ANC’s national executive committee.

“We welcome the fact that the report of the ANC task team on nationalization has reinforced the ANC’s earlier decision that nationalization is not a viable policy for South Africa,” she said. “ This is not a surprise, we have emphasized this before.” The ANC commissioned a team of experts last year to draft a report on government intervention in the mining sector. It was presented at a high-level party meeting last weekend and is expected to be made public this month.

Business Day newspaper reported yesterday that the report warns nationalization would lead to a near-collapse in foreign investment and instead proposes a tax shake-up including a 50-percent tax on mining “super profits” that would pay for a sovereign wealth fund.

The world’s top platinum producer has been at pains to distance itself from radicals in the ANC calling for the state to take over mines and redirect profits to the millions of blacks still living in poverty 18 years after apartheid.

Anglo American South Africa executive director Godfrey Gomwe welcomed Shabangu’s remarks as “pertinent, reassuring and encouraging”. “It is clearly important this year to resolve once and for all, in the right way, the lingering uncertainty created by the nationalization debate,” he said.

“In common with the rest of the mining sector and the business community as a whole, we have made it very clear many times our strong view that nationalization does not work and that the continuation of the debate on the topic has been damaging to South Africa’s reputation as an investment destination.” A policy ruling out nationalization would end the doubt hanging over the industry, said Gomwe. — AFP

ZURICH: Swiss bank UBS predicted further weakness in investment banking after a restructuring of the business failed to prevent an earnings hit from the euro-zone debt crisis and worries about the global economy.

“Traditional improvements in first-quarter activity levels and trading volumes may fail to materialize fully, which would weigh on overall results for the coming quarter, most notably in the investment bank,” UBS said yesterday. Shares in UBS fell 1.1 percent after the bank said fourth-quarter net profit shrank to 393 million Swiss francs from 1.66 billion francs in the 2010 period and compared with a forecast for 737 million in a Reuters poll.

Investment banks had a torrid time last year as trading and advisory income was hammered as clients pulled back from markets due to the euro-zone debt crisis, and stopped doing deals. The outlook is set to remain tough as tougher regulations and economic slowdown bite.

US rivals including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan posted weak fourth quarter income, and Deutsche Bank also fell to a fourth quarter loss due to a slump in bond trading. UBS, which announced in November it would scale back its investment bank business to focus on its flagship private bank, said it had cut risky assets by 20 billion Swiss francs in the fourth quarter with “no significant impact on profitability”.

Kepler Capital Markets analyst Dirk Becker welcomed the reduction in risky assets but said there were still questions over the future of the investment bank. “Revenues have recovered from the really poor Q3 levels, but are still too low to feed a division with still over 17,000 employees,” he said.

“The downsizing plans of the management will reduce this revenue base further and make it impossible to achieve satisfactory returns for this division, which will still consume the largest part of the capital.” UBS said it saw a few “bright spots” in the performance of its investment bank, which was hit by a $2 billion rogue trader scandal uncovered in September but pared its pretax loss to 256 million from a loss of 650 million the previous quarter. UBS said it was making progress on delivering on plans to cut total headcount by

Australia keeps rates steady at 4.25% SYDNEY: Australia’s central bank left official interest rates steady at 4.25 percent yesterday, saying global conditions had, on balance, improved and local growth and inflation were close to target.

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens said interest rates for borrowers had dropped to be “close to their medium-term average” after two rounds of rate cuts in November and December.

The United States was expanding moderately, offsetting weakness in Europe, and though China’s growth had eased slightly Stevens said it “on most indicators remained quite robust through the second half of last year”.

“With growth expected to be close to trend and inflation close to target, the Board judged that the setting of monetary policy was appropriate for the moment,” Stevens said. Analysts had widely expected the bank to cut rates for a third time following weak retail sales data released this week, and the Australian dollar surged on the announcement to 107.98 US cents from 107.05 prior.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said the bank’s decision “struck a balance between global uncertainty on the one hand and Australia’s strong economic fundamentals on the other”. “The Reserve Bank is acutely aware of the challenges to our economy from the global situation,” Swan told parliament.

“They are pointing to the fact that domestic growth is strong.” Stevens said “much remains to be done” to ease sovereign and bank debt strains in Europe but “some progress had been made” and financial markets, though skittish, were generally

more positive. “Share markets have risen and term funding markets have re-opened, including for Australian banks, albeit at increased cost compared with the situation prevailing in mid 2011,” he said.

Locally, jobs data was soft but the unemployment rate had held steady in recent months, with modest credit growth and house prices showing signs of stabilizing. — AFP

SYDNEY: A man walks past the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney yesterday. Australia’s central bank left official interest rates steady at 4.25 percent yesterday, saying global conditions had, on balance, improved and local growth and inflation were close to target. — AFP

almost 4,000, with total staff down 1,101 in the quarter to 64,820 at the end of 2011, but said it would have to slash more costs if market conditions worsen.

“The investment bank clearly did better than feared with better than expected revenue streams, however, wealth management clearly suffered from weak client activity,” said Vontobel analyst Teresa Nielsen. Inflows at the UBS flagship private banking arm slipped to

Deutsche Bank which recently posted a fourth-quarter loss amid one-off charges such as Greek debt writedowns into the quarter.

Bonuses, a hot-button issue, will fall 60 percent in the investment bank and 40 percent in UBS overall for 2011, Naratil said. Naratil said UBS would issue loss-absorbing capital to meet tough new Swiss capital rules fairly quickly, but that it still prefers non-dilutive forms of capital such as write-down debt over

ZURICH: UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti (right) and CFO Tom Naratil (left) prepare to speak at a news conference announcing the bank’s 2011 full year result in Zurich yesterday. —AP 3.1 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion) in the fourth quarter from 3.8 billion in the previous quarter, better than expected.

UBS financial head Tom Naratil said uncertainty in the euro-zone was doing more to dampen activity by wealthy clients than the trading scandal: “The trading incident is not something clients are talking to us about today.” The affair surrounding former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli will linger as he is set to stand trial in September after pleading not guilty to trades the Swiss bank says were unauthorized. UBS stressed its euro-zone exposure was relatively low, in comparison to

contingent convertible bonds, or CoCos. He told a news conference the bank was initially considering issuing around $1 billion in dollar denominated capital. UBS said it had been granted some immunity by Switzerland’s antitrust authority in return for cooperating with its probe into the potential manipulation of LIBOR. Several countries are investigating “improper attempts” to manipulate LIBOR rates, which is the benchmark price big banks set for interbank borrowing costs. WEKO said last week it was investigating 12 banks, including UBS. — Reuters

BP hikes dividend after strong Q4 LONDON: BP PLC has raised its quarterly dividend by 14 percent after posting double digit gains in profit and revenue in the last three months of 2011 despite further big payments to compensate for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP also said yesterday that it expects to complete payments to the Gulf of Mexico Trust Fund this year to cover its liability for damage from the massive blowout of the Macondo well in April 2010.

For the three months ending Dec. 31, BP reported a profit of $7.69 billion, up 38 percent from the $5.57 billion posted a year earlier.

Revenue was up 15 percent at $96.3 billion. Replacement cost profit, a closely watched industry measure, was 65 percent higher at $7.6 billion. “2012 will be a year of increasing investment and milestones as we build on the foundations laid last year,” said CEO Bob Dudley. “As we move through 2013 and 2014, we expect financial momentum will build as we complete payments into the Gulf of Mexico Trust Fund, restore high-value production and bring new projects on stream.”

For the full year, BP reported a profit of $39.8 billion compared to a

loss of $3.7 billion in 2010; replacement cost profit was $23.9 billion compared with a loss of $4,914 million in the previous year.

And as of Dec 31, the cumulative charges paid from the Gulf Trust fund amounted to $14.5 billion. The hike in the quarterly dividend, to 8 cents per share, is the first increase since BP resumed paying dividends a year ago. “The dividend is still far from the historical heady heights, however, whilst the ongoing fallout from the Gulf of Mexico spill is a distraction,” said Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“More positively, the fund put aside to finance these claims seems sufficient, whilst further planned divestments will enable BP to focus more strategically on higher growth opportunities.” BP shares were up 0.3 percent in early trading in London at 4.91 pounds. “It was good to see a dividend increase with the results and it is a good sign of confidence in the improving operational performance,” said Tony Shephard, analyst at Charles Stanley & Co, who rated the shares as “hold.”

“BP’s share valuation is low relative to the other oil and gas majors but it still faces uncertainty over the Gulf of Mexico tragedy.” BP faces its

day in court in New Orleans on Feb. 27 with the opening of a limitation and liability trial over the spill. BP PLC, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton Co. have been fighting each other over who was responsible for causing the blowout, which was finally halted in July, 2010. US investigators have said that BP bears ultimate responsibility for the spill, but has faulted all three companies to some degree.

“We continue to believe that BP will settle sooner rather than later given the US presidential election and we see a 50 percent chance this will occur in the next few weeks,” said Stuart Joyner, analyst at Investec Securities.

BP has reached settlements with some of its partners and contractors including $4 billion from Anadarko Petroleum Corp, which had a 25 percent stake in the well: $1.1 billion from MOEX, which had a 10 percent stake; and $75 million from Weather ford International Ltd. which supplied casing components.

“As I have said before, we are prepared to settle if we can do so on fair and reasonable terms, but equally, if this is not possible, we are preparing vigorously for trial,” Dudley said. — AP

26

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

BUSINESS

Revolutionary new KIA Rio (UB) makes grand debut Al-Mutawa: Rio launch advances mutual vision to bring unprecedented innovation to local market KUWAIT: The momentum accelerated for one of the world’s fastest-moving automotive brands when National Agencies Group (KIA Motors Kuwait) unveiled the completely redesigned Rio 2012 to the Kuwait market at a prestigious launch ceremony at ‘Le Notre” Restaurant on Monday, Feb 6.

The ceremony was attended by VIP customers, members of the press and distinguished guests, including the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Kuwait Kim Kyung-Sik; the Commercial and Economic Counselor of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Kuwait, Nam Young Woo; The President of KIA Motors regional headquarters for the Middle East and Africa, M K Kim; Area sales manager from KIA Motors regional headquarters for the Middle East and Africa, S H Yang.

“The launch of the All-New Rio 2012 advances the mutual vision shared by two likeminded partners - KIA Motors and Abdulaziz Al-Ali Al-Mutawa Group -to bring unprecedented innovation to the local market,” stated

Ahmed Al-Mutawa, Chairman and Managing Director of Abdulaziz Al-Ali Al-Mutawa Group of companies of which National Agencies Group is a subsidiary.

The third generation Rio is set to spark a revolution in the compact car segment and continue KIA’s record-breaking sales streak into the New Year. The B-segment model boasts a bold and distinctive personality, bringing it in line with the rest of KIA’s new range of vehicles.

“The Rio delivers on KIA’s bold promise to provide best-in-class vehicles to customers through award-winning design, excellent performance, advanced features and 5-star safety.

It is a game- changing model for the segment and an outstanding achievement for the KIA brand,” stated Medhat, KIA Brand Manager in Kuwait.

Sleek in design with high-end features, the KIA Rio is built for young-minded, active individuals or couples. It comes in two body styles; the 5-door hatchback and 4-door sedan. Its exterior is characterized by a strik-

ingly modern look that gives the car both flare and character. The design is further enhanced with the addition of attractive LED lights integrated into the side-view mirrors. These innovative features earned the Rio the “best design” award in the Automotive Brand

Contest hosted by the German Design Council.

Exciting features such as LED Daytime Running Lights, Button Start & Smart-Key, Bluetooth and iPod support help set the Rio apart as a new segment leader.

In terms of performance, the new generation Rio boasts a 4-cylinder, 1.4L “Gamma” engine that generates up to 109 hp. The fuelefficient engine was designed to deliver flexible power along with smooth, silent driving.

The 2012 KIA Rio is offered in both automatic and manual transmission options, along with a wide assortment of exterior and interior colors to suit all tastes.

The Rio contains six airbags (front, side and curtain) for maximum safety and was recently awarded five stars for accident safety from leading European road safety organization, EuroNCAP. Other premium safety features include ESC, VSM (vehicle stability management), HAC (hill-start assist control) to prevent roll-back when moving off on gradients, and

three-point seatbelts for all five occupants. KIA was the first Korean manufacturer to achieve EuroNCAP’s top score with the Cerato in 2007.

KIA Motors is undergoing a dramatic design-led transformation. From 2009-2011, KIA launched more new vehicles than any other major automaker, and under the guidance of Chief Design Officer from Germany, Peter Schreyer, earned a reputation as an industry leader in automotive styling. KIA Motors’ full line of stylish and fun-to-drive cars and SUVs has earned critical acclaim and dramatically increased consumer awareness, perception and consideration for the brand in Kuwait. In 2011, KIA Motors posted a recordbreaking 18.6% global sales increase for the year with 2.4 million vehicles sold, reinforcing KIA’s position as one of the world’s fastest growing automakers.

National Agencies Group is the official dealership for KIA Motors in Kuwait and is a division of Abdulaziz Al-Ali Al-Mutawa Group of companies.

Gulf Bank announces winners of fourth Al-Danah weekly draw KUWAIT: Gulf Bank held its fourth Al-Danah weekly draw on February 5, 2012, announcing a total number of eight Al-Danah weekly prize draw winners, each awarded with prizes of KD 1,000.

The 4th Al-Danah Weekly Winners are: Laila Mohammed Al-Khamees, Bahjah Abdul Hamid Marafee Shaikhah Joudah Al-Fadhli, Nidal Mohammad Ibrahim Fatma Hamad Al-Ajmy, Rajaa Jeryas Suliman, Ramy Mahmoud Massoud, Mohammed Abdulrahman AlMithen.

Gulf Bank encourages everyone in Kuwait to open an Al-Danah

account and/or increase their deposits to maximize their chances of becoming a winner in the upcoming weekly (KD1,000 each for 10 winners). Gulf Bank’s Al Danah allows customers to win cash prizes

and encourages them to save money. Chances increase the more money is deposited and the longer it is kept in the account.

Al-Danah also offers a number of unique services including the AlDanah Deposit Only ATM card

which helps account holders deposit their money at their convenience; as well as the Al-Danah calculator to help customers calculate their chances of becoming an Al-Danah winner.

To be part of the Al-Danah draws, customers can visit one of Gulf Bank’s 55 branches, transfer on line, or call the Customer Contact Center on 1805805 for assistance and guidance. Customers can also log on to www.e-gulfbank.com, Gulf Bank’s website, to find all the information regarding Al-Danah or any of the Bank’s products and services or log on www.e-gulfbank.com/aldanahwinners, to find out more about AlDanah and who the winners are.

Top SBT official to visit Kuwait KUWAIT: P Nanda Kumaran, Managing Banking among others. He has held sevDirector of State Bank of Travancore eral senior positions like Chief General (SBT) is visiting Kuwait as part of his tour Manager at Ahmedabad Circle, Chief of the Gulf countries to meet with General Manager, National Banking exchange companies with who the Group, Mumbai, General Manager (Network) at Bhubaneshwar Circle and bank has correspondent arrangements.

He will be in Kuwait on February 9 President and CEO of State Bank of India (Canada). and 10. On this occasion, Kuwait India Kuwait India International Exchange International Exchange Company is a pre-emiCompany is hosting an nent, India-focused exclusive luncheon meet exchange house in on Thursday, Feb 9 at 1 Kuwait. It was set up as a pm to meet with some of joint venture, in 1978, the esteemed customers with State Bank of India of the company.

(SBI) with equity particiAlso, Kuwait India is pation and a manageorganizing, at the same ment contract. The comvenue, a meeting of the pany continues to be chiefs of all the promimanaged by former nent exchange compaP Nanda Kumaran executives of SBI. The nies in Kuwait with him.

P Nanda Kumaran started his bank- entire top and senior management of ing career in 1975 as a probationary offi- KIIECO consists of former SBI executives cer in the State Bank of India. He has with a cumulative experience of over over 35 years’ rich and variegated expe- 100 years in the Bank. The company rience in all aspects banking - enjoys the status of major corresponTechnology, Operations, Personal dent of SBI, SBT and other banks in the

SBI Group. Kuwait India stands synonymous with SBI in the perception of the Indian Diaspora in Kuwait. The major business of the company is currency exchange and remittances to various parts of the world in a wide range of currencies. However, the predominant focus of is remittances is to India, in which it has carved a niche for itself.

The company offers a range of products, both paper and electronic - - drafts, mail transfers, door-to-door delivery, telegraphic transfers. KIIECO has pioneered the speediest electronic remittances to Indian banks in recent years. The credits hit the accounts in hours followed by SMS alerts on successful credit.

Corporate entities, trade businesses and establishments are also catered to , towards trade-related remittances, in all major currencies, all over the world.

Kuwait India has an uninterrupted track record of profitable operations ever since inception. The enormous trust and confidence of the customers, assiduously built up over thirty years, is the bedrock on which Kuwait India stands.

Jet Airways ‘Favorite Full-service Airline’ Outlook Traveller Awards 2011 MUMBAI: Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, has been declared the ‘Favorite Full-service Airline’ at the Outlook Traveller Awards 2011 in New Delhi.

The awards were presented in New Delhi, in front of several luminaries from the travel and trade industry.

Renowned for the warmth and hospitality of its acclaimed in-flight service, a reflection of the high standards of the airline’s rigorous in-flight training procedures, Jet Airways emerged victorious from amongst a field comprising several leading airlines.

Ragini Chopra, Vice President, Corporate Communications and Public Relations, Jet Airways, received the prestigious award on behalf of the airline, from Minister for Tourism, Subodh Kant Sahai at the Outlook

Traveller Award 2011 function, at a glittering ceremony at the Lalit, New Delhi on February 1, 2011. The awards were given away in 18 categories.

These awards, based on exhaustive readers response study conducted across cities, seek to recognize and honor the best in travel, based on an objective study conducted by Outlook Traveller Magazine. Under the aegis of the Nielsen Company, the survey is polled through the magazine and website and is an authoritative benchmark of consumer preferences in travel and tourism across 18 categories including hotels, airlines and holiday destinations.

Sudheer Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways, said, “The Outlook Traveller Awards are widely respected across the tourism

and trade industr y and we are delighted to receive this honor. This award is a reflection of the emphasis laid by Jet Airways, in ensuring that customer needs are kept uppermost in the mind to offer guests as comfortable a travel experience as possible. Awards such as these stand testimony to the quality of our services.

We will persist in our endeavor to exceed customer expectations and create benchmarks in service standards for others to follow.”

Outlook Traveller, India’s leading travel magazine, is celebrating 10 years of publishing. The magazine is a mine of information, keeping one updated with latest trends in travel and tourism. The magazine reaches out to an up market urban readership.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

Verizon to set up streaming service with Redbox NEW YORK: Phone company Verizon Communications Inc. will challenge Netflix and start a video streaming service this year with Redbox and its DVD rental kiosks. Verizon and Coinstar Inc., Redbox’s parent, said Monday that the ser vice will be national and available to non-Verizon customers as well. It adds another leg to Verizon’s quest to become a force in home entertainment, and it looks set to compete to some extent with the cable-TV services it already sells.

Verizon has its own cable-TV service, called FiOS, in some areas. Its Verizon Wireless subsidiary has also signed a deal to sell service from Comcast Corp. and other cable TV companies in its stores. With the Redbox venture, Verizon is breaking ranks with the cable and satellite industry, which makes its own video

streaming services available only to people who also subscribe to its traditional T V feeds. They don’t want households switching to Internet-only services, which are cheaper Netflix charges $8 per month for its video streaming plan.

“We’ve made a conscious decision to innovate and get involved with this market because it’s legitimate and growing, and we think the partnership with Redbox gives us huge upside,” said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon’s consumer business.

Verizon’s own FiOS business is relatively small, with 4.2 million subscribers, making it the seventh-largest provider of TV signals to U.S. homes.

Meanwhile, its landline phone business is shrinking, so it needs other avenues for growth. Its wireless arm is growing, but it owns only 55 percent

of that venture. (Vodafone Group PLC of Britain owns the rest.)

To build the service, Verizon will take advantage of the relationships with Hollywood studios and other content producers it has built through FiOS, Mudge said. Verizon and Coinstar didn’t reveal prices or other details of their service. It’s intended to give subscribers access to DVD and Blu-ray discs as well as streaming movies starting in the second half of the year, they said. Subscribers might visit the site to find that the movie they want isn’t available for streaming, but is available at a Redbox kiosk nearby, said Paul Davis, the CEO of Coinstar.

New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. will own 65 percent of the unnamed venture, with Bellevue, Wash.,-based Coinstar Inc.

owning the rest. Redbox is contributing an initial $14 million to the venture, according to a regulatory filing. It did not say how much Verizon would contribute.

In morning trading Monday, Coinstar’s stock fell 6 cents to $49.60 after initially jumping 6.6 percent on the news. Verizon shares rose 6 cents to $37.90. Netflix shares fell $3.59, or 2.8 percent, to $122.84.

Netflix already has a couple of power ful competitors with video streaming services. Amazon.com Inc. provides a library of movies and TV shows to subscribers to its Amazon Prime shipping services. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, has a streaming service called Vudu.

Neither of these competitors combines Internet delivery of movies with DVDs, like Netflix does. However,

Netflix started charging separately for its DVDs-by-mail and online streaming services last year, saying DVDs are on their way out and Internet delivery is its focus.

Netflix alienated customers even more when it said it would split the two services completely, forcing customers to deal with two movie queues. It backed off that plan after an outcry, demonstrating that customers found value in the combination of Internet movies and discs from one company.

Redbox appears to have benefited from Netflix’s troubles, picking up some of the customers who have defected from its DVD service. It now claims to be the biggest DVD rental service in the country, thanks to its more than 28,000 kiosks in drugstores and supermarkets. — AP

EU probes Google privacy policy Google to create broader profile of user

TOKYO: A model shows off the new FX-format digital single lens reflex (SLR) camera ‘D800’ from Japanese camera maker Nikon, during a press preview in Tokyo yesterday. Nikon will put the new camera, equipped with the world’S biggest 36.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, a new image processing engine ‘EXPEED 3’ and 91kilo-pixel RGB sensor, on the market on March 22.— AFP

Looking for work?

There is app for that SAN FRANCISCO: Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you’re apt to find it in apps - the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook’s online social network.

The demand for applications for everything ranging from games to quantum physics has created 466,000 jobs in the US since 2007, according to an analysis released yesterday by technology trade group TechNet. The estimate counts 311,000 jobs at companies making the apps and another 155,000 at local merchants who have expanded their payrolls in an economic ripple effect caused by increased spending at their businesses.

The study asserts this so-called “app economy” is still in the early stages of a boom driven by the mobile computing and social networking crazes unleashed by Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Facebook’s online hangout.

“This is a telescope into what the future looks like,” said Michael Mandel, the economist hired by TechNet to put together the report.

“This is one part of the economy that is actually expanding and hiring. Once you point people in that direction, they can realign their compass pretty quickly.”

Apps makers were adding jobs even when the overall U.S. unemployment rate climbed to as high as 10 percent in late 2009, Mandel said.

That bodes well for even more vigorous growth if the economy can extend a gradual recovery from the Great Recession. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January, the lowest level in three years.

Government labor statistics don’t yet track jobs focused on apps, partly because the market is still relatively new. That prompted TechNet to try to fill the void. The 15-year-old group represents executives at companies that employ more than 2 million people and generate more than $800 billion in annual revenue combined.

The app economy began to percolate in 2007 - the year that Apple introduced the iPhone and Facebook turned its website into a platform for other programs designed for its rapidly growing audience.

Today, there are more than 500,000 apps available for the iPhone and Apple’s iPad tablet.

Some are given away for free in an attempt to make money from ads. Others are sold by young and old entrepreneurs, as well as major companies.

As its audience has grown from about 58 million users in 2007 to 845 million today, Facebook has hatched perhaps the most successful apps company so far in Zynga Inc. The San Francisco-based maker of online games such as FarmVille and Words With Friends already employs about 2,800 people and has leased enough office space to hire thousands more during the next few years.

The seeds for even more job growth have been planted by a proliferation of other mobile devices designed to run on operating systems made by Google Inc., Research in Motion Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. More apps are likely to be coming into homes as more TVs and appliances, including refrigerators and washing machines, are wired for Internet access.

For all its progress and future promise, the app economy remains a small fraction of the broader technology industry. TechNet estimates about 3.5 million people are working in technology jobs - occupations revolving around computers and mathematics.

But not all the jobs being created in the app economy require geeky credentials.TechNet reasons every apps programming job hatches another position in other non-technical areas such as sales, marketing, human resources and other administrative chores. The study also presumes the job growth in apps spurs more local spending on goods and services that encourages more hiring at neighboring businesses.

Quantifying this domino effect can be tricky.

Mandel, president of the consulting firm South Mountain Economics says he believes he was conservative in his calculations. He estimates that one peripheral job is created for every two jobs added to the payroll of an apps maker.

The TechNet study found that the highest concentration of app jobs is in the technology hotbeds of the San Francisco Bay area (nearly 15 percent), New York (9 percent) and Seattle (nearly 6 percent).

But the study also found app jobs cropping up in places such as Philadelphia (nearly 2 percent), Detroit (1 percent) and Phoenix (1 percent). TechNet CEO Rey Ramsey is optimistic apps jobs will be widely dispersed across the country because it’s a specialty that doesn’t require big factories, close proximity to railroads and highways or even other technology hubs. All that is really required, he said, is a good idea and online access. — AP

SEOUL: A man walks past Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 displayed at a local shop in Seoul, South Korea, Feb 3, 2012. — AP

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s data protection authorities have asked Google to delay the rollout of its new privacy policy until they have verified that it doesn’t break the bloc’s data protection laws.

Google publicized its new privacy rules which regulate how the Web giant uses the enormous amounts of personal data it collects through its search engine, email and other services - with much fanfare last week.

Since then, it has launched a huge publicity campaign informing its users around the globe of the new policy, which is set to come into force on March 1. But that launch date may now be under threat. In a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the group of 27 national privacy regulators in the EU, said the French data protection agency has started a probe of the new rules and how they will affect Google users in the EU. “We call for a pause (in the rollout of the new rules) in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis,” Kohnstamm wrote in the letter, which was

sent Thursday and published on Friday.

Google’s search engine has a market share of more than 90 percent in the EU, with rival services like Microsoft’s Bing gaining little traction. The EU’s competition authorities are already examining whether Google uses this dominance to stop other search engines from entering the market.

The new policy makes it easier for Google to combine the data of one person using different services such as the search engine, YouTube or Gmail if he is logged into his Google account.

That allows Google to create a broader profile of that user and thus target advertising based on that person’s interests and search history more accurately. Advertising is the main way Google makes its money.

But the company argues that combining the data into one profile also makes search results more relevant and allows a user to cross-navigate between different services more easily.

Google said in a statement Friday that it had briefed data protection agencies before making its new policy announcement and that none of them had had substantial concerns at the time.

“Delaying the policy would cause significant confusion,” it said in the emailed note. The com-

pany also published a letter by Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer in response to Kohnstamm. Fleischer said the main purpose of the new policy is to combine the more than 70 different rules for Google’s wide-ranging services into one, that is simpler and more readable.

“Our updated privacy policy makes it clear in one comprehensive document that if a user is signed in we may combine information she has provided from one service with information from other services,” Fleischer wrote. He added that people can continue to use Google services without being logged into an account or create different profiles for different services.

Koosje Verhaar, a spokeswoman for Kohnstamm, who is also the head of the Dutch data protection agency, said she couldn’t comment on how long the analysis of the new policy will take.

She declined to say whether there were specific parts of the new rules that triggered the probe, but added that the data protection authorities of several nations, including France, Ireland and Germany, had already publicly expressed concerns over the policy just days after it was announced. — AP

MATCO and EMC executives during the meeting.

Matco launchES EMC velocity solution center in Riyadh KUWAIT: Maham Al-Khaleej Trading Company (Matco) announced today the opening of its second EMC Velocity Signature Solution Center in the Kingdom. The center, located in Riyadh, is designed to demonstrate exactly how the technology works in a live environment, providing a total experience of the solution and the benefits without risk for the customer.

Based on the immense success of EMC’s own Global Solution Centers, Matco’s new Solution Center in the Kingdom replicates a framework of technology that demonstrates EMC Proven(tm) solutions in approved environments. Backed by stringent testing, seamless partner integration, and document implementation methodologies, EMC Proven solutions reduce customer risk and ensure faster deployment.

“We are giving our customers real choice and the best of both worlds - the chance to experience exactly how the Proven solution would work for them based on EMC technology without any capital outlay. Our main objective at Matco is to provide our customers with the best service levels and ensure they are getting the value of the solutions we offer them,” said Toni Prince, General Manager, Matco IT. MATCO’s Solution Center is designed to host a number of activities, including: • Customer briefings, seminars, and workshops • Live hardware and software demonstrations

Training courses • Complex proofs-of-concept • Migration planning • Benchmark and performance testing • Comprehensive solution development The center will also provide comprehensive solutions development, live and remote demonstrations, and improvement of near-customer environments via EMC’s Customer Integration Lab. The solutions demonstrated are based on the strategic collaboration that combines bestof-breed information infrastructure technologies from EMC, virtualization from VMware, and networking and compute solutions from Cisco and will focus on helping customers in their IT transformation towards the Private Cloud.

Matco is focusing on the transformation to the private cloud for the benefits it offers to organizations in the Kindgom which include, but are not limited to: • Reducing management complexity and costs • Allowing organizations to meet service levels, protect their data, simplify deployments, achieve consolidation, and facilitate backups and restores • Equipping organizations with agility to meet the demanding business requirements.

A leading Saudi systems integrator and solutions provider, Matco has a skilled workforce comprised of certified engineers who design

and run successful proofs-of-concept as well as work with their customers to design virtual data center architectures and conduct complete implementations. Matco customers can also benefit from 24x7 on-site customer support ser vice. The first setup phase of MATCO’s Solution Center in Riyadh will showcase the main features of unified management of EMC Unified Storage showing its ease of use and efficiency to organizations. The second phase will cover replication between unified storage platforms and back up and recovery solutions.

Havier Haddad, Channel Manager, for EMC Turkey, Emerging Africa & Middle East, said: “The ability to support Velocity Signature Solution Center is at the core of our channel partners enablement program. This Center provides the tools for Matco to work more efficiently with its customers, ultimately driving increased value through doing business with EMC.” “EMC customers in the Kingdom will now have the ability to experience their planned solution and identify the ROI before making financial commitments. Matco is dedicated to its customers’ transformation to the Private Cloud which will enable them to meet their business objectives through greater efficiency in virtualized storage, reduced deployment times, increased scalability and agility to deliver mission critical service levels,” said Mohamed Talaat, Country Manager for Saudi at EMC.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

Solid ‘finger food’ may help babies avoid obesity PARIS: Infants outgrowing a liquid diet who give themselves finger food rather than being spoon-fed puree are likelier to eat healthily and avoid getting fat during weaning, repor ts a study released yesterday.

Researchers found that the technique, known as “baby-led weaning,” led to a child expressing a clear preference for pasta, rice and other carbohydrates over sweets, thus helping to cement a foundation for eating the right foods.

Experts and parents alike have long

debated over when and how to help an infant make the transition from mother’s milk or the bottle to a solidfood regimen. M any studies have already concluded that self-feeding with finger food is fine for most infants. But what impact this approach might have on longer-term taste preferences and a child’s overall health has until now been less clear. Ellen Townsend and Nicola Pitchford of the University of Nottingham designed a study that looked at the eating habits of 155 children during weaning, a peri-

od that ranged from 20 months to six and a half years old.

Sixty percent of the kids had been allowed to feed themselves finger foods such as strips of toast and pieces of fruit, while the remaining 40 percent had been spoon-fed pureed foods throughout the weaning process.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal (NMJ ), was based on a questionnaire answered by parents in the region. Despite the fact that infants in the spoon-fed group were offered more carbohydrates,

fruits, vegetables and proteins, they wound up liking sweets more than the self-fed children.

The kids allowed to eat finger food, moreover, were more likely to be in their correct weight bracket and less likely to be obese at the end of weaning, a process which for some children can take months, but for others years.

Being overweight in infancy is an early risk factor for obesity in later life.

“Our results suggest that baby-led weaning promotes healthy food preferences in early childhood that could

protect against obesity,” the study concludes. “This has implications for combating the well-documented rise of obesity in contemporary societies.”

Finger food works because it accustomises children to the textures of what they will be eating later, the researchers speculated.

The researchers noted, however, that there were a few more underweight babies in the baby-led group, and suggested that fur ther studies with a larger cohort were needed to confirm the results. — AFP

Neuroscience the new face of warfare: Experts Mind, machine links throw up ethical problems

KARACHI: Pakistani fishermen use cranes to pull the carcass of a whale shark from the waters at a fish harbor in Karachi yesterdauy. The 40-feet whale, weighing about 6-7 tons, was found dead in Arabian Sea in the port city of Karachi. — AFP

Male smokers lose brain function faster LONDON: Men who smoke suffer a more rapid decline in brain function as they age than their non-smoking counterparts, with their cognitive decline as rapid as someone 10 years older but who shuns tobacco, scientists said yesterday.

In a large, long-term study, British researchers found that while there seems to be no link between cognitive decline and smoking in women, in men, the habit is linked to swifter decline, with early dementia-like cognitive difficulties showing up as early as the age of 45.

The research adds to an already large body of evidence about the long-term dangers of smoking-a habit the World Health Organisation refers to as “one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced”.

Smoking causes lung cancer, which is often fatal, and other chronic respiratory diseases. It is also a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, the world’s number one killers. “While we were aware that smoking is a risk factor for respiratory disease, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, this study shows it also has a detrimental effect on cognitive ageing and this is evident as early as 45 years,” said Severine Sabia of University College London, who led the study and published it in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal.

In an interview she said one explanation for the gender difference found in this study might be the larger amount of tobacco smoked by men, or the fact that there was a significantly lower propor-

tion of women than men among those involved in the research.

Sabia’s team looked for possible links between smoking history and cognitive decline in the transition from midlife to old age using data from 5,099 men and 2,137 women who are involved in a large research project called the Whitehall II study, which is based on employees of the British Civil Service.

The average age of those taking part was 56 when they had their first cognitive assessment.

The study used six assessments of smoking status over 25 years and three cognitive assessments over 10 years, and found that smokers showed a cognitive decline as fast as non-smokers 10 years older than them.

“A 50 year old male smoker shows a similar cognitive decline as a 60 year old male never smoker,” Sabia explained.

She also found that men who quit smoking in the 10 years before the first cognitive testing point were still at risk of greater cognitive decline, especially in executive function — which covers various complex cognitive processes involved in achieving a particular goal.

Long-term ex-smokers, however, did not show a faster decline in their brain functions or cognitive abilities. Sabia said more research is now needed to find out why there was a difference between men and women in this study, and to look into possible mechanisms that might link declining brain function to smoking. — Reuters

US kids still exposed to smoke in cars: Study NEW YORK: Fewer US children and teens are being exposed to secondhand smoke while riding in cars, but rates of exposure are still high enough to warrant concern and more states should ban smoking in cars carrying children, according to a US study.

In a sur vey of middle and high school students used as the basis for the study, published in Pediatrics, close to one-third said they’d driven in a car with someone who was smoking in the previous week.

“The alarming fact of it is, there’s about one in five (non-smoking children) that are still exposed in this environment,” said Brian King at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who led the study.

“We have evidence that there’s no safe level of exposure.” King and his colleagues analyzed data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, covering more than 20,000 children in grades six through twelve every few years between 2000 and 2009.

Students were asked if they smoked themselves, as well as if they’d been in the car with someone who was smoking in the past week. By 2009, almost nine in every ten youths said they didn’t smoke. And during the study period, the number of participants who reported recently being exposed to secondhand smoke in the car dropped from 48 percent to 30 percent overall.

Among smokers, that rate fell from 82 percent to 76 percent, and in nonsmokers, from 39 percent to 23 percent. “Jurisdictions should expand comprehensive smoke-free policies that prohibit smoking in worksites and public places to also prohibit smoking in motor vehicles occupied by youths,” King and his colleagues wrote.

King’s team speculated in its study that the declines may be due to more smoke-free laws and fewer people smoking in the United States in general, as well as changing public attitudes about the appropriateness of smoking near children.

Four states-Arkansas, California, Louisiana and Maine- have bans on smoking in cars carr ying children younger than 13 to 18 years- old, depending on the law. Puerto Rico also bars the practice.

Experts said that parents and other drivers may not realize that even when the windows are down, smoking in a vehicle can create toxic levels of circulating smoke. “The concentrations just get very high-they get as high as in a very, very smoky bar,” said Ana Navas-Acien, who has studied secondhand smoke in cars at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Publich Health in Baltimore but was not involved in the study. “It’s important for children, definitely, but it’s a problem for everybody.” — Reuters

LONDON: Directed energy weapons that use wave beams to cause pain, and electrical brain stimulation that boosts a soldier’s combat ability - it may sound like science fiction warfare, but experts say advances in neuroscience mean it’s on the horizon.

Rapid progress in the ability to map brain activity and manipulate its responses with stimulants could change the face of warfare, a panel of experts said yesterday. The experts, looking at the scope for neuroscience in future military conflict, said researchers on the cutting edge of medical science should remember that their work could have other, more harmful uses.

“We know neuroscience research has the potential to deliver great social benefit researchers come closer every day to finding effective treatments for diseases and disorders such as Parkinson’s, depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy and addiction,” said Rod Flower, a professor of biochemical pharmacology at Queen Mary University of London, who led the panel.

“However, understanding of the brain and human behaviour, coupled with developments in drug delivery, also highlight ways of degrading human performance that could possibly be used in new weapons.”

The report, published on Tuesday by the UK’s national academy of science, the Royal Society, was written by experts in neuroscience, international security, psychology and ethics. It divided the issue of neuroscience in conflict and security into two main areas - the potential to enhance performance

of military forces, and the potential to degrade or diminish the enemy’s performance.

Looking at performance enhancement, the report pointed to advances in neural interface technologies which could allow machines such as drone aircraft to be controlled directly with the human brain, and advances in neuroimaging which could help military chiefs screen for recruits with particular attributes.

“There is also a great deal of research taking place around drugs that improve the alertness, attention and memory of military personnel while in the field,” the report said.

The experts said it was in the interests of military commanders to screen for abilities relevant to a given task.

While one person may excel in detecting targets in a cluttered environment, they said, another might excel in decision making skills under stress, and advances in neuroimaging and brain stimulation techniques could help pinpoint these differences during screening and recruitment.

Irene Tracey, an expert on brain imaging from Oxford University and one of the report’s authors, said most of the applications of neural interface technology, such as brain prostheses or implants, have so far been only at the trial stage and mostly in medicine - particularly involving the rehabilitation of people using prosthetic limbs.

“You can imagine how you can be used for the military - both for rehabilitation of soldiers and for control of remote devices,” she told a briefing in London. “Some of it is the stuff of

dreams at this stage, but the speed at which technologies tend develop ... is always alarmingly quick.”

Flower gave an example of how an aircraft like a drone could be in future be controlled by a person with such brain implant - raising tricky ethical questions. “This idea brings about a bit of a blur in the distinction between mind and machine, which obviously has to be addressed very carefully,” he said. “If we got to the point where we could control a sophisticated machine, and the machine did something ... like committing a war crime of some sort, who would be responsible for that, you or the machine?”

The report also looked at neuroscientific applications that could give rise to new weapons - particularly advances in neuropharmacology and drug delivery that could speed the development of incapacitating chemical agents. The report highlighted new so-called directed energy weapons in development, including one called an Active Denial System (ADS) which uses a millimetre wave beam to heat the skin and cause a painful burning sensation.

Malcom Dando, a professor of international security at the University of Bradford and another of the authors, said the changes neuroscience could bring about were mostly in the future, giving experts time to assess their impact.

“We’re only at the beginning of a whole stream of neuroscience applications, and that gives us a window of opportunity to weigh up the pros and cons,” he said. — Reuters

Push for family input to detect dementia earlier WASHINGTON: Alexis McKenzie’s mother had mild dementia, but things sounded OK when she phoned home: Dad was with her, finishing his wife’s sentences as they talked about puttering through the day and a drive to the store.

Then their phone service was cut off. “I mailed that check,” McKenzie’s father insisted. No, he’d mailed the phone company a bank deposit slip instead. McKenzie visited and discovered spoiling food.

Dad the caregiver was in trouble, too.

Dementia can sneak up on families. Its sufferers are pretty adept at covering lapses early on, and spouses are sometimes there to compensate. Doctors too frequently are fooled as well. Now specialists are pushing for the first National Alzheimer’s Plan to help overcome this barrier to early detection, urging what’s called dementia-capable primary care, more screenings for warning signs and regular checks of caregivers’ own physical and mental health.

For a doctor to ask someone with brewing dementia, “How are you?” isn’t enough, says Dr. Laurel Coleman, a geriatric physician at Maine Medical Center who is part of a federal advisory council tackling the issue.

“So often I hear, ‘The doctor only asks my mom how she is. She says fine and it’s over,’” says Coleman.

“That’s not dementia-capable, or dementia-aware, primary care.”

Family input should be mandatory, she told a recent council meeting.

It’s the only way to know if the person really is eating and taking her medicines as she claims, and not forgetting to turn off the stove.

The question is how to square that input with patient confidentiality, especially if the person never filed the legal forms clearing family members to intervene, as happened with McKenzie.

Plus, regularly seeking that input takes more time than the typical 15-minute visit and is poorly reimbursed, notes Coleman. But she says more primary-care physicians are starting to be trained in dementia’s challenges. More than 5 million Americans are estimated to have Alzheimer ’s or similar forms of dementia, although as many as half may not be formally diagnosed.

With the rapidly aging population, the toll is projected to reach up to

16 million by 2050. The Obama administration is drafting a national strategy to try to slow that coming avalanche - with research aiming for some effective treatments by 2025 - plus find ways for struggling families to better cope today.

Step 1 is earlier detection.

McKenzie directs an Alzheimer’s assisted-living facility in Washington, so she knows about dementia. Still, it took some sleuthing to determine how much her 82-year-old parents, living a few hours away in Maryland, were deteriorating. She says her father refused any assistance in caring for her mother, and together the couple put up such a good front that even their regular physician hadn’t realized their shared answers to standard check-up questions - How are you eating? Has anything changed? - simply weren’t true.

“It’s almost as if they’re sharing a brain. That’s how they get through a day,” McKenzie says. Sure, dementia patients’ stories can be believable. “It happens in doctors’ offices all the time,” says Beth Kallmyer, vice president of constituent services at the Alzheimer’s Association.

That’s why it’s crucial that family members are part of the screening process.

The diseased brain may not be able to pull up a recent memory, but longer-term memories remain, she explains. So an intricate description of, say, cooking last night’s dinner may ring true because it was a real dinner, just not last night’s.

And a long-married couple in a familiar routine and surroundings can appear far more normal than they really are - until something upsets that balancing act, like the caregiving spouse getting sick, adds Dr. Gary Kennedy, geriatric psychiatr y chief at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center.

How to get around the hiddendementia conundrum?

Medicare’s new annual wellness visit pays for cognitive screening, simple tests that signal who should be referred for more extensive brain exams. “Even if primary-care physicians don’t consider themselves experts at evaluating for Alzheimer’s disease, or don’t feel comfortable, they can screen,” Kallmyer says.

The government’s Alzheimer’s advisers want doctors to steer families toward advanced-care plan-

IOWA: In this Jan. 30, 2012 photo, April Lawrence, owner of Bone-A-Patreat, poses with her dogs Spencer, left, and Roma in her store in Des Moines, Iowa. Many pet owners want the best for their four-legged family members. That means highquality, safe and eco-friendly products, from organic food and treats to BPA-free toys and water dishes. And they don’t mind paying extra for it. Pet health has been getting more attention as a result of recalls, social media sites and general concern over environmental dangers. — AP ning, including designating a health care power of attorney, as soon as dementia is diagnosed.

Montefiore’s Kennedy says early diagnosis gives patients a say in how they want to be cared for while they’re still capable of making those decisions.

A health care proxy won’t be used until the person is quite sick.

So Kallmyer advises also signing what’s called a “release of information” allowing the doctor to discuss the person’s care with whoever is named right away. Such steps are impor tant, Kennedy says, because advancing dementia leaves people so unaware of their deficits that they can take family or doctor input “as an affront.” He always asks new patients if he can fill in their loved ones, or invite them in from the waiting room, as a way of starting that conversation.

Doctors can violate patient confidentiality if they believe the person’s decisions or behavior has become a danger, Kennedy notes.

McKenzie says her father would never discuss naming a health care proxy and her parents were furious that she’d voiced concerns to their physician. She had to think up non-confrontational ways to get invited back into their doctor visits: “I’ll drive you, and then why don’t I take notes in case you have any questions later?”

It turned out that McKenzie’s father had a non-cancerous brain tumor causing his own gradual dementia symptoms, which started becoming apparent with the phone mix-up, unrefrigerated food and eventually delusions. Finally, she had to go to court to get her parents the care they needed in an assisted living facility near their hometown. —AP

H E A LT H

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

HIV drugs not linked with psychiatric problems CHICAGO: Drugs used to treat children infected with the virus that causes AIDS do not appear to increase the risk of psychiatric problems in children, US researchers said on Monday. Scientists have been worried about the high rates of psychiatric and academic problems in children infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV-the virus that causes AIDS. “The question that is coming up is why do they have so many issues? Is it their HIV, is it their antiretrovirals or is it other factors?” said Dr. Sharon Nachman of Stony Brook University in New York, who worked on the study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

In an earlier study, the team found similarly high rates of psychiatric problems in children with HIV and in those who have a family member with HIV, suggesting that stresses in the environment likely play some role. For the latest study, Nachman and colleagues looked specifically at children with HIV in an attempt to tease out some of those answers.

They analyzed data on 319 HIV-infected children and adolescents aged between 6 and 17 years who were enrolled in the International Maternal Pediatrics Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group study. A third of

the children had at least one psychiatric disorder, such as depression or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The team also reviewed the children’s disease history and markers of disease severity, such as their viral load-the levels of the virus in their blood-and measures of infection-fighting cells known as CD4 cells.

The team found no link between the HIV drugs known as antiretrovirals that the children were taking to control their disease and any psychiatric problem.

“It wasn’t the antiretrovirals. It didn’t matter which antiretrovirals the kids used. Those didn’t predict or prevent a kid from getting a psychiatric illness” or having social or academic problems, Nachman said in a telephone interview.

When they looked at severity of the disease, as measured by how much virus was in the blood or how well the immune system was working, the results were mixed. For example, they said children who entered the study with a lower CD4 percentage-a reflection of the number of infection-fighting cells in the blood-had less severe depression.

But children who had high levels of the HIV virus in their blood when they entered the study had more

severe depression. However, severity of disease did appear to play a role when it came to critical cognitive skills known as executive functioning.

The team found children who had the most severe disease when they entered the study did worse on

tests of executive functioning, such as remembering a sequence of numbers, Nachman said. “It appears if you had a high viral load at a young age or a low CD4 percentage, you did get a hit on your brain” in terms of executive functioning, Nachman said.—Reuters

Anti-cancer drug weakens bone PARIS: A drug tipped for widespread use to prevent breast cancer in post-menopausal women also accelerates loss of bone density, thus potentially boosting the risk of fractures, a study published yesterday said.

Exemestane-brand name Aromasin-is part of a drug class called aromatase inhibitors, which lower levels of the oestrogen that some breast cancers need in order to grow.

Canadian bone specialists took a look at a group of patients who had taken part in a study into the effectiveness of exemestane among 4,500 healthy women with a worrying family history of breast cancer.

Overall, the big study showed that the drug was highly effective, reducing the risk of breast cancer by almost two-thirds. The bone sub-study looked at 351 women who had been taking either exemestane or a dummy lookalike pill and whose bone density was measured with hi-tech scanners. After two years, women taking exemestane had a high loss of bone density at a common fracture point in the wrist called the distal radius, and also at the lower end of the tibia, compared with their counterparts on placebo. The exemestane users also had an eight-percent decline in the thickness of cortical bone, which comprises the protective outer shell of the bones. That finding in particular is worrying because nearly four out of every five fractures in old age occur in cortical bone. These accidents are a huge source of disability. —AFP

30

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

W H AT ’ S O N

Upcoming events

Talent steals the show at ESF’s ‘Bugsy’

FCC symphony Mga Kababayan 2LOY- NA- 2LOY sa February 24, 2012 “Awitan at Indakan” As part of FCC culminating for the year 2012 and simple way of conveying, it’s sincerest thanks and gratitude to all those in one way or the other have been very supportive to FCC project and activities, FCC is organizing annual concert dubbed as “AN FCC SYMPHONY” on FRIDAY 24,2012 AT 5:00PM at Jabriya Medical Theater beside Blood Bank & Kuwait Dental Association. A conglomerate of a Filipino champions along with FCC Kids will bring back live on stage songs from Disney movies & Broadway musicals with concluding numbers from sixties.It is worthwhile mentioning that funds raised during the previous concerts were given our scholarship program in the Philippines. This year, proceeds of the project will be donated to elementary school in Payatas in Manila were the Smokey Mountain is located. It is therefore our fervent hope that you will support this event, as it is an FCC’s ultimate goal to those who are lee privilege. Join us and be apart of this noble endevor. For more details call Bong (99530665) Cynthia ( 99169310).

T

he English School Fahaheel (ESF) Lloyd Webber Theatre boasts one of the biggest and well equipped Theatres in a school in Kuwait. Last week the theatre witnessed huge crowds to view this year’s major musical production “Bugsy Malone”.

The talented Drama students have been rehearsing for months for this production and the hard work and talent was evident on opening night.

The story goes as follows.... Bugsy Malone is a onetime boxer who’s neither completely honest nor crooked. Bugsy winds up at the local speakeasy, owned by gangster boss Fat Sam. At the time Fat Sam is vowing revenge on Dandy Dan whose henchman carried out a hit on Fat Sam’s gang.

Meanwhile, Bugsy has been speaking to Blousy Brown, the new singer in town who’s come to audition for Fat Sam’s club but Fat Sam’s given her the brush-off .

Just as the mood turns romantic, Dandy Dan’s men raid the joint. Dan is determined to become the fashionable kingpin of the neighbourhood, bringing all the other gangs under his control.

In the midst of all this come some great foot tapping numbers like “Fat Sam’s Grand Slam”; The main cast was Bugsy Malone - Ahmed Arshad; Tallulah - Anna Nietzer; Blousey - Maria Dalibalta; Fat Sam - Ahmed Salmeen; Knuckles - Dane Brown; Dandy Dan - Mishal Shuhaiber; Fizzy/ Butler - Craig Miranda; Louella - Martina Zimny; Pop Becker - Ioana Birlan; O’Dreary - Ammar Wajid and Cagey Joe - Sara Shuhaiber.

The play was directed by Catriona Mackenzie, music

by Nicolette Van Zitters, choreography by Suraya Kippie, and lighting and sound by Kevin Jones, Fernandes (cordless mics) and Upper school students. A big thank you to all other staff, students and of course parents who made this another outstanding production at ESF.

Kuwait Improv Fun lovers of Kuwait unite. A get together by people who love to surprise, be surprised and just be about at anything are welcome to Kuwait Improv, a gathering, reminiscent of the famous American TV program Whose Line is it Anyway, informally organized by American School of Kuwait teacher Brad Manker. No histrionic talent required, but a willingness to share. Please contact:mankerb@ask.edu Cruise trip Hala Feb cruise on 26/2/2012 for families & couples. Six hours trip to Failaka island. Cruise timings: 9 am to 3 pm & 3 pm to 9 pm. Tel: 55630229.

Tulu speaking classes Here’s a great opportunity for parents who always wished their children could learn Tulu. Tulu Koota Kuwait, in its objective towards promoting Tulu language and culture, is pleased to announce the opening of Tutu Speaking Classes “Tulu Siri” starting from the 10th February at Indian Public School Salmiya @ 11:30 am. For more details kindly contact Ramesh Kidiyoor-97204716/99596457,Shalini Vijay 66502369,Tharendra P. Shettigar - 66757979,Jayalaxmi Karkal - 66958848, Sathyanarayana Salian 66585077,Vanitha Dias-94996459. And our Website: www.tulukootakuwait.org Email: info@tulukootakuwait.org Palpak 4th AGM Palakkad Pravasi Association of Kuwait (Palpak) is conducting its Fourth Annual General Body Meeting on February 24, Friday at Hiphop Auditorium, Fahaheel from 10 am. The main agenda include as following, annual report on the activities during the year of 2011, the audited accounts report for the year of 2011. All members of Palpak are kindly requested to treat this as an official Invitation and attend the said Annual Genera1 body meeting on time. For more details please contact President P.N.Kumar (99771830) and General Secretary Aravindha Shan (66535989).

Lecture on construction Lecture on Do you wonder why Kuwait is always “under construction?” Dr. Farah Al-Nakib will be discussing her theories on why Kuwait City is forever being demolished and built anew since the 1950’s. Mark your calendar, tell your friends - because this is a talk you will not want to miss today, February 7 at 7 pm at the Dar Al-Athar-AlIslamiyyah’s Amricani Cultural Center.

Spiritual experience For a rewarding, spiritual and informative experience. This is a 1 1/2 tour of one of Kuwait’s most famous landmarks ladies are required to cover (long sleeves and long ankle length skirt, otherwise the mosque will provide a cloak; If you have your own scarf you’re welcome to bring it).

Cameras are allowed and children are welcome. This tour meets directly at the Grand Mosque at 9:15am on February 11. Directions to the Grand Mosque: Take Gulf Street towards the Kuwait Towers. Pass Souq Sharq with it on your right. Pass the Dickson House and Ministry of Planning with them on your left. By Seif Palace there is a large roundabout. Take the 2nd exit off the roundabout. The Grand Mosque is now on your left. At traffic lights turn left.

Grand Mosque is on your left.

French concert Don’t miss the 1st concert of 2012 organized by the French Institute in Kuwait featuring talented musicians Smadj (Oud - Electro), Orhan Osman (Bouzouki) & Eric Gaulthier (Clarinet)! Sure to be a fantastic crowd pleaser! Ne manquez pas le 1er concert de l’annee 2012 organisÈ par l’Institut franÁais du Koweit. avec Smadj (Oud - electro), Orhan Osman (Bouzouki) et Eric Gaulthier (Clarinette)! On Monday, February 13 at the Kuwait Boy Scout Theater from 7:30pm - 9pm.

Golden Era Club On February 10, the Golden Era Club will hold a workshop on “Positive Thinking & The Law of Attraction” to be conducted by ardent and successful practitioner, Wilson Crawford D’Souza (of Lemonade International Fame). The workshop will be followed by a unique ‘Human Bingo’ session. As always, all seniors (60+ years) are invited to join in the fun, frolic and friendship! From 5 pm - 7pm at Rumaithya, Block 2, Sate Al-Husari Street, House #34, Next to Abu-Tammam Intermediate School for Boys Registration/more info: goldenera60@yahoo.com or 97172788/6620-8183.

Enlightening patriotic fervor on Republic Day

R

epublic day for the year 2012 was celebrated with much zeal and exuberance by our talented students India International School (IIS) under the auspices of Sreeja.

The senior’s special assembly began with a patriotic song “Bharat Humko Jann se Pyara Hai”. Sung melodiously by our school choir which kindled the spirit of patriotism among the spectators. A special tribute was paid to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr Ambedkar for their contribution in drafting the Indian constitution in the form of a skit where in the students were portrayed as freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, CR. Das, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr BR Ambedkar, Vallabhai Patel and Clement Atlee. The skit was distinctly performed with excellent voice modulation. An incredible dance performance was presented gracefully by the

girls of class X which left everyone awe struck and geared up with the spirit of Nationalism. Juniors special assembly was also performed gracefully, the patriotic spirit was evident by the way the teachers clad themselves in tricolor.

A patriotic song sung melodiously by

the tiny tots instilled the spirit of Nationalism and patriotism in the minds of our young budding students.

Principal F.M.Basheer Ahmed addressed the gathering, He extended his warm wishes to everyone and special wishes to the defense forces who

‘Pongal Vizha’ celebrated by KTS

P

ongal, the ancient Tamil Festival of thanksgiving and the much awaited festival of South India was celebrated in Kuwait with a mega musical feast hosted by Kuwait Tamil Sangam (KTS) . The festival was celebrated on January 20 in the American International School, Maidan Hawally.

15 artists from India came to perform. The artists include famous actress and singer Andrea, singers - Naveen, Aalaap Raju and Priya Hemesh, musicians - keyboard by Navneeth Sundar and Nivas Prasanna, on drums -Jeoraj George and Vikram, flute by Nikhil Ram, guitar by Keith Peters and Jousua Mark Raj, variety dancers Gokulnath and Leelavathi. Accompanying them was Erode Magesh, the master compere for the night.

G Raja - General Secretary introduced compere Erode Magesh to the audience.

Erode Magesh gave an attractive appearance with his good humour.

Singers Naveen, Aalaap Raju, Priya Hemesh and the instrumentalists kept the crowd filled with overwhelming performance throughout the show. The

applause of the crowd added more enthusiasm for the artists.

Chief Guests - Ambassador of India, Satish.C. Metha, famous film director Pandiraj and Jasim Al Nouri - added glow for the celebration.

Livingston addressed his welcome to the guests and the audience. All the artists and the volunteers were awarded with mementos. Palanikumar - VP gave the vote of thanks.

The consistent efforts put in by the

committee members turned to give a stunning mega show. The official carrier is Sri Lankan Airlines and media partner IIK, a big thank you for all the sponsors and for the volunteer support from www.frontlinerskuwait.com

Boat show in Kuwait

K

uwait City is like a magnet: indeed it has been attracting Bedouin people from the Arabian interior, in search of a sea breeze and an escape from recurring drought, for centuries. Today the metropolis is still an oasis in a land of desert plains, but rather more of the cultural and epicurean kind.

Excellent museums; a corniche ornamented with combed beaches and extravagant restaurants; modern shopping complexes and marinas, and long and lazy retreats at new beach resorts mark the Kuwait City experience. The organizers of the Kuwait International Boat Show expect more than 100 marine companies to display their latest products, boats, yachts, super yachts, electronics, engines and thousands of boating accessories from major marine manufacturers. The Boat Show encompasses more than 120.000 m2 of space, both on land and in water.

GLEE-esque show choir This Valentine’s Day step into a musical Love Story performed by Vocal Rhapsody, KLT’s first ever GLEE-esque show choir. Vocal Rhapsody’s “Love Story” - is a show choir production with hit songs from artists such as Journey, Queen, Katy Perry and Meatloaf. It promises to be an exciting evening for all with some classic songs that everyone will enjoy. contact: http://www.theklt.com Cultural program On the 10th of February 2012, Friday at 3:30 pm. A cultural program will be staged at the Carmel School Kuwait, Khaitan. This will include a Book Fair and an Art Competition with a Musical Drama (JanatarDak). It is written n Directed by Rafiqul Islam Bulu and organized by the Bangladesh Udjapon Committee Kuwait. This is an open invitation, All are welcome.

Sadu weaving workshop This workshop is of four weeks duration, and it will be held twice a week. The morning group sessions are on Monday and Wednesday from 9am to 12pm. The evening group are on Sunday and Tuesday from 4:30pm to 7:30pm. A total of 8 sessions of three hours each.

This workshop will be held from January 22nd to February 18th.

For more Information kindly contact Sadu House at: info@alsadu.org.kw SaduWeaving@gmail.com 2243-2395 or 9959-7983

are guarding and defending our country on this Republic day. Also, he emphasized the importance of celebrating this day and reminded the children the sacrifices made by our freedom heroes for achieving the freedom of our motherland.

Farewell party to Sibi

K

uravilangad Deva Matha College Alumini Association (KDMCA) Kuwait Chapter conducted a warm farewell party to KDMCA advisory board member, Sibi Mani on his return to his native place after ending his 12 years of service in Kuwait.

KDMCA President Maxi Mani

presided over the end of meeting held at Orma auditorium Abbassiya.

In appreciation of his services to the community of KDMCA Kuwait and as a mark of love and affection to him, a memento was presented to Sibi.

General secretary Shibu John welcomed the meeting. Advisory

board Chairman Raju Zacharias, Boby Pattani, Jaison Joseph, Johnson and Shaji Chirathadam gave felicitation speeches.

In his reply speech, Sibi thanked everyone for the support he received. The meeting was concluded with the vote of thanks by Daiju Kucheriya.

Recently a cultural Shandha (Function) was organized by the members of Jatya Party in Kuwait branch for the 26th anniversary of the party. A large number of dignitaries attended the function.

31

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

W H AT ’ S O N

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. nnnnnnn

KNES holds 2012 Annual Science & Technology Fair K uwait National English School (KNES) Hawally, celebrated its best ever 2012 Annual Science and Technology Fair on January 31 at the Al Farabi Theatre. The theme for this year’s Science Fair was “Renewable Resources”.

As usual, the entire age range of the school participated from the very youngest students in the Early Years right through to the Secondary Department.

The event started by a full school assembly during which Madame Chantal Al Gharabally, School Director, addressed the school population and stressed on the importance of Science and Technology to the young generation.

Her speech was centered on philosophical thought towards ethics in science through various examples such as Recycling, Getting Green, Use of Solar energy, Water of Life, etc. Madame Chantal highlighted the work of famous scientists and explained the importance of their work. She concluded that mankind must team together to save the environment.

During the whole week the entire school participating in a series of events: Projects, Drawings, writing Poems, Essay competitions, displayed their exhibits and “hands on” experiments and showed

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. Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca.

The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca. nnnnnnn

an incredible knowledge and understanding of Renewable resources in Science. Experiments included working models of solar robots, Solar Cars, Wave energy, using the electrolysis of water to activate a watch, using solar panels to charge mobile phones, Simulating experiments using our school’s up to date state of the art IT Technology, etc. It was very well attended and each year group took turns to attend the event throughout the day.

The day culminated with a Science Quiz with teams of students from Primary and Secondary Departments

competing to show their understanding of scientific facts and principles on Renewable Resources. Winners among students from the Primary and Secondary Departments were rewarded with prizes and medals from the School Director.

The Kuwait National English School Science fair was an excellent event that showcased the successes of our students. The school has invested extensively in Science and Technology over the last few years and this event is very encouraging to see this realized in the enthusiasm and achievement of the

entire school.

Madame Chantal Al Gharabally, School Director, and the team of Science & Technology teachers from the entire school have been holding the event each year (since 1998) in January, on the occasion of the centenary of the discovery of Radioactivity, as a way to develop student’s skills and interest in the subjects of Science and Technology. This interest is obviously building as each year students seem to get an earlier start on their Science Day exhibits in order to know everything they can about their science topic before the fair begins.

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: Saturdays 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 nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on the following dates during the month of February 2012.

National Day of Kuwait - Feb 25, - Saturday.

Liberation Day of Kuwait - Feb 26, - Sunday. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF MYANMAR Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar would like to inform the general public that the Embassy will move 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 from 26 January, 2012. Tel. 25240736, 25240290, Fax: 25240749, e-mail:myankuwait11@gmai1.com nnnnnnn

Annual girl scout camp inaugurated

T

he 15th annual girl scout camp was inaugurated recently at the Kuwait Girl Scout Society in Bneid Al-Gar, with attendance of several Ministry of Education officials including undersecretary Tamadher Al-Sadairawi, undersecretary assistant for students activities Duaij Al-Duaij, and directors of the ministry’s educational directorates. The military attache at the Egyptian Embassy Colonel Nader Saleh was also invited to the event.

—Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

IDF to release Health Guide 2012 on Feb 10

I

ndian Doctors Forum, Kuwait, with a membership of over 540 Indian Doctors in Kuwait, will release the IDF’s Health Guide on cancer awareness at its mega cultural event Docfest 2012 on February 10, 2012.

IDF is a registered body with the Indian Embassy and affiliated to the Kuwait Medical Association. It is one of the largest Indian organisations in Kuwait. It has endeared itself to the community residing in Kuwait through various programs. Its main objectives are Community oriented services like organising and conducting free medical camps, seminars, school health programs and exhibitions for the general public. It has a popular and well established website which is being regularly visited by people residing in Kuwait and 43 other countries.

Each year, as part of its efforts to spread health education and awareness, IDF publishes a Health Guide covering pertinent health related

issues. The Health Guide is conceived and created with the lay person in mind and disseminates information in clear, non-medical terms.

Written by experts in each field from the Indian Doctors Forum, the Health Guide serves as an accurate and comprehensive ‘ready-reference’ for the community. The Health Guide is distributed entirely free of cost to the community through various associations and over the last few years has become an eagerly sought after publication. Each year key health problems are identified and all aspects including diagnosis, management, common misconceptions, newer modalities of management etc. are discussed in detail in these health guides.

This year, taking into consideration the increasing prevalence of Cancer in the community, the subject matter of the IDF Health Guide 2012 is CANCER AWARENESS’.

Cancer affects approx 12.6 million people world wide yearly, with

about 7.5 million deaths yearly.

Proper awareness, timely detection, treatment and regular follow-up can significantly reduce the mortality and morbidity due to cancer. Cancer is preventable and curable, it is hoped that this year’s Health Guide will serve as a valuable reference on all aspects of cancers and help our community to better deal with this global health problem.

IDF’s annual mega cultural event ‘IDF Docfest 2012’ is a marked calendar event in Kuwait. This event is scheduled on 10th Feb at Regency Hotel Kuwait. Besides the release of the Health Guide an entertaining cultural program exclusively presented by the Indian Doctors and their family will be presented.

This event will be blessed and graced by members in the Royal Family, officials of the Ministry of Health, Kuwait Medical association, Faculty of Medicine, prominent Kuwaiti and Indian personalities from various walks of life.

EMBASSY OF PHILIPPINES For emergency, please contact the Consular hotline at 65184433. The Philippine Overseas Labor Office and other attached agencies shall continue to operate and hold office in Jabriya until 15 March 2012. All your passports and other consular concerns will be processed at our new location, except of course labor issues.

Regular working hours of the Embassy shall resume in Faiha. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF RUSSIA Embassy of the Russian Federation invites all the Russian residents in Kuwait to visit the Consulate for registration and updating your database. This information is necessary for prompt notice, assistance and warning in case of emergency. The consulate reception hours: 10:00 - 13:00, Sunday - Wednesday. The Embassy is located in Kuwait City, Daiya, Block 5, Diplomatic campus, Plot 17. Tel: (+965) 22560427, 22560428. Fax: (+965) 22524969, e-mail: rusposkuw@mail.ru, consdepkuw@mail.ru Information also available on the website: www.kuwait.mid.ru nnnnnnn

The Wedding Expo The Wedding Expo is an annual event that caters to the elite soon-to-be brides of Kuwait who plan on hosting an extravagant and unique wedding, looking for high range and designer oriented brands, products and services that will aid in executing “the perfect wedding.” It is an elite event, targeted to all members included in the planning and execution process of an elite wedding and all interested parties interested in wedding oriented products and services. The Wedding Expo is a 3 day event. The first day will be an ‘invitation only’ event that will include a catered service and drinks. The second and third day will be open to the public. It will include a list of exhibitors in the fields of designer wear, jewelry, flowers, beauty, catering and wedding planning who will show their products and services to the visiting public.

The Event will be a heavily publicized event through the communication of various media outlets such as magazines, TV stations, Newspapers, online social networking and specialized invitations.

When: February 8th, 9th & 10th Where: 360 Mall Exhibition Hall HMWA seerat program Hyderabad Muslim Welfare Association (HMWA) will hold a yearly programme on the life of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) titled “Rafanaka Laka Zikrak” on 10th Feb soon after Friday prayer in Masjid-e-Abdullah Al Mehri next to famous Edi Stores and in front of Titanic building in Salmiya.

Prominent scholars from Kuwait will speak on the selected topics focusing life of Prophet (PBUH) and his message to whole humanity and in particular to Muslim Umma. For details call 99481599, 50605074, 66605881.

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. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF VENEZUELA Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , request Venezuelan citizens living in Kuwait to register with the Embassy. This registration service is provided so that the Embassy can update its contact list and assist Venezuelan citizens in cases of emergencies. Registration Information 25324367 or by email: embavenez@gmail.com. From Sunday to Thursday from 8.30am till 2 pm.

Write to us Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

A

y

e niv rsar n

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Years

00:50 Animal Cops Houston 01:45 Untamed & Uncut 02:40 Crime Scene Wild 03:35 Big Five Challenge 04:30 Venom Hunter With Donald Schultz 05:25 Amazing Animal Inventions!

06:20 Escape To Chimp Eden 06:45 Dolphin Days 07:10 Dogs 101 08:00 Gorilla School 08:25 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife 08:50 Talk To The Animals 09:15 The Really Wild Show 09:40 Breed All About It 10:10 America’s Cutest...

11:05 Amazing Animal Inventions!

12:00 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 12:55 SSPCA: On The Wildside 13:20 Wildlife SOS 13:50 K9 Cops 14:45 Animal Cops Philadelphia 15:40 Amazing Animal Inventions!

16:30 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 17:00 The Really Wild Show 17:30 Animal Planet’s Most Outrageous 18:25 Dogs 101: Specials 19:20 Dogs 101 20:15 Gorilla School 20:40 Wildlife SOS 21:10 Escape To Chimp Eden 21:35 Dolphin Days 22:05 Saba And The Rhino’s Secret 23:00 Wild France 23:55 Wildest Africa

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

Great Expectations Eastenders Doctors New Tricks Oliver Twist Oliver Twist Balamory The Large Family Bobinogs Buzz & Tell Tweenies Little Prairie Dogs Nina And The Neurons Balamory Charlie and Lola The Large Family Bobinogs Buzz & Tell Tweenies Little Prairie Dogs Nina And The Neurons Oliver Twist Oliver Twist The Weakest Link Eastenders Doctors Holby City New Tricks Oliver Twist Oliver Twist The Weakest Link Eastenders Doctors Holby City New Tricks The Weakest Link Eastenders Doctors Casualty Great Expectations Lark Rise to Candleford Oliver Twist Oliver Twist The World’s Toughest Driving

00:00 00:25 00:50 01:15 01:40 02:05 02:30

James Martin’s Brittany James Martin’s Brittany James Martin’s Champagne Indian Food Made Easy Indian Food Made Easy Indian Food Made Easy 10 Years Younger

The Weakest Link Casualty

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

Fantasy Homes By The Sea Antiques Roadshow What To Eat Now - Summer James Martin’s Brittany James Martin’s Brittany Indian Food Made Easy 10 Years Younger What To Eat Now - Summer 10 Years Younger James Martin’s Brittany Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Bargain Hunt Antiques Roadshow Come Dine With Me 10 Years Younger What Not To Wear What Not To Wear Fantasy Homes By The Sea Holmes On Homes Antiques Roadshow Cash In The Attic USA James Martin’s Brittany James Martin’s Brittany James Martin’s Champagne James Martin’s Champagne 10 Years Younger What Not To Wear What Not To Wear

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

Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley New Yogi Bear Show 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 The Garfield Show Bananas In Pyjamas Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Jelly Jamm Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Puppy In My Pocket The Scooby Doo Show Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Flintstones Duck Dodgers Tom & Jerry Kids Pink Panther And Pals Wacky Races Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Bananas In Pyjamas The Garfield Show A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo And ScrappyLooney Tunes Puppy In My Pocket Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show The Scooby Doo Show Scooby-Doo And ScrappyJelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones

00:40 Samurai Jack 01:05 Samurai Jack 01:30 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 02:20 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 02:45 Bakugan Battle Brawlers

TV PROGRAMS 03:10 Best Ed 04:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 04:25 Adventure Time 04:50 Generator Rex 05:15 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 05:40 Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy 05:55 I Am Weasel 06:55 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 07:20 Powerpuff Girls 07:45 Angelo Rules 08:00 Casper’s Scare School 08:30 The Amazing World Of Gumball 08:45 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 09:15 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 09:40 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 10:05 Angelo Rules 10:30 Chowder 10:55 Adventure Time 11:20 Eliot Kid 11:35 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 12:00 Ben 10 12:25 Sym-Bionic Titan 12:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog 13:15 I Am Weasel 13:40 Best Ed 14:05 Cow & Chicken 14:30 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 14:50 Eliot Kid 15:15 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 15:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 16:05 Courage The Cowardly Dog 16:30 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 16:55 The Amazing World Of Gumball 17:10 Adventure Time 17:35 Regular Show 18:00 Cow & Chicken 18:25 Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders 18:50 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 19:15 Angelo Rules 19:30 Total Drama World Tour 19:55 Hero 108 20:25 Sym-Bionic Titan 20:50 Adventure Time 21:25 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 21:50 Courage 22:25 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 22:50 Cow And Chicken 23:00 Ben 10 23:25 Ben 10 23:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog

00:15 Destroyed In Seconds 00:40 Moments Of Terror 01:35 Dirty Jobs 02:30 Overhaulin’ 03:25 Ultimate Survival 04:20 Mythbusters 05:15 How Does It Work?

05:40 How It’s Made 06:05 Dirty Jobs 07:00 Mythbusters 08:45 Mythbusters 09:40 How Does It Work?

10:05 Cake Boss 10:30 Border Security 10:55 Auction Kings 11:25 James May’s Man Lab 13:15 James May’s Man Lab 14:10 Prototype This 15:05 Prototype This 16:00 Overhaulin’ 16:55 Ultimate Survival 17:50 Mythbusters 18:45 Cash Cab Us 19:10 Border Security 19:40 Auction Kings 20:05 How It’s Made 20:35 How Does It Work?

21:00 Cake Boss 21:30 The Future Of...

22:25 Mythbusters 23:20 Curiosity: How Do Drugs Work?

00:40 Cosmic Collisions 01:35 I, Videogame 02:25 The Tech Show

ROLLERBALL ON OSN ACTION HD

02:50 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 03:40 Meteorite Men 04:35 How Does That Work?

05:00 How Stuff’s Made 05:25 The Kustomizer 06:20 Prototype This 07:10 Cosmic Collisions 08:00 The Gadget Show 08:25 The Gadget Show 08:50 How Does That Work?

09:15 How Stuff’s Made 09:40 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 10:35 Meteorite Men 11:25 The Kustomizer 12:20 Prototype This 13:15 Cosmic Collisions 14:05 Weird or What?

14:55 How Does That Work?

15:20 How Stuff’s Made 15:50 The Gadget Show 16:15 The Gadget Show 16:40 The Tech Show 17:05 Prototype This 18:00 Cosmic Collisions 18:50 The Kustomizer 19:40 Sci-Fi Science 20:05 Sci-Fi Science 20:30 Science of Star Wars 21:20 Prototype This 22:10 The Gadget Show 22:35 The Gadget Show 23:00 Sci-Fi Science 23:25 Sci-Fi Science 23:50 Science of Star Wars

00:00 KIM POSSIBLE 00:25 FAIRLY ODD PARENTS 00:50 FAIRLY ODD PARENTS 01:15 STITCH 01:35 STITCH 02:00 REPLACEMENTS 02:25 REPLACEMENTS 02:50 EMPEROR’S NEW SCHOOL 03:15 EMPEROR’S NEW SCHOOL 03:35 STITCH 04:00 STITCH 04:25 REPLACEMENTS 04:50 REPLACEMENTS 05:15 FAIRLY ODD PARENTS 05:35 FAIRLY ODD PARENTS 06:00 HANNAH MONTANA 06:20 RECESS 06:45 TIMON AND PUMBAA 07:05 PHINEAS AND FERB 07:30 Good Luck Charlie 07:55 FISH HOOKS 08:10 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 08:35 MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE 09:00 JAKE & THE NEVERLAND PIRATES 09:15 JAKE & THE NEVERLAND PIRATES 09:25 HANDY MANNY 09:40 THE HIVE 09:47 MINI ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH 09:50 RECESS 10:15 SO RANDOM 10:40 HAVE A LAUGH 10:45 HANNAH MONTANA 11:10 SUITE LIFE ON DECK 11:35 JAKE & BLAKE 12:00 SONNY WITH A CHANCE 12:25 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 12:45 PHINEAS AND FERB 13:10 SO RANDOM 13:30 SUITE LIFE ON DECK 13:55 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 14:20 HAVE A LAUGH 14:30 PHINEAS AND FERB 14:55 Good Luck Charlie 15:20 MY BABYSITTER’S A VAMPIRE 15:45 FISH HOOKS 16:10 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 16:40 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 17:05 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 17:30 16 WISHES 18:55 PHINEAS AND FERB 19:10 Good Luck Charlie 19:30 HAVE A LAUGH 19:35 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 20:00 HANNAH MONTANA 20:25 PHINEAS AND FERB 20:50 SHAKE IT UP 21:15 FISH HOOKS 21:35 RECESS 22:00 SHAKE IT UP 22:25 SHAKE IT UP 22:50 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 23:15 WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE 23:35 SONNY WITH A CHANCE

00:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 00:25 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 00:40 Special Agent Oso 00:55 Little Einsteins 01:20 Timmy Time 01:30 Jungle Junction 01:45 Handy Manny 01:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:20 Special Agent Oso 02:35 Special Agent Oso 02:50 Jungle Junction 03:05 Jungle Junction 03:15 Little Einsteins 03:40 Higglytown Heroes 03:55 Higglytown Heroes 04:10 Jo Jo’s Circus 04:30 Special Agent Oso 04:45 Special Agent Oso 05:00 Jungle Junction 05:15 Jungle Junction 05:25 Little Einsteins 05:50 Higglytown Heroes 06:05 Higglytown Heroes 06:20 Jo Jo’s Circus 06:40 Special Agent Oso 06:55 Special Agent Oso 07:10 Jungle Junction 07:25 Jungle Junction 07:35 Little Einsteins 08:00 Higglytown Heroes 08:15 Higglytown Heroes 08:30 Jo Jo’s Circus 08:50 Jungle Junction 09:00 Jungle Junction 09:15 Higglytown Heroes 09:30 Higglytown Heroes 09:45 Handy Manny 10:00 Special Agent Oso 10:15 Jungle Junction 10:30 Jungle Junction 10:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 11:10 The Hive 11:20 Handy Manny 11:35 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 11:50 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 12:05 The Hive 12:15 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 12:20 Lazytown 12:45 The Hive 12:55 Imagination Movers In

Concert (Cema) 13:45 Little Einsteins 14:10 Imagination Movers 14:35 Special Agent Oso 14:45 Lazytown 15:10 Handy Manny 15:25 Jungle Junction 15:40 Imagination Movers 16:05 The Hive 16:15 Special Agent Oso 16:25 Little Einsteins 16:50 Lazytown 17:15 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 17:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 18:05 Handy Manny 18:20 Handy Manny 18:30 The Hive 18:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 18:55 Imagination Movers 19:20 Lazytown 19:45 Jungle Junction 20:00 The Hive 20:10 Lazytown 20:30 Jungle Junction 20:45 Handy Manny 20:55 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 21:25 The Hive 21:35 Little Einsteins 22:00 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 22:05 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 22:25 101 Dalmatians 22:50 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 23:20 The Hive 23:30 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 23:35 A Poem Is...

23:40 Animated Stories 23:45 Jungle Junction

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Style Star 01:25 25 Most Memorable Swimsuit Moments 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Bridalplasty 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Ice Loves Coco 13:35 Ice Loves Coco 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:00 Style Star 15:30 E!es 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Dirty Soap 17:55 E! News 18:55 E!es 19:55 Khloe And Lamar 20:25 Khloe And Lamar 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 E!es 21:55 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

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

Dr G: Medical Examiner Ghost Lab A Haunting Couples Who Kill Deadly Women Dr G: Medical Examiner Ghost Lab A Haunting Mystery Diagnosis FBI Files Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared FBI Files Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Real Emergency Calls Mystery Diagnosis Who On Earth Did I Marry?

On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared I Almost Got Away With It Cuff Me If You Can

00:00 Sumatra’s Last Tiger 01:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 01:55 Hooked 02:50 Built For The Kill 03:45 Predator CSI 04:40 Caught In The Act 05:35 Triumph of Life 06:30 Fish Warrior 07:25 Warrior Bees 08:20 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 09:15 Hooked 10:10 Built For The Kill 11:05 Predator CSI 12:00 Built For The Kill 13:00 Catching Giants 14:00 Spine Chillers: Scorpions 15:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 16:00 Hooked 17:00 Built For The Kill 18:00 Predator CSI 19:00 Catching Giants 20:00 Spine Chillers: Scorpions 21:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 22:00 Hooked 23:00 Built For The Kill

00:00 Lake Placid 3-18 02:00 Tortured-18 04:00 Drunken Master-PG15 06:00 Superman/ Batman: Apocalypse-PG15 08:00 Altitude-PG15 10:00 Odysseus: Voyage To The Underworld-PG15 12:00 X-Men-PG15 14:00 Altitude-PG15 16:00 Madso’s War-18 18:00 X-Men-PG15 20:00 Rollerball-18 22:00 Blood Out-18

CERTIFIED COPY ON OSN CINEMA 01:00 Shrink-18 03:00 Fly Me To The Moon-PG 05:00 Bound By A Secret-PG15 07:00 Revenge Of The Bridesmaids¬-PG15 09:00 The Nanny Express-PG15 11:00 Easy A-PG15 13:00 Certified Copy-PG15 15:00 The Nanny Express-PG15 17:00 Ramona And Beezus-PG 19:00 I Am Number Four-PG15 21:00 Love And Other Impossible Pursuits-PG15 23:00 Everywhere And Nowhere-18

03:00 Friends 03:30 Friends 04:00 Dharma And Greg 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 06:00 Malcolm In The Middle 08:30 Friends 09:00 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 12:00 Malcolm In The Middle 12:30 Dharma And Greg 13:00 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 13:30 Just Shoot Me 14:00 Friends 16:30 How I Met Your Mother 18:00 Friends 18:30 Friends 19:00 Friends With Benefits 19:30 Hot In Cleveland 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Angry Boys 22:30 Funny Or Die Presents 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

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

Private Practice Royal Pains Terriers Grey’s Anatomy The Gates Good Morning America Eureka Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View Private Practice Grey’s Anatomy Eureka Live Good Morning America The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Coronation Street Once Upon A Time Falling Skies Strike Back Terriers The Gates

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 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:10

Cold Case Hawthorne Royal Pains Grey’s Anatomy Private Practice The Gates Cold Case Parks And Recreation Coronation Street Parenthood Hawthorne Grey’s Anatomy Royal Pains Parks And Recreation Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Parenthood Cold Case Parks And Recreation Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Parenthood Once Upon A Time Falling Skies Strike Back Luck In Plain Sight

01:00 Full Metal Jacket-18 03:00 Drunken Master-PG15 05:00 Survival Of The Dead-18

07:00 09:00 PG15 11:00 13:00 15:00 PG15 17:00 19:00 PG15 21:00 23:15

The Next Karate Kid-PG The Sorcerer’s ApprenticeHurricane Season-PG15 Arctic Predator-PG15 The Sorcerer’s ApprenticeLargo Winch 2-PG15 The Fast And The FuriousShutter Island-18 The Wizard Of Gore-R

00:15 Tooth Fairy-PG 02:00 The Lonely Guy-PG15 04:00 Nanny Mcphee And The Big Bang-PG 06:00 The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle-FAM 08:00 You Again-PG15 10:00 Double Wedding-PG15 11:30 The Parent Trap-PG 14:00 French Kiss-PG15 16:00 Tooth Fairy-PG 18:00 Not The Messiah: He’s A Very Naughty Boy-PG15 20:00 The Bounty Hunter-PG15 22:00 American Virgin-18

01:30 The Clearing-18 03:15 Secretariat-PG15 05:30 Gilles’ Wife-PG15 07:30 Make It Funky!-PG15 09:30 On Broadway-PG15 11:15 Leaving Normal-PG15 13:15 Teen Knight-PG15 15:00 The Sunset Limited-PG15 17:00 Stomp The Yard Homecoming-PG15 19:00 Robin Hood (1991)-PG15 21:00 Drunkboat-PG 23:00 Dick Tracy-PG15

2:

01:00 Sideways-18 03:15 The Eclipse-PG15 05:00 The Last Song-PG15 07:00 Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief-PG15 09:00 Letters To Juliet-PG15 11:00 Bad News Bears-PG 13:00 Gasland-PG15 15:00 How Do You Know-PG15 17:00 Letters To Juliet-PG15 19:00 The Losers-PG15 21:00 Love And Other Impossible Pursuits-PG15 23:30 Kick-Ass-18

00:00 Tom Tom & Nana-FAM 01:45 I’ll Be Home For Christmas-PG 04:00 Winner & The Golden Child: Part I-FAM 06:00 Zorro And Scarlet Whip Revealed-PG15 08:00 Winner & The Golden Child: Part II-FAM 10:00 Flicka 2-PG15 12:00 Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure-PG 14:00 I’ll Be Home For Christmas-PG 16:00 Christopher Columbus-PG 18:00 Columbus III: The New WorldPG 20:00 Flicka 2-PG15 22:00 Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure-PG

00:00 01:45 04:00 06:15 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:30

Dead Awake-18 Ironclad-18 Jane Eyre-PG15 Sounds Like Teen Spirit-PG15 Furry Vengeance-PG Get Low-PG15 Gulliver’s Travels-PG Tangled-FAM Furry Vengeance-PG Morning Glory-PG15 Inception-PG15 The Resident-18

01:00 03:00 03:30 04:00 06:00 07:00 07:15 15:30 16:00

Scottish Cup Volvo Ocean Race Highlights Futbol Mundial Super League Trans World Sport ODI Cricket Highlights Live Cricket ODI Futbol Mundial Scottish Cup

18:00 19:00 19:30 20:00 22:00 22:30

Trans World Sport ODI Cricket Highlights Volvo Ocean Race Highlights Super League Futbol Mundial Scottish Cup

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

UFC The Ultimate Fighter V8 Supercars Speedway Intercontinental Le Mans Cup UFC Unleashed WWE Vintage Collection WWE NXT Speedway Intercontinental Le Mans Cup V8 Supercars Championship WWE SmackDown Intercontinental Le Mans Cup Speedway Power Boats UIM Aquabike World WWE Bottom Line WWE Vintage Collection UFC Unleashed UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown

00:30 ICC Cricket World 01:00 Football Copa Del Sol 03:00 Futbol Mundial 03:30 Sevens World Series 06:30 ODI Cricket Highlights 07:00 Futbol Mundial 07:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 08:00 Football Copa Del Sol 10:00 World Cup Of Pool 11:00 World Pool Masters 12:00 Bass Fishing 13:00 Volvo Ocean Race Highlights 13:30 Football Copa Del Sol 15:30 Top 14 Highlights 16:00 Golfing World 17:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 18:00 Futbol Mundial 18:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 19:00 Scottish Cup 21:00 ODI Cricket Highlights 21:30 ICC Cricket World 22:00 Trans World Sport 23:00 Scottish Premier League Highlights 23:30 European PGA Tour Highlights

03:30 World Cup of Pool 04:30 Football Copa Del Sol 06:30 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Futbol Mundial 08:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 09:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 10:00 Golfing World 11:00 Sevens World Series 14:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 15:00 Asian Tour Highlights 16:00 Asian Tour Golf 16:30 Football Copa Del Sol 18:30 Golfing World 20:30 Asian Tour Golf 21:00 European Tour Weekly 21:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 22:30 Futbol Mundial 23:00 ODI Cricket Highlights 23:30 Sevens World Series

00:55 Cool Hand Luke 03:05 Hearts Of The West-PG 04:50 Where Eagles Dare-PG 07:30 TCM Presents Under The...-U 08:00 Black Legion-PG 09:25 Girl Happy-FAM 11:00 The Sea Of Grass-PG 13:00 Seven Brides For Seven Brothers-FAM 14:40 The Postman Always Rings Twice-PG 16:30 Some Came Running-PG 18:40 TCM Presents Under...-U 19:10 Bronco Billy-PG 21:05 The Year Of Living Dangerously-PG 23:00 White Hunter, Black Heart-PG

Classifieds WEDNES, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines JZR QTR PIA RBG JZR JZR ETH THY UAE QTR DHX MSR FDB ETD GFA KAC THY FAH JZR JZR BAW DHX KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD FDB BAB GFA FCX IRA KNE RBG JZR RKM IRM MEA KAC MSR IRC CLX KAC GFA MSR SYR FDB KAC UAL QTR KNE SVA RJA ABY KAC JZR KAC QTR JZR IYE JZR ETD UAE FDB KAC GFA SVA RBG ABY JZR BAB ALK JZR FDB KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC AIC KAC KAC FDB JAI OMA IRC DHX GRF MEA GFA QTR UAE JZR QTR SAI JZR UAL AXB DLH

Arrival Flights on Wednesday 8/2/2012 Flt Route 185 DUBAI 138 DOHA 205 LAHORE 3564 ASSIUT 267 BEIRUT 539 CAIRO 620 ADDIS ABABA 772 ISTANBUL 853 DUBAI 148 DOHA 370 BAHRAIN 612 CAIRO 67 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 211 BAHRAIN 544 CAIRO 770 ISTANBUL 201 DUBAI 555 ALEXANDRIA 529 ASSIUT 157 LONDON 170 BAHRAIN 412 MANILA 206 ISLAMABAD 53 DUBAI 351 COCHIN 302 MUMBAI 362 COLOMBO 344 CHENNAI 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 301 ABU DHABI 55 DUBAI 436 BAHRAIN 213 BAHRAIN 203 DUBAI 603 SHIRAZ 839 JEDDAH 3555 ALEXANDRIA 165 DUBAI 310 RAS ALKHAIMAH 5066 MASHAD 404 BEIRUT 382 DELHI 610 CAIRO 6791 MASHAD 792 LUXEMBOURG 672 DUBAI 219 BAHRAIN 621 ASSIUT 341 DAMASCUS 57 DUBAI 790 MEDINAH 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 140 DOHA 745 JEDDAH 500 JEDDAH 640 AMMAN 123 SHARJAH 284 DHAKA 257 BEIRUT 546 ALEXANDRIA 134 DOHA 1535 CAIRO 824 SANAA 213 DEIREZZOR 303 ABU DHABI 857 DUBAI 59 DUBAI 550 SHARM EL SHEIKH 215 BAHRAIN 510 RIYADH 3557 SOHAG 127 SHARJAH 777 JEDDAH 437 BEIRUT 227 COLOMBO 177 DUBAI 63 DUBAI 542 CAIRO 618 DOHA 787 RIYADH 786 JEDDAH 614 BAHRAIN 674 DUBAI 166 PARIS 975 CHENNAI 102 NEW YORK 774 RIYADH 61 DUBAI 572 MUMBAI 647 MUSCAT 6793 MASHAD 372 BAHRAIN 81 BAGHDAD 402 BEIRUT 217 BAHRAIN 136 DOHA 859 DUBAI 135 BAHRAIN 6130 DOHA 441 LAHORE 239 AMMAN 981 BAHRAIN 393 KOZHIKODE 636 FRANKFURT

Time 0:20 0:20 0:25 0:40 0:45 0:50 1:45 2:15 2:35 2:55 2:55 3:00 3:05 3:10 3:15 4:40 4:50 5:30 6:00 6:20 6:40 6:40 6:45 7:40 7:45 7:50 7:55 8:20 8:25 8:30 9:00 9:05 9:15 9:20 9:40 9:55 10:30 10:40 11:05 11:05 11:20 11:45 11:50 11:55 12:45 12:55 13:10 13:15 13:20 13:25 13:30 13:45 13:50 14:00 14:05 14:20 14:25 14:30 14:40 14:45 15:00 15:00 15:20 15:25 16:25 16:35 16:45 16:50 16:55 17:05 17:10 17:15 17:20 17:35 17:40 17:45 18:05 18:10 18:15 18:40 18:50 18:55 19:05 19:10 19:20 19:25 19:30 19:30 19:35 19:40 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:20 21:00 21:15 21:20 21:25 21:35 21:40 21:55 22:20 22:40 22:45 23:00 23:40 23:50

Airlines 981 AXB BBC AIC DLH PIA RBG KAC ETH THY GRF KAC FDB UAE MSR ETD DHX QTR QTR THY JZR GFA FDB KAC BAW KAC JZR JZR KAC KAC JZR UAE ABY ETD KAC FDB QTR BAB KAC GFA IRA FCX RBG KNE KAC JZR KAC RKM MEA IRM KAC JZR MSR IRC GFA MSR FDB CLX SYR KAC KNE UAL ABY RJA KAC SVA JZR KAC KAC QTR JZR QTR IYE ETD JZR FDB UAE GFA RBG ABY KAC SVA JZR BAB JZR ALK FDB JZR KAC FDB KAC KAC JAI OMA IRC DHX KAC DHX MEA GFA FAH QTR JZR KAC UAE KAC JZR KAC QTR SAI

Departure Flights on Wednesday 8/2/2012 Flt Route 777 WASHINGTON 390 MANGALORE 44 DHAKA 982 AHMEDABAD 637 FRANKFURT 206 LAHORE 3562 ALEXANDRIA 283 DHAKA 621 ADDIS ABABA 773 ISTANBUL 94 DUBAI 381 DELHI 68 DUBAI 854 DUBAI 613 CAIRO 306 ABU DHABI 371 BAHRAIN 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 771 ISTANBUL 164 DUBAI 212 BAHRAIN 54 DUBAI 545 ALEXANDRIA 156 LONDON 671 DUBAI 256 BEIRUT 1534 CAIRO 549 SHARM EL SHEIKH 789 MADINAH 212 ALEPPO 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 302 ABU DHABI 117 NEW YORK 56 DUBAI 133 DOHA 436 BEIRUT 177 FRANKFURT 214 BAHRAIN 602 SHIRAZ 204 DUBAI 3558 SOHAG 840 MADINAH 541 CAIRO 776 JEDDAH 103 LONDON 311 AS ALKHAIMAH 405 BEIRUT 5065 MASHHAD 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 611 CAIRO 6792 MASHHAD 220 BAHRAIN 622 ASSIUT 58 DUBAI 792 IALAM 342 DAMASCUS 673 DUBAI 746 JEDDAH 982 BAHRAIN 124 SHARJAH 641 AMMAN 617 DOHA 503 MADINAH 786 RIYADH 613 BAHRAIN 773 RIYADH 141 DOHA 238 AMMAN 135 DOHA 824 SANAA 304 ABU DHABI 538 CAIRO 60 DUBAI 858 DUBAI 216 BAHRAIN 3556 ALEXANDRIA 128 SHARJAH 153 ISTANBUL 511 RIYADH 266 BEIRUT 437 BAHRAIN 134 BAHRAIN 228 DUBAI 64 DUBAI 184 DUBAI 361 COLOMBO 62 DUBAI 331 RIVANDRUM 351 KOCHI 571 MUMBAI 648 MUSCAT 6794 MASHHAD 171 BAHRAIN 543 CAIRO 373 BAHRAIN 403 BEIRUT 218 BAHRAIN 102 DUBAI 137 DOHA 554 ALEXANDRIA 301 MUMBAI 860 DUBAI 205 ISLAMABAD 502 LUXOR 415 KUALA LUMPUR 6131 DOHA 442 LAHORE

Time 0:45 0:50 1:00 1:05 1:20 1:25 1:25 2:40 2:45 3:15 3:30 3:30 3:45 3:50 4:00 4:00 4:30 4:40 5:40 5:50 6:55 7:00 8:25 8:30 8:40 9:00 9:00 9:15 9:15 9:25 9:35 9:40 9:45 10:00 10:00 10:05 10:10 10:25 10:35 10:40 11:40 11:45 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:15 12:30 12:50 12:55 13:20 13:40 13:50 13:55 14:10 14:20 14:30 14:35 14:45 14:45 15:05 15:10 15:20 15:25 15:35 15:40 15:45 15:50 16:20 16:25 16:30 17:15 17:25 17:35 17:35 17:40 17:50 18:10 18:15 18:20 18:25 18:30 18:35 18:45 18:55 19:05 19:10 19:20 19:55 20:20 20:40 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:50 21:55 22:00 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:45 22:50 23:00 23:35 23:45 23:50 23:50

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

ACCOMMODATION Immediate sharing accommodation available for a decent Indian Christian bachelor or couple near Salmiya Garden. Contact: 66884273 / 25657832.

(C 3862) Sharing accommodation available in C-A/C flat in Abbasiya for two Christian bachelors or couple from 15 Feb. Contact: 65625804.

(C 3863) 8-2-2012

SITUATION WANTED Diploma Engineer/ 16 years project sales experience (9 yrs in Kuwait) seeking suitable position from reputed companies. Contact: 55339596/ 99759183. (C 3860) 7-2-2012

SITUATION VACANT Required live-in maid for a small Indian family living in Riggae. Contact: 99694619.

(C 3861) 8-2-2012

CHANGE OF NAME I, M. Madhavan, holder of Indian Passport No. H5961296, son of M. Muthukrishanan, converted in Islam and do now hereafter be known by my new name M. MOHAMED SHARIF. (C 3855) 1-2-2012

LOST Policy No. 633000545 issued by the State Life Insurance, Gulf Zone on the Life of Mr. Riaz Ahmed is reported to have been lost.

Anyone finding the same or claiming any interest in it should communicate with the State Life office. Tel: 22452208/9. (C 3856) 2-2-2012

MATRIMONIAL A proposal comes from a man, an Engineer, 50 years old seeks an Asian woman, decent, working, respectful preferable, who is coming recently to Kuwait. Email: bareer_96@yahoo.com (C 3859) Orthodox well-settled parents invite proposals for their son, 28, 180cm, fair, MBA (Finance) from a reputed institution, employed in reputed bank in Kuwait from parents of professionally qualified

God-fearing girls. Contact: dr.matt32@gmail.com 7-2-2012 Proposals invited for Keralite Orthodox Christian boy (38, 5 7” whitish), God fearing Computer Engineering diploma working in Kuwait having family visa status seeking alliance from nurses and other professionals. The boy will be coming to Kerala in the middle of March. Contact email: dilkoshy@asianetindia.com (C 3858) 5-2-2012

FOR SALE Honda Accord 2003, sky blue color, mileage 300,000 kms, owner driven, excellent condition, new tires, registered up to Dec 2012.

Contact 99456340 (C 3857) 5-2-2012

MISCELLANEOUS Original guaranteed Palestinian virgin olive oil, large black and green olives for sale. Tel: 66517417 Whole Floor or small villa needed for rent in Shaab, Mansoriya, Nozha, Abdullah Al-Salem or Shamiya. Direct contact with owner. Tel: 9989018-99169016 A camp for rent in Kabed including five tents with all

No: 15353

services. Complete privacy + game arcade. Tel: 97177714 Size 36 air pressure gun for sale in addition to a scope, safety lock. Shooting range 350 meters +bag+25 shots.

Price KD 70. Tel: 97790478 A 3700 watt, 2012 model ASTRA generator for sale.

Japanese parts assembled in China with pressure and gas meters. Price KD 85. Tel: 60066891 For rent in Hawalli a one bedroom (4x4m) and a 7x3.5 m reception+ terrace, fully equipped kitchen and bathroom. Tunis street, behind Al-Andalus pharmacy. Tel: 99683200 A 2008 white, 1600 CC Nissan Sunny. Price KD 1700. Tel: 99553221 A 2008 dark blue 6 cylinder Toyota Prado with Beige sued interior, low mileage, touch A/C, CD, cruise control, front and rear sensors for sale. Price KD 6650. Tel: 99275550

A 2009 white, 6 cylinder Toyota Prado with 40,000 mileage touch A/C, CD, cruise control, front and rear sensors for sale. Price KD 7850. Tel: 9747750855809093 A 2009 YUKUN Suburban GMC XL with low mileage and beige sued interior, electric seats, cruise control, super headlights, rear camera, remote recording and rear sensors. Price 8550. Tel: 99301914 For rent a two storey villa and a basement in Mangaf including 8 rooms, laundry room, yard, parking. Rent value KD 1000. Tel: 97996900 A storey and half for rent in Mangaf including two 3 bedroom apartments with 2 baths, reception, kitchen, driver room each. Tel: 66989887 For rent a ground floor in Qurain comprising of four rooms, large reception, 5 baths, maid room, courtyard, parking. Rent value KD 550. Tel: 66989887

34

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

stars CROSSWORD 582

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) The accent today is on sociability. This should be one of those nice days when everything goes well—great for business transactions as well as for social get-togethers with lighthearted conversation. Any past tensions are easily adjusted at this time. You could be most persuasive with others and eloquent in communication—people listen. This situation is a natural for self-expression and lends itself to your particular ideas and thoughts. Though you may prefer to be around old friends, you certainly will not close the door on making new ones today. However you deal with people—interacting one-on-one, leading a group towards a common goal, convincing others in a sales or public relations effort—you will be a winner.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Others notice that you have an ability to sort out the difficult and come up with helpful results. Some people are harder to help and you may find this day is better for working by yourself as much as possible, not to avoid issues but to allow a calm to ensue. This energy will soon pass. Tomorrow will bring a more upbeat type of energy and you will find opportunities to insert a kind word here and there that will be helpful to any co-worker or disgruntled customer.

Today is also an excellent time to complete past projects and organize your workspace. This afternoon there is a wonderful quiet time. Beginning an exercise class or joining a sports team is a positive and healthy project later today. You and a friend could begin this evening.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. Top part of an apron.

4. Especially a leaf of grass or the broad portion of a leaf as distinct from the petiole.

9. A twist or aberration.

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

14. Boiled or baked buckwheat.

15. A law passed by US Congress to prevent employees from being injured or contracting diseases in the course of their employment.

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

18. By bad luck.

19. German industrialist who was the first in Germany to use an assembly line in manufacturing automobiles (1871-1948).

20. A unit of weight used in east Asia approximately equal to 1.3 ounces.

21. English prelate and statesman.

23. Naked freshwater or marine or parasitic protozoa that form temporary pseudopods for feeding and locomotion.

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

26. An island in Indonesia east of Java.

29. An intensely radioactive metallic element that occurs in minute amounts in uranium ores.

30. The syllable naming the sixth (submediant) note of a major or minor scale in solmization.

33. Dwell (archaic).

38. A defensive missile designed to shoot down incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles.

39. A public promotion of some product or service.

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

42. Angular distance above the horizon (especially of a celestial object).

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

45. An international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members.

46. The content of cognition.

47. Consider or hold as true.

50. Cereal made of especially rolled oats with dried fruits and nuts and honey or brown sugar.

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

58. A summary that repeats the substance of a longer discussion.

59. A circular segment of a curve.

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

63. Black tropical American cuckoo.

64. Exultantly proud and joyful.

66. Payment due by the recipient on delivery.

67. Alternative names for the body of a human being.

68. West Indian tree having racemes of fragrant white flowers and yielding a durable timber and resinous juice.

69. Large brownish-green New Zealand parrot.

DOWN 1. The basic unit of money in Thailand.

2. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

3. (Scotland) A slope or hillside.

4. A radioactive transuranic element.

5. (South African) A camp defended by a circular formation of wagons.

6. The sign language used in the United States.

7. An Indian tree of the family Combretaceae that is a source of timber and gum.

8. Posing no difficulty.

9. A man who courts a woman.

10. Covered with paving material.

11. Fertility goddess in ancient Greek mythology.

12. The inner surface of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers.

17. A cloth having a crisscross design.

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

24. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

27. A French abbot.

28. Capital and largest city and economic center of Peru.

31. On or toward the lee.

32. Type genus of the Hylidae.

34. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

35. A detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work.

36. (trademark) A liquid that temporarily disables a person.

37. An Indian side dish of yogurt and chopped cucumbers and spices.

40. Made of fir or pine.

44. The basic unit of money in Papua New Guinea.

48. A clique that seeks power usually through intrigue.

49. A genus of Ploceidae.

51. A city in western Nevada at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

52. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

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

55. Framework for holding objects.

56. A slender double-reed instrument.

57. A quantity of no importance.

60. The 7th letter of the Greek alphabet.

61. A long projecting or anterior elongation of an animal's head.

65. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) You may be in a serious and practical mood today. Hypothetical ideas are not for you just now. You enjoy knowing about the real value of something and how and where it belongs. This is a period when you take your work more seriously than usual. A lot of energy goes into getting things scheduled and organized. You will be good at polishing details, whether as part of a project or part of an organization. You know instinctively what needs to be done to make something work. The broad picture can wait another day. There may be instances when you will have to give a full accounting of your labors, particularly to superiors or those interested in buying your wares. Go gently into the evening. You cook the family meal tonight; yum.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

Your intellect is sharp, making it a good day for study or work. You may, however, feel that you are giving more than you are receiving where your work is concerned. It may be time for an employee review or simply review of your goals. If you are turning in an employee review, consider writing a report of your accomplishments and your goals and last . . . ideas of how you can improve the company. At home, you will find this a good time to entertain family members and friends in the social setting; perhaps in your own home. Possibly, there will be an impromptu gathering of co-workers.

Additionally, it is favorable to make plans now for spring cleaning, repairs, plantings, with perhaps, the help of relatives.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You are very expressive and sociable. Your personal magnetism is most dynamic at this time and you are good at getting people to listen to you and to follow your lead. This is also a good time to work on a project of a large or complicated manner. It is also a good time to ask for a raise. You are apt to enjoy considerable success at work and you may be looking to expand your experiences. Teaching, counseling or consulting is a possibility for you at this time, particularly if you were looking for part-time work. You may feel a renewed interest in art, literature and nature. Creative or artistic activities are successful. Your physical desires can be very strong now, even if you are unattached. There is a need for a mate or enhanced communication.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You have a clear and inquisitive mind. Working or discussing ideas with co-workers can be most rewarding. You enjoy working in partnerships or group activities. The ability to communicate with superiors or describe what you see is important to any group. You understand people well enough to be able to lift their spirits or change their mind regarding most any subject. Besides keeping the peace, you have good practical job-related ideas. Mental stimulation from others is key for you right now. It’s a good idea to make every effort to cooperate and compromise at this time. A current project should be a great success. Today will be both pleasant and fun. Doing just about anything with friends or family this afternoon will bring much joy.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) There could be difficulties at the workplace today. It is important to effectively communicate your ideas to co-workers and those who work under you. This is a time to be watchful in order to nip any problems before they begin. Working in a team effort should be profitable, if low tones are maintained.

You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. Your directional abilities are good. Although there may be an air of seriousness to issues at work, you will find it easy to help others look for the positive side. Besides being creative and affectionate, you are very sociable. You truly desire fun and should not hesitate to get to know new people and form new acquaintances. In social surroundings this evening, you make stimulating company.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Ambitious schemes and the pursuit of success and status take on a high priority now. This brings a focus on the practical: the successful and the sensible. The meek may inherit the earth, but the shrewd will collect the rent. Too much focus and dedication to one thing can cause burnout . . . consider taking the earliest opportunity to get outside and enjoy some fresh air! Work will seem easier and you will feel more relaxed once you engage in some sort of health-related activity—particularly on a regular basis. A good massage shared with a loved one can be a fantastic diversion later this evening. You may enjoy taking on a new study of art, poetry, religion or some occult subject. You may find a renewed positive frame of mind—enjoy!

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

Yesterday’s Solution

Your efficiency in the workplace may have been hampered by your heavy schedule. Your physical energy is really high as well.

Make it a point to take your breaks. If you simply cannot get away from that desk, try jogging before breakfast, or schedule in a game of handball at lunch. Work off the stress or you could wind up feeling frustrated. Say what you mean and mean what you say—keep it simple—at work and home. Pay particular attention to the political happening in the workplace—it could have a big influence on your job performance.

Your own requirements may appear to separate you from where the rest of the gang is headed. This is of short duration. By helping someone else, you know your own life is lifted. You enjoy helping others.

It may seem that your emotions could take over in your dealings with others today. This can cloud reason, so probably it is not the best day for delicate deal making. However, communication skills play a major role in today’s events. Work to develop your highest potential in these areas. This may not be a day when you feel like standing up to the world alone, so you will appreciate the warmth and nurturing from those closest to you. You are more than willing to repay them in kind. Tonight you feel it is time to make some positive changes in your life— perhaps a plan. Get your plan in order—it pays to have a sensible routine that is not too tight. Follow the advice offered by a mentor or an elder member of the family— you will be glad.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) To you dreamers of impossible dreams, you just might make them come true today. Do not let your high spirits get too far ahead of the discipline and attention to detail necessary to make any dream a reality. Your mental faculties are in high gear, making you readily receptive to all thoughts that impinge on you. It’s best to rely on facts rather than feelings during this time, especially when an expensive mistake might be the outcome. This afternoon you may discover communication problems with friends and loved ones. If you have faith in yourself and have surrounded yourself with good people, you will be unaffected by this period. It is good that you do not put any person on a pedestal. Tonight is for music: dancing, listening, creating or playing.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

There are some powerful energies spilling into your life in erratic ways. The actions today will have long-term effects. This is a great time to be with others and to work together. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. Your management and directional abilities are in high focus.

Your inner resources are accented. Expect a sense of support and goodwill from those around you. This afternoon colors are brighter, images sharper, music—moving.

Emotions run deep, especially with members of the opposite sex. Previously bland relationships could border on love or hate. You can control this, so enjoy the good parts while you can. You are alive! This is an excellent time to be with loved ones—at work or at play.

A

y

e niv rsar n

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Years

i n f o r m at i o n FIRE BRIGADE STATE ST TAT TE OF KUWAIT K KUW WAIT A

112

Tel.: T e el.: 161

DIRECTORA DIRECTORATE ATE T GENE GENERAL ERAL OF CIVIL A AVIATION V VIA ATION T DEPARTMENT METEOROLOGICAL DEP D PARTMENT A DAY: DA AY: Y T Tuesday uesday

WWW .MET.GOV V.KW . W WWW.MET.GOV.KW

07/02/2012

Ministry of Interior

Ext.: 2627 262 27 - 2630

Fax: 24348714

07:00

Time Issue T ime

Expected Weather Weather for the Next 24 4 Hours Cloudy y with light to moderate freshening freshening gradually south easterly easteerly wind, with speed of 15 - 40 km/h

BY Y DA DAY: AY:

website: www.moi.gov.kw Cloudy y with moderate to fresh south sou uth easterly wind, with speed d of 20 - 45 km/h causing raising raising dust over open areas a

NIGHT:: BY Y NIGHT

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

No Current Warnings Warnin a gs

WARNING W ARNING A STATION ST TATION T

MAX. EXP EXP. P.

MIN.. REC.

KUWAIT KUW WAIT A CITY

20 °C

10 °C

24812000

KUWAIT AIRPORT KUW WAIT A AIRPOR RT

20 °C

07 °C

Amiri Hospital

22450005

NUWAISEEB NUW WAISEEB A

18 °C C

08 °C C

Maternity Hospital

24843100

WAFRA W AFRA A

20 °C

04 °C

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

SALMI

19 °C

07 °C

Chest Hospital

24849400

ABDALY ABDAL LY

20 °C

04 °C

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

ALIYAH JAL ALIY YA AH

20 °C

07 °C

Adan Hospital

23940620

FAILAKA F AILAKA A

18 °C

10 °C

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

PORT AHMADI POR RT

17 °C

13 °C

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

UMM AL-MARADEM M

18 °C

14 °C

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

WARBA BUBYAN W ARBA A A - BUBY YA AN

17 °C

05 °C

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

Clinics

SFC. CHAR CHART T

07/02/2012 0000 0 UTC

4 DA DAYS AYS Y FORECAST

4732263

Roudha

22517733

DAY DA AY

DA DATE AT TE

WEA WEATHER ATHER T

Adhaliya

22517144

Wednesday e Wednesday

08/02

Khaldiya

24848075

Thursday

Keifan

24849807

Friday

Shamiya

24848913

Saturday

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Fajr

05:13

MAX. Temp.

MA AX. T emp.

21 °C

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Sunrise S i

06 34 06:34

MIIN. IN Temp.

Temp.

MIN.

03 °C

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Zuhr

12:02

MAX. RH M

84 %

Asr

15:08

M RH MIN.

16 %

Sunset

17:31

MA AX. W ind MAX. Wind

Isha

18:49

TOT TAL AL RAI INF FA ALL L IN 24 HR. TOTAL RAINFALL

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

22418714

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Al-Jahra

25610011

Al-Salmiya

25616368

POLICE STATION

Rabiya

Al-Khadissiya

Al-Madena

Temperratures Temperatures MAX.

MIN.

Wind Direction Direction Wind

Wind Wind Speed

cloudy +Scatt. rain+ blo owing dust blowing

21 °C

12 °C

SE

25 - 50 km/h

09/02

partly cloudy + scattered d rain+bl.du

22 °C

13 °C

SE-VRB

08 - 30 km/h

10/02

cloudy + scattered d rain

23 °C

14 °C

VRB-NW

08 - 30 km/h

11/02 11/02

cloudy + blowing dust

20 °C

12 °C

NW

22 - 42 km/h

PRAYER PR RA AYER Y TIMES

RECORDED D YESTERDAY YESTERDA AY AT AT KUWAIT KUW WAIT A T AIRPORT AIRPORT

unless All times are local time un nless otherwise stated.

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

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry

SW W 18 km/h

about the Civil ID card is 1889988

00 mm

07/02/12 03:04 UTC

V1.00

T1.06

PHARMACIES

AIRLINES

ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

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

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

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

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

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

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

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

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

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Khaled Hamadi

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist

25665898 25340300

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

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

25655535

Dentists

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

22618787

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

22666300 25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

Neurologists

22639939

Dr. Mousa Khadada

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

3729596/3729581

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

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

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

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

2611555-2622555

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

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

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

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

00236 00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044 00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689

36

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

lifest yle G o s s i p

ustralian pop star Kylie Minogue has alerted police to an online stalker-a “deluded weirdo” issuing threats over Twitter, she wrote on the micro-blogging site yesterday. The diminutive singer told her more than one million followers on the site that she adored her supporters, but one among them was not her ‘lover’-her nickname for her fans. “I love 1,033,861 of you LOVERS, but 1 is not a lover, just a deluded weirdo making threat #andthatdoesnotmakeyouspecial So..police alerted,” she tweeted yesterday. The announcement prompted a groundswell of support for the 43-year-old on the social networking site, with fans vowing to protect her and offering support. “I hope whoever’s threatening @kylieminogue knows there’s more than 1,000,000 of us

A

ready to jump to her defence,” wrote one. Former television soap star Minogue this year celebrates 25 years in the music business since her hit debut single “Locomotion” was released in 1987. The singer, who has successfully battled breast cancer, has attracted unwanted attention in the past, reportedly receiving hundreds of threatening letters at her British home and office in 2003.

nne Hathaway and Adam Shulman threw a private engagement bash for family and friends in New York on Saturday night . The ‘Dark Knight Rises’ actress and her fiance celebrated their impending nuptials with 125 guests at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in downtown Manhattan although no other celebrities were invited to the party, according to People magazine. Anne and Adam - who started dating in 2008 following Anne’s split from Raffaello Follieri after he pled guilty to 14 counts of money laundering, conspiracy and wire fraud - announced their engagement in November and Anne explained he “ruined” her plans to stay single. She said: “We hit if off immediately but it took us a pretty long time to get together. He thought that I had a boyfriend and I thought that he had a girlfriend, so I thought that I’d better keep my distance because I didn’t want to be that girl.

“I am very much in love with him, [only]

Bill Hinzman dies actor

‘Night of the Living Dead’

A

ill Hinzman, who was cast on the spot as a zombie in 1968 cult film “Night of the Living Dead” in a role that earned him the long-lasting admiration of horror movie fans, has died at age 75, his daughter said on Monday. Hinzman died of cancer on Sunday evening at his home in Darlington, Pennsylvania, his daughter Heidi Hinzman told Reuters. He played a prominent role in Director George Romero’s low-budget, black-and-white 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead,” which is credited with revolutionizing the zombie genre. Hinzman was working as an assistant cameraman on the film when Romero decided to cast him as the zombie in the movie’s opening sequence. “We’d like to tell the story that it was a hard audition session, but Bill was there and old enough and thin enough and he had an old suit,” said the film’s producer Russ Streiner. Dressed in that suit, Hinzman appears at a Pennsylvania cemetery and attacks a pair of young siblings by knocking the man’s head against a tombstone and chasing the woman. He lurches across an open field and eventually chases the woman into a farmhouse. Fans called Heinzman “No. 1 zombie,” said Streiner, who also played a character named Johnny who fought with Hinzman in the cemetery. “He was a very popular guy, he was very accessible to the fans,” Streiner added. Hinzman also went on to direct and star in the 1980s horror movies “ The Majorettes” and “FleshEater.” He will be cremated, as he had asked, said Heidi Hinzman. “He always joked with me that if he got buried he would comeback,” she said.

B

avid Beckham “didn’t know where to look” when his underwear commercial was aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

The soccer star appears in just his underpants in the advert for his underwear collection for H&M and he admits he got embarrassed when it came on the TV during the NFL showpiece game. David - who has four children, Brooklyn, 12, Romeo, nine, Cruz, six, and sevenmonth-old Harper, with fashion designer wife Victoria - said: “I’m very shy. When we were watching the Super Bowl yesterday in a room of about 20 people and it came on and I actually didn’t know where to look. It was kind of embarrassing. “The kids loved it but they were also embarrassed as well because there was other people in the room.”

While he was embarrassed about seeing his almost-naked body on the screen, David admits he felt more confident shooting the commercial. He told Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS FM radio show: “Shooting it, there wasn’t too many people in the room so it was pretty easy.” The handsome athlete - who has previously appeared in underwear commercials for Armani - is very proud of the collection and loved working with the Swedish high street store. He said: “It was something I created before H&M came in, something I wanted to do after the success of Armani. “I love underwear, I love wearing it so it was something I just wanted to kind of create myself.”

D

l Pacino’s girlfriend thinks about having a baby with him. Argentinian Lucila Polak has a daughter, 14-year-old Camila, from her first marriage, but admits she gets broody and would consider having more children with the 71-year-old actor. When asked if she fantasizes of having a baby, the 32-year-old model replied: “Sometimes I do, yes. I have moments when I think, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have another kid?’ Because I’m at a stage where I’m sure I would enjoy motherhood lots. Argentine women are very maternal, which is probably why men fall in love with us. “But on the other hand, I think, ‘Starting again, not sleeping much, nappies, losing the freedom I have...’ “ Lucila is not sure if it is practical for her and Al - who has three children, Julie Marie, 22, and 12-year-old twins Anton James and Olivia Rose from previ-

A

he Oscar-winning actress raises six children - Maddox, 10, Pax, eight, Zahara, seven, Shiloh, five, and three-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne - with partner Bard Pitt and says she would do anything to protect them. When asked if she could kill to defend herself, Angelina replied: “I think I could, yeah. I certainly could defend my family.” Angelina is famed for charity work in war-torn countries and she admits she’s had some terrifying experiences when she’s visited them. The UN ambassador told the UK edition of OK! magazine: “I had moments where I’ve been in a house and people have pounded on the doors and screamed at you and said, ‘We

T

Adam totally ruined my plan. I was really actually looking forward to a little alone time, and then I fell in love like a fool!” Anne - who had previously been against the idea of getting married - revealed she changed her mind about the institution after witnessing her best friend walk down the aisle. She said: “I was at my best friend’s wedding, and I watched this person who I love like a sister, and who has changed my life and continues to change my life for the better, who I feel as close to as I do my family, commit herself to a man who she loves, and I watched how happy it made her. “I mean, she looked like she was riding a bubble the whole night. I thought, ‘Weddings are important because they celebrate life and possibility.’ “

know she’s in there and we want her passport,’ and I’ve had moments recently when I went to Afghanistan, and I’ve got off the plane thinking, this is fine. And then I got there and they said, ‘The people are very angry with you. They are angry that you are a woman and you are American and you are with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), so you are the target.’ “And so they gave me a briefing and they said everybody needs to write their blood type down. There’s a guy outside with a bulletproof vest, he put his passport in the vest, because he would be the one to take me out. I wrote a note to Brad in the process and figured

ous relationships - to marry, but is happy with the relationship they have. She told Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “I don’t know [if we’d marry].

At the moment we’ve got a great relationship which works perfectly. We’re very happy, we share lots, but he has three kids, and I’ve got Camila. We support each other a lot, we’re very involved with each other’s lives, but we’re fine as we are. Lucila also said the age gap between them doesn’t cause any problems, as Al is so young at heart. She added: “He has a much younger emotional age and his daily routine is more similar to that of a man of 40 than an 80 year old. Also he’s incredibly sexy, no one can deny me that, can they?”

if anything happens he’ll find it. I was fine, but then two weeks later they did attack the UN and they killed everybody in the bunker.” Angelina’s directorial debut ‘In The Land of Blood And Honey’ is set during the Bosnian conflict.

— Bang Showbiz

ennifer Garner wants to use her fame to make a positive difference in the world.

The actress - who is married to Hollywood hunk Ben Affleck - accepts her celebrity status and the attention that goes with it and she is determined to use her profile to help charities and do good deeds. She said: “My view on fame? In the film business, you have perks beyond your dreams. You can make a sick child smile and raise money for charity, just by being well known ... I also strongly believe in treating people well, whatever their job and whatever happens. I think good manners are important.” Jennifer - who has two daughters, six-year-old Violet and three-year-old Seraphina, with Ben accepts there are negative aspects to being an actress but she insists the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. The 39-year-old star who is currently pregnant - added: “The flipside is that you can lose the illusion of having a private and personal life and your family is intruded upon. But don’t complain - the good outweighs the bad.”

J

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

lifestyle F e a t u r e s

“G

oing Solo” ( The Penguin Press), by Eric Klinenberg: Living in families, though traditional and almost universal on this evolving planet, is experiencing an unplanned but effective attack, according to a new book. Author Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University, sees lessons to be learned. He sums them up in his subtitle: “ The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.”

What good is living alone? Isolate yourself from all your friends? No wife? No husband? No mother? And all that laundry to do? Babies? Maybe, later.

Henry David Thoreau tried it in the mid-1800s, when he was still in his twenties. The result was “Walden,” a book about living alone in the woods - a high point in American

literature. “I never found the companion so companionable as solitude,” he wrote. One of four siblings himself, he died unmarried, at 44. Biographers record one proposal - rejected - to a young woman. He built his cottage within walking distance of his family in Concord, Massachusetts, and the pubs he and his friends frequented. It was on property of his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of whose best known works is an essay called “Self-Reliance.” Thoreau’s mother visited often, bearing home-cooked meals.

In 1950, about 4 million Americans were living solo. A half-century later, the number had risen to 31 million, with women outnumbering men 17 million to 14 million - figures that have had little public attention. Between those two dates another book appeared that may become a sort

F

ashion models in the United States launched a rights group on Monday ahead of New York Fashion Week to seek workplace standards including backstage privacy to stop unauthorized nude photos and a program to provide confidential advice on dealing with sexual harassment. Model Sara Ziff, 29, who has worked since she was 14, founded the nonprofit Model Alliance because she said she has seen the industry disregard child labor laws, evade financial transparency and tolerate sexual abuse in the workplace.

“Most models start their adult careers as minors and they labor in an unregulated business knowing that they are highly replaceable,” Ziff said in a statement. The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) said it had offered Ziff advice in starting the group. “Change comes from action and the Model Alliance can be a catalyst for change,” said CFDA chief executive Steven Kolb.

Designer Diane von Furstenberg, president of the CFDA, is working with the alliance during Fashion Week, a high-profile global fashion event which starts on Thursday, to implement a rule that clears the backstage area of photographers and non-essential staff when models have to change clothes.

Australian “plus-size” model Robyn Lawley, 22, described the Model Alliance as an amazing idea. “So many young girls get into this industry and they have no one to protect them and having this model alliance will help girls realise they have the power, they can say no to things that make them feel uncomfortable,” Lawley said at the launch.

“I started modeling when I was 16 and I went off to shoots by myself. My parents weren’t there and sometimes you do feel very uncomfortable,” she said. “You don’t really talk about it. If you say anything you won’t get another job.” The alliance has produced a draft bill of rights to empower models to demand fair treatment and is establishing a confidential service offering advice on how to deal with sexual harassment and abuse.

alone,” he writes, “and why in the coming decades many millions more will do so.”

Though the short book is largely concerned with the United States, it devotes 10 vivid pages to solutions innovated in Sweden. Back in the 1930s social planner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Alva Myrdal opened a “collective house.” It had 57 units for single women and single mothers, with a communal kitchen, a nursery and small elevator service to each unit for meal deliveries. “Solitude, once we learn how to use it, does more than restore our personal energy,” Klinenberg concludes, “it also sparks new ideas about how we might better live together.” — AP

The world’s shortest woman Jyoti Amge, center, shakes the hand of a child as she campaigns for a candidate of the Hindu hard-line political party Maharashtra Reconstruction Party for civic polls in Mumbai, India, yesterday.

Amge stood just 62.8 centimeters (24.7 inches) tall, shorter than the average 2-year-old, when Guinness representatives visiting from London measured her at a ceremony attended by about 30 relatives and friends in the town of Nagpur, in Maharashtra state last year. — AP

Jyoti Amge flashes a victory sign.

Jyoti Amge sits in a car.

of landmark: Helen Gurley Brown’s “Sex and the Single Girl.”

Klinenberg quotes her on the new young woman: “She is engaging because she lives by her wits. She is not a parasite, a dependent, a scrounger, a sponger or a bum. She is a giver, not a taker, a winner and not a loser.”

Klinenberg also collects interviews with older people who choose independent living rather than available alternatives as long as they can, though their stories are necessarily sadder than those of young people. Most Americans, Europeans and rising numbers elsewhere, he argues, measure satisfaction with life in terms of independence, integrity and self-respect. “Our cultural preference for living autonomously is a key reason why today more than 11 million elderly Americans and 72 million Europeans live

Jyoti Amge carries a flag.

Not coat hangers “The idea of models organizing may seem frivolous or, worse, downright funny - models are certainly not the people you picture when you think of child labor or bad working conditions,” said former model and fashion writer Jenna Sauers.

“There’s nothing funny about a work force that is overwhelmingly young, female and impoverished, working for some of fashion’s wealthiest, most powerful brands,” said Sauers, who is on the board of directors for the Model Alliance. Ziff and Sauers said some US-based models had complained about being told to lose weight, had suffered anxiety or depression and been sexually harassed.

“Many top designers pay their models in clothes - not cash. This doesn’t have to be the case. We can do better. And we can start by giving models a voice in their work. This is a new frontier of women’s rights, and workers’ rights,” Ziff said.

Some 90 designers are due to show their collections for fall/winter 2012 at New York Fashion Week to buyers, media and celebrities, with dozens more showing at other venues around the city to coincide with the semi-annual event. Fashion Week in New York is followed by events in London, Paris and Milan. “Models have won the genetic lottery. They are tall, they are beautiful, they get paid for walking,” said Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at New York’s Fordham University and an alliance board member. “But they are human beings, they are not coat hangers.” Vika Skyte, 26, is from Lithuania, has been modeling for eight years and moved to New York in September. “It’s important,” she said of the alliance. “Models are not really protected. ... We’re vulnerable as well because we start at a young age.” — Reuters

US

cooking star Paula Deen, selfproclaimed “Queen of Southern Cuisine” famous for her dishes smothered in butter, has met a storm of outrage after revealing she has diabetes and is hawking a drug to treat the disease. Deen, who famously showed off trademark high-fat, high-calorie meals including such creations as a hamburger wedged between a doughnut, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago-but continued her show on the Food Network promoting what critics slammed as an outrageously unhealthy diet.

Detractors have lambasted the jovial cooking host in a country that is battling an obesity epidemic. According to recent studies one-in-three adults in America are obese, as are one-in-six children-a grave, growing problem despite efforts to combat it with healthy eating campaigns.

Further sullying her image, however, 64year-old Deen came out last month as a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk and its diabetes treatment Victoza, hawking the drug in a new campaign “Diabetes in a New Light.”

Fellow US cooking celebrity Anthony Bourdain, a chef and host of Travel Channel show “No Reservations,” took to Twitter to vent over Deen’s decision.

“Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later,” he quipped on the popular microblogging site. Amid the US obesity crisis, Bourdain has laid into Deen before, due to her high-fat creations calling her “the worst, most dangerous person to America.”

Known as “ The Lady,” Deen has become something of an institution for her heavy, no-apologies approach to cuisine, with a decade-long cooking show, 15 cookbooks, a well-known restaurant in Savannah, Georgia and a profitable lines

Jyoti Amge interacts with local residents.

of cooking wares sold in stores and online.

She has garnered a reputation for heavy, rich, fried southern dishes-cooking up a combination of almost anything with the most butter, cream, sugar. On savory dishes, she famously piles high the meat, heavily salted, drawing accusations of being in cahoots with giant meat firms that have in turn been blamed for rising cases of diabetes in the United States in recent years.

Her move to join “big pharma” and tout a diabetes drug has caused an uproar, not least because US authorities had approved the treatment Victoza in January 2010 despite evidence of a link to thyroid cancer. It also costs hundreds of dollars a month, compared to similar, less expensive options. “I am here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence,” Deen said in announcing her diabetes diagnosis. There was, however, little sympathy for her from fans and critics alike.

She had waited “three years before revealing she had developed diabetes-three years of serving up ever-more carb-andfat laden meals, dragging her legions down with her. And then, voila! She has the “magic bullet,” ready for them to pop in their mouth,” wrote one outraged viewer on an Internet forum.

Those closest to her meanwhile reportedly jumped ship over her decision to campaign for the dubious diabetes drug-her publicist Nancy Assuncao Sanchez is said to have quit over the move. Even her sons are apparently “furious” with her. The New York Post said Deen’s children Jamie and Bobby-the latter also hosts a cooking show called “Not My Mama’s Meals”-were worried that switching from a successful treatment to the new drug, for the sake of some millions of dollars in the endorsement deal,

could endanger her health further. Her defenders, however, pointed out the problem was not with Deen. “She is not responsible for how people eat,” insisted one commentator Gary Finger, on a blog for USA Today, saying she was simply geared towards giving people what they already wanted. — AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Years

lifestyle M u s i c

&

C

In this July 15, 2011 file photo, singer Chris Brown performs on NBC’s Today Show in New York. — AP photos

File pho to s t a g e a t shows singer R ih t Chelmsfo h e V M u s ic F e s anna per formin t iv a l in rd, Engla H y la n d s g on nd.

Pa r k ,

Brown to perform at the Grammys

C

hris Brown will perform at this year’s Grammy Awards, the event where his career almost ended three years ago. Brown admitted to assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna at a pre-Grammy party in 2009 and is serving five years of probation for the felony attack. A source told The Associated Press on Monday that Brown will hit the stage at Sunday’s show. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because Brown’s performance has not been officially announced.

After the attack, Brown’s reputation plummeted, but he has since bounced back, releasing multiple mixtapes and the multi-hit album, “F.A.M.E. (Forgiving All My Enemies).” The CD is nominated for three Grammys, including best R&B album. Rihanna also will perform at the show. She’s nominated for four awards, including the top prize - album of the year - for her platinum effort “Loud.” Brown and Rihanna were supposed to perform at the 2009 Grammys, but that changed after Brown attacked the pop singer in the early morning hours before the awards show. Since then, Brown has not attended the Grammys, although he was nominated for three awards last year.—AP

Andrew Garfield, left, and MTV personality Josh Horowitz appear at the debut of the 3-D full-length ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ trailer at Regal Union Square on Monday. — AP

“T

hris Brown is known pop singer, a slick bedroom crooner and at other times, a Euro-flavored dance singer. But it’s his rapping that has taken his career to new heights.

With his hit single “Look at Me Now,” Brown has dominated more than just the R&B territory: The boastful track, which co-stars Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, was Billboard’s No 1 rap song of 2011 and it’s nominated for best rap song and best rap performance at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, where Brown’s competition includes JayZ, Kanye West, Dr Dre and Eminem.

The song is just another example of Brown’s rapping prowess. At last year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, Brown went toe-to-toe with other hiphop acts during one segment, and was so strong he left 50 Cent wowed. “Chris particularly was impressive,” said 50 Cent. “He rapped better than the rappers. I’m going to give it up. I’m watching the show (like), ‘How did they let that happen?’”

50 Cent is not the only member of the hiphop community impressed by Brown: “(Chris) did a mixtape that really blew my mind and I didn’t know that was him rhyming,” said Questlove of The Roots. But Brown isn’t the only singer who has ventured out to rhyming: Usher rapped on his 1998 hit “My Way” and Trey Songz has released rap mixtapes. Others who have spit a few bars in song include Justin Timberlake, Ne-Yo, Monica, Erykah Badu, R. Kelly, Janelle Monae, Jill Scott, Tyrese, Chrisette Michele and Miguel.

English-based R&B singer Marsha Ambrosius said her first-ever single featured her rapping under the name Ms. Parker, and Brandy - as her alter-ego Bran’ Nu - rapped on two songs from Timbaland’s “Shock Value II” album, and even had plans to release a rap album before she scrapped the project. Mary J Blige also has a rap alter-ego: Brook Lynn. Brook Lynn first appeared on Blige’s 2005 album “The Breakthrough.” Blige says she’s not sure other singers will find success as rappers, though.

“I don’t know if it will translate to what a real hip-hop artist would do like 50 (Cent) or Jay-Z or Common or Kanye,” Blige said.Top of Form Bottom of But rappers have had luck with singing over the years, from Nelly to Ja Rule. West used the Auto-Tune on most of his “808s & Heartbreak” album, to mixed critical and commercial success. And Nicki Minaj’s latest hit - the David Guetta song “Turn Me On” - features the animated rapper belting semi-high notes. There are also acts like Lauryn Hill, Drake and Missy Elliott - arguably the most respected singer-rappers in the game - who are often praised for blending the two. “I think you have to come out as a hybrid,” said rapper J. Cole, who sings his own hook on the song “Work Out.” “(With) Drake, some people look at him as a rapper who sings, some people look at him as a singer who raps, but he came out that way so nobody’s really right or wrong, and he can win forever in either world,” Cole continued.

Brown’s “Look at Me Now” spent eight and 10 weeks at the top spot on Billboard’s R&B/HipHop and Rap songs charts, respectively. Mark Pitts, the president of urban music at RCA Music Group who signed Brown to Sony at age 16, said he initially didn’t want to see the singer rapping.

“It took me a minute to really appreciate (‘Look at

he Amazing Spider-Man” dropped in on hundreds of fans Monday. Sony Pictures teased the latest incarnation of the web-slinging superhero, which doesn’t arrive in US theaters until July 3, at preview events held Monday at movie theaters in 13 cities spanning the globe, including Mexico City, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Moscow, with the cast and filmmakers appearing in Los Angeles, New York, Rio de Janeiro and London.

The event began with the debut of the 3-D full-length “Amazing Spider-Man” trailer, which will hit theaters this weekend and debut online Wednesday. The trailer featured footage of Andrew Garfield as a charmingly awkward Peter Parker being bullied at school, testing out his new webslinging gadgets and battling the villainous Lizard high above New York. “I think there are a lot of things from the Spider-Man canon that haven’t yet been explored cinematically,” said director Marc Webb in Los Angeles. “This movie really starts off with Peter Parker and his parents, which is something we’ve never really seen before, and I think that was something we were all really interested in exploring as filmmakers.”

Garfield, who appeared in New York, said Spider-Man is more than just a character. He’s a symbol that was once portrayed by Tobey Maguire and now by himself, and he hoped the next person to play the crime-fighting superhero would be a “half-Hispanic, half African-American actor,” referencing the latest incarnation of the character in the comic books. Emma Stone, who plays love interest Gwen Stacey, told fans in Rio de Janeiro that Stacey and Mary Jane Watson, Parker’s girlfriend portrayed by Kirsten Dunst in the previous films, are “polar opposites,” while Rhys Ifans said in London that his character, Dr Curt Connors, who becomes the Lizard, has “a very complex and emotional” link to Parker. —AP

M o v i e s

Me Now’). I didn’t want to like it because I didn’t want him rapping,” Pitts said.

Rapping is a departure for 22-year-old Brown, who debuted on the scene in 2005 as an R&Bpop heartthrob. Pitts said that past Brown songs where a rapper is featured most likely had a rap verse from Brown first, but they were never used.

Pitts, who has overseen the careers of the Notorious B.I.G., Diddy and Usher, says he once thought singers and rappers should stay in their own lanes. But Brown helped change his perception.

“It’s a different age now,” Pitts said. “I’m not surprised by anything from (Chris) anymore. He’s not in one category. It works for him, and not everybody can do that.” Brown’s CD where “Look at Me Now” appears - “F.A.M.E. (Forgiving All My Enemies)” - is nominated for best R&B album at the Grammys; his upcoming fifth disc, “Fortune,” will most likely feature rapping, Pitts said. Brown has received respect from the rap community, and often appears on hip-hop tracks. But not all singers are poised to have a similar triumph.

“It’s definitely difficult for an R&B singer to be accepted as a hip-hop rapper, but I know it’s possible,” Common said. “If you do it well, it will be accepted.” 50 Cent agrees, adding that musicians are often typecast. “In music there becomes a cut-out of what they’ll accept from you and what they won’t,” he said. “We can take a hit Drake song and I’ll deliver it and people will be like, ‘Man, get this (expletive) out of here.’ They’ll be like, ‘We want the old 50 (Cent).’” But Pitts says he’s encouraging his newer singing acts to rap.

“It doesn’t really bother me (any) more. It used to bother me. But why fight it? If it sounds good, it sounds good,” he said. “As long as you’re not trying to be someone else, I’m cool with it.”

—www.huffingtonpost.com

File photo shows Drake at the BET Awards in Los Angeles.

O

SN hailed the success of its participation at the InfoConnect Exhibition which was held at the Kuwait Fair Grounds between 29 January and 4 February 2012. OSN has been an active participant at InfoConnect for 11 consecutive years, as it continues to strengthen its presence across the Kuwaiti market to showcase its latest technology and content offering to serve its growing customers’ needs.

Commenting on the company’s participations, David Butorac, CEO of OSN said: “We are pleased to have taken part of this year ’s InfoConnect exhibition as this is our 11th consecutive year and look forward to continue entertaining our customers. Our stand provided us with a great platform to showcase first-hand the quality of our True 1080i HD programming to hundreds of visitors, who were welcomed and serviced by our sales and service team.”

Over the course of the week, visitors could enjoy a unique journey at the OSN stand that showcased the latest technology and premium television programming as well as exploring the variety of unique and exciting packages tailored specially for InfoConnect visitors. Packages included free Showbox HD

File photo shows Trey Songz performing at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans.

r fo r m in g B li g e p e Soul” in J y r a M s elebrates to show Fil e p h o the “Vh1 Divas C t a onstage .

New York

receivers, free HD decoders, free Box office movies and additional channels with subscriptions, all designed to offer customers the chance to enjoy a truly unique television and entertainment experience with OSN. OSN’s offers its customers an ultimate quality entertainment experience through 26 High Definition channels, thus positioning OSN as the only network offering a full HD bouquet of channels as well as 3D

entertainment in the MENA. OSN was the first to launch the DVR, the OSN SHOWBOX HD, and the region’s first VOD service, OSN on Demand offering viewers the opportunity to watch over 1000 movies and over 52 latest seasons of the top series over the year in full HD quality and Dolby Digital sound.

A

y

e niv rsar n

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Years

lifestyle M u s i c

L

ess than a second stood between British singer M.I.A. giving the finger to114 million people watching the Super Bowl halftime show and no one noticing at all. That’s how close NBC censors came to preventing the gesture from being seen Sunday night, but the Super Bowl instead wound up with another entertainment oops moment. The gestureswept across social media, showing up in screen grabs and video, reminding everyone of JanetJackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction in 2004 when a nipple was exposed ever so briefly to a Super Bowl audience.

Both NBC and the NFL, which puts on the halftime show, apologized. M.I.A.’s record label said Monday it had no comment and her Twitter account was silent since noting she was in Lucas Oil Stadium with Madonna. And the Material Girl, who invited M.I.A. to appear during her performance of “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” had no immediate comment. The Nielsen Co said that 114 million people watched Madonna’s halftime show, even more than the average of 111.3 million who watched the game. It was the most-watched halftime entertainment show ever.

The gesture was “so shocking that I had no idea she even did it until NBC issued an apology for it,” wrote Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik on

his blog. The digital video recorder maker Tivo said there were no appreciable bumps in playbacks at the time of M.I.A.’s gesture, meaning many people either didn’t see it or shrugged it off. Tivo has some 2 million customers in the US, said Tara Maitra, the company’s senior vice president. “I never even noticed,” said Joan Kistner, a marketer from Chicago who watched the game. “It wasn’t until this morning when I heard the news” and so many people were talking about it that she knew it happened.

“I don’t know why they glorify bad behavior,” Kistner said. “Some things should just be left alone. I really think she owes Madonna, who obviously wanted her to be part of the show, an apology.” The NFL and NBC should take steps to hold people accountable for their actions, said Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council. “Most families would agree that the middle finger aimed directly at them is not appropriate, especially during the most-watched television event of the year,” Winter said. Back in M.I.A.’s native Britain, the London Times noted that while all eyes may have been on Madonna at halftime, “it was the extended middle finger of the British hip-hop star M.I.A. that caused the most controversy.”

The Guardian wondered whether anyone would really be outraged. “You’d be forgiven for not having a

Q

uarterback Eli Manning and his New York Giants may have beaten superstar Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at Sunday’s Super Bowl, but none of them could outmuscle Madonna-at least, where TV audiences

Madonna performs during the Super Bowl XLVI half-time show on February 5, 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. —AFP

A

s Jay-Z transitioned from hit song to hit song at a Carnegie Hall concert Monday night, so did the lighting, changing from red to white to blue. The veteran rapper then performed his latest hit, “Glory,” about his 1month-old daughter with Beyonce, Blue Ivy Carter. “I didn’t think I was going to make it through that one,” he said, sounding emotional. “That was tough.”

It was one of the many jams Jay-Z performed at New York’s famed venue, his latest achievement in music domination. The rapper is the second hip-hop act to perform at Carnegie Hall. Wyclef Jean did so in 2001 with Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton and Whitney Houston. JayZ was joined by fellow New Yorkers Alicia Keys and Nas. He was backed by an orchestra of 30-plus and a band that included Questlove of The Roots and neo-soul singer Bilal. It was one of two shows for charity planned this week.

The Grammy-winning rapper, born Shawn Carter, started off in a black-andwhite tuxedo, bowtie and black sunglasses, commanding the stage with confidence in somewhat unfamiliar territory: The audience was mostly men in suits or tuxedos, and women in conservative dresses. About 2,800 people filled the hall.

Though some tickets were sold to the public, most were offered in a private sale, going from $500 to $2,500. The proceeds will benefit the United Way of New York City and the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation, which helps low-income students cover college costs. Students from Jay-Z’s foundation also attended the show. Jay-Z, who released his debut album in 1996, performed more than two dozen hits

&

were concerned. A record 111.3 million US viewers watched the Giants defeat the Patriots in the professional football championship, but 114 million watched the halftime performance by Madonna that drew mostly mixed reviews and a firestorm of controversy over a rude gesture by rapper M.I.A.

M o v i e s

coronary over the fact M.I.A. gave Super Bowl viewers the finger during her halftime guest spot with Madonna,” the newspaper wrote in its music blog.

“For most fans, it was probably more shocking to see M.I.A. performing a rehearsed dance routine than flipping the bird.” Indeed, M.I.A. is provocative and an artist taking advantage of all those TV viewers might not be all that surprising. Still, host Gretchen Carlson on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” urged M.I.A. to “get a life” and culture vulture Perez Hilton tweeted: “Think she’ll ever be invited on live TV again?”

Jackson’s incident raised a storm of controversy and put CBS in hot water with the Federal Communications Commission amid questions about the responsibility of TV networks to police their airwaves. The network and FCC are still fighting over whether CBS should pay a $550,000 fine. One person who didn’t miss M.I.A.’s message was Marlee Matlin.

The actress, who is deaf, tweeted: “When we expected some beautiful sign language during the (hash) SuperBowl National Anthem, we got instead a “sign” during M.I.A.’s rap. Ahem.” — AP

Ratings tracker Nielsen on Monday said the Super Bowl on the NBC network was the most-watched TV program in US history, eclipsing the 111.0 million who watched 2011’s game. An extra three million tuned in for Madonna’s glitzy, Cleopatra-themed performance, giving the Material Girl the distinction of having the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever.

But her honor may always have the description “dubious” attached to it after NBC and the NFL were forced to publicly apologize for a finger gesture flipped at the audience by British rapper M.I.A, who joined Madonna in the performance that viewers seemed to love and hate in equal measure.

Singer Sean “P.Diddy” Combs tweeted that Madonna “had the best Half-time performance of all time !!” Allison Stewart, pop music blogger with the Washington Post, said Madonna “delivered the most excellent and unexpectedly subversive Super Bowl halftime show in years.” But the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik called it a “joke of a halftime show featuring an embalmed version of Madonna snatched off the undertaker’s table.”

Other critics took her to task for blatantly promoting her new album, due out in March, and upcoming tour. The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot commented that the Super Bowl “has become the biggest stage for shills of all kinds, pop stars included, and halftime has turned into a 12-minute branding opportunity in recent years for artists brandishing new albums.”—Reuters

including “Hard Knock Life,” “99 Problems” and “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.”

Classic New York anthems also entertained the audience. The orchestra played a medley of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” and Gil Scott-Heron’s “New York Is Killing Me.” Changing into a black tux, Jay-Z performed “Empire State of Mind” with Keys, who wore similar attire. Nas followed with his song “NY State of Mind.”

“Make some noise for the Giants,” yelled Jay-Z, giving a shout-out to the recent Super Bowl champions. Jay-Z changed outfits once again, this time to a black Tshirt, black pants and a black cap. He traveled to the second floor and began to rap songs from the top of a chair. He gave shout- outs to some of those missed in music, from the Notorious B.I.G. to Aaliyah to Don Cornelius. He also gave a shout-out to Liza Minnelli, who waved to the audience before JayZ hit the stage. — AP

Rapper Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, performs on stage at Carnegie Hall in New York on Monday, Feb 6, 2012. — AP

J

M.I.A. performs during the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana. —AFP

ohnny Cash is still cool. Like Elvis or Hank Williams, Cash retains a certain cachet in current popular culture even in death. More proof of his enduring legend is on the way as plans to celebrate what would have been the American icon’s 80th birthday unfold later this month and year.

There will be a groundbreaking on the project to preserve Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, Ark, on Feb 26, his birthday. A new Cash museum will open in Nashville later this year and several music releases are expected to commemorate the anniversary of his birth. There are three documentaries in the works as well.

Interest remains as high as ever more than eight years after his death in 2003 at 71 of complications from diabetes. “He appealed to people and still appeals to people who have a small CD collection and live in middle America just as much as the punk on the streets of Germany,” Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, said. “And that’s sort of magical the way he’s been able to do that still, that his image still draws people from all walks of life.” The Cash family is most excited about the project in Dyess. Many of Cash’s children and grandchildren will attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Project, an undertaking led by Arkansas State University.

Fundraising for the project began last summer and the family and university hope to restore the house Cash grew up in and its outbuildings. ASU also has taken over other buildings of historic importance that remain from the New Deal era Dyess Colony and want to reflect not only Cash’s life, but the reality of The Great Depression. The government put 500 families in homes with small agricultural land grants at a time of great hardship, and Rosanne Cash says without exaggeration that it saved her family. Her father would later become a citizen of the world, but his time in Dyess was instrumental in shaping his sound and his world view.

Rosanne Cash says of all the thousands of tributes and moments of recognition her father has received over the years, the restoration “has really captured my heart.” The house is being restored based on photos and the memories of relatives. It will be furnished and decorated as it was when the family lived there in the 1930s and ‘40s. ASU plans to establish a museum and a space for workshops, demonstrations and classes. “It’s so amazing how you don’t realize how important these touchstones in your ancestry are until your parents are gone,” Rosanne Cash said. “There’s this paradox that you can’t really feel it or realize it while they’re here, so there’s a tremendous amount of poignancy and embracing it and protecting it and preserving it for future generations, and drawing my own children into it. It’s a big deal to me.”

Bill Miller, a Cash memorabilia collector and the operator of the Johnny Cash website is behind the Nashville museum, which will be located on Music City’s busy Lower Broadway tourist strip,

“right in the middle of the hubbub,” John Carter Cash said. The museum will be filled with pieces from The House of Cash, which closed in 1999, and other items endowed by the family. “He’s been an incredible supporter of my dad and one of the largest collectors of memorabilia,” Rosanne Cash said. “If anybody has the whole structure to put up a museum, he does. So I have a lot of trust in him and I think it’s great at this point. I think he’ll do something with dignity and class that’s historically important, not some kitschy thing. I’m very interested in seeing what he does.”

No celebration of Cash would be complete without music.

There’s been plenty since his death, including the completion of his American Recordings work with producer Rick Rubin and the start of a bootleg series. The twoCD “Bootleg IV: The Soul of Truth,” focusing on gospel and spiritual songs recorded in the 1970s and ‘80s, will be out April 3 and will include some unreleased material.

And Columbia/Legacy plans other releases later this year, including a large box set, but details on those projects are not yet available.

Johnny Cash Whatever is released will find a willing audience, eager to hear new material or learn something new about The Man in Black. “Dad was, I don’t know how else to put it but to say, he was the real deal,” John Carter Cash said. “He had a humility and a charm and a style and a charisma that just still attracts people to him. Through his music, his writings and the other people who study his life, it’s inspiring. And I think that’s a great thing that people are inspired by my father still.”—AP

e niv rsar n

y

A

Brown takes his career to new heights as a rapper

Years

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

38

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama poses for photographers in front of her painting ‘Love Arrives at the Earth Carrying with it a Tale of the Cosmos’, center bottom, and other paintings at the Tate Modern in London, yesterday. An exhibition by the artist runs at the gallery from Feb. 9 until June 5. — AP

N

icolas Chow places a magnifying glass against a Ming Dynasty vase to inspect the potter’s 600-year old workmanship.

Chow, the international head of Chinese ceramics and works of art at auction giant Sotheby’s, points out layers of uneven bubbles invisible to the naked eye along the early 15th Century blue and white porcelain. The distinctive markings are just one tell-tale sign that experts rely on to determine if a piece is a multi-million dollar original or worthless fake. “That happens in the firing process-they did not have an even temperature in (kilns) during the 15th century,” Chow said of the piece, which fetched nearly US$22 million at auction in Hong Kong late last year, setting a world record price for Ming Dynasty porcelain.

“The feel of the glaze is also incredibly important. Just running your hands over it will give you the answer. “Potters in the old days would do lots and lots of these, one after the other.

They breathed it, they lived it. It’s very difficult for fakers to recreate....But there is still a degree of fear in the market.” The demand for Chinese antiquities has exploded, helping propel Hong Kong to third spot in the global auction market behind London and New York as collectors slap down eye-popping sums for a piece of the country’s history.

Helping drive the boom is a growing class of super-rich Chinese looking for opportunities to exploit their net worth while also “reclaiming” parts of Chinese history from Western collectors.

Auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s together raised over $460 million from sales of Chinese antiquities and art works last year, but the market has also generated a slew of fakes from conmen hoping to make big bucks.

“There are many fakes on the market, and there are probably more now because the price of these antiquities have increased dramatically,” Tang Hoi-chiu, chief curator of Hong Kong’s Museum of Art, told AFP. “There are some very good copies out there.” The problem was highlighted again last month when questions arose about the authenticity of a jade dressing table

This photo taken on September 30, 2011 shows the head of Sothebyís Chinese Ceramics Department, Nicolas Chow, checking a Ming Dynasty blue and white vase with fruit sprays in Hong Kong. —AFP photos and stool from the Han dynasty, which had fetched about $35 million at a mainland Chinese auction.

Experts are now publicly questioning the piece since Chinese were believed to have sat on the floor, not stools or chairs, during the ancient period which ran from about 206 BC to AD220, the South China Morning Post reported. Facts and figures about the black market in antiquities are difficult to come by, although many fakes are produced in mainland China, said Rosemary Scott, international academic director to Christie’s Asian art departments.

Scott has seen fakes many times larger than

they should be and other amateur mistakes that can make determining authenticity a 30-second operation. “Some are absolutely dreadful and some are very good,” she said. “In one case, a person presented me with (a piece) that was taller than me when it’s only supposed to be a foot tall.” But other items can take weeks or longer to determine if they’re genuine, demanding a rigorous checklist, she said.

Auction houses use various means including carbon dating to pinpoint a piece’s age, but that requires taking a value-denting sample and threatens to make an item less appealing to keen-eyed collectors. “You have to decide if it’s worth it because (carbon dating) could make the piece less aesthetically pleasing or just plain disfiguring,” Scott said. The art expert said she runs pieces through a slew of criteria before making a determination and often brings in colleagues to gauge their opinion.

“Does it have the right shape?” she said. “Is it the right texture, the right colour, was it painted with the right kind of brush?” And when a piece fetches a giant price tag, auction houses are sure to be flooded with offers of similar antiquities, though most don’t pass muster.”Within a few weeks, we are being offered copies of that piece,” said Pola Antebi, head of Chinese ceramics and works of art at Christie’s Hong Kong.” The turnaround is pretty scary.”

Complicating matters, some Chinese emperors ordered underlings to recreate works from earlier periods, which do not count as fakes, while there are also genuine pieces that have been retouched over the centuries.”That is a restoration issue, it is not an authenticity issue.

But collectors prefer untouched, so something has not been altered in any way,” Antebi said, adding that retouching can slash a piece’s value by half or more.

Most genuine works come from established collectors, but ordinary people also tap auction houses to authenticate pieces that may have been in their families for years, or ones they bought without first confirming their credentials.” People’s expectations of the value are quite high. So when you tell them (the piece) is not going to pay for school fees or their retirement, it’s terribly difficult,” Antebi said, adding that she delivers the news “as politely as possible.”

In other cases, phony collectors “just ask too many questions” when they are told a piece is not genuine, suggesting they are trying to learn how to make a more convincing fake that will evade detection, Scott said. Auction houses have even pulled items displayed in pre-sale catalogues when doubts about their authenticity lingered. “Our reputation is paramount-it’s what we stand by,” Scott said. For Chow at Sotheby’s, spotting fakes means taking stock of every minute detail, although experts are not keen to reveal all their secrets for fear they could fall into the wrong hands. “But after some time you just get a feel,” Chow said.—AFP

S

panish leaders and the entire art world mourned yesterday the death of the great avant-garde painter and sculptor Antoni Tapies.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent a message of condolences to the family of Tapies, who died in Barcelona on Monday aged 88, describing him as “one of the great reformers of 20th century art”. “His work and career will remain in the memory of all as a benchmark of indelible excellence in plastic arts as much in Spain as in the world,” the Spanish leader said. Opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Tapies, who had been ill for a while and whose funeral will be held in private at the family’s wish, was the most important Spanish artist of the second half the 20th century.

“Tapies was radically free in his creativity, and this freedom made itself known as much in his work as in his ethical commitment to society,” the Socialist leader said. Tapies was “my country’s greatest master of painting,” said fellow Catalan painter Miquel Barcelo. “A whole man,” he wrote in a homage. The Catalan won worldwide renown with abstract canvases and compositions in material ranging from paint to discarded clothes. Among his more controversial works was “The Sock”, a three meter-high model of a sock with a hole in its heel. The sock was a favorite motif of the artist, who said that art should be made from simple things.

Tributes poured in, with the director of the major Reina Sofia art museum in Madrid, Manuel Borja-Villel, hailing Tapies’ tactile works, which were exhibited worldwide. “This is a sad night... but the important thing is that we still have his works, which are extraordinary, as well as his work as a collector, his foundation and his writings,” he told public radio RNE. “His work maintained a structural ambiguity that made it hard to absorb in a system that needs rules and comfort,” the museum director added in an article for leading daily El Pais.

“Moving between the objection, the pictorial and the written, his canvasses had something of sculptural or tactile and show the rules of painting fleeing from any kind of idealism,” Borja-Villel wrote. Tapies was associated early on in his career with 20th-century art greats, including fellow Catalans Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. He met Picasso in France, according to the Antoni Tapies Foundation which he founded in his native Barcelona and which confirmed his death in an email to AFP. —AFP

In these archive photo taken on October 26, 2004, Spanish sculptor Antonio Tapies looks at one of his artworks during the inauguration of his exhibition at the in the Reina Sofia Center for the Arts in Madrid. — AFP