9th Aug

CR IP TI ON BS SU

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

03:36 03:46 05:12 11:54 15:29 18:33 19:58

Syrian rebels see future fight with foreign radicals

NO: 15534

14 20 MPs warn government against Tehran meeting

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Emsak: Fajer: Shoruk: Dohr: Asr: Maghreb: Eshaa:

Attar makes Olympic track debut for Saudi women

www.kuwaittimes.net

RAMADAN 21, 1433 AH

‘Iran’s hands stained with Syrian blood’ conspiracy theories

Positive!!!

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

M

y editor always criticizes my negativism.

This happened again last night when I came to write an article. “People are tired of your pessimism,” she said. She asked me to write something positive. ‘Is she crazy? Do you see anything positive in the environment around us,’ I told myself. I wanted to scream but instead I decided to put it in an article.

Please, give me something positive and I will write about it. I am an optimistic person by nature and I always believe in human positivism. I never lose hope. I live on hope that God is merciful and there will be hope for everybody. But what could be the source of my positive inspiration simply looking at things everywhere around me?

Listening to the news, even outside of Kuwait, makes you lose hope completely. We haven’t closed the chapter of the Batman mass shooting in Colorado when another shooting rampage, which I am sure you know about, happened in the United States this week. A former American veteran started shooting at random in a Sikh temple killing seven people and injuring over 30 others.

Allegedly, the media speculated, he was targeting Muslims. Muslims or no Muslims the people who died are victims of a brutal murder.

Zoom back to our region and look at what is happening in Egypt. As I am writing this 20 Egyptian soldiers were killed at iftar time. Of course, it is clear that this act of violence means to turn the Egyptians against the Palestinians after the opening of the Rafah border for trapped Palestinians for many years during the Mubarak regime. Look nowhere further than Israel because they are the only ones who will benefit from such a plot. It is not in the interest of the Palestinians to do this. On the contrary it harms their cause.

Look at Syria. There, I am totally lost. I don’t know who is wrong and who is right. I just see victims, refugees, wounded people and demolished homes. Drive 10 kilometers into Gaza and you can imagine the situation there. There are bombardments every day. The news even stopped mentioning them. The killings of teenagers who are deprived of their youth have become a daily affair.

Do not forget our Northern neighbor where it is a daily routine for at least 20 or 30 people to be killed in so-called terrorist attacks. Either a market is shelled down or streets end up torn into pieces.

Do not forget Bahrain and Yemen too. No need to even mention what is going on there.

Let’s sail to Manila because honestly you need a boat there. The heavy rains have nearly swamp the capital. Move a little bit further to Afghanistan and the beautiful news from the area. If you drive further to Pakistan where no-pilot planes are bombarding weddings or innocent soldiers; mosques explosions abound and markets set ablaze. From Afghanistan go down to India - if they don’t have massacres and killings, they had just had a mass power outage which put the country on a standstill for days.

Either drive or ride a mule to tiny Burma, which the world has ignored totally. There, the massacres of Burmese and the Rohingya Muslims who albeit happening are largely un-reported for whatever reasons. Forget the beautiful Bangladesh and its flooding problem every now and then. Even the beautiful rich Gulf has not been spared from turmoil. The fast advancing Emirates where innovation is happening at the speed of light, is not spared from other dilemmas too. I hope that nothing serious happens there.

Reports of arrests are circulating now.

Iran is a chapter on its own. Reports there ranges from the American anger and the isolation of the international community to the threats of closure of international airspace etc. I just landed in Kuwait. It is horrible I don’t know where to start from. And our editor wants me to be positive!!!

Enjoy the last 10 days of Ramadan in a peaceful and worshipping mood. That will be the only positive thing you could do.

KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed received Kuwaiti Olympic bronze-medalist Fuhaid Al-Daihani at his Palace in Bayan yesterday. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Several lawmakers yesterday warned the government against taking part in a meeting in Tehran today to discuss the crisis in Syria, saying that the Islamic republic hands are stained with the blood of the Syrian people. Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtabai said that Kuwait’s participation in the Tehran meeting is “rejected because Iran hands are stained with the blood of the Syrian people”, adding that the meeting also aims at rescuing the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

Iran said earlier this week that 10 countries with a rational stance toward the Syrian crisis were invited to a meeting in Tehran today, but did not reveal the names of those countries. A top aide to the Iranian foreign minister visited Kuwait on Sunday and handed Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah an invitation to attend the meeting. So far, Kuwait has not announced any position on the meeting but Islamist MP Jamaan Al-Harbash said he is confident that Kuwait will not take part, insisting that participation in the conference amounts to a betrayal to the blood of the Syrian martyrs.

Islamist MP Mohammad Hayef said those “participating in Iran conference are politically contributing in supporting the tyrannical regime in Syria because the regimes of Bashar and Iran are two faces of the same coin”. Hayef asked what would Iran provide when it has been deadly opposing the downfall of the Syrian regime. MP Mubarak Al-Waalan said that taking part in the Tehran meeting is a “political and military participation in the killing of our brothers in Syria and backing a sectarian regime that is brutally killing an unarmed people,” he said.

In another development, opposition MPs yesterday issued one of the strongest warnings to the government so far regarding the controversial issue of the reported government plan to refer the electoral law to Continued on Page 13 Ramadan Kareem

12 jailed for ‘illegal gathering’ MUSCAT: An Omani cour t sentenced 12 people yesterday to up to a year in jail for “illegal gathering”, their lawyer said, in a further move against unrest inspired by last year’s Arab Spring revolts. Recent protests in Oman, which fronts the Gulf sea lane through which much of the world’s oil trade is shipped, point to difficulties in implementing a strategy of defusing discontent by creating tens of thousands of public sector jobs.

On Monday, another cour t in Muscat sentenced eight people to a year in jail over Internet posts it called “incitement” against the government, a court official said. The verdicts in both cases can be appealed. The 12 defendants, who included a television presenter and a

lawyer, were also fined 200 Omani rial ($520) each, their lawyer Badr AlBahri said. “The 12, who have been convicted of illegal gathering, are now arranging to pay a bail of 1,000 rials ($2,600) each since they say they want to appeal against the sentencing,” a court official told Reuters, declining to be identified.

In the case of those convicted of “incitement”, the court official said the defendants had criticized the government for perceived inefficiency in creating jobs and a clampdown on protests that recently flared anew. Ten other people were sentenced last month to up to 18 months in jail over comments directed against the longtime Omani ruler, Sultan Qaboos, on social media websites and during protests in late May

that grew out of strikes in the oil sector - which accounts for most state revenue.

Sultan Qaboos - in power for 42 years and now the longest-serving Arab head of state following the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi last year - promised thousands of jobs and unemployment benefits in response to last year’s disturbances.

Perceived failures and delays in making good on such promises were rallying cries in the recent protests, which saw anger directed against the once-sacrosanct figure of the sultan. Oman’s public prosecutor pledged to prosecute such statements under its information technology law, which formed the basis of the latest rulings as well as the earlier verdicts. — Reuters

Egypt gunships kill 20 militants CAIRO: Egyptian helicopter gunships killed 20 militants in Sinai yesterday, state media and the army said, days after 16 soldiers were killed in an attack attributed to Islamist extremists. The military’s strikes on Tumah village — its first in the peninsula for decades — were carried out as security forces massed near Rafah on the Gaza border for what they called a decisive confrontation with the militants.

A senior military official in Sinai, who

spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said “20 terrorists were killed” in Apache helicopter raids and when soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division stormed Tumah. Other security officials in the north of the peninsula reported air strikes near the town of Sheikh Zuwayid, close to the village. But state news agency MENA gave a conflicting account of how the militants were killed.

Continued on Page 13

ISLAMABAD: An Afghan refugee reads verses of the Quran during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in a mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad yesterday. — AP

Max 47º Min 30º High Tide 04:18 & 16:55 Low Tide 10:28 & 22:06

The Last 10 Days

By Dr Yousef Yaqoub

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believe that all of us know that Ramadan is a very special month in Islam and has an important place in the hearts of the Muslims. It is the month of fasting, kindness, mercy and self-discipline. Having said that, the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan receive more attention by the Muslims all over the globe. Probably it is meant to train the hearts and the minds of the Muslims on taking care of the moments of this month before it leaves us. It is a special goodbye. But it’s all according to the teachings of God. Aisha, the wife of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said: “When the last ten days of Ramadan start, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) tightens his waist veil, stays awake during the nights and awakens his family” (Bukhari and Muslim). It means that the days and nights of this last third part of Ramadan became a Continued on Page 13

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

local

MC Group celebrates life at Ramadan ghabqa

Sheikha Sheikha Al-Abdullah honored by Ahmed Alajouz.

A group photo

Sheikha Sheikha Al-Abdullah with her sons.

The divers Khaled Al-Dousari and Meshal Al-Rshaid being honored by Ahmed Alajouz in the presence of Sheikha Sheikha Al-Abdullah.

Ahmed Alajouz welcomes the guests.

KUWAIT: The Honorary Chairperson of the Handicapped Society Sheikha Sheikha AlAbdullah Al-Sabah emphasized on the necessity to make people with special needs be made aware of their role in society. She pointed out that such people possess talent and creativity that surpasses some normal people.

Sheikha Sheikha Al-Abdullah was speaking during a special Ramadan ghabqa organized

by MC Group, a leading marketing and advertising group. It was entitled ‘Life’s Desire’ at Kuwait Marina Hotel. Guests included representatives from the media and local magazines, and a number of advertising agencies.

She added that life can be fulfilled only with determination, and it (determination) does not distinguish between the handicapped or otherwise, pointing out that if aim and determination are present, any individual can achieve goals.

She said, “we have to give Kuwait what it deserves. This good country has given love and kindness and security, and we must pay

back with good will, and achieve our ambitions and through MC Group ghabqa. This mission will be achieved. We wish that other organizations can complete this humane mission.”

She thanked the CEO for MC Group Company and all its employees for their support by holding special ghabqa, calling upon all organizations to offer what they can do for the disabled. She also expressed her happiness on attending the special event and thanked the audience for their participation.

The CEO of the group Ahmad Alajouz, explained in his speech, on the importance of focusing on some charity events.

Alajouz added, “this year we thought of celebrating with an important segment of the society. They have the patience and ability to give. They live in our hearts. They are our brothers and sons. We find among them the poets, creative artists, painters and sports champions.” He hailed the stars of the ‘ghabqa’ this year and honored the disabled.

Dr Tareq Saleh honoring Khalid Al-Dousari.

Dr Tareq Saleh honoring Meshal Al-Rshaid.

A group photo

Ahmed Alajouz honoring Sheikha Entisar AlMohammed.

Ali Alajouz honoring Adel Al-Farhan

Ahmed Alajouz, Abdullah Al-Shammari, Sheikha Sheikha AlAbdullah Al-Sabah, Ali Alajouz and Dr Tareq Saleh.

Habib Swayed honoring Abdullah AlShammari.

Nizar Ahmed honoring Manadi Al-Omani.

local

KUWAIT: The Ambassador of India Satish C Mehta hosted an annual iftar on Tuesday at India House in a spirit of friendship and brotherhood. A large number of prominent Kuwaitis, distinguished ambassadors from Asian countries and representatives of Indian community in Kuwait and other dignitaries attended the event. The ambassador conveyed Ramadan greetings to all and thanked them for coming to India House to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

Bosnian Imam praises Kuwaiti aid MOSTAR: Salem Dedovic, Head Imam in Mostar, a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thanked the Kuwaiti embassy’s support of local religious activities in the ethnically diverse area. Dedovic praised the role of the embassy in supporting the unity of Muslims in the country, during his meeting with Kuwaiti Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Mohammad Fahdel Khalaf.

Khalaf is currently on a field program, visiting officials in the city.

Chairman of Provincial Council of Herzegovina where Mostar is located Ramez Julavits, said that “the bilateral ties between the two countries are rich,” and praised the support given by Kuwait to the Bosnians to defend their land and people, noting that Kuwait has long supported them since claiming independence.

The mayor of the city, who presented Ambassador Khalaf with a commemorative gift, noted the continuous aid provided by Kuwait that has resulted in the construction of a square in the middle of the beautiful ancient city situated by the Neretva river.— KUNA

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

LOCAL in my view

Letters to Badrya Darwish

Arab problems

Middle East, Picture Perfect!

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

Hi Badrya,

By Fouad Al-Obaid

Just a short note, I hope the US never gets involved in any more conflicts in this region. Let the Arabs solve their own problems. Get all the GCC countries together and go fight Assad. We are tired of losing our men and women fighting thousands of miles away from our country for nothing. We just need to take our bats and balls and go home from the Middle East. Let us get all of our troops out of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE, and send them home.

fouad@kuwaittimes.net Twitter: @Fouadalobaid he Middle East is a diverse part of the world that is tragically exposed globally as a terrorism production center with massive oil wealth, and veiled women. I would concur that not everything in the above mentioned assumption is wrong.

Certainly it does not paint a complete picture. The Middle East is today in a state of clash; externally as much as internally, notions on societal build-up and composition are playing themselves out in most countries in the region. The Arab Spring of last year spiced things up. For the first time, the revolutions and political changes in many Arab states offered disenfranchised people hope for a brighter, more self-determined future. For the Islamists especially, it gave a window into the driving seat of power; a chance to finally attempt to implement their much touted ‘Islam is the way’ political platform. For everyday Arabs, it is a time of great discomfort as ideals and realities clash.

An example of how the ideals and reality clash is playing out, and the effect it has on the composition and mores of Middle Eastern societies is startling. Recently, I attended an event where a part of the series of performances a young veiled female blessed us with her singing to a non-segregated crowd! In the West, such an issue would go un-noticed - as it ought to - however this only enhances this article’s point about a confused society, with an identity crisis looming over.

Another strong aspect of Middle Eastern culture is the closeknit relation between the extended family - with a strong emphasis on the nuclear family. The rise in divorce rates is always a cause of alarm, for it paints a picture of a collapsing regressing society that is literally torn apart. It also throws into question rites and traditions that have traditionally made it hard for couples to ‘know’ one another at an intimate level pre-marriage. The reason being that the Islamic religion and Middle Eastern society heavily weighs in that particular question.

Globalization and the growing number of women entering the workforce has radically transformed a once given paradigm that of the subjugated wife/mother. The ramifications are dual: on the one hand female fiscal independence means that their need for a man will decrease as it gives them leverage on whom to marry if they choose to! The other is the deepening trust crisis that divorce engenders and makes acceptable. Leaving many people to question the need to marry under traditional circumstances whereby the couple would be thrown unprepared to a binding relation without proper personal whetting, and no-living together experience!

The effect of such a situation will undoubtedly lead to a change of society that could be either good or bad. The paths are perhaps confined to two primary possibilities: the liberalization of society, and the failure of the Islamic project.

Alternatively, the perceived breakdown of society and its deviation from its past path will lead to greater militancy by primarily an Islamist cast, and may well replace autocratic rule with a theological nightmare!

T

Adrian

in my view kuwait digest

The best way out of the ordeal

Olympics and world peace

By Abdullah Al-Nebari he level of solidarity that Kuwaitis showed during the Iraqi Invasion, foiling all attempts made by the enemy to make even a single citizen cooperate with the invading army, garnered the respect of the international community, which served as a reason for which the world decided to stand by Kuwaitis.

On the 22nd anniversary of the invasion, Kuwaitis have gone so far away from that image they shown and are proud of. National unity became threatened more than ever before after abandoning nationalism in favor of tribalism and sectarianism.

The position Kuwait finds itself in today reflects mismanagement and inflexibility in dealing with the political crisis the country suffers from. By continuing the policy of trading blames and accusations, both the government and parliamentary blocs are leading Kuwaiti to further instability. Resolving the dilemma pertinent with the present electoral system that divides Kuwait into five constituencies, cannot be made by going to the Constitutional Court. It cannot be achieved through more hardheadedness from lawmakers. Legal experts believe that the Constitutional Court is likely to rule the current system unconstitutional, which gives the Cabinet the right or justification to dissolve the 2009 parliament, and then issue a new and improved electoral law through a decree outside the parliament. Reports about the government’s plans to change the elections system raises concern of many who still feel bitter from previous experiences which do not provide guarantees that they can come up with a fair system.

It is likely that a new system introduced solely by the government will serve its own interests, and produce a parliament dominated by a pro-government majority with an opposition that is either weak or non-existent. The reason I believe so is because the government has for 50 years since the Constitution’s enforcement been working on limiting the opposition’s numbers, either through

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changing the constituencies’ distribution or limiting the number of votes each citizen can make. Reducing the number of votes will be catastrophic because that would leave the door wide open for vote buying to expand, than when the electoral system has 25 constituencies. Referring the electoral system to the Constitutional Court is a questionable step because the constitutionality with which the government looks to appeal was introduced to the parliament by the government itself on 2006, followed by the government in three elections that followed (2008, 2009, 2012). Has the government been unaware about the law’s questionable constitutional status all this time?

On the other hand, the decision of parliamentary blocs to boycott the 2009 parliament only helps the government go ahead with what they are protesting against: issuing a new electoral law through an emergency decree. In my opinion, the issue can be resolved by either one of two solutions. The first is dissolve the 2009 parliament and hold new elections as per the current system, after which the new parliament changes the law. This option faces two problems. The current law is vulnerable to annulment by a Constitutional Court order if any candidate or voter appeals its constitutionality. Also, we cannot guarantee that members of the next parliament can agree on a new legislation, and issue it before the Constitutional Court can pass a verdict to annul the elections.

The second option, which is the easiest in my opinion, is for MPs to reconsider their stance about boycotting the 2009 parliament sessions and take the opportunity to push the political reform process forward. This can be achieved by holding sessions to change the electoral law, and enforce anti-corruption law.

MP Saleh Ashour recently suggested the idea of dialogue to reach an agreement on the current situation. Some members of the opposition reacted positively to his idea. —Al-Qabas

kuwait digest

The Kuwaiti expatriates

By Thaar Al-Rashidi sually I call my Arab and foreigner friends and colleagues who were born in Kuwait “Kuwaiti Expats”. I consider every person born on this land a Kuwaiti by birth. Regardless of his nationality, color or religion they are Kuwaitis just as those with deep family ties to this land. What there is no room for is racism.

I remember a story from 2004, when Canadian authorities arrested a computer engineer who carried Canadian nationality on charges of being a member of Al-Qaeda. At that time International News Agencies, including The BBC and CNN reported the nationality of the suspect as follows: “The arrest of a Canadian engineer of Kuwaiti origin on charges of being a member of Al-Qaeda”. At that time I was the head of the security department at the Al-Anba Daily, and I started calling the ministry of interior leaders searching for this accused Kuwaiti. The answer I got was that there is no Kuwaiti citizen carrying this name reported by news agencies. After an extended search, I discovered that the man was actually of Palestinian origin, born in Kuwait in 1957,and left Kuwait for good in 1970.So although he had been living outside of Kuwait for nearly 40 years- the international community still considered him to be Kuwaiti.

And this goes to all expats who were born in Kuwait. They are Kuwaitis by birth, regardless of the citizenship law. The same thing also is applicable to the “bedoons”. The bedoon story is much deeper and complicated, requiring more research. Everyone born on this land however has a right to it in one way or another. This right is imposed by humanity as well as laws. Some logic states that any expat born in Kuwait must renege his Kuwaiti status at the age of 21. At that point he is required to look for a sponsor to complete his life on the land he was born on. May be his luck throws him to a residency trader, who sells him a fake residency at a bogus company. Why aren’t “Kuwaiti Expats” not given the right to sponsor themselves as a sort of “living application” to the principals of birth right? Why are they not treated as an exceptional case as per their security records and how clean those records are.

It should be noted that most expats have very clean records, otherwise they would have been deported.

Why hasn’t the ministry of interior opened the files of article 24, allowing expats born in Kuwait to sponsor themselves. I am not saying give him nationality, although he had the right legally to apply for it as per one of the law articles. I’m merely suggesting we give them exception to sponsor themselves and the right of government. education for those having honor grades. They are Kuwaitis by birth; they know the laws, the language, the national anthem from start to finish, the geography, the customs. We should give them exception in residency and medical treatment and education as they are logically and humanely the sons of this land. Having a liberal policy like this would show the rest of the world how advanced and forward thinking we really are. —Al-Watan

By Labeed Abdal

labeed@kuwaittimes.net

he international participation in London’s Olympic games must be filled with moments of hardships and eases of different feelings for the players, where some will win and some will lose.

It remains in all meanings of games , that there must be high spirit, honor and participation. There were some players, who started to apologize to their nations or go deep into sorrow, when they lost after the pressures of their teams, coaches or public.

In all of those cases , the main thing will remain the opportunity which will bring all the young and youthful players as men and women together and to compete for excellence. It’s indeed a historical moment for all participants and open chance which can be for more excitement, friendship,equality, courage and a mark of achievement.

Moreover, those Olympic games can be open channels of dialogue and peace for the athletes and their countries of the world.

Kuwait’s participation in the shooting games and wining the bronze medal was one good accomplishment that can bring inspiration for many other young Kuwaitis.

Players will be competing for faster, stronger, and higher in the games and politicians must use this to break the ice or barriers between the their players and their nations, to open doors and chances of peace.

T

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NO: 15534

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RAMADAN 21, 1433 AH

What was the name of the Messiah (Jesus)’s mother?

Lady Mariam/Mary (PBUH) Mary Magdalene St. Veronica

in my view

An oasis of giving

By Abdullah Buwair

t wasn’t strange to see HH Sheikh Salem Al-Ali AlSabah make a KD60 million donation recently to Kuwaiti citizens, given it wasn’t his first. It comes following other donations in which HH gave KD 100 million to help defaulters, and KD 30 million as an encouragement to Kuwaiti servicemen.

Such contributions are part of Sheikh Salem Al-Ali’s tendencies of putting the smile back on the faces of Kuwaiti citizens who are always in his heart.

The recent donation reflects Sheikh Salem’s commitment to contribute to improving citizens’ living conditions and achieving human development. HH is a huge proponent of showing appreciation to efforts of Kuwaitis who sought higher studies to serve their country, and that by giving them a financial aid that helps them face the many difficulties along the paths they have bravely chosen.

The KD 60 million donation was divided as follows: KD 20 million for PhD holders who graduate from the Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training course. Each graduate appointed at the teaching staff in either at the KU or PAAET collects KD 20,000. Another KD 20 million is divided to citizens who marry Kuwaiti women, with each Kuwaiti family receiving KD 6,000. The last KD 20 million is used to help defaulters with KD 4,000 for each citizen to help reduce their debts.

On this occasion, we pray to the Almighty God that He blesses HH Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah. God bless Kuwait, its people and leadership led by HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, and HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Local

Iraqi compensation utilized to launch joint airlines with Kuwait Mega projects approved

By A. Saleh KUWAIT: Kuwait and Iraq plan to launch a jointly operated airlines using a part of the compensations paid to the Kuwait Air ways for destroying its fleet during the 1990/91 invasion. Sources indicated that the contract to establish the company ‘is almost ready’ and is to be signed sometime before the end of the year “during a planned visit by HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah to Baghdad.”

The Kuwaiti and Iraqi government reached a settlement recently concerning $500 million compensation owed by the Iraqi Airways.

The agreement calls for $300 million to be paid in cash, and $200 million to be invested in a joint project.

“A Kuwaiti-Iraqi technical team is currently working on preparing the formula, work mechanism and structure of the new company to be brought to life in the near future,” sources added.

New projects The Cabinet’s development committee is expected next week to adopt a number of legal reports that prove the legality of the north Zour Power Plant and Jaber Causeway projects, as well as the state’s privatization program.

According to sources, the legal opinion “proved that no violations have been committed in the placement and rewarding process for tenders of the two mega projects,” adding that speculation about suspicious practices committed by the government in these processes “are based on inaccurate information.”

After projects are approved by the development committee, they will become eligible for execution after being passed by the Cabinet, added sources.

‘Excessive workers’ Minister of State for Planning and

Development Dr Rola Dashti issued orders to reduce the budgets of three state departments “in order to save funds through fresh budgets that cut wastage while continuing to meet their financial needs effectively.”

The Dashty’s decision, who is also the Minister of State for Parliament Affairs, affects the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development, the Central Statistical Office, and the Ministry of Parliament Affairs.

Meanwhile, sources said that Dashti found errors in the organizational structure of the Ministry of Parliament affairs, including “a large number of registered employees who do not perform any actual tasks”. “The minister discovered case for employees receiving salaries without reporting to offices, and others who are studying outside Kuwait without notifying their administrations,” sources said, adding that “Dashti found that the average number of employees exceeds the actual work level ministry needs, proving that appointment was done on the basis of favoritism.” The minister is expected to make an announcement regarding the issue soon, sources said.

Adalah bloc Members of the Adalah Bloc were recently approached by opposition figure Ahmad Al-Saadoun and the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) to take part in public demonstrations they plan to stage at the Iradah Square if the electoral system is left to the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction. The members, however, did not give a different word about attending the gatherings.

“While members of the Adalah Bloc reject the notion of changing constituencies’ distribution or verifying the electoral system’s constitutionality with the Constitutional Cour t, they do not find public demonstrations a viable option because it could produce problems

that further contribute to dividing the society,” explains sources close to the Islamist group. Sources indicate that the bloc’s head Mohammad Hayef refuses to take part in demonstrations, but member Osama AlMunawer is still leaving the door open to participation.

Meanwhile, ministries reportedly plan to issue warnings to their respective labor unions against “taking part in activities outside their field of specialty within the workplace.”

This comes in response to calls made by the opposition asking labor unions to boycott elections if the electoral system is changed.

In the meantime, MP Aseel AlAwadhi accused the opposition of using the current crisis to ‘regroup,’ and the Cabinet of working to prevent them from obtaining a majority in future elections in a statement released yesterday.

“The Majority Bloc is looking for a case that bring its members together after fundamental difference appeared in crucial matters,” she said, referring to the coalition of oppositionists that dominated the majority seats in the annulled 2012 parliament. “The Cabinet is looking for a way out to ensure that the 2012 scenario is not repeated in the next elections.”

Member of the annulled parliament Nabeel Al-Fadhl questioned in the meantime “figures announced by the opposition bloc which they claim is for the number of signatures collected on their petition to reject changing the electoral constituencies.” The opposition have announced that the number already exceeded 2,000. Al-Fhadhl also urged Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah to avoid submitting to the opposition’s demands or “give them the opportunity to interfere in the ruling family’s affair,” warning the premier that “the road to the Crown Prince post does not go through AlSaadoun’s diwan”.

ASEAN establishment anniversary celebrated (Message by Long Kem, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Cambodia to the State of Kuwait and Chairman of the ASEAN Committee in Kuwait on the 45th anniversary of the establishment of ASEAN on Aug 8, 1967) t the outset, on behalf of all ASEAN Ambassadors in Kuwait, namely Pengiran Haji Mustafa Aliuddin Ambassador of Brunei Darussalam, Ferry Adamhar, Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia, Thongphachanh Sonnasinh, Ambassador of Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Dato’ Adnan Haji Othman, Ambassador of Malaysia, Ko Ko Latt, Ambassador of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Shulan O. Primavera, Ambassador of the Republic of Philippines, Surasak Chuasukonthip, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand, Bui Quoc Trung, Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, I would like to wish Kuwaiti people and other expatriates who observe Ramadan the blessings of this holy month.

Aug 8 is an annual commemoration and this year 2012 we are commemorating the 45th Anniversary of the establish-

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zations. This cooperation has helped ASEAN to play a constructive role in international fora and develop its economy.

Over the last four decades, ASEAN has enjoyed political stability, economic growth and social progress. Despite the global economic downturn, ASEAN member countries have made a strong and sustained recovery from the crisis, with a return to annual GDP growth from 6 to 7% in 2010. The future outlook for ASEAN is bright and positive with its economies projected to grow between 6% and 7% annually over the medium term.

Moreover, the Head of States and governments of ASEAN countries affirmed in 2007 their commitment to accelerate the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015 which is based on three pillars, namely the ASEAN Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Economic

KUWAIT: The ASEAN Ambassadors pose for a group photograph. ment of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN). Taking this opportunity, I would like to brief about the history of ASEAN, its activities and cooperation with dialogue partners since its establishment on August 8, 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand.

From an original membership of five Member States, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, ASEAN has expanded to include Brunei Darussalam in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999.

Since its formation in 1967, ASEAN has consistently promoted and lived its message of peace, equality and common prosperity for all. ASEAN has expanded to become an important regional organization not only in promoting regional development and maintaining stability, but also in fostering closer cooperation with all major powers (Australia, Canada, China, EU, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and United States) as well as with its dialogue partners and other regional and international organi-

Community, and the ASEAN SocioCultural Community. To achieve this community, ASEAN will promote itself as a single market and production base and intensify efforts in making ASEAN a single investment destination. ASEAN covers a land area of 4.46 million square kilometers and has a population of approximately 600 million people. In 2010, its combined nominal GDP had grown to US$.1.8 trillion. ASEAN has great potential in agriculture, agro-industry, infrastructure, labour intensive industries, export oriented industries, exploitation of natural resources such as oil and gas, mining and tourism. These sectors have not yet been fully capitalised and developed.

Hence, ASEAN warmly welcomes foreign investment and assistance to achieve its economic and social development.

In addition to its engagement with dialogue partners and other regional groupings, ASEAN has also elevated its cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council by holding annually meeting of Foreign Ministers from both sides in 2009

in Manama, Bahrain, and in 2010, in Singapore. FMs of ASEAN and GCC has adopted the ASEAN-GCC Two Year Action (2010-2012) which identified activities and measures to be jointly undertaken for the next two years, through sectoral working groups and the two Secretariat of ASEAN and GCC, on areas of trade and investment, economic and development cooperation, education and training, culture and information, and mutual consultation in international affaires.

Regarding the bilateral relations between ASEAN and Kuwait, some of ASEAN member Countries have benefited from the assistance and loan extended by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to develop various projects in the respective ASEAN countries. This assistance has helped reduce the poverty and development gap among the ASEAN member countries. ASEAN and Kuwait business relations are currently still limited at the moment and there are many opportunities to explore them. Kuwait has huge capital, the know-how and the experience. If we combine Kuwait’s assets with ASEAN resources and potential, we strongly believe that it will provide mutual benefits for ASEAN and Kuwait.

In addition, the high level visits of Kuwaiti Head of State and Government to various ASEAN Member States, including the visits of former Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad AlSabah to Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand in 2008 and to Vietnam and Indonesia in 2007, where His Highness received the Highest Order of Merit from Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of the Republic of Indonesia as well as the visits of His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Amir of the State of Kuwait to Thailand in 2006 and to the Philippines earlier this year truly reflect the close and cordial ties that exist between Kuwait and ASEAN. The establishment of new Kuwaiti Embassies in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar in earlier 2012 are testimonies to further strengthen and develop the existing relations of friendship and close cooperation not only bilaterally between member states of ASEAN and Kuwait but also between ASEAN as whole and Kuwait.

Moreover, the formation of the ASEAN Committee in Kuwait (ACK) on 5 May 2011, and the recognition and support extended to it by Kuwait further solidifies the linkage between the two.

Finally, I would like to express my profound thanks to the government and people of Kuwait for their kind cordial relations and close cooperation extended to all ASEAN embassies and their staff to fulfill their diplomatic missions in Kuwait.

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received at Seif Palace the new Kuwaiti ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sheikh Thamar Al-Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah yesterday.

Sheikh Thamer took his oath of office in the attendece of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Rift over safety of KAC building

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Few months ago rumors spread about the headquarters of the Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) in Kuwait City saying its structure may be damaged and it may be dangerous for the employees to stay there. The Ministry of Finance as the responsible authority for the state buildings according which the KAC is renting this building since it was built in the 1970s demanded vacating the building. When the employees of the KAC refused to leave the building, the ministry sent a letter to the municipality asking them to force KAC to leave.

According to the Municipality, the building is not in dangerous situation, and the offices may remain working in there. Head of the Asima Governorate Municipality Saleh AlShimeri stated that a committee of engineers was formed to check the building and they didn’t find any danger.

A source in the Municipality from the Asima governorate noted that

the municipality didn’t take any action regarding the demand of the Ministry of Finance to vacate the building. He also said that further deeper checking maybe done by other experts to examine the building. A managing director at the KAC, who refused to mention his name in this article assured that the KAC’s building is completely safe for the employees working in it. “ We received the letter of the Ministry of Finance demanding us to leave. So we sent a letter to the Minister to delay this decision until we get other experts to check the building. We have reviewed the report of the ministry which stated that the concrete base of the building is not strong, thus it didn’t say the building is about to fall. In fact there are thousands of such building in Kuwait and nobody complained,” he told the Kuwait Times.

According to this director, the KAC has contacted the Ministry of Finance more than 10 times. “The ministry was insisting on vacating the building, and we keep refusing,

and this was the reason behind their report that they sent claiming the concrete has some damages,” he explained.

The rent contract of the KAC building has expired in 2010. “We are following the Law No. 6/2008 regarding the state buildings, and we won’t give up our rights. In the past we also submitted a proposal to the ministry to demolish this building and build a new high towers in its place. The Ministry refused our proposal without mentioning any reason,” he pointed out.

The building was in the beginning the headquarters of KAC including the board of directors which then shifted to Dhajij area.

Currently it’s the main sales office and it accommodates the Region Department. In the place of the department that have moved, the KAC rented the rest of the offices to some companies such as lawyers and others. According to this director, some of the offices left the building, while the majority is still operating there.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

LOCAL

Expat mechanic sexually assaults bedoon woman Youth blackmails underage girl KUWAIT: A bedoon woman accused an expat mechanic of sexually harassing her while checking her car. The mechanic denied her accusations categorically, but the woman called her maid as a witness. Upon checking the records police discovered that the same woman had previously accused 18 other people of harassment, either by phone or other means. A security source said the woman told Nugra police that she noticed that her car needed repairs. She went to the mechanic’s shop where the alledged attacker took the woman and her maid for a test drive to check the car.

During the ride, the man allegedly leapt to the front seat and grabbed a sensitive area of the bedoon woman’s body. After being brought to the police station the man denied any wrong doing, claiming he merely gave the total bill amount to the bedoon woman. He also claims she thought this amount too much and left screaming and cursing. A case of sexual molestation was recorded and the accused was sent to the public prosecution.

Blackmail attempt Mubarak Al-Kabeer Governorate

Detectives Director sent a 22-year-old Kuwaiti to the public prosecution accused of blackmailing an underage girl with pictures she sent to him. A security source said a Kuwaiti lady went with the underage girl to the police station and said the girl became friends with a Kuwaiti man who promised to marry her prompting her to send him personal pictures of her. The girl said that after a period of time she was surprised by the man asking her to go with him to a flat and when she refused he threatened to broadcast the pictures.

When she ignored his threats the accused evidently attempted to blackmail her for KD 20,000 for the pictures.

Detectives located and arrested the man who cooberated being in a relationship and having the photos however he denied any threats he may of made to release them. Investigations are ongoing.

Drug trader Police Najda Director General Brigadier Zuhair Al-Nasrallah ordered a policeman be sent to the Drugs Control Department charged with being in possession of drugs. From there he will be

sent to the public prosecution to face the charge of insulting police officers while on duty and driving his car while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Policemen attacked A security source said that two patrolmen asked for backup because a man attempted to attack them. Policemen eventually subdued the large man only to find out he was a policeman. The two patrolmen said they were surpised when the man knocked at their patrol window and told them to leave or “face a mysterious fate”. When both came out of the car he attacked them. forty illicit drugs tablets were found in his car.

Expat shot at Authorities were informed late Tuesday night that an Iraqi expat was brought to hospital with a bullet wound in his mouth. Policemen went to the hospital and listened to the testimony of a man who brought him there. He said he along with other friends were walking in the area when their friend fell suddenly to the ground as a bullet hit him.

He added that the other friends were able to catch the culprits. Three men

were arrested with a pistol.

Unstable person A citizen who was rejected by one of his female colleagues gave her phone number to an unstable person who kept sending her messages leading her to call the police. The suspect apprehended explained to authorities that another man had given him the phone which led to the arrest of the woman’s co-worker.

According to records, this co-worker also has a histor y of mental illness. The ‘unstable person’ was released.

Egyptians attacked Difference over rent prices between two Egyptians lead one of them to stab the other. The injured was taken to a hospital while the other was taken to jail.

Roommates fight A security source said the building manager had reported that a fight broke out between two roommates. Police arrived at the scene and found one of the men blending.The victim was sent to Farwaniya hospital as investigations are underway.

Sheikha Suad congratulated for winning award KUWAIT: Prominent Kuwaiti poet Abdul Aziz Al-Babtain praised his contemporary Sheikha Suad Al-Sabah for earning the Manhae Award for distinguished literary work. He added that honoring her is an international recognition of the high status of modern Arab intellectual march.

This award is the a prestigious honor for literary works in South Korea. It has been granted annually by the Asian Journalists Association since 1979 in memory of Manhae, a poet and writer who devoted his life to promotion of ideal thoughts, reforms and wisdom.

Manhae award has been granted to famous international intellectual personalities, thus granting it to an Arab writer, such as Sheikha Suad, is considered an international recognition of Arab literary works, said Abdul Aziz, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain for Poetic Creativity.

When asked about his personal assessment of Sheikha Suad, Abdul Aziz indicated that he had expressed his opinion in her in deeds, not words, and that was

when the foundation granted her the honorary award during the session of Shawki and Lamartine, held in Paris in 2006.

Sheikha Suad has gained wide popularity among intellectual circles due to her accomplishments and works, namely the publishing of a long chain of poetic works and her efforts for encouraging poets and writers, such as granting awards in the name of Dar Suad Al-Sabah publishing house.

Abdul Aziz affirmed significance of such an international recognition, poets recalling his personal experience in this respect, when he was honored with the title of the chairman of the World Poetry Academy in Verona, Italy, last year.

The eminent Kuwaiti poet affirmed significance of poetry at the media, social and political levels. Historic events have been chronicled in some poems. Poetry must not be belittled he opined. “Some poems have changed the world,” he expressed his view further.

The Asian Journalists Association, on Sunday, honored the renowned Kuwaiti

poetess with the Manhae Award for 2012 in the southern South Korean town of Inje.

The award is granted by the Society for the Promotion and Practice of Manhae’s Thoughts, which announced last March, winners of the 2012 Manhae Prize, given in three different categories. Sheikha Suad won the award in literature.

The winning announcement mentioned that Dr Suad Al Sabah “helped foster woman’s position in the Arab World, as she has been devoted to poetry writing since 1961, with more than 15 volumes of poetry published, and she also assured the importance of having scientific assistance, through her studies, and gave the Arab youths the chances to promote their literary works.”

Sheikha Suad has published 15 divans.

The first one was ‘Min Omri’ (From My Life), published in 1963. The last one was titled, ‘Letters from the Beautiful Time,’ printed by Suad Al-Sabah Publishing House in 2006.

The eminent poetess and writer delved into patriotic issues, with the release of

her book, ‘Allow Me To Love My Country’ published in 1990, in addition to her historic publications, such as ‘Falcon of the Gulf Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah,’ published in 1995.

Her poetic works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. The crux of her writings have been on basic freedoms of the human race, as well as eliminating barriers of discrimination between the two genders.

Moreover, she is credited for being among the ardent female strugglers who succeeded in attaining political franchise for the Kuwaiti women.

In appreciation of her robust stance in support of Arab human rights, she was granted membership by the Arab Human Rights Organization. In 1995, she was chosen as representative of the United Nations at the International Woman Conference in Beijing. She was one of five figures that were chosen as honorary guests — including the first ladies of the United States and France. Sheikha Suad heads Abdullah Mubarak Al-Sabah Charity, founded in 1992. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Detectives from the General Department for Drug Control (GDDC) arrested a citizen in connection with trading in drugs. They were tipped off on the man’s activities. Detectives then obtained a warrant to arrest him. Upon searching him, they found a bar of hashish. They also raided his place of residence and recovered 500 drug tablets and half a kilogram of hashish and two grams of other drugs.

He confessed to smuggling the drugs from a neighboring country. —Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

Aid for Syrian refugee families in Jordan KUWAIT: Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) distributed aid supplies to 500 Syrian refugee families currently residing in Al-Mafraq City, Jordan, and the relief campaign is ongoing with more activities planned.

KRCS Chairman Barjas Humoud Al-Barjas said, yestrday, this is part of an ongoing relief campaign that delivers aid to Syrian refugees in states neighboring Syria. The families get a food basket that should cover one month, consisting of rice, oil, dates, lentil, milk, and sugar. The society is willing and ready to supply and deliver whatever else the refugees might need, he stressed.

“It is our mission to bring aid to those in need. It is also out of brotherly duty that we carry on with this particular campaign,” hoping to alleviate the suffering of fellow Arabs and Muslims.

The official expressed appreciation for the help and support of the Jordanian Government and the Jordanian Red Crescent as well as the Kuwaiti Embassy in Jordan who facilitated the society’s operations in whatever way they could.

It is most vital to cooperate with the Jordanian Red Crescent, he said, which has lists of names and numbers of refugees and their current whereabouts in cities or small towns throughout the kingdom.—KUNA

Al-Mutar wins second e-dama tournament KUWAIT: Reigning champion Abdurrahman Al-Mutar emerged winner of the Eighth Annual Late Sheikh Yousuf Al-Saud AlS a b a h E - D a m a To u r n a m e n t which concluded recently at the Ya c h t s C l u b o f t he To u rist ic Enterprises Company (TEC).

Al-Mutar was crowned champion for the second year in a row

by Sheikh Ali Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah, the main sponsor of the tournament. The closing ceremony was also attended by Sheikha Bibi AlYousuf Al-Saud Al-Sabah, as well as Khalid Al-Ghanim, TEC Vice C h a i r m a n o f t h e B o a rd a n d Managing Director, Saud Abdul-

Aziz Al-Babtain, President of AlBabtain Group, and Dr Nouri AlWattar, Head of the organizing committee.

Al-Mutair finished first in the second group ahead of Yousuf Skouni and Ahmad Safar. The first group was led by Tayseer Ali, Ahmad Al-Shemmari and Ayed Al-Mutairi respectively.

Sheik ha Bibi Al-Sabah also awarded the top three finalists with cash prizes named after the late Sheikh Khalid Al-Yousuf AlSabah, in addition to presenting a special award of excellence to contestant Ahmad Abul.

Ahmad Abul is rewarded

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Sabah presents a commemorative plaque to Saud Al-Babtain

Al-Yousuf and other top guests pose with the finalists.

Abdurrahman Al-Mutar is crowned

Khalid Al-Ghanim recieves a commemorative plaque

Al-Badr recieves a commemorative plaque awarded to the TEC’s advertisement and marketing department

Sheikha Bibi Al-Sabah presents the Late Sheikh Khalid AlSabah awards

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Sinai carnage pressures Israel, Egypt and Hamas Page 8

Thailand’s first female PM calms nation’s chaos Page 12

STOCKHOLM: A boy holds a placard with a crossed-over image of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad yesterday outside the Russian embassy during a demonstration by hundreds of protesters against Russian support for Assad. — AFP

Troops push back rebels in Aleppo Amnesty satellite photos show scale of shelling ALEPPO, Syria: Troops loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad assaulted rebel strongholds in Aleppo yesterday in one of their biggest ground attacks since rebels seized chunks of Syria’s biggest city three weeks ago. Assad must win the battle for Aleppo if he is to reassert his authority nationwide, although diverting military forces for an offensive to regain control there has already allowed rebels to seize large swathes of countryside in the north. Aleppo, at the heart of Syria’s failing economy, has taken a fearful pounding since the 17-month-old uprising against Assad finally took hold in a city that had stayed mostly aloof.

“We have retreated, get out of here,” a lone rebel fighter yelled at Reuters journalists as they arrived in Aleppo’s Salaheddine district.

Nearby checkpoints that had been manned by rebel fighters for the last week had disappeared. Syrian state television said government forces had pushed into Salaheddine, killing most of the rebels there, and had entered other parts of the city in a new offensive. It said dozens of “terrorists” were killed in the central district of Bab al-Hadeed, close to Aleppo’s ancient citadel, and Bab al-Nayrab in

the southeast. But a rebel spokesman in Salaheddine, the southern gateway to Aleppo, denied Assad’s troops had taken full control. “Syrian forces are positioned on one side of Salaheddine but they haven’t entered and clashes are continuing,” Abu Mohammed said.

One activist with the rebel Free Syrian Army, who asked not to be named, said insurgents had fallen back to the nearby neighbourhood of Saif al-Dawla, which was now under fire from army tanks inside Salaheddine and from combat jets. The intensity of the conflict in Aleppo and elsewhere suggests that Assad remains determined to cling to power, with support from Iran and Russia, despite setbacks such as this week’s defection of his newly installed prime minister. The Syrian Obser vator y for Human Rights, a British-based opposition watchdog, said more than 60 people had been killed across Syria so far on Wednesday, including 15 civilians in Aleppo. It put Tuesday’s death toll at more than 240 nationwide.

Satellite images released by Amnesty International, obtained from July 23 to Aug 1, showed more than 600 craters, probably from

artillery shelling, dotting Aleppo and its environs. “Amnesty is concerned that the deployment of heavy weaponry in residential areas in and around Aleppo will lead to further human rights abuses and grave breaches of international law,” the human rights group said, adding that both sides might be held criminally accountable for failing to protect civilians. The military’s assaults in Aleppo follow its successful drive to retake neighbourhoods seized by rebels in Damascus after a July 18 bomb attack that killed four of Assad’s closest aides, including his feared brother-inlaw Assef Shawkat.

On Monday Assad suffered the embarrassment of seeing his prime minister, Riyad Hijab, defect after only two months in office. Hijab apparently fled to Jordan with his family. Yet even such high-profile defections and outside diplomatic pressure seem unlikely to deflect Assad from what has become a bitter struggle for survival between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and a ruling system dominated by the president’s minority Alawite sect, an esoteric offshoot of Shiism.

Assad has little sympathy in Sunni-ruled Arab nations, but he can count on staunch

support from Iran, whose Shiite leaders see Syria, along with Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, as a pillar of an “axis of resistance” against the United States and Israel.

Damascus and Tehran accuse Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western nations of stoking violence by backing Syrian rebels. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country had warned Iran “in a frank and friendly manner” against blaming Ankara for bloodshed in Syria. “Such statements have the potential to harm Iran as well,” he said yesterday a day after holding talks with Ali Akbar Salehi, his Iranian counterpart. Turks were incensed by comments this week by Iran’s top general Hassan Firouzabadi, in which he blamed Turkey for the bloodshed in Syria and accused Ankara, alongside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of helping the “war-raging goals of America”.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a political solution in Syria. “Every day in which military clashes continue in this country, the situation becomes more complex and the future darkens,” state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying. Iran, along with the Shiite-led government in Iraq and big

powers Russia and China, has resisted any agreement on Syria that requires Assad to quit as part of any political transition.

Russia, which has scores of advisers and technicians in Syria, some of them at a Russian naval maintenance base in the port of Tartus, has given Assad solid diplomatic cover.

Along with China, it has vetoed three Western-backed United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at intensifying pressure on the Syrian leader to step down, rather than using force to crush opposition to four decades of Assad family rule.

The violence in Syria has forced tens of thousands of people to flee into neighbouring countries, and about 2,400 refugees, including two generals, arrived in Turkey overnight. Turkey’s state-run Anatolian news agency said most of them were women and children from areas near Aleppo and the northwestern city of Idlib, but also included 37 defecting military personnel. Nine were receiving hospital treatment. Before the latest influx, Turkey said it was sheltering 47,500 Syrians fleeing a conflict which opposition sources say has cost at least 18,000 people since it began in March 2011. — Reuters

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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

Egypt military faces elusive enemy in Sinai CAIRO: Egypt, which launched air raids against Islamist militants in Sinai for the first time in decades yesterday, faces a tough enemy that has used the peninsula’s rugged terrain to evade capture in the past. The military said it deployed Apache helicopter gunships in the strikes that killed 20 “terrorists” in the Sinai village of Tumah, in retaliation for a weekend ambush that cost the lives of 16 soldiers. Sunday ’s attack, in which the militants commandeered an army vehicle and drove it into Israel, highlighted the government’s loose grip over the peninsula that borders Israel and is home to lucrative tourist resorts.

Even as the army massed its forces in preparation for the dawn assault yesterday, unidentified gunmen attacked four army checkpoints near the north Sinai town of El-Arish, causing no deaths. The checkpoint attacks follow a pattern of driveby shootings that have plagued security forces in Sinai since a popular uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and drastically weakened the police force.

Last year, the military and police announced a rolling operation to

uproot the militants after a group claiming affiliation with Al-Qaeda attacked police checkpoints and briefly took over the largest town in north Sinai.

The army reinforcements were deployed after approval from Israel, due to a 1979 peace treaty between the two countries that limits Egypt’s military presence in Sinai. As that operation was underway, gunmen conducted a cross border raid into Israel last August and killed eight Israelis.

The military and police captured some of the alleged ringleaders of the Islamist militant cells, composed mostly of Bedouin, but the attacks persisted, with militants even occasionally firing rockets into Israel.

“We have been patient, and worked hard as a result of internal events and lack of stability, but there is a red line that may not be crossed and we have warned of it,” said a military statement issued after Sunday’s attack. “The past days have proven that violence is the only thing that can repel them, and whoever attacked our forces in Sinai over the past months will pay dearly,”

it added. Aside from the gunships and infantry, the army and police force have deployed anti-terror squads to help in the search for the militants, who have established a presence near the northern town of Sheikh Zuwayid.

The militants’ identities are not entirely known. Security officials say they are mostly Bedouin who have distributed pamphlets in the past claiming affiliation with Al-Qaeda and calling for an Islamist state. They have the support of extremist Islamist militants in neighbouring Gaza who view even their Hamas rulers as too moderate, the officials say. They have access to high-calibre machineguns, rocketpropelled grenades and other weapons smuggled in from Libya after an armed uprising toppled its dictator Muammar Gaddafi last year. Their main advantage is the formidable mountain range which Bedouin outlaws have often used to evade troops and police, and which are inaccessible to the army’s cumbersome armoured vehicles. The military also risks further hostility from the peninsula’s poor and disaffected Bedouin population if its crackdown affects civilians. —AFP

SINAI: A member of the Egyptian security forces takes position on a sand dune during an operation in the northern Sinai peninsula yesterday. — AFP

Sinai carnage pressures Israel, Egypt and Hamas Huge pressure on Egypt’s new president Morsi

MAFRAQ, Jordan: Syrian refugee children stand next to a UNHCR tent at the Zaatari refugee camp in this Jordanian city near the border with Syria on Aug 6, 2012. — AFP

Syrian refugees face dust and disease in Jordan ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan: Mohammed and his wife Walaa escaped death in Syria after sedating their two-yearold daughter so her cries of pain would not be heard by regime troops as they fled to Jordan. The young couple are now among some 3,000 Syrians sheltering in the desert Zaatari refugee camp 15 km from the kingdom’s northern city of Mafraq that was opened last month to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. “We decided to run away a week ago from Daraa to save our lives,” said Mohammed, a 26-year-old tailor, standing next to his wife inside the dust-covered white tent they share with three other people. “We gave the baby some syrup, a tranquilliser, so Syrian soldiers would not hear her crying and kill us. The child was in pain.”

Even with the baby asleep, Mohammed and Walaa said their escape from Daraa, where the 16-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime first began, was never easy. “We nearly got killed as we fled with four other families under non-stop Syrian army fire. We took nothing with us, just the clothes we are wearing now,” said Mohammed, wearing a black tank top and shorts. Syrians attempting to flee to Jordan are often targeted by their own country’s military as they make the crossing. The Jordanian army, which has reinforced the border, fire back to help the refugees cross.

Syrian troops fired on a group of civilians fleeing into Jordan last month, killing a three-year-old child. “Thank God we were not harmed, but we are not well here,” Mohammed said. “Here we are, very worried about the future, and waiting for an end to this misery. No one knows when it will end.” Jordan is hosting more than 150,000 Syrians, most of them living in

temporary residences in Ramtha, a town across the border from Daraa, or with relatives or friends elsewhere in the north.

The authorities have started transferring some of the refugees to the seven-squarekilometre Zaatari camp, which the UN says can take up to 120,000 people. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that 276,000 Syrians have fled mainly to Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, from a conflict that activists say has claimed more than 20,000 lives.

Residents of the Zaatari camp, which lies just two kilometres from the Syrian border, say dust, hot weather, lack of electricity and poor medical treatment add to their hardship in Jordan, where desert covers 92 percent of its territory. “We have to put up all the time with dust and sand, which cover our tents, bodies and clothes,” said Jadou Mulla, 65, sitting inside his tent.

“We have food and water, but we have no electricity, no television and no means at all for communication here.”

The father of six fled with his family a few days ago from the Syrian city of Homs, a main opposition stronghold and target for Assad’s forces. “We are sad and miserable,” he said. His 56-year-old wife, Khalfa Hmoud, has cancer and had to abandon her chemotherapy treatment when they fled. “I do not want to die here. I want to go to hospital and continue my treatment,” she said, showing her medical reports and begging for help. Maryam, 46, who fled from Daraa with her family more than a month ago, described living conditions Zaatari as “catastrophic”. “We live in dust.

My children are sick and even the food we get is canned and unhealthy,” she said, adding that they are not allowed to leave the camp.— AFP

Jordan king fears breakup of Syria BEIRUT: President Bashar Al-Assad could seek to establish an enclave for his Alawite sect if he cannot keep control of the whole of war-torn Syria, an outcome that would be the “worst case scenario” for its neighbours, King Abdullah of Jordan has said. Any such move could prompt decades of further problems for the region, King Abdullah told US broadcaster CBS. “I have a feeling that if he can’t rule greater Syria then maybe an Alawi enclave is plan B,” King Abdullah said in an interview published on the channel’s website on Tuesday. “ That would be, I think for us, the worst case scenario because that means then the breakup of greater Syria, and that means that everybody starts land grabbing, which makes no sense to me. If Syria then implodes on itself that would create problems that would take us decades to come back from,” he said.

The rebellion against Assad’s rule is predominantly made up of Sunni

Muslims who form the majority of Syria’s population. The Alawites are a minority sect whose beliefs are an offshoot of Shiism. King Abdullah, whose mainly Sunni Muslim kingdom borders Syria to the south, forecast that Assad would not give ground. His administration has deployed military force in an effort to crush the uprising, drawing on air power and heavy artillery. “I think that in his mentality he is going to stick to his guns.

He believes that he is in the right. I think that the regime feels that it has no alternative but to continue,” Abdullah said.

He added: “I don’t think it ’s just Bashar, it’s not the individual, it’s the system of the regime. So if Bashar was to exit under whatever circumstances, does whoever replaces him have the ability to reach out and transform Syria politically? “So for Bashar at the moment, if I am reading the way he is thinking, he is going to do what he is going to do indefinitely.” — Reuters

JERUSALEM: An assault blamed on Islamist militants which killed 16 Egyptian troops has upped pressure on Cairo to retake control in Sinai, but Israel fears force alone will not resolve such a deep-rooted problem. Amid widespread calls for vengeance, Egypt kicked off its first air strikes in the peninsula for decades to hunt down those behind Sunday’s deadly attack by gunmen who also tried to storm southern Israel.

In a series of early-morning raids on northern Sinai, Egyptian forces said they killed 20 “terrorists” in a move which won a cautious welcome from Israel.

“The penny has dropped in Egypt,” said top Israeli defence official Amos Gilad on public radio. “They are moving towards action,” he said, cautioning it would only work if there was “root surgery against terror.” Sunday’s bloodshed has highlighted Cairo’s tenuous grip on Sinai which has seen rising levels of militant violence, with gunmen targeting Israel, Egyptian troops in the area and also an international gas pipeline. And it has put huge pressure on Egypt’s new Islamist President Mohamed Morsi who is facing growing calls to change the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which limits the number of troops in Sinai, in order to reassert control. “I suggest President Morsi urgently prepares to seek amendments to the security annexes of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty so that the security services and the armed forces are able to impose security in the Sinai, monitor the borders and stop terrorist infiltration,” said former Arab League chief Amr Mussa. For Israel, growing militancy in Sinai has meant rocket fire on the south and a growing number of cross-border attacks, one of which left eight Israelis dead in Aug 2011.

Although Israeli officials insist that security coordination with Egypt is working, they say Cairo has not taken the problem seriously.

“Last year, Israel authorised seven Egyptian battalions to enter the Sinai but the Egyptian authorities didn’t use this oppor-

tunity to act,” said Major General Dan Harel, former head of the Israeli military’s southern command. “There is a lack of will from the Egyptian authorities,” he said.

“From Israel’s point of view, keeping the peace treaty is a strategic interest,” he said. “If it was not the case, Israel would have reacted deep inside the Egyptian territory.” But commentators said an influx of troops would have little effect on the ground, as the main problem was a lack of intelligence. “Egypt has no real reason to dispatch either aircraft or divisions to the Sinai Peninsula. The intelligence the Egyptian author-

paying him.”

The complexity of the challenge along its border with Egypt foreshadows a problem Israel also fears may take root in the Golan Heights following nearly 17 months of fighting in Syria. Until now, Israel has been relied on its own intelligence, studiously avoiding anything which could cause friction with Cairo. And within several months, it will also benefit from the completion of a vast steel barrier along its 240-km frontier with Egypt.

But if Cairo does not step up to the challenge, that could

Fishman, noting the speed with which the Gaza government shut down the network of crossborder smuggling tunnels - a key lifeline for goods and fuel.

Arab affairs exper t Guy Bechor said the threat from Sinai would force Israel, Egypt and Hamas to work together. “These three are all threatened by this global terror, and now they are obligated to cooperate,” he wrote on his blog, noting the damage to Israeli security, to Egyptian sovereignty, and to Hamas’s control in Gaza which he said was being challenged by Al-Qaeda elements. “Israel is

CAIRO: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (right) receives an invitation to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Iran from Iranian Vice President Hamid Baghaei during a meeting at the presidential palace yesterday. — AFP ities have... is negligible, meaning the planes and tanks would be chasing the wind,” defence expert Alex Fishman wrote in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily on Tuesday. The Egyptians know that if they want to restore control in Sinai they first need to know exactly what is going on there, he said. “The problem is that at present neither Israel nor Egypt know enough about who the enemy is, where he is situated, who his handler is and who is

change. “Israel is approaching the point at which it will have to deal with Sinai on its own, with everything this entails, including how it will affect the relationship with Egypt,” wrote Fishman. The weekend violence has also put the spotlight Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who were badly shaken by the attack and subsequent allegations from sources in Cairo that Palestinian militants were involved. Hamas “is in a complete state of panic,” wrote

beginning to have good intelligence in Sinai, but it cannot act on Egyptian soil. Egypt has the ability to reach the terror centres and eliminate them, but it has no intelligence. And Hamas can arrest the top members of these organisations while they are still in Gaza - if Egypt pressures it. As of now, this terror attack mandates that the three cooperate, with Egypt in the middle, despite the mutual revulsion.” —AFP

Iran: ‘Retired’ Guards among Syria hostages TEHRAN: “Retired” members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and army are among 48 Iranians taken hostage in Syria by rebels on the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday, the ISNA news agency reported. But he denied the rebels’ allegation that the Iranians had been on a military mission, saying the former military personnel had been exclusively on a religious pilgrimage to Damascus when they were seized on Saturday.

“A number of the (hostages) are retired members of the Guards and the army. Some others were from other ministries,” Salehi was quoted as telling reporters as he flew back from Turkey, which he asked for help in freeing the Iranians.

Iranian officials had previously insisted the 48 Iranians were only pilgrims travelling to a holy Muslim site in Damascus. This was the first time Tehran admitted that any of them had a connection to its military. Iran has given its full support to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in his bloody fight against a nearly 17-month old insurgency, though it denies providing any military backing.

On Sunday, Syrian rebels posted a video of the hostages and claimed they were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards on a “reconnaissance mission.” They showed ID cards they said

proved the military background of some of the Iranians.

Tehran denied the charge the Iranians were anything other than religious faithful on a private trip. “Fortunately, in the video clip that was broadcast of these people, we see that these people are pilgrims and have no equipment other than clothes, personal items and identification cards,” Salehi was quoted as saying. He said the 48 abducted were in one of three buses taking Iranians to the airport in Damascus on Saturday. “There were three buses, two of which reached the airport,” he said. On its Facebook page, the rebel group on Monday said three of the Iranians had been killed in shelling by Syrian regime forces on their position. It threatened to execute other hostages if the bombardment did not stop.

But Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday told Iran’s Al-Alam television network that it believed “none of the hostages has been killed”. It was not possible to independently verify the fate of the hostages. Iran on Tuesday sent a message to the United States through the Swiss embassy in Tehran saying that, “because of the United States’ manifest support of terrorist groups and the dispatch of weapons to Syria, the United

States is responsible for the lives of the 48 Iranian pilgrims abducted in Damascus.”

The US State Department responded by saying Iran’s position implicating it “doesn’t seem to make sense.” A spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, said the US government had no information about the hostages, their whereabouts, or their captors. Iran on Tuesday dispatched Salehi to Turkey and Saeed Jalili, a top aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to Syria to discuss the hostage situation. Salehi also made a public appeal for their release. “As we are in the sacred month of Ramadan, and both the hostages and kidnappers are Muslim, we send a message through the media to those who have taken our citizens: Take the necessary measures to release our citizens based on Islamic brotherhood,” he said. He also said that, in his meeting in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, he underlined that Iran was seeking inclusive dialogue on Syria to end the violence. “I insisted that Iran is prepared to host a meeting with the (Syrian) opposition groups in Iran and wants them to sit next to each other in Iran and talk to the Syrian government,” he said. “We have talked with the Syrian government about this and it is ready as well.” — AFP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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

Tucson gunman pleads guilty, spared death Giffords did not attend hearing

MAHAHUAL, Mexico: People rest in a shelter during an evacuation as hurricane Ernesto gains strength on this community in Quintana Roo state on Tuesday. —AFP

Ernesto moves across southeastern Mexico CANCUN, Mexico: Ernesto weakened to a tropical storm as it swept over the Yucatan Peninsula early yesterday, but forecasters predicted it could soon regain strength across Mexico’s oil-rich Bay of Campeche.

The storm, which made landfall as a category one hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm, dumped heavy rain on the region, prompting fears of flash floods and mudslides. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, although authorities warned that the full impact of the storm take several days to play out.

Power outages were reported in the walled city of Campeche, a world heritage site on the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula facing the Gulf of Mexico, and authorities warned its 300,000 residents to be prepared to batten down. The Bay of Campeche is the center of Mexico’s vital offshore oil fields. “Pemex said that it was canceling some training exercises at oil rigs, but otherwise all operations in the region were normal,” energy analyst Addison Armstrong of Tradition Energy said. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 95 km per hour, the Miami, Florida-based National Hurricane Center said at 1200 GMT. “Ernesto is forecast to move across the southern portion of the Bay of Campeche tonight and approach the coast of Mexico,” it said.

“Restrengthening is forecast after the center emerges over the Bay of Campeche and Ernesto could regain hurricane strength before landfall on Thursday.”

Ernesto - the second hurricane of the Atlantic season - made landfall late Tuesday near the town of Mahahual in Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, the NHC said, citing radar data from Belize. The Yucatan peninsula is home to bustling holiday destinations such as the resort city of Cancun and the island of Cozumel, but authorities in Quintana Roo state said were few tourists in the area where the storm hit.

Nevertheless, state tourism secretary Juan Carlos Gonzalez said more than 200 emergency shelters had been set up to accommodate more than 80,000 people if necessary.

Mexico’s defense ministry said it had mobilized about 1,000 soldiers to remain on alert in the area. Authorities in Mexico shifted the hurricane warning to the country’s Gulf coast, with other areas now under a tropical storm warning, as Ernesto tore westward. Neighboring Belize downgraded its hurricane warning to a tropical storm warning. The storm, which began drenching Caribbean countries last week, was expected to dump eight inches of rain on areas of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, with up to 12 inches of rain in isolated areas.

Honduras was also hit. “These rains may produce life threatening flash floods and mudslides over higher terrain,” the NHC added. This is the fifth named storm in the Atlantic Ocean since the hurricane season began on June 1. Chris, which strengthened to hurricane force on June 21, stayed far off land, and fizzled out up without causing any damage. — AFP

South African hitman jailed for 25 yrs CAPE TOWN: One of the South African men accused of killing Swedish honeymooner Anni Dewani pleaded guilty yesterday and was sentenced to 25 years in a plea deal that implicated her husband Shrien Dewani. Mziwamadoda Qwabe pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, robbery, and illegal possession of a firearm, prosecutor Eric Ntbazalila told AFP. In his plea bargain Qwabe stated that he had been recruited by fellow suspect Zola Tongo to take part in a “job in which a husband wanted his wife killed”. The couple were on honeymoon in Cape Town in Nov 2010, when she was killed in a murder that prosecutors say was set up to look like a botched carjacking in a vehicle driven by Tongo.

“The agreement was that Zola and the husband would be unharmed and that the deceased would be kidnapped, robbed and killed,” said the statement. It was meant to “appear like a random criminal act”. Qwabe stated that Shrien Dewani was let out of the car before his wife was robbed of her possessions and shot dead with a single bullet. He said his third coaccused Xolile Mngeni, who has a malignant brain tumour which has so far prevented him from standing trial, was the one who fired the shot. The businessman from Bristol, west of London, had claimed that he was forced out of the car window during the hijacking.

Prosecutors hailed the plea agreement as a step toward firming up the case against Dewani. “It’s a positive step for the prosecution because we are now a step closer to getting information on what happened on that day, which will shed some light on the role played by Shrien Dewani,” Ntabazalila

TUCSON, Arizona: Attorney Judy Clark (left) and defendant Jared Loughner sit before the judge in federal court Tuesday as shown in this artists’ rendering. — AP and 60 additional rounds of ammunition with plans to kill the congresswoman.

He also admitted shooting other people there with the intention to kill them because they had attended the event.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said that in deciding against pursuing the death penalty, he took into consideration the views of victims and their families as well as the recommendations of prosecutors. “It is my hope that this decision will allow the Tucson community, and the nation, to continue the healing process free of what would likely be extended trial and pre-trial proceedings that would not have a certain outcome,” he said in a statement.

Mark Kelly, Giffords’ husband, said in a statement before the hearing that the couple had been in touch with prosecutors and were satisfied with the plea agreement. “The pain and loss

caused by the events of Jan 8, 2011 are incalculable. Avoiding a trial will allow us - and we hope the whole southern Arizona community - to continue with our recovery and move forward with our lives,” Kelly said. Giffords resigned from Congress in January to focus on her recovery. Her former aide, Ron Barber, who was also wounded in the shooting spree, won a special election to fill her seat in June and will face reelection in November to serve a full two-year term.

“It is important to me that this individual will never be in the position to harm anyone ever again,” Barber, who attended the court hearing, said following the plea. Giffords did not attend the hearing. Loughner was determined unfit to stand trial in May 2011 after he disrupted court proceedings and was dragged out of the courtroom. Court-appointed experts

said he suffered from schizophrenia, disordered thinking and delusions. He has since been held at a US Bureau of Prisons psychiatric hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he has been medicated to treat psychosis and restore his fitness to face proceedings in his prosecution.

During the mental competency portion of the hearing, prison psychiatrist Christina Pietz testified that in July, Loughner had expressed remorse for the shooting and especially for Christina-Taylor Green’s death. Susan Hileman, who was shot alongside Green after bringing the child to the event to learn about the political process, said the plea has not brought her a sense of closure. “ There’s never closure because Christina is never going to ring my doorbell again,” she told reporters outside the courtroom. — Reuters

Islamist leader open to Mali mediation Ansar Dine chief meets Burkina Faso’s foreign minister

Mziwamadoda Qwabe said. Dewani returned to Britain with his wife’s body days after the killing, but was later arrested and South Africa is awaiting his extradition to stand trial in Cape Town.

Britain has approved his extradition but on March 30 the London High Court temporarily halted the process, citing mental health grounds. His lawyers said he was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression and argued the 32-year-old’s life could be at risk if he were extradited. He has strongly denied arranging the contract killing of his 28year-old Swedish-born wife. Qwabe said he was “willing and prepared to testify in any subsequent criminal prosecution instituted in regard to this conspiracy”. — AFP

‘Disabled’ man executed in US WASHINGTON: Authorities in the southern US state of Texas executed an African American man on Tuesday despite protests from human rights groups that said he was mentally disabled. Marvin Wilson, 54, who was condemned to death for a killing a police informant in 1992, was declared dead by lethal injection at 6:27 pm (2327 GMT ), according to a release from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The US Supreme Court rejected a final appeal from defense lawyers in the hours before the execution. Amnesty International called the decision “highly disturbing” and several other rights groups criticized the sentence.

In 2004, Wilson was diagnosed with mild mental retardation, with an IQ of 61 — well below the average for his age, according to the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). “We are gravely disappointed and profoundly saddened that the US Supreme Court has refused to intervene to prevent

TUCSON, Arizona: A 23-yearold man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing six people and wounding 13 others, including then-US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, in an Arizona shooting rampage last year and will be spared the death penalty in exchange. Jared Loughner entered his guilty pleas in federal court in Tucson shortly after US District Judge Larry Burns ruled that he was mentally competent to stand trial following over a year of treatment at a prison psychiatric hospital. “I plead guilty,” Loughner, dressed in a khaki prison jumpsuit with his hair trimmed short, said to each of the 19 counts read in court by Burns.

He was calm throughout the hearing and appeared to be following the proceedings closely, leaning forward slightly in his chair. The plea deal calls for Loughner to be sentenced to seven consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole, sparing him the death penalty. A sentencing hearing was set for Nov 15. Giffords, then a US lawmaker from Arizona who was seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, was meeting constituents at a Tucson supermarket on Jan 8 last year when she was shot through the head at close range.

She sur vived with severe injuries that left her with broken speech and a marked limp. But six other people were killed including US District Judge John Roll and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. The 19 counts Loughner pleaded guilty to include murder, attempted murder and the attempted assassination of Giffords.

Federal prosecutors had originally charged Loughner with 49 criminal counts and agreed to dismiss 30 of them. During an exchange with the judge before formally entering his plea, Loughner admitted going to the “Congress On Your Corner” event hosted by Giffords armed with a loaded Glock 19 pistol

tonight’s scheduled execution,” Wilson’s attorney, Lee Kovarsky, said earlier Tuesday. “It is outrageous that the state of Texas continues to utilize unscientific guidelines... to determine which citizens with intellectual disability are exempt from execution,” he added.

Prior to his execution, Wilson told family members he loved them. “Take me home Jesus. Take me home Lord. I love you all.

I’m ready,” Wilson said in his final statement, according to authorities. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled against executing mentally disabled convicts but left it to individual states to determine what constitutes a mental handicap. According to the Texas definition, Wilson did not suffer from mental disability. Last month, another African American diagnosed with a mental disorder, Yokamon Hearn, 34, was executed in Texas despite international protests.

Wilson is the 25th convict executed in the United States this year and the seventh in Texas. — AFP

GAO, Mali: An Islamist leader who wants to see Mali adopt sharia law vowed Tuesday to suppor t regional mediation effor ts to resolve the political crisis in the ruptured west African nation. Iyad Ag Ghaly, who heads the Ansar Dine Islamist group that holds the northern city of Kidal and other towns, met with Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole, who is leading the search for a way out of the 20-week-old emergency that has seen Islamists seize Mali’s north. “We are pleased. We support and accept the mediation of (Burkinabe) President (Blaise) Compaore,” Iyad Ag Ghaly told reporters in Kidal. “God willing, we will go down this road together. God will help everybody find what they’re after,” he said, clad in a blue robe and white turban.

Iyad Ag Ghaly is a renowned former leader of Mali’s Tuareg separatist rebellion who resurfaced earlier this year as the head of the previously unknown Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith, in Arabic).

Bassole, the highest-ranking diplomat to visit northern Mali since Islamist fighters seized the region in late March, made the one-day trip to assess the chances of a peaceful solution. He said he had told Ansar Dine leaders that the rebel groups controlling Mali’s north - an area larger than France or Texas - need to “distance themselves” from “terrorists”.

Before heading home, Bassole, whose boss Compaore was appointed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as the lead mediator in Mali, also visited the desert city of Gao, controlled by Al-Qaeda offshoot the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). The unprecedented trip, under the aegis of ECOWAS, marks an attempt by the regional bloc to rekindle diplomatic efforts and avert a military intervention.

Bassole, who ser ved as a chief United Nations-African Union mediator in Sudan’s Darfur crisis, spoke with local leaders in Gao but did not talk to anyone from MUJAO, which ECOWAS considers a terrorist group.

He said he was “bringing a message of peace”. “Despite the gravity of the situation” and dramatic events in the region, “there must be room for dialogue,” he said, adding he hoped to see a complete end to hostilities soon. Meanwhile at the United Nations,

KIDAL, Mali: Ansar Dine Islamist group leader Iyad Ag Ghaly speaks next to Burkina Faso’s foreign Minister Djibrille Bassole on Tuesday at Kidal airport in northern Mali. — AFP French Ambassador Gerard Araud said there would have to be a military operation against the Al-Qaeda elements in the north of Mali, and anticipated a “long crisis” in the country. “You do not negotiate with AlQaeda,” Araud said in an interview with the France 24 news channel ahead of UN Security Council talks on Mali yesterday.

Bassole started the trip with a visit to Gao’s main hospital, where chief doctor Moulate Guiteye told him: “Thanks to the assistance of aid groups, we have enough medicine”. Surrounded by veiled nurses, the doctor explained however that the hospital had been forced to enlist residents to help because several staff members had fled following the Islamist takeover. Cut off from Mali’s southern region, about half the town’s population have fled, leaving some 35,000 residents in the sandy city of ancient mud tombs and low-slung buildings located about 1,200 km northeast of the capital Bamako.

The Islamists, who piggy-backed on and then snuffed out a military offensive by Tuareg separatists to seize control of northern Mali, are enforcing Islamic law - or sharia - with varying degrees of strictness.

In the most gruesome such incident since Mali’s de-facto partition, an unmarried couple was publicly stoned to death by Islamist fighters in the small town of Aguelhok last month. Gao, a key hub in northern Mali, has shown some resistance to MUJAO’s attempts to implement sharia, most recently when a crowd prevented the militiamen from cutting off the hand of an alleged thief.

The conflict has displaced more than 400,000 people in a region already wracked by drought. Half of them have fled across Mali’s borders to rudimentary camps in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania, some of the world’s poorest nations. ECOWAS says it is ready to send 3,300 troops into Mali, but is awaiting a formal request from a yet-tobe-formed unity government in Bamako and a mandate from the UN Security Council. Also Tuesday, three men pleaded not guilty in a Bamako court to their alleged role in organising a May protest during which interim president Dioncounda Traore was brutally attacked by a mob of angry protesters who stormed his office. Traore, 70, spent two months recovering in Paris before returning to Mali on July 27. — AFP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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

Reliant on Ethiopia, Somali officials struggle to fill void BAIDOA, Somalia: Standing in front of the rag-covered tent that has been her family’s home for 18 months, grandmother Halbo Maow says that while the men with the guns might have changed, life still remains tough.

“Shabab or government, it is all the same,” said Moaw, who lives in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, a former bastion of the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab insurgents, that was captured

by Ethiopian forces in February. “We got nothing then, and we get nothing now,” the 70-year old added, as young girls in coloured shawls milled around.

Forced to leave her village by famine last year, Maow now ekes out an existence collecting firewood to sell in Baidoa, a dusty, impoverished but strategic town some 200 km from the Ethiopian border. Little if any influence of the weak and corruption riddled government in the capital Mogadishu - due to end its mandate on Aug 20, with new permanent institutions to be ushered in

by a UN-backed process - is felt here.

Five months on, the Ethiopians are still the dominant force in the area, and the sight of their tanks and troops greets new arrivals at the airstrip on the edge of Baidoa.

But while some Ethiopian soldiers are seen driving around in pickups, most of them appear to have withdrawn to fight remaining Shabab forces in the surrounding areas. That has left the weak administration they installed struggling to step in. “The Ethiopians have bought security, but now we are waiting for the government and international community to bring us food and health services and schools,” said Maow, who has five children and ten grandchildren.

In Baidoa’s bustling central market, there seems to at least be some sense of that security. Donkeys pulling carts laden with vegetables amble along the crowded roads, as women sell dates in front of pharmacies and hardware

stores that are almost all open for business. Standing next to a pile of brightly coloured mattresses on the steps of his shop, Mahad Elmi Yerow says that income has increased since the Shabab were pushed out. “It is better now than when Shabab were here, because business is more open than before,” Yerow said, adding however that gunmen still prowl the 250 km route to Mogadishu.

“There are some militias between the government lines and Shabab and if you do not stop they shoot at you - I even have some mattresses with bullet holes in them,” he added.

As he talked, gun-wielding men from the local authorities, dressed in civilian clothes and ill-matching uniforms, roughly push away a crowd that has gathered in the street. Yerow says that he, like other businesses, has already started paying taxes to the local government. For now at least, it is only these men with guns that his money pays for. “ The government in

Mogadishu is busy with its own issues and we are not receiving anything from them - we just have to rely on the money we can raise here,” said regional governor Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim. “For now, we are only dealing with the security situation, we do not have the means to do anything else for the people.” Forced to flee when Shabab took the town in Jan 2009, Ibrahim is now nominally back in charge - with Ethiopian support. But he dismisses fears about the uniformed men with guns who roam the town, saying they are security officials on their day off. As for the Ethiopians, he says they are helping to train 1,700 local militiamen, later seen lazing around in a compound on the edge of town. Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in 2006 before retreating amidst a bitter insurgency, only to invade again in 2011 - remain hugely controversial. The plan is for them to hand over to the African Union force but recent statements by the

Ethiopians have left the door open for them to stay longer.

A thousand Burundian troops with the African Union mission in Somalia are expected to deploy in Baidoa within days, with a further 1,500 troops from the force - Ugandans this time - arriving by the end of August, said the AU commander here, Gerard Bigirimana. “First I will station them south to try and open the axis towards Mogadishu,” said Bigirimana, who currently commands an advance party of 200 troops. “Later, when we are full strength, then we will see about taking over from the Ethiopian army.”

As for the local population, it seems that even if it’s imposed from outside, some peace is better than none. “It is the Somalis who are going to join Shabab robbing and killing us - so the Ethiopians are just protecting us from our own,” said labourer Abdulahi Muhamed Nuur Nuur, aged 22. “I have no problem with the Ethiopians being here to defend us.” — AFP

Belarus expels Swedish diplomats, recalls own EU ambassadors to hold emergency meeting STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s ties with Belarus soured further yesterday as Minsk expelled all Swedish diplomats and closed its mission in Stockholm, five days after the ex-Soviet state expelled the Swedish ambassador. President Alexander Lukashenko “is now throwing all Swedish diplomats out of Belarus. His fear of human rights reaching new heights,” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter. European Union ambassadors will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow on the issue, an EU source in Brussels said.

“There will be an emergency meeting of the European Union ambassadors tomorrow to decide on appropriate measures,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that the meeting would be held in Brussels.

Bildt last week said ambassador Stefan Eriksson, who took up the post in Minsk in 2008, was expelled because of his pro-rights stance and meetings he had with the Belarus opposition. Stockholm retaliated immediately, saying it would not welcome a new ambassador named

by Minsk to replace an envoy who left the post several weeks ago, and withdrew residency permits for two Belarus diplomats who were asked to leave the Scandinavian country.

Belarus foreign ministry spokesman Andrei

Savinykh denied last week that Eriksson had been expelled, saying instead in more diplomatic language that “a decision was made not to renew his credentials”. Eriksson’s “activity was aimed not at strengthening Belarusian-Swedish relations but destroying them,” he said.

Yesterday, Minsk said in a statement it was “forced to take a decision to recall its diplomatic staff from Sweden and return its employees to Belarus,” stressing however it was not severing diplomatic ties with Stockholm. It also gave Stockholm until August 30 to remove all of its diplomats from Minsk.

Sweden has been actively pushing for democracy in Belarus. Lukashenko’s reelection in Dec 2010, marred by fraud, led Stockholm to focus its Belarus strategy on democracy, human rights and equality.

“The state-run international development policy and the lack of a clear democratisation process make the cooperation particularly challenging,” the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) said on its website. Bildt reiterated Sweden’s commitment to Belarusian human rights yesterday, writing on Twitter:”We remain strongly committed to the freedom of Belarus and all its citizens.

They deserve the freedoms and the rights of the rest of Europe.” By meeting with members of the opposition, ambassador Eriksson “followed the policies that Sweden defends”, Bildt said last week.

Sweden’s embassy in Minsk opened in 2008.

Prior to that, the country was represented by its mission in Moscow, which had a representative in Minsk. The embassy counts four diplomats and a SIDA representative, as well as a handful of local staff. “Two or three diplomats are currently there,” ministry spokesman Joerle told AFP. The ambassador’s expulsion last week came after Swedish activists said they had illegally flown a plane into Belarus early last month and dropped hundreds of teddy bears attached to little parachutes carrying signs calling for freedom of speech and human rights.

Lukashenko dismissed the country’s top border control official and the top air force commander after the incident orchestrated by a Swedish advertising firm. Bildt conceded the expulsion could be linked to the widely-reported teddy-bear incident and called it “scandalous”. Belarus is under a raft of sanctions by the European Union over the plight of political prisoners in the country. — AFP

Punks compare trial to Stalin-era ‘repression’ MOSCOW: The lead singer of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot compared the group’s trial to Stalin-era repression yesterday in a dramatic final statement before the verdict is delivered later this month. The call came as voices ranging from those of Madonna and Yoko Ono to the lawmakers of Germany joined a chorus of global calls on President Vladimir Putin to show mercy to his young and relatively powerless critics.

Prosecutors are asking the court to sentence the three punk rockers to three years in prison on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for bursting into Moscow’s biggest church on February 21 and singing a “punk prayer” against Putin. The charges carry a maximum penalty of seven years in jail.

The presiding judge will start reading her verdict on Aug 17 after eight days of deliberations following a trial that saw most of the defence witnesses barred by the court. Lead singer Nadezhda Tolokonnikova compared the hearings to the “troikas”, or special tribunals used by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during his bloody purges of the 1930s to remove his political foes.

The trial was “a political order for repression (that meets) the standards of Stalinist troikas,” she said from inside the glass enclosure that separated defendants from supporters who squeezed into the small courtroom. The case has stirred divisive passions in Russia and saw US pop icon Madonna interrupt her packed concert in Moscow on Tuesday night to tell the cheering crowd that she was praying for the band members’ freedom. Ono for her part tweeted a message to the strongman Russian leader telling him he was making a mistake. “Mr Putin you are a wise man & dont need to fight with musicians & their friends,” the artist and widow of John Lennon wrote.

MOSCOW: Members of a female punk band ‘Pussy Riot’ (from left) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sit inside a glass enclosure during a court hearing yesterday. — AFP Tolokonnikova and her band-mates Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina pulled on knitted balaclavas and burst into the Christ the Saviour Cathedral on Feb 21 to ask the Virgin Mary to oust the veteran Russian strongman.

“Virgin Mary, Mother of God, put Putin away,” the band sang. It condemned “the Church’s praise of rotten dictators” and urged religious leaders to embrace feminist values. Putin was elected president for a third term by a thumping margin just two weeks after Pussy Riot’s performance. The authorities have since launched criminal probes against top leaders of the street protests that briefly shook his rule in the winter months.

Tolokonnikova predicted “the collapse of this political system” and said the entire way Putin ran the country was being put on trial. Co-defence team attorney Violetta Volkova said the judge was taking such a long break after expectations of a quick verdict because “they will have the most difficult choice on whether to punish the innocent”.

“If they are issued real sentences, that means the authorities have made their choice. It will clearly mean the authorities have chosen the path to dictatorship,” Volkova said. Putin broke months of silence last week by saying that he did not like the band’s behaviour but did not want them “judged too severely”. —AFP

PRETORIA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds hands during a song with other officials including South Africa’s Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (right) during a gala dinner at the Sefako M Makgatho Presidential Guest House late on Tuesday. — AFP

Clinton tells S Africa to do more globally CAPE TOWN: US Secretar y of State Hillary Clinton urged South Africa to build on icon Nelson Mandela’s legacy and flex its growing influence on the global sticking points of Syria, Iran and Zimbabwe. “The man who did so much to shape the history of a free South Africa has never stopped thinking about the future of South Africa,” she said in a speech at a Cape Town university.

“Because of your history, South Africa has an obligation to be a constructive force in the international community,” she added.

Washington’s top diplomat said strong African partners were needed to tackle the world’s challenges and urged the continent’s biggest economy to do more. “There cannot be a strong global network unless there are strong African partners. Now I’ve often heard it said that African problems need African solutions.

Well I’m here to say that some of our global problems need African solutions too,” said Clinton. “And few nations on this continent can carry as much weight or be as effective partners and leaders as South Africa. You are a democratic power with the opportunity to influence Africa and the world.”

On her sixth stop on a continentcrossing mission, Clinton noted differences between Washington and Pretoria, particularly on recent conflicts in the Ivory Coast and Libya, but said this should not obscure common goals. “We welcome South Africa’s support last week with the resolution at the UN General Assembly condemning Syria and the Assad regime’s brutal reign of terror,” she said. “I hope this vote can be the foundation for a new level of cooperation.”

Clinton called on South Africa to lead efforts at the United Nations human rights council to protect global human rights. “ When old friends in power become corrupt and repressive, a decision by South Africa to stand on the side of freedom is not a sign that you are giv-

ing up on old allies, it’s a reminder to yourselves and the world that your values don’t stop at your borders.”

Drawing out neighbouring Zimbabwe, she urged leaders in the region to push for progress for new polls that will end a troubled powersharing deal that pulled the country out of election chaos five years ago. “Now the same leaders can help accelerate progress for finalising and adopting that constitution through a credible referendum and holding a free and fair election monitored by the international community,” she said.

“And if Zimbabwe’s leaders meet these commitments, the United States is prepared to match action for action.” The US has insisted that Zimbabwe take more steps to curb political violence before agreeing to ease sanctions against veteran President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle.

In a speech that blended praise and encouragement, Clinton called on South Africa to use its “rare authority” as the first country to have voluntarily given up its nuclear weapons to discourage armaments. “You can help ensure that any country that pursues nuclear weapons programmes will invite only more pressure and isolation,” she said. “This means South Africa can play an even greater role on issues like curbing Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons from preventing nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.”

Clinton reserved parts of her speech to pay homage to Mandela’s example of humanity by reaching out to his former apartheid jailers.

“That is the true legacy of president Mandela -calling all of us to complete the work he started. To overcome the obstacles, the injustices, the mistreatments that everyone, every one of us will encounter at some point in our lives.”

Earlier, she signed a new deal supporting efforts to fight AIDS in South Africa, which has the world’s biggest population of people with HIV. — AFP

Ghana’s late leader lies in state ahead of burial

ACCRA: Former Ghanaian President John Kuffour (center) arrives to pay respect to late President John Atta Mills at the parliament yesterday. — AFP

ACCRA: Ghana began three days of funeral rites for late president John Atta Mills yesterday, with his body to lie in state ahead of his burial to be attended by foreign dignitaries including Hillary Clinton.

The death of Mills on July 24, five months ahead of polls in which he was to seek re-election, threw the West African nation into mourning and upended the presidential campaign in a country that recently joined the ranks of the world’s significant oil producers. An official cause of death has not been given, though there have been unconfirmed reports that he suffered from throat cancer.

A state funeral service and burial will be held tomorrow, with Mills’ body to lie in state at the parliamentary complex in the capital Accra beginning at 12:00 pm (1200 GMT) yesterday. Ghana’s new President John Dramani Mahama, government officials and diplomats were to view the body yesterday, followed by the general public today, organis-

ers said. Tributes were expected on both yesterday and today evenings, including music and speeches.

Some 16 heads of state in addition to other foreign dignitaries, including the US secretary of state, are expected at the burial service, according to chairman of the funeral committee Kofi Totobi-Quakyi.

Clinton is currently on an African tour.

Mills, the first Ghanaian president to die in office, is to be buried on the grounds of the seat of government at Osu Castle in Accra. The capital has been filled with tributes to Mills, who was widely praised for his integrity, including billboards saying “we shall always remember you,” while residents could be seen wearing wear black and red bands and scarfs as symbols of their grief. “The outpourings of emotions on the death of our president show that we Ghanaians are united in our collective sense of loss,” Totobi-Quakyie said.

Accra police commissioner Patrick Timbillah

said heavy security would be in place for the funeral, with major roads cordoned off. Totobi-Quakyi said the family will hold a private service in Mills’ place of birth on Sunday in the village of Ekumfi Otuam. Ghana is seen as a bastion of democracy in the often turbulent West African region, and the transition so far has gone smoothly. Mahama, who had been vice president, was sworn in to serve out the remainder of Mills’ term hours after his death, as dictated by the west African nation’s constitution. The new president is expected to be endorsed by the ruling party to run in the December election, which analysts say is likely to be close. Ghana, a country of some 25 million people, joined the ranks of the world’s significant oil producers in Dec 2010. It is also a major producer of cocoa and gold.

The country has begun producing oil from its offshore Jubilee field, one of the largest discoveries in west Africa in recent years. —AFP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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

US Sikhs say bigots confuse them for Muslims NEW YORK: The sight of a bearded man in a turban can provoke violent anti-Muslim hatred in America and never mind whether the man under the turban is actually Muslim. For Sikhs, who wear turbans and beards as core attributes of their religion, the mix of Islamophobia and ignorance spells danger. They say they’ve long had to cope with confused Muslimhaters, but that Sunday’s massacre of six people by a white supremacist in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was a shattering blow. “The biggest shock is that it happened in a gurdwara (temple). This is a completely different level. That’s the biggest shock,” said Amanjot Sidhu, 24, who is training to become a dentist in New York.

Sidhu was accompanying her father, Balwinder Sidhu, to a cavernous gurdwara in New York’s Sikh immigrant area of Richmond Hill in the borough of Queens. Women in bright pastel robes chanted in the main hall, while in the canteen, crews of volunteers served mouth-watering traditional food and sweetened, spicy tea to worshippers resting on carpets. But talk quickly turned to Sunday’s bloodbath and how, despite coming from an entirely different culture, Sikhs encounter the same kind of bigotry that US Muslims commonly suffer from.

“People don’t understand who we are. It’s a misidentity. They think we’re Muslim or the Taleban.

We’re not,” said Balwinder Sidhu, 57, a retired taxi driver. “It has a lot to do with ignorance. Basically people say because there are turbans it must be Islamic,” his daughter added. “But all it takes is two seconds on the Internet.”

There’s the Internet, but one could also do worse than peruse posters drawn by children at the Queens temple, formally called the Sikh Cultural Society. One poster showed drawings of the “Five Ks”, the articles that baptized Sikhs are meant to wear at all times, such

as the kara, a bracelet that “indicates courage”, or the kesh, the uncut hair wrapped inside the turban. “The uncut long hair gives Sikhs a distinctive appearance in society and makes Sikhs stand out from the crowd,” explains the handwritten text.

Unfortunately, standing out from the crowd

became a problem after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan and the ongoing war against the turban-wearing Taleban. “A lot of people see us and think we look like Arabs or Muslims,” said Singhara Singh, who like many first generation Sikhs in New York is a taxi driver.

OAK CREEK, Wisconsin: Mourners and supporters of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin attend a candlelight vigil held at the Oak Creek Community Center on the National Night Out event on Tuesday. — AFP

“Sometimes there are crazy people.” He remembers Sikhs being targeted all the way back in 1979, during the US embassy hostage crisis in Iran, a country where religious clerics sport similar turbans and beards.

“People would get in the cab, then get out” when they saw what he looked like, he said.

Sikhs in America have long been incorrectly linked to Middle East turmoil, despite the fact that the religion originated in South Asia’s Punjab region.

Although Sikhs have a long warrior tradition, their gurdwaras are highly accessible places, where a warm welcome - with offer of a meal - is considered obligatory. That openness may have helped the shooter in Wisconsin. “No one was paying attention. There was no security and no one was checked at the door,” Amanjot Sidhu, the dental student, said.

Looking into the street where a police car waited as part of reinforcements ordered since Sunday at gurdwaras across New York, she said the laid back atmosphere would have to change. “At this point, it’s necessary to have security.” At a barbershop near the temple, there was sympathy from non-Sikhs for their neighbors. “After 9/11, there were 10 or 15 who were assaulted. We had people come in here having haircuts and taking off their turbans because they were afraid,” said Alex Kimygarov, who immigrated from Uzbekistan when it was still part of the Soviet Union. “I was almost targeted six or seven years ago. They thought I was an Arab or something,” he said. “I’m not - I’m a Russian Jew!” Argentine immigrant Hugo Revottaro, who runs the barbershop, said he is fond of the Sikhs -even if the traditional, hair-growing ones aren’t exactly in a position to give him much business. “In my opinion, they should put on television a study about religions because most people don’t even know the difference,” he said. — AFP

Pak court summons PM to appear over contempt Showdown over corruption cases continues

KABUL: Nicolas Haysom, deputy special representative of UN secretary general for Afghanistan (left) speaks as James Rodehaver, head of human rights for the UN mission in Afghanistan, looks on during a news conference yesterday. — AFP

Afghan civilian casualties down first time in 5 years KABUL: The number of Afghan civilian casualties has fallen for the first time in five years, dropping by 15% in the first half of 2012, the United Nations said yesterday as a double suicide attack killed three US soldiers. “This is the first time we have seen a sustained decline in civilian casualties which actually reverses a sustained five year trend of increasing of civilian casualties,” UN human rights official James Rodehaver told AFP. The United Nations said 1,145 Afghan non-combatants lost their lives, mostly in Taleban and other insurgent attacks, between January 1 and June 30 compared to 1,510 for the same period in 2011.

Another 1,954 civilians were wounded, it added.

The UN mission in Afghanistan said that marked a 15 percent decline on the 3,654 casualties documented during the first six months of 2011. Last year as a whole, a record 3,021 civilians died as part of the decade-long war between Taleban insurgents and the NATO-backed Kabul government, the United Nations has said. The findings come as 130,000 US-led NATO troops prepare to withdraw the bulk of their combat troops from Afghanistan in the next 18 months. The apparent decline in civilian casualties contrasts to an 11 percent increase in insurgent attacks reported by NATO in the last three months.

And as the Taleban increasingly target homegrown forces, Afghan troops die at five times the rate of NATO soldiers, according to the independent website icasualties.org. The United Nations said insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the civilian casualties in 2012, while pro-government forces, which include NATO, were blamed for 10 percent. The remaining 10 percent was attributed to unknown groups.

It said there had been a 53 percent increase in targeted killings of civilians, picked out

by insurgents because they work for the Afghan authorities or the military.

In the past, NATO air strikes have sparked huge controversy with President Hamid Karzai’s government, but the UN report said civilian casualties from air strikes were down 23 percent compared to the same period in 2011. Women and children accounted for about 30 percent of this year’s casualties up one percent from the same period in 2011 - killed or wounded mostly in Taleban roadside bombings with IEDs, the insurgents’ weapon of choice. The United Nations also highlighted concern about human rights abuses, mostly in the form of “parallel judicial structures” led by the Taleban and other insurgents that meted out punishments that include executions, amputations and lashings.

It said in areas of limited government authority, “anti-government elements” were able to “carry out serious human rights abuses with impunity”. On Wednesday, Afghan and Western officials said a double suicide attack killed three US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan. The US-led International Security Assistance Force said three of its troops died in an “insurgent attack” in the east. It did not disclose the nationalities of the soldiers, but Americans serve in Kunar, a flashpoint for Taleban and other Islamist militants on the Pakistani border.

A spokesman for the local government told AFP that three US soldiers died when two suicide attackers approached a group of American soldiers who were on their way from their base to the governor’s office in the provincial capital Asad Abad. “Our information shows that the two attackers approached the US soldiers on foot and detonated themselves one after another,” said the spokesman, Wasefullah Wasefy. A Western security official later confirmed that the dead soldiers were Americans. — AFP

NEW DELHI: Indian Muslim men shout slogans during a protest against the violence in India’s northeastern state of Assam yesterday. The clashes between Bodos and the Muslim settlers, who mostly came from the former East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh in 1971, mainly involve land rights. The two groups have clashed repeatedly over the years but the recent violence is the worst since the mid-1990s. — AP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court yesterday summoned the new prime minister to appear later this month to face possible contempt charges, the clearest sign yet it could dismiss a second premier in a showdown over corruption cases. The Supreme Court which disqualified and convicted prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani over the issue - summoned his successor Raja Pervez Ashraf to appear on Aug 27 for ignoring a request to ask Swiss authorities to reopen cases against the president. It is the latest episode in a two-and-a-half-year saga in which the government has resisted demands to have Asif Ali Zardari investigated, arguing that as head of state he enjoys immunity.

The government is due to become the first in Pakistan’s history to complete an elected, full five-year mandate in February 2013, but the showdown could force polls before then. The court had given Ashraf until August 8 to write to Switzerland and last week struck down a new law passed by parliament that sought to exempt members of the government from contempt trials, clearing the way for legal proceedings against the premier. Judge Asif Saeed Khosa said “ostensible calculated defiance” from the prime minister through “dilatory tactics and putting up excuses... may know no bounds”. But he warned: “Restraint exercised by this court is also not without any limit.”

He gave Ashraf notice under the contempt of cour t act and ordered him to explain his position in person on Aug 27.

Critics of the judiciar y and members of Zardari’s main ruling Pakistan People’s Party accuse the court of overstepping its reach and waging a personal vendetta against the president. The government had wanted the case adjourned until September. Attorney general Irfan Qadir said he needed time “to bridge the gap” between the two sides, and “find an amicable solution”. Experts say that if Ashraf does not satisfy the court, he risks being indicted for contempt, precipitating the second trial against a sitting prime minister in months.

The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his wife, late premier Benazir Bhutto, were suspected of using Swiss bank accounts to launder $12 million allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs inspection contracts. The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008 when Zardari became president and the government insists the president has full immunity as head of state. But in 2009 the Supreme Court overturned a political amnesty that had frozen investigations into the president and other politicians, ordering that the cases be reopened.

Zardari had already signed the contempt law, which sought to exempt govern-

Raja Pervez Ashraf

ment figures, including the president, prime minister and cabinet ministers from contempt for acts performed as part of their job.

Analyst Imtiaz Gul told AFP that yesterday’s decision showed the court was refusing to back down. “The logical consequence of the court’s position is the disqualification of any prime minister who refuses to write the letter,” he said. — AFP

3 NATO troops killed in Afghan suicide attacks ASAD ABAD, Afghanistan: A double suicide attack killed three NATO soldiers in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, Afghan and Western officials said. NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force said three of its troops died in an “insurgent attack” in the east but gave no further details in line with policy. A Western military official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the three soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Asad Abad, the capital of Kunar province.

The nationalities of the soldiers were not disclosed, but American troops provide the bulk of the NATO mission in Kunar, a flashpoint for Taliban and other Islamist militants on the Pakistani border.

Local police chief, Mohammad Aywaz Naziri, told AFP that two insurgents wearing suicide vests blew themselves up as a group of foreign troops walked to the nearby governor ’s compound. “ This morning two suicide bombers targeted US soilders... who were walking from their base to the governor’s compound,” Naziri said. One Afghan was also killed in the blast, he added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but similar attacks in the past been claimed by the Taleban, leading a decade-long insurgency against the Kabul government and NATO troops.

The militia took power in 1996 but was deposed in late 2001 by the US-led invasion that followed the September 11 attacks on the United States carried out by the then Afghan-based Al-Qaeda terror network. Since being unseated, remnants of the Taleban have been fighting to regain power and oust the 130,000 US-led NATO troops based in the country. The bulk of foreign combat troops are due to withdraw by the end of 2014 as part of plans to hand Afghan government forces responsibility for national security. — AFP

RANGIPO, New Zealand: Steam gushes from the crater on the side of Mount Tongariro in Tongariro National Park yesterday two days after it erupted, spewing an ash plume that disrupted flights and closed highways. — AFP

Second NZ volcano ‘burps’ after eruption MOUNT TONGARIRO, New Zealand: A second volcano in New Zealand threatened to rumble to life yesterday, a day after a long-dormant mountain that was the backdrop to “The Lord of the Rings” movies erupted. GNS Science reported no fresh convulsions at the Mount Tongariro volcano, which sent a plume of ash 6,100 m into the atmosphere, showering the North Island and disrupting domestic air travel.

But a monitoring camera showed the volcanic White Island, just off the coast of North Island, had experienced a small eruption that was probably unrelated to Tongariro, said Craig Miller, a volcanologist with GNS, the official monitoring body. “ The crater-rim camera appears to be splattered with mud/ash this morning, so it seems there has been some kind of burp,” he said.

Around the remote Tongariro volcano which officials say could erupt again without warning at any time - residents cleaned up the

ash that spewed early Tuesday. Heavy rain washed away much of the fine silt, causing streams to run grey, but residents said the powdery substance seeped into homes even when doors and windows were sealed. Air travel, which was disrupted across much of the North Island because of the risk posed by volcanic ash, returned to normal, as the remnants of the cloud washed out to sea overnight.

In Wellington, more than 250 km from the volcano, a smell of sulphur from gases expelled by the volcano hung in the air for most of the morning.

“It was like sewage, really unpleasant,” Wellington resident Carole Burke said. “It was so strong I thought Tongariro must have gone off again.” There were no injuries from the eruption, which officials said hurled boulders up to two kilometres from the volcano crater, destroying a hut used by hikers which, by chance, was unoccupied at the time. —AFP

12

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

international

Thailand’s first female PM calms nation’s chaos BANGKOK: As she marks a year in office this week as Thailand’s first female prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra’s biggest boast could be about what hasn’t happened during that time: a return to the chaos that has wracked the country for much of the past six years. Her achievement is all the more remarkable because she is the sister of the man at the center of Thailand’s long-running political maelstrom, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed by a military coup in 2006 after being accused of corruption and disrespect for King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

“From being a novice, this is a woman who has come a long way already in one year, but there’s much further for her to go for her to achieve her government’s objectives,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “And she’s also a long way from the sort of compromise and reconciliation that this country needs.”

Only two years ago, in 2010, Thailand seemed almost ungovernable as Thaksin supporters seeking to remove another government occupied a central part of the capital and two months of protests deteriorated into violence that left at least 91 people dead and more than 1,700 injured.

Combat troops were used to crush the protests.

Just a year after that, Yingluck led Thaksin’s political machine to a landslide victory in a general election. She had been pooh-poohed for her lack of political experience - she was an executive in Shinawatra family businesses but working a combination of freshfaced charm and her brother’s enduring

popularity, her Pheu Thai party won overwhelmingly. Yingluck famously vowed during the campaign to use her femininity and her empathy to ease the country’s tensions.

Thaksin’s populist policies and defiance of the traditional elite while he was in office won the enthusiastic backing of the rural poor but also the enmity of many in the urban establishment.

Friends and foes alike acknowledge that Yingluck’s main, though undeclared, task has been to keep the engine of Thaksin’s political machine ticking over while seeking arrangements for him to return from selfimposed exile. He was convicted on a conflict of interest charge by a Thai court in 2008 and fled abroad to avoid a two-year jail term. “It’s really a tricky balancing act with very limited room to move. If she doesn’t try to bring Thaksin back, Thaksin won’t be happy. If she tries to bring him back, his opponents won’t be happy,” Thitinan said. “To still be in power after one year is quite an achievement for her.”

Thailand’s recent history shows what a delicate task this is. Preparations to bring back Thaksin were political poison in 2008 for two previous proThaksin prime ministers, one of them his brother-in-law. Anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirts,” whose protests in 2006 set the stage for the coup, took over the prime minister’s offices for three months and occupied Bangkok’s two airports for a week. Courts - closely aligned with the conservative royalist establishment and hostile to Thaksin - tossed both men out of office on debatable legal grounds.

Bottom-up efforts by Thaksin’s mostly rural-based “Red Shirt” supporters street demonstrations in 2009 and 2010

- also proved a dead end. Perhaps weary of unrest or charmed by Yingluck, the powers-that-be that put down Thaksin and his supporters in 2006 and 2008 - the military and the

Since taking office, Yingluck’s government has been implementing some of its election promises in her brother’s populist mold: tablet computers for schoolchildren, credit cards and rice

BANGKOK: In this photo taken Aug 10, 2011, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra smiles after a group photo with her cabinet members following an oath taking ceremony at the government house. —AP courts - have been kinder and gentler with Yingluck, reciprocating her nonconfrontational approach. Last month, after the Pheu Thai party tried to push through legislation that could aid Thaksin’s return, the Constitutional Court issued only a mild rebuke, forcing the effort into the slow lane, rather than a stronger option that could have caused the party’s dissolution.

price supports for farmers, tax breaks for first-time car and home purchasers, and a substantial increase in the minimum wage. But weaknesses in her administration were exposed when devastating floods reached the outskirts of Bangkok last year, inundating factories and overwhelming entire communities for weeks. Her government’s reaction was slow, clumsy and

confusing, and elicited some calls for her to step down.

As an attractive and impeccably dressed 45-year-old woman, Yingluck is often judged on her style, probably to her political advantage but to the disappointment of feminists. “Her identity is mostly defined by her gender,” said Chalidaporn Songsamphan, a political scientist at Thammasat University in Bangkok. She noted that discussions of Yingluck’s outfits, makeup and hairstyle often overshadow her official duties, as was the case when she ventured out during last year’s floods in a pair of expensive Burberry mid-calf boots.

Yingluck’s lack of engagement with the issues of the day encourages this approach, Chalidaporn said, noting her low profile in Parliament during debates. “On several issues that seem to be significant, she had other people say or act on her behalf a lot,” Chalidaporn said. “I still see her more as an actor in the role of prime minister than as the prime minister,” said Michael Nelson, a Thai studies lecturer at Walailak University in southern Thailand.

Ultimately, Yingluck is likely to be judged as her brother’s sister, and she has failed so far to cast off the mantle of being his proxy. The frequent trips abroad by Cabinet ministers and ruling party luminaries to consult with Thaksin leave little doubt about who is really calling the shots. Thaksin remains the country’s “superpower,” said Korkaew Pikulthong, a Red Shirt leader and ruling party lawmaker. But he said Yingluck is no longer as politically naive as she once was. “She is very responsive to problems of the people and is very keen to solve them,” he said. “And that’s the quality of a true politician.” —AP

More than one million battle Philippine floods Death toll reaches 73 people in 11 days MANILA: More than one million people in and around the Philippine capital battled deadly floods yesterday amid relentless monsoon rains, with neck-deep waters trapping slum dwellers and the wealthy on roofs. Sixty percent of Manila remained under water and vast tracts of surrounding

The death toll from this week’s rain in Manila and nearby provinces rose to 20 yesterday after four more people drowned, according to authorities. This brought the confirmed number of people killed across the country since a typhoon triggered heavy rains in late July to 73. State weather forecasters said

tible to flooding. In Santo Domingo, a creekside shantytown, mother-ofthree Anita Alterano recounted how her family escaped the floods that submerged their one-storey home by walking over the roofs of houses until they reached high ground. “We initially just decided to climb up on the roof where we

MARIKINA CITY, Philippines: A man carries puppies back inside their house as other dogs stay on the roof at a flooded area east of Manila yesterday. —AP farmland were also submerged as the deluge stretched into its third day, according to the government.

“The roads in some areas are like rivers. People have to use boats to move around. All the roads and alleys are flooded,” civil defence chief Benito Ramos told AFP after surveying the megacity of 15 million people from the air.

more than 70 cm of rain - well over the average for all of August - had fallen in 48 hours, and warned of more to come yesterday night.

The worst hit parts of Manila were mostly the poorest districts, where millions of slum dwellers have built homes along riverbanks, the swampy surrounds of a huge lake, canals and other areas suscep-

were safe but wet. We waited for rescuers but it took so long for anyone to notice us,” said Alterano, 43.

“So we got a rope, I tied myself to my husband and my children, we clambered from roof-to-roof... until we reached a school. But the problem is we have no water and food.”

Some of Manila’s richest districts were also affected, including the

riverside community of Provident where water had inundated the ground floors of three-storey mansions. Inside the gated village of about 2,000 homes, rescue workers on a motorised rubber boat drove past submerged luxury cars to retrieve children and the elderly from rooftops. Across Manila and surrounding areas, 1.23 million people were affected by the floods, 850,000 of whom had to flee their submerged homes, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Nearly 250,000 of them were sheltering in schools, gymnasiums and other buildings that have been turned into evacuation centres, while others were staying with relatives and friends, the council said. A government worker told President Benigno Aquino in a televised disaster management meeting that the biggest problem for the relief effort was getting enough volunteers to deliver food, water and other emergency supplies.

Despite the chaos, the government ordered its employees and private sector workers back to their jobs yesterday, after closing down on Tuesday, while the stock market resumed trading. The Philippines endures about 20 major storms or typhoons each rainy season, many of which are deadly. But this week’s floods in Manila were the worst in the capital since 2009, when Tropical Storm Ketsana killed more than 460 people. The typhoons and storms typically start in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, then roar west towards the Philippines and onwards to other parts of southeast Asia, or further north to Taiwan, mainland China and Japan. —AFP

SHANGHAI: People walk in a rainstorm brought by Typhoon Haikui yesterday. —AP

China typhoon causes widespread damage SHANGHAI: A typhoon slammed into eastern China yesterday, the country’s third in a week, killing at least two people and causing more than $1 billion in damage, state media said. Typhoon Haikui made landfall early yesterday morning in Zhejiang province south of Shanghai, after authorities moved nearly two million people to safety, the official Xinhua news agency said. Shanghai media reported that glass falling from a building killed a 57-year-old woman and the collapse of a small chemical factory led to the death of a young boy sheltering inside with his family. The Zhejiang and Shanghai governments had yet to officially report any deaths or injuries.

The typhoon quickly weakened after landing south of Ningbo city, the China Meteorological Administration said, but warned that Haikui was still packing winds of 119 km per hour. The storm had cut off electricity to nearly 400,000 households in Zhejiang province, Xinhua said. In Ningbo city two houses collapsed including a workers’ dormitory but firefighters rescued all twelve trapped people, it said.

The typhoon flooded crops and caused at least 6.8 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in direct economic damage in Zhejiang, according to an estimate by the provincial government.

Haikui did not make a direct hit on Shanghai - mainland China’s financial hub - but the city raised its most severe typhoon signal shortly before midday yesterday and urged people to stay home.

The typhoon knocked down trees, halted hundreds of flights at the city’s two airports and suspended some long-distance train services. The Shanghai stock market operated normally despite the typhoon.

Construction sites and public parks were ordered to be shut. Shanghai officials moved 374,000 people to emergency shelters, amid fears the storm could be the worst since 2005, when Typhoon Matsa killed seven people in the city.

By late afternoon yesterday, the typhoon had passed Zhejiang’s provincial capital Hangzhou and was forecast to move into Anhui province, bringing rains of up to 400 mm in some areas. Haikui is the third typhoon to hit China in a few days, after two battered other parts of the country over the weekend, killing 23 people, Xinhua reported earlier this week.

Typhoon Saola left 14 dead in the central province of Hubei while nine people were killed in the northeastern province of Liaoning by Typhoon Damrey, it said.

China is hit by typhoons every summer, normally affecting its eastern and southern regions.—AFP

Myanmar marks 1988 protest YANGON: Crowds turned out yesterday in cities across Myanmar to commemorate the 24th anniversary of massive pro-democracy protests, with the government giving its approval - and even financial support - for the first time. Former political prisoners joined hundreds of others at rallies in Yangon, Mandalay and elsewhere to mark the Aug. 8, 1988, start of weeks of protests across the country that were bloodily suppressed by the military. Government approval for yesterday’s rallies would be unthinkable a few years ago. While the country was under military rule, citizens did not dare to mark the anniversary publicly for fear of arrest.

President Thein Sein, who has introduced a wave of globally praised reforms since taking office last year, sent two Cabinet ministers to inform organizers on Tuesday that the government was approving their request to hold the rallies. The ministers also handed over 1 million kyat

($1,200) in cash to help fund the events, said Ko Ko Gyi, a leader of the 1988 uprising who spent many years in prison. “It’s as if the government is also participating in this commemoration,” Ko Ko Gyi said in a telephone interview from Mandalay, where the main rally was being held. “I feel like this is a step toward reform.”

Presidential spokesman Nay Zin Latt said the government recognized the anniversary as a “historic event” and the president wanted to show his sincerity about achieving national reconciliation.

“The president always talks about national reconciliation,” the spokesman said. “This action can help build better mutual understanding.” After a demonstration by students on Aug. 8, 1988, the uprising spread throughout the country, drawing an estimated million people. Several thousand were killed before the protests were crushed the following month. The military repealed the constitution and imposed martial law.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a leader of the democracy movement during the protests. Her political party swept elections held in 1990, but the military refused to let it take power. “The ‘88 uprising was the symbol of the people’s cooperation,” Ko Ko Gyi said. “It makes us remember our friends who are still in prison and those who live abroad. It also reminds me of our hard times.”

Human rights groups say authorities are still holding an unknown number of political prisoners, although the most famous have been released over the past two years, including Suu Kyi. Last month, authorities temporarily detained more than 20 activists ahead of a planned commemoration of the 50th anniversary of a brutal military crackdown on students in July 1962. Although all were freed after about a day, their colleagues said the detentions showed that the government remains repressive despite its reforms. —AP

YANGON: Tin Oo, patron of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, talks during a meeting to mark the 24th anniversary of the 1988 students uprising yesterday. —AFP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

NEWS

LONDON: Egypt’s Tamer Bayoumi (red) fights against South Korea’s Lee Daehoon during their men’s taekwondo quarter-final bout in the category under 58 kg as part of the London 2012 Olympic games yesterday. — AFP

in the

news

Bus plunges into gorge, killing 31 people in India GAUHATI: A crowded passenger bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a gorge in India’s remote northeast yesterday, killing at least 31 people, police said. State police chief N Ramachandran said another 34 passengers were injured in the predawn accident in Tongseng village in Meghalaya state. The bus was heading to Gauhati, the main city in neighboring Assam state, when the driver lost control of the vehicle and it plunged into the gorge. Seven people with critical injuries were moved to a big hospital in the nearby town of Silchar, police said. Ramachandran said around 65 people were traveling in the 40-seater bus.

Police figures show India has the world’s highest road death toll, with more than 110,000 people dying each year in accidents commonly caused by overcrowding, speeding, and poor vehicle and road maintenance.

Woman stole baby to back pregnancy claim LOS ANGELES: A man who believed he was the father of a newborn girl was shocked to learn his estranged wife had faked the pregnancy and snatched an infant from a hospital in an effort to continue the ruse, police said. Grisel Ramirez, 48, is accused of posing as a visitor to enter Garden Grove Medical Center, where she attempted to abduct a baby Monday, Lt Jeff Nightengale said Tuesday. She remained held without bail and was due for arraignment. Authorities have not yet filed any charges. The husband had no idea she wasn’t pregnant, Nightengale said. “She perpetuated this myth for several months, and they don’t live together and don’t see each other, so the husband totally believed it,” said Nightengale. When the due date passed, Ramirez’ husband pressed her to meet the child and asked whether he needed to sign the birth certificate, police said. “We interviewed him last night and he for sure thought he was the father of a baby girl,” Nightengale said. “He was upset and devastated that it wasn’t true.” Ramirez, a waitress, may have approached other pregnant women and asked about their due dates and their baby’s gender at another Southern California hospital last month, Nightengale said. One woman grew suspicious of the questions and told staff at Western Medical Center-Anaheim. There was no surveillance video available at the hospital, so police used a photo lineup for the people who witnessed the woman’s strange activity on July 26.

Navy tests ocean drones off US coast NEWPORT: Just beneath the placid, sailboat-dotted surface of Narragansett Bay, torpedo-shaped vehicles spin and pivot to their own rhythm, carrying out missions programmed by their US Navy masters. The bay known as a playground for the rich is the testing ground for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, where the Navy is working toward its goal of achieving a squadron of self-driven, undersea vehicles.

One of the gadgets recently navigated its own way from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to Newport, completing several preset tasks in what the military calls an unprecedented feat. Technology under consideration by the military is often tested aboard cylinder-shaped vehicles with a diameter of about 20 inches. But the center also tests its own prototypes, including one dubbed Razor, which can propel itself by using flippers, like a turtle, for stealth. The Navy hopes its drones will eventually pilot themselves across oceans. The vehicles are already used to detect mines and map the ocean floor and, with tweaks over the next several years, the military says they will be applied more to intelligence gathering and, in the more distant future, anti-submarine warfare. “We do see these autonomous undersea vehicles as game changers,” said Christopher Egan, a program manager at NUWC.

Older Americans upbeat about aging and future NEW YORK: Baby boomers are upbeat about aging and expect the next phase of their lives to be better than the last, but many are concerned about their financial future and longterm health costs, a survey released in Tuesday showed. Americans are living healthier and longer that ever before. The US Census Bureau predicts boomers will turn 65 at a rate of 10,000 per day for the next decade, making them, along with centenarians, the fastestgrowing segment of the population. More than 75 percent of seniors questioned in the poll on aging are optimistic, think the best is yet to come, and expect to have the same quality of life, or better, during their next decade.

“The reason they are upbeat is because we have changed our definition of aging. People are working longer. They see people that are older being healthier,” said Donna Shalala, the president of the University of Miami and a former US Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration.

Shalala, 71, who will discuss the results of the poll during a panel on successful aging in Miami yesterday, said people are buoyed by seeing their relatives living longer. “My mother is 100 years old. Why shouldn’t I be optimistic?” she added.

The majority of 2,250 seniors, aged 60 or

older, questioned in the telephone survey from the National Council on Aging, medical insurer UnitedHealthcare and the newspaper USA Today said they are confident they will be able to maintain their health and think they manage stress effectively. Although many seniors feel financially secure, nearly half of low- and middle-income seniors questioned in the poll are not confident they will be able to cover their expenses over the next five to 10 years.

About a third of older Americans do not think they will be able to afford long-term care, according to the poll, and for 1 in 5 seniors, a major financial event would result in a fiscal crisis. Lower income seniors are also more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses and less likely to exercise. Seventy-two percent of people who make less than $30,000 a year said they live with a lingering health problem.

Whether it is out of necessity, a sense of productivity, or the enjoyment of it, about 20 percent of seniors over 65 said they are still working either full- or part-time. “The market absolutely threw this generation off,” Shalala said about the impact of the recession. And just as many seniors are staying in the workplace longer, the vast majority want to “age in place,” or continue to live in their own home for the next decade. It could be a feasible

option for most 60 somethings, but less than half of seniors in their 70s said they could live independently.

The poll also showed that a lack of services in the community is a concern for seniors. More than 25 percent of people in their 60s were not confident there would be resources and facilities in their communities to allow them to live

independently. “With appropriate preventive care and lifestyle changes, growing older doesn’t have to mean living with chronic disease and disability,” said Rhonda Randall, the chief medical officer at United Healthcare & Retirement. The poll was conducted between May 10 and June 6. The margin of error for the general population is 3.1 percent. — Reuters

MPs warn government against...

Continued from Page 1 the constitutional court. The government has reportedly delayed until at least next week a decision on whether to refer the law to the court or not amid reports that the government is inclined to refer the law despite stiff opposition.

MP Mussallam Al-Barrak warned that the protests will start immediately once the government refers the law to the court and the people will protest at the “square of will in defense of the constitution”. MP Harbash said that the cost of the protests will be too expensive, saying that “if the people go to the square of will, the cost will be high and it will not limit its

demands to maintain the five electoral districts”.

The government is considering views expressed by a number of constitutional experts that the electoral law and voting system are not in line with the constitution. The government wants the constitutional court’s opinion on the law before it recommends dissolving the 2009 election and holding fresh polls. This means that the 2009 Assembly will continue for a few more months. The opposition is insisting that the 2009 Assembly is illegitimate and must be immediately dissolved and fresh election held. It says that any amendment to the electoral law can be agreed in the new Assembly.

Egypt gunships kill 20 militants The Last 10 Days Continued from Page1 “Terrorist elements fired rockets and shells and heavy machine guns... at the aircraft combing the area, but did not hit the aircraft, and ground forces then dealt with them and killed a number of them,” the agency reported. Overnight, unknown assailants attacked four security checkpoints near the town of ElArish, security officials said. The interior ministry said three policemen were wounded.

The air strikes came a day after the military held a funeral for the 16 soldiers who died in Sunday’s attack by militants amid widespread calls for vengeance. The soldiers were killed when Islamist militants raided a border guard base under the cover of mortar fire, and commandeered a military vehicle into neighboring Israel before they were stopped by an Israeli helicopter strike. Security forces had raided homes on Tuesday in search of suspects in the attack, as they prepared to close tunnels to the Palestinian Gaza Strip used to smuggle weapons and militants as well as food and other supplies.

Israel had handed over to Egypt six “completely charred” bodies that were in the armored personnel carrier that was driven into Israel before being destroyed, said a medical official in ElArish. The reports of the Egyptian raids in Sinai were welcomed in the Jewish state. “These extremist organizations can harm the entire Middle East, it is not just against Egypt,” said Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense ministry official.

“The penny has dropped in Egypt, their level of awareness has been heightened. They are moving to action,” he told Israeli radio.

The bodies from Sunday’s attack have not yet been identified, but security officials blame Bedouin militants and Palestinian Islamists from Gaza for the attack. Sunday’s bloodshed highlighted the government’s tenuous grip on the Sinai Peninsula, from where Islamist militants have launched several rocket attacks on Israel and a deadly cross border raid last year. It also presents a challenge to Egypt’s new Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood has good relations with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip.

Morsi did not attend the funeral, where some protesters chanted slogans against the Brotherhood and, witnesses said, tried to assault the Islamist Prime Minister Hisham Qandil. Morsi’s spokesman said in a statement that the president did not attend because the security measures needed to guard the president would have impinged on the “popular character” of the ceremony.

Morsi has received both Hamas’s chief and its prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, in visits, along with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, and his government had eased border restrictions on Gaza.

Following Sunday’s attack, Egypt indefinitely closed its Rafah crossing with Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s only access to the outside world that is not controlled by Israel. The enclave has been under a semi-blockade by Israel since Hamas seized it in 2007.

Af ter president Hosni Mubarak ’s ouster in Februar y 2011, militants stepped up attacks in Sinai, prompting the militar y, then in charge of the country, to send reinforcements to the peninsula.— AFP

Continued from Page 1 real centre of attention to the Prophet (PBUH) and received a special care from him.

However, the Prophet (PBUH) teaches every Muslim through his habits, deeds and sayings how to receive these special days and how to benefit from the special chances and occasions therein until the last moment.

From the above prophetic tradition, Aisha mentioned that the Prophet (PBUH) would stay awake during most of those last ten nights. He used to stand-up and pray most of the hours of each night, if not all. Also, he encouraged and urged his family to pray in these nights. Was it a practice of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his family only? Surely not. In a sound prophetic tradition reported by Imam Al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim, the Prophet (PBUH) mentioned that whoever stands-up at night (in prayer) during the month of Ramadan in worship of God with firm belief and anticipation of hope, he will be forgiven the previous sins.

Accordingly, the situation would be of more concern and care in the last 10 nights of Ramadan, as we learned from the companions of the Prophet and the generations after them. Another habit of worship in the last 10 days of Ramadan is seclusion in mosques for the purpose of worship and meditation (E’etikaf). Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) used to live in seclusion in the mosque and encouraged his companions, and subsequently the entire Muslims, to do so.

The practice of seclusion by the Prophet and many Muslims entails staying in the mosque most of the time starting from the first day of these last 10 days until the last night of Ramadan. Imam Bukhari and Muslim narrated in their books of prophetic traditions that the usual practice of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is living in seclusion in the mosque in the last 10 days of Ramadan every year.

Now let’s imagine the picture. It is the last duration of the special respected month of Ramadan, the month of worship and discipline. What do you think the in-seclusion Muslim would do inside the mosque? Play cards, poke jokes and spend valuable time in chatting? Of course - no. He tries to get closer to his Creator and strengthen his relationship with Him. First of all, it should be noted that the Muslim in such as situation of seclusion in the mosque starts with washing his body, wearing clean and good clothes and wearing perfumes if possible. After that, he detains himself for obeying, worshipping and remembering Allah in the mosque. He keeps reciting the Quran from time to time or tries to memorize many chapters and verses of the Quran by heart. Moreover, the Muslim who lives in seclusion offers invocations and prayers, learns more through reading, listening to the lessons and the teachings and discussing useful matters with friends in the mosque. He raises his hands, from time to time, calling upon God for support, bounties, guidance, strength and mercy and to accept his prayers and good deeds.

Also, he glorifies and praises God the Most Powerful and the Most Merciful. In one moment you may find the Muslim in a spiritual environment with some shading tears, and in another moment you can feel that he tries to discipline himself and to model himself on good manners and ethics. The first one is about his relation with God, and the later about his relation with human beings. All these practices bring him closer to God without exaggeration in imagination. Another important event in the last 10 days is ‘Laylat Alqadr’, which may be translated as the Night of Decree. It is a very special night in Islam so much so that it needs a special article, which I am sure some brothers will cover. — Courtesy, AWARE Center

14

opinion

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

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Issues

Muslims ask if charity should begin at home

By Sughra Ahmed y experience observing Ramadan and engaging with the volunteer sector in the UK has taught me to never hold back when there’s a chance to help others in need. Quite often, though, Muslims, like other individuals, are more likely to give to those we can identify with or have some kind of connection with, especially members of our own faith.

British Muslim charities have done some great work as a result of this generosity. Islamic Relief is perhaps one of the largest and established Muslim charities in the UK; it specializes in international aid and development working in over 25 countries.

But ultimately the connection that inspires us to give to charity should be one of shared humanity. When we see or hear about anyone in need, regardless of their faith or background, we should feel compassion because they are in need, not necessarily because we share the same belief in God. As British Muslims, it is worth asking ourselves when we are faced with someone raising money for the homeless here in the UK or when we are tagged in an online campaign that seeks to help vulnerable runaways, does it engender the same feelings of empathy and compassion that we would have if asked to donate to a campaign working to help only vulnerable children of our own faith?

Perhaps we need to consider some of the campaigns that we have seen this Ramadan.

One such campaign is organized by the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB). Established in 1990, ISB focuses on how Muslims can reach beyond their own faith group. For example, in order to draw attention to projects at home, ISB partners with organizations such as The Children’s Society, a Christian organization that works with youth and specializes in helping young runaways. “Charity should begin at home”, ISB explains, “British Muslims should be just as concerned about poverty, inequality and injustice on their doorsteps as elsewhere else in the world.” Both organizations, and faith communities, value the well-being of children. With this common interest, they teach their communities how useful and easy it can be to work together. The collaboration can help people to understand the issues at stake and how together they can work to make the lives of children better, something which benefits society as a whole.

While ISB and The Children’s Society hope to raise money, the main goal is to help foster a desire to consider giving locally. There is something fulfilling about donating money to projects abroad as the need is different from that in the UK, but we shouldn’t underestimate the difference we can make when we share what we have with those around us - whose need is sometimes greater for the fact that many people don’t consider them a top priority.During Ramadan, many Muslims try to be at their most generous, fasting through the day as a reminder of what they have and thinking of the needs of others. While making the decision on where to give, may we remember that we are all part of the human family with a duty to help all our fellow human beings.

M

Sughra Ahmed is a Research Fellow at the Policy Research Centre, a think tank based at The Islamic Foundation in Leicestershire, UK. —CGNews

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.

Syria rebels see future fight with foreign radicals

By Erika Solomon bu Bakr, a Syrian rebel commander on the outskirts of Aleppo, is a devoted Islamist determined to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad. But the radical allies that have joined the rebels in recent months alarm even him. “Let me be clear. I am an Islamist, my fighters are Islamists. But there is more than one type of Islamist,” he said. “These men coming fought in insurgencies like Iraq. They are too extreme, they want to blow up any symbol of the state, even schools.”

Seventeen months into the uprising against Assad, Syria’s rebels are grateful for the support of Islamist fighters from around the region. They bring weapons, money, expertise and determination to the fight. But some worry that when the battle against Assad is over they may discover their allies - including fighters from the Gulf, Libya, Eastern Europe or as far as the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area - have different aims than most Syrians.

“Our goal is to make a new future, not destroy everything,” Abu Bakr said, sighing as he rattled his prayer beads. “As bloody as it is now, this stage is simple. We all have the same cause: topple the regime. When Bashar falls, we may find a new battlefront against our former allies.” Abu Bakr and his comrades say they envision Syria as a conservative version of Turkey’s moderate Islamist rule, not an autocratic theocracy.

They are unnerved by a recent kidnapping of foreign journalists and attacks on state infrastructure. Western powers have warily watched the signs of an increasing presence of foreign Sunni Islamist fighters in Syria.

They fear a repeat of the mass sectarian slaughter that followed the American invasion of Iraq. Sunni Islamist suicide bombers affiliated with al Qaeda there are still targeting security forces and Shi’ites in large-scale bomb attacks. Some fighters who have come to Syria are idealists who believe in jihad, or holy war, for oppressed Muslims, and would probably return home in a post-Assad era. But others are al Qaeda-linked fighters who may want a base in Syria. Their numbers are still low, but enough to worry countries fearing Iraq-style bloodshed in Syria, a country straddling the lines of most ethnic and regional conflicts in the Middle East.

A

LOOK FOR THE BOMBS Abu Bakr, a short man with a long black moustache, says right now there is no choice but to allow foreign fighters. On a summer night, he and his small daughter waved off a truck crammed with rebels heading into Aleppo. The fighters have brought in rocket propelled grenades and boxes of homemade explosives. And wherever you find improvised bombs, you’re likely to find foreign fighters, says a rebel called Mohammed in another local unit. “They brought a lot of bomb making experience from the insurgency in Iraq. With their help, our bombs have 3-7 kilometer detonation range. Now, we can even set them off by mobile phone,” said Mohammed, who still walks with a slight limp from a freshly healed wound. He was shot when his unit planted bombs near an airforce base. Like other fighters interviewed by Reuters, he denied that he had worked with radicals from abroad.

In some Aleppo neighborhoods hit by heavy army shelling over the past week, there were signs that foreign fighters appeared to be present among rebels. Some men crouching among gutted buildings wore shalwar kameez, the loose trousers and shirts worn in Afghanistan and Pakistan but uncommon in Syria. They had long beards cleanly cut along their jaw line, a style associated with Salafism, an austere Sunni school which seeks to replicate life in the age of the Prophet Mohamed. As soon as journalists approached, the men vanished into buildings.

Not all rebel groups work with foreigners, and not all Syrian rebels work well with each other. In Aleppo for example, the largest group is the 2,000 strong Tawheed Brigade. It says it accepts foreign fighters, but only if they play by its rules. “There are some really extremist battalions that don’t cooperate well with us. They stay on their own,” said a fighter from the Tawheed brigade. “We’re trying to fold jihadis into our group so they back off their more aggressive tactics. That doesn’t mean we aren’t nervous. They could still turn and rebel against us,” he said.

WEAK UNIONS The Tawheed brigade’s leaders, none of whom were military officers, are trying to keep the battle in Aleppo more organised than previous campaigns. Commander Abdulqader Salheen says they aim to divide the city into nine administrative districts and set up leaders for each area to streamline communication.

But there are several other brigades and dozens of independent battalions working independently, and fights are common. The Tawheed brigade’s advances in unifying the three-week-old battle for Aleppo began to fall apart when smaller groups complained they were not getting a fair share of the weapons spoils from ransacked police stations.

Some units have even withdrawn back to the countryside over disputes. Tempers are short and everyone has lost sib-

lings, cousins and friends. Most fighters are young, anywhere from 15 to 28 years old, and they are grappling with one of the bloodiest conflicts in the region. Confusion reigns. At an abandoned military site held by rebels in Aleppo, one young fighter with a scuffed up kalashnikov drew a blank when asked what unit he was in. He consulted a comrade, who told him they were part of a newly formed “Victory Battalion”.

One of the most effective and elusive groups in Aleppo now sending reinforcements into Damascus is called Ahrar AlSham, “The Free Men of Syria.” Its fighters accept the bulk of jihadist foreign fighters in Idlib and Aleppo, rebels say. “They’re extremely effective and secretive. They coordinate with us to attack the regime but they don’t take orders from anyone. They get weapons and explosives smuggled from abroad that are much better,” said a rebel in Aleppo called Anwar. Other groups are amateurs working alone, and it shows. When the army fires its helicopter gunships and mortars on them, they crouch in an alley while dust and concrete rains down on them. They peek over their rifles or grenade launchers, and fire randomly.

GULF CASH It’s little surprise then that battle-hardened fighters from abroad, with wads of cash from the Gulf, appeal to rebels. One opposition activist said that groups like Ahrar al-Sham get money from Gulf Islamists in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “In a period of several months when I was checking, they sent about 3 million Kuwaiti dinars ($10.6 million) to hardliners like them,” he said, requesting anonymity. At a hotel in one Turkish border town, men in short white robes and Salafi beards whisper in the lobby as the reception desk sorts a stack of Saudi and Kuwaiti passports.

“We’re getting so many guests from the Gulf now, and Islamists from Europe too. Sometimes groups as big as 25 people. And if they get chatty they tell me all about the money

they’re sending in. One guy told me he alone brought more than $100,000,” said a hotel employee who also asked not to be named. Given their willingness to put their money and their lives on the line, foreign radicals and the ideas they represent could have a growing influence. The concrete alleyways of rebel-held areas are now littered with graffiti slogans such as “Hey apostate regime, the Islamic Syria is coming,” or “The people demand (Islamic) Sharia law”.

ISLAMIC STATE But most rebels don’t have clear answers for what they mean when they say they are Islamist or want an Islamic state.

“We want to build a state where our citizens are equal, Muslims and minorities,” said the young rebel Anwar, as he watched an Islamic TV station from a safe house in Aleppo. “We want to be able to choose our own future, not have it be determined by poverty or our religion.” The fighters from Syria are mostly poor, uneducated young men from rural areas. Decades of repressed anger have helped shape their ideas. Most say that as members of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, their families were harassed and discriminated against by security forces.

Elite members of President Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, hold most of the power in the security forces and government. The Assad family brutally crushed an Islamist Sunni uprising in the 1980s. Tens of thousands were massacred in the city of Hama. “My brother was tortured and arrested for a year in 2008 for criticizing the regime in a cafe. I had neighbors interrogated for growing a beard and going to prayers more often,” says Anwar, who comes from a tiny farming and smuggling town on the Syrian-Turkish border. Like most rebels, Anwar and his friends have grown long dark beards, which they see as a defiant fashion statement. “We could never grow them before the uprising. This is the tough rebel look,” laughs one of his friends.—Reuters

Syria border standoff a new front in Iraq-Kurdish rift

By Patrick Markey eneath the green, white and red Kurdistan flag, Kurdish Peshmerga troops keep watch from hastily built earthen barricades on soldiers of the Iraqi national army dug in less than a kilometer away along a desolate stretch of road.

The standoff, for a moment last week so close to confrontation, is the most dramatic illustration of a growing rift between Baghdad and the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan. Frictions over oil revenues are exacerbated now by conflicting views of the Syrian rebellion and by territorial disputes that pose questions about the unity of Iraq.

Over a few days last week, Baghdad and Kurdish officials separately rushed troops to the Syrian frontier, ostensibly to secure it against unrest in the neighboring country; but the mobilization brought Iraqi Arab and Kurdish soldiers face to face along their own disputed internal border. Washington intervened and a potential clash was avoided. But the standoff opened a new front in Baghdad’s already dangerously fragile relations with the Kurds in their push for more autonomy from central government.

“We don’t want to fight, we are both Iraqis, but if war comes, we won’t run,” said Peshmerga Ismael Murad Khady, sitting under a straw awning to ward off the sun, the battered stock of a BKC machine gun pointing not towards some foreign border but at fellow countrymen manning the Iraqi army post. Just visible are Iraqi army trenches and tents beyond the empty stretch of road that is now a de facto noman’s land in this small frontline. Nearby, local cars kick up dust as they take sidetracks to skirt the two posts.

Behind the Peshmerga, a title that means literally ‘those who lay down their lives’, a battery of Kurdish 122-mm howitzers directs its barrels towards the Iraqi line. They are part of the heavier armor reinforcements Kurdistan and Iraq drafted into the disputed area just a kilometer from the Syrian border.

Always a potential flashpoint, tensions between Baghdad and Kurdistan escalated after US troops left in December, removing a buffer between the Iraqi Arab dominated central government and ethnic Kurds who have run their own autonomous area since 1991. Iraq’s national army units and Peshmerga have faced off before, only to pull back before clashes as both regions tested each other’s nerves, lacking however any interest in confrontation.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, a Shiite muslim, and Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani have sparred more aggressively since America’s withdrawal, as Kurdistan chaffs against central government control. At the heart of their dispute are contested territories claimed by Iraqi Arabs and Kurds and crude reserves now attracting majors like Exxon and Chevron to Kurdistan, upsetting Baghdad, which says it

B

controls rights to develop oil. Though autonomous, Kurdistan still relies on Baghdad for its share of the national oil revenues.

Kurdistan is growing increasingly closer to neighbor Turkey as it talks about ways to export its own oil and not rely on Baghdad. Maliki’s government accuses Kurdistan of violating the law by signing deals with oil majors. The rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has only widened the rift between Baghdad and Erbil. They find themselves in opposing corners of a regional struggle. Iraq with Syrian ally Iran is resisting calls for Assad to go. Kurdistan is in talks with the Syrian Kurdish opposition and closer to Turkey, a sponsor of Assad foes. “In addition to the local dimension to this, there is the Syrian one,” said Joost Hiltermann at International Crisis Group. “Control over the border and what crosses it, is therefore of great importance.”

RIVALS AND NEIGHBOURS Those rivalries were clear when Iraqi troops began deploying to Syria’s borders to help control refugees and spillover, and Peshmerga soldiers refused them permission to move into what they considered a Kurdish part of their disputed areas. After calls from Washington, Kurdish government sources say, both sides agreed on Sunday to cooperate to avoid a flareup and to withdraw troops once Syria’s crisis ends. But the reinforcements remain in place. It was not the first time top US officials have stepped into Iraq’s political fray.

Last year, Peshmerga sent 10,000 fighters to the disputed oil city of Kirkuk, officially to protect citizens there. Their presence sparked a massive US effort to calm tensions. It took a month before the Peshmerga pulled its fighters back.

Analysts said the move was in part a Kurdish test of Maliki’s resolve once the American troops had gone.

Kurdish officials say Peshmerga have long controlled the area near the Syrian border in disputed parts of Ninawa province and saw no need for Iraqi army deployment. Iraqi national border police are already working there. Some Kurdish officials see Baghdad’s military push along the border as part of an attempted landgrab. “This force came without coordination or agreement, so the Peshmerga decided to stop them,” said Jabbar Yawar, head of Peshmerga forces. Baghdad countered that Iraq’s army should be in charge of the country’s borders, especially because of the turmoil in Syria, and accused Kurdish authorities of obstructing the military.

Troops were deployed just as Kurdistan announced oil deals with France’s Total and Russia’s Gazprom, the latest majors to ignore Baghdad’s warnings they risked losing contracts with central government if they agreed to develop Kurdish fields. — Reuters

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

sp orts

Elite field to lock horns at PGA Championship KIAWAH ISLAND: The strongest field ever put together for a tournament will tackle one of the most challenging golf courses in the United States when the 94th PGA Championship begins this week.

All 100 of the top ranked players in the world will tee it up at Kiawah Island Golf Resort for the final major championship of the season.

It is the first time that the top 100 have played in the same event since the world ranking system came into effect in 1986.

With the last 16 majors having been won by 16 different players and this field being what it is, Tiger Woods warned Tuesday not to be surprised if another first-time major winner emerges from the pack. “Golf is getting deep,” said Woods, who is chasing his 15th major title.

“There are so many guys with a chance to win. That is how the sport is. The margins are getting smaller.

“There may be 16 different winners but you look at the cuts. The cuts are getting lower. The scores between the leader and the guy who is 70th, sometimes it is 10 shots or less which is amazing.

“If you have got margins that are that small, you’re going to get guys who win once here and there.” The tournament begins Thursday and a lot is going to depend on the weather at Kiawah Island’s The Ocean Course, which at 7,900 yards was

recently rated by Golf Digest to be the most difficult course in America.

The wind usually blows in off the Atlantic Ocean but thunderstorms and heat might play an ever big role this week in how low scores go.

“It doesn’t look like we are going to get dry weather this week,” Woods said during Tuesday’s practice day.

“The fairways are perfect. The greens are perfect. It is going to be a touch on the long side because it is just not

rolling out. “If the PGA decides to play it all the way back it is just going to be a big ballpark.” Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, and 2012 major winners Webb Simpson (US Open), Bubba Watson (Masters), Ernie Els (British Open) are other players to watch out for this week.

World number one Donald of England said there is so much more parity on the PGA Tour now. “There

KIAWAH ISLAND: Tiger Woods watches his chip shot to the 11th green during a practice round for the PGA Championship golf tournament.—AP

isn’t one guy that is really distancing himself from the rest,” Donald said.

“The longer the streak goes, the more encouragement it gives to those guys who haven’t won a major, like myself.” Aussie Adam Scott will be looking to rebound from his Open disaster two weeks ago where he closed with four consecutive birdies to lose a four-shot lead to South Africa’s Els. Jim Furyk is also hoping for a quick turnaround from the anguish of blowing a late lead. Furyk led Sunday’s final round of the WGCBridgestone Invitational for 71 holes before suffering a meltdown on the par-four No. 18.

Furyk’s double bogey on the last hole, combined with a 15-foot putt to save par by Bradley, allowed Bradley to claim the final tune-up tournament heading into the PGA Championship.

It meant that Bradley heads into his defence of his PGA Championship title this week with a lot more confidence than he had two weeks ago.

“Anytime you win it is a great feeling,” Bradley said. “A little less pressure than you normally have. I have got a great course here and I feel like it suits me well and I want to defend my title as best I can.” Donald thinks the weather is going to play a huge factor this week. “The conditions are changing from hour to hour,” Donald said. “This is a very tough test.”—AFP

Raonic advances to last 16 TORONTO: Canada’s Milos Raonic defeated Serbia’s Viktor Troicki 6-3 6-4 at the Toronto Masters on Tuesday to set up a potential third-round showdown with Olympic champion Andy Murray while eighth seed John Isner survived a tough test.

Playing in his hometown tournament for the first time since cracking the world’s top-25, Raonic was not at his best but held serve throughout the 69-minute match while a rowdy crowd waved red signs with “Go Canada” splashed across in white letters.

“I’m proud with the way I competed, with the way I played, I did a lot of important things well but I have some space for improvements for my next match,” Raonic told reporters.

“I was pretty fluid and relaxed most of the match ... but I got a bit sloppy, maybe trying to force a little bit too much in the last few return games on his serve, and I was making some sloppy errors and giving away too many points at that point.”

The big-serving 21-year-old, who will join forces with Troicki for a dou-

bles match on Wednesday, broke his opponent in the eighth game of the opening set for a 5-3 lead and remained in relative control the rest of the way.

The match was Raonic’s first since his 6-3 3-6 25-23 loss to Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga last week in what was at the time the longest three-set match in Olympic tennis history.

Raonic, who as the tournament’s 16th seed had a first-round bye, will play the winner of late yesterday’s match between Murray and Italian qualifier Flavio Cipolla for a spot in the quarter-final of the tournament.

Isner, playing his first match since losing to world number one Roger Federer in the quarter-finals at the London Olympics, needed one hour and 48 minutes to secure a 7-6 7-5 victory over a plucky Pablo Andujar of Spain. Andujar, the world number 44, managed to frustrate Isner by chasing down an array of shots but ultimately ran out of answers as Isner, who recorded 17 aces, relied on his power and his big ser ve to advance.—Reuters

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

sp orts Eye injury cost Boucher his lens, iris and pupil CAPE TOWN: Mark Boucher, the former South Africa wicketkeeper, lost the lens, iris and pupil in the eye injury which forced him to announce his international retirement, he said yesterday. Boucher has already quit international cricket following the injury last month and said he was unlikely return quickly, or even at all, to the professional game after undergoing a series of operations.

The 35-year-old, who played in 147 tests and completed a world record 555 test dismissals, suffered a lacerated left eye after being struck by a bail during the Proteas’ warm-up match against Somerset in England last month. “It is unlikely that I will play any professional cricket again in the near future, which is very unfortunate as I was looking forward to contributing as a player for the Cobras,” he said in a statement. “The risk of additional damage to my left eye or even damage to the other eye doesn’t warrant it.” He added: “It has been a difficult time for me mentally and physically.” “I have lost the lens, iris and pupil in my left eye. There was severe damage to my retina...physically, at times, I have been in a lot of pain. “ “I accept that the healing process is a long one and that attaining some vision in my left eye will take some time and a lot of patience.” “Injuries happen and this could have happened earlier on in my career. “I am incredibly grateful for the length of career that I have had and the amazing things I have experienced and people I have met during that time. This is just another challenge in my life and something that I will be working to overcome.” —Reuters

Stotts to coach Blazers

Bellamy to leave Liverpool

NEW YORK: The Portland Trail Blazers named Terry Stotts as their new head coach Tuesday, injecting fresh blood to revive their stagnant franchise. Stotts replaces interim coach Kaleb Canales who finished off the season for the Blazers once seventh-year coach Nate McMillan was fired in March. “Terry is one of the elite offensive minds in the NBA, has extensive experience with multiple organizations and was instrumental in the Dallas Mavericks winning the 2011 NBA Championship,” Blazers general manager Neil Olshey.

The 54-year-old Stotts, who served as an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks from 2008-2012, has also had two separate tenures as a head coach with Atlanta (2002-2004) and Milwaukee (2005-07). “I’m very pleased to be a part of a great franchise in a beautiful city with such a proud history,” Stotts told the Blazers website (nba.com/blazers). ”I look forward to working hard with Neil and our players toward the ultimate goal of bringing another championship to Portland.” Portland have been unable to climb out of the NBA’s middle of the pack in recent years as luck has not been on their side. Greg Oden, their No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft, barely saw the court during his injury-plagued stint while former NBA All Star Brandon Roy also had his Portland tenure derailed by injury.

LONDON: Welsh midfielder Craig Bellamy has asked to leave Liverpool to join English Championship (second tier) side Cardiff City, his manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed yesterday.

“We’ve been in talks with him and with Cardiff, in terms of a possibility of him going back there,” Rodgers told a news conference broadcast by Sky Sports. “It’s not him crying wanting to leave Liverpool, it’s more compassionate reasons really.”

Rodgers said Bellamy wanted to be with his family who still live in Cardiff. “He’s 33 years of age and he’s travelled around the country all his life while his family has been based elsewhere,” he said.

Bellamy, who represented Britain at the London Olympics scoring once in four matches, has already spent time at Cardiff going on loan in 2010-11 after falling out with management at Manchester City. He has played for seven clubs, not including loan moves, and previously joined Liverpool in 2006 before signing again on a free transfer in September last year. —Reuters

Posey’s homer lifts Giants

DETROIT: Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera swings on a double in the fifth inning to drive in Andy Dirks and Austin Jackson against the New York Yankees. —AP

Tigers edge Yankees DETROIT: Detroit notched its sixth straight win on Tuesday as Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in three runs, giving the Tigers a 6-5 win over the New York Yankees.

New York scored twice in the ninth inning and had runners at second and third when Curtis Granderson popped up for the final out.

Cabrera has moved into the MVP race by hitting .333 since the All-Star break with 11 homers and 24 RBIs in 24 games. Detroit moved within half a game of first-placed Chicago in the American League Central.

Tigers starter Rick Porcello (9-6) picked up the win, allowing three runs in 6 2-3 innings. Three relievers finished, with Jose Valverde staggering to the save. Yankees starter Phil Hughes (11-9) gave up four runs in 4 1-3 innings.

Rangers 6, Red Sox 3 In Boston, Ryan Dempster rebounded from a rough debut with Texas by pitching strongly to lead the Rangers over Boston.

Acquired from the Chicago Cubs at the July 31 trade deadline, Dempster (1-0) did not allow any earned runs in 6 2-3 innings.

Ian Kinsler had a pair of RBI singles for the Rangers. Red Sox starter Jon Lester (5-10) gave up four runs in 6 2-3 innings. He is 0-5 in his past six starts.

Athletics 10, Angels 4 In Oakland, Bartolo Colon held Los Angeles scoreless through six innings, setting up Oakland’s win. Colon (9-8) extended his scoreless streak to a career-high 22 1-3 innings as the A’s moved half a game ahead of the Angels into second place in the AL West. Jonny Gomes, Derek Norris, Adam Rosales and Josh Reddick all hit home runs and accounted for eight RBIs for the A’s. Angels starter CJ Wilson (9-8) gave up six runs in five innings and walked five.

Rays 4, Blue Jays 1 In St Petersburg, James Shields threw eight strong innings to guide Tampa Bay past Toronto. Shields (10-7) allowed one run, backing up the form of his previous start when he pitched a shutout at Oakland. Even Longoria drove in a run as

he rejoined the Rays after missing 85 games because of a partially torn left hamstring. He went 1-for-3 with a sacrifice fly as the designated hitter. JA Happ (0-1), making his first start with the Blue Jays, gave up four runs in 4 1-3 innings.

Orioles 8, Mariners 7 In Baltimore, Adam Jones singled home the winning run in the 14th inning as Baltimore beat Seattle after rallying from a five-run deficit.

Matt Wieters homered twice, J.J. Hardy contributed a pivotal three-run drive and Nick Markakis had four hits for the Orioles, who trailed 5-0 in the second inning and 72 in the sixth. Baltimore has won 11 straight one-run games and four straight overall. Darren O’Day (6-0), the seventh Baltimore pitcher, worked two innings to take the win in a game that lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes. Shawn Kelley (2-3) took the loss. Seattle finished with 18 hits but did not score after the sixth inning.

Royals 5, White Sox 2 In Chicago, Bruce Chen notched his first win in six weeks, pitching Kansas City past Chicago. Chen (8-9) allowed two runs in 6 2-3 innings.

Billy Butler hit his career-high 22nd homer with a two-run drive in the eighth.

White Sox starter Jake Peavy (9-8) gave up two RBI singles in the seventh which put the Royals ahead.

ST. LOUIS: San Francisco’s Buster Posey continued his hot form with a three-run homer which delivered the Giants a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League on Tuesday and Barry Zito pitched 6 2-3 innings of two-run ball for San Francisco.

Posey leads the major leagues with a .448 batting average and 30 RBIs since the All-Star break, including 12 in his past six games. The home run extended his hitting streak to 11 games.

San Francisco starter Barry Zito (98) allowed two solo home runs over 6 2-3 innings, with no walks. Cardinals starter Lance Lynn (13-5) allowed four runs in six innings.

D’backs 10, Pirates 4 In Pittsburgh, Chris Johnson homered in the eighth and ninth innings, giving him five in eight games since arriving from Houston, and leading Arizona over Pittsburgh.

Johnson’s homer in the eighth capped a four-run rally against Jason Grilli (1-4) that put Arizona ahead 7-4.

Pittsburgh had just taken a 4-3 lead with two runs in the seventh. Miguel Montero doubled in a run in the ninth before Johnson hit a two-run homer to seal the victory. Diamondbacks reliever Brad Ziegler (5-1), who faced one batter and induced an inningending double play in the seventh inning, got the win.

Phillies 3, Braves 0 In Philadelphia, Cole Hamels pitched his fifth career shutout to give Philadelphia victory over Atlanta.

Hamels (12-6) struck out six and didn’t walk a batter to record his 11th career complete game and his first win in three tries since signing a $144 million, six-year contract on July 25.

Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer for the Phillies, who scored all three

runs in the first inning. Mike Minor (68) took the loss for the wild card-leading Braves, allowing three runs in seven innings.

9), recently moved to the bullpen, got four outs for the win. The Marlins’ fourth-inning burst came against Jonathon Niese (8-6).

ahead of second-place Pittsburgh.

Cincinnati starter Johnny Cueto (14-6) pitched seven innings, giving up three runs.

Marlins 4, Mets 2 In New York, Jose Reyes extended his hitting streak to a career-high 25 games, hurting his old team as Miami extended New York’s home losing skid to an entire month.

Brewers 3, Reds 1 In Milwaukee, rookie Mike Fiers was in command on the mound, giving Milwaukee a win over Cincinnati.

Fiers (6-4) retired his first 18 batters and was on track for a perfect game

Nationals 3, Astros 2 In Houston, Danny Espinosa hit a two-run homer early, and his RBI single in the 12th inning gave Washington the victory over Houston.

Michael Morse doubled to start the 12th inning and extend his career-high hitting streak to 16 games. He was replaced by pinchrunner Cesar Izturis, who was advanced to third via Roger Bernadina’s sacrifice bunt.

Espinosa’s sharp grounder off Mickey Storey (0-1) skipped past the pitcher for a hit that brought Izturis home. The loss dropped the Astros to 0-11 in extra-inning games this season. Drew Storen (1-0) retired the last two hitters in the 11th for the win, and Tyler Clippard earned the save.

ST. LOUIS: San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey rounds the bases after hitting a three-run home run off of St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Lance Lynn in the first inning of a baseball game. —AP Booed again at Citi Field, Reyes beat out an infield single which helped the Marlins score four times in the fourth. The former Mets All-Star shortstop has the longest hitting string in the majors this year.

The Mets lost their eighth straight at home. Miami’s Carlos Zambrano (7-

until giving up a double to start the seventh. Over his past nine starts, Fiers has a 1.03 ERA and 61 strikeouts in as many innings. Aramis Ramirez hit a two-run homer for the Brewers, who have won five straight home games.

The Reds remained 31/2 games

Rockies 3, Dodgers 1 In Los Angeles, rookie Jeff Rutledge drove in three runs and had three doubles among his career-high four hits to power Colorado past Los Angeles.

Josh Roenicke (4-0) pitched three innings of scoreless relief for the victory. Dodgers starter Aaron Harang (7-7) was charged with three runs and six hits in six-plus innings.

Padres 7, Cubs 4 In San Diego, Carlos Quentin hit a three-run homer as San Diego defeated Chicago. Padres starter Ross Ohlendorf (4-2) gave up only one unearned run in six-plus innings.

Cubs starter Brooks Raley (0-1) made his major league debut and gave up seven runs in four innings.

Chicago lost its seventh consecutive game and has been outscored 38-16 during the slide. —AP

Twins 7, Indians 5 In Cleveland, Tsuyoshi Nishioka’s sacrifice fly scored the go-ahead run in the ninth inning as Minnesota sent Cleveland to its 11th straight loss.

The Twins scored three times off Indians All-Star closer Chris Perez (0-4), who blew his second save opportunity in three days.

The Indians led 5-1 after six innings, but two errors in the seventh and another in the ninth helped Minnesota rally for its fifth win in six games and seventh straight against Cleveland.

The Indians moved within one loss of matching the franchise record of 12 straight defeats, set in 1981. Minnesota’s Tyler Robertson (1-0) pitched two innings

MLB results/standings Baltimore 8, Seattle 7 (14 innings); Minnesota 7, Cleveland 5; Detroit 6, NY Yankees 5; Philadelphia 3, Atlanta 0; Arizona 10, Pittsburgh 4; Texas 6, Boston 3; Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 1; Miami 4, NY Mets 2; Washington 3, Houston 2 (12 innings); Milwaukee 3, Cincinnati 1; Kansas City 5, Chicago White Sox 2; San Francisco 4, St. Louis 2; San Diego 7, Chicago Cubs 4; Oakland 10, LA Angels 4; Colorado 3, LA Dodgers 1.

American League Eastern Division W L NY Yankees 63 46 Baltimore 59 51 Tampa Bay 57 52 Boston 55 56 Toronto 53 56

PCT GB .578 .536 4.5 .523 6 .495 9 .486 10

Central Division Chicago White Sox 60 49 Detroit 60 50 Cleveland 50 60 Minnesota 49 61 Kansas City 46 63

.550 .545 0.5 .455 10.5 .445 11.5 .422 14

Texas Oakland LA Angels Seattle

Western Division 64 45 59 51 59 52 51 61

.587 .536 5.5 .532 6 .455 14.5

National League Eastern Division Washington 67 43 Atlanta 63 47 NY Mets 53 57 Philadelphia 50 60 Miami 50 60

.609 .573 .482 .455 .455

Central Division Cincinnati 66 44 Pittsburgh 62 47 St. Louis 60 50 Milwaukee 50 59 Chicago Cubs 43 65 Houston 36 75

.600 .569 3.5 .545 6 .459 15.5 .398 22 .324 30.5

Western Division San Francisco 60 50 LA Dodgers 59 52 Arizona 56 54 San Diego 48 64 Colorado 40 68

.545 .532 1.5 .509 4 .429 13 .370 19

4 14 17 17

Al-Roudhan indoor soccer tournament KUWAIT: The second round of Al-Roudhan indoor soccer tournament will start today with three matches, the first will be between Samsung Babtain against Kuwait Future, while the second match features the Late Ahmad Al-Roumi with Salmiya as the third match will have the Late Sameer Saeed team against Martyr Fahad Al-Ahmad or Holiday

Inn. Samsung is looking forward to continue its winning ways as it is one of the teams expected to win the title but it will not be easy as Kuwait Future has a great ambition to win.

Samsung won three matches in the first round scoring 13 goals in the process making them a legitimate candidate to grab the

title lead by Italian player Unorio who was best player last year besides Valbeta, Abdelrahman Al-Taweel and Hamad Hayat.

Meanwhile the 19th day competition saw Abayat managing a scoreless draw with Kuwait Future and Subat Deewaniya defeat the Australian College 4-1 while Al-Oula Fuel thrashed Al-Ghazal Group with 6 goals

17

London 2012 Olympic Games

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Tunisian sport up and running again LONDON: Tunisian wrestling coach Zouhair Seghaier could not believe how quickly he was able to get his athletes back into training after the democratic revolution that launched the Arab spring.

The long road to the Olympics has been an arduous one - but taking part has been a victory in itself. The athletes, he said, are still trying to comprehend what democracy is all about, but can at last express themselves freely.

Seghaier is clearing savoring every

minute of London 2012, even though his team did not land any Olympic medals in the Greco-Roman wrestling.

Speaking eloquently at the wrestling stadium of the upheavals in his North African homeland, he said: “We had our revolution, we were the first. Well done, quickly done.”

The clean break paid rich dividends for the wrestlers. “We were able to take up training again after seven days. That’s the truth. We were frightened, but after seven days I called up the athletes - boys and girls - and they

came to train every day as usual.

Everything worked quickly, quickly,” he said. “Thank God there was not too much damage in Tunisia. The tourists are back.” The people’s revolution began when street peddler Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire on a street in December 2010 after a policewoman confiscated his goods.

He died the next month.

That lit the spark. A wave of protests followed and veteran dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled in January last year. Since then, Tunisia has

inspired revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Yemen and an uprising in Syria, and turned into a model for democratic change in the Middle East. Seghaier, sporting his country’s bright red uniform, reflected philosophically on what it all meant.

“I can speak freely to you today.

Before, I could not. You can give your opinion. That is fantastic. For the athletes too it is an enormous change.

Even the athletes don’t understand yet what democracy means. But they express what is happening in their

heads, the good and the bad,” he said.

“Today they are much freer. They can feel their freedom.”

Minds and attitudes have changed in the world of sport too. “It’s not a question of a few months. It will take some time. But the leaders, the ministers have changed. You can feel that,” he said. Seghaier is convinced that sport can play a role in bringing people together. “Sport, for me, unites everybody. We are one country: the Tunisians, the English, the Africans, everybody.” — Reuters

Aussies sail laps of honor to collect Olympic gold

LONDON: A cyclist competes during the BMX cycling seeding run at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Both the men’s and women’s events start with a seeding phase to ensure that the fastest riders don’t meet before the final. — AP

China’s Liu epitomizes Olympic bitterness LONDON: Seven steps, five more than in Beijing. But the outcome was identical: Liu Xiang’s Olympics were over, yet again, before they really began.

The magic ingredient that makes the games such compelling drama isn’t the stadiums or the crowds. It is their rarity. Once every four years - a gap long enough to make or break athletes.

Peak and attain perfection at just the right time and their names will live in Olympic history books forever. Make the slightest mistake or get hurt when that Olympic window opens once every four years and they might never get another chance to make it right.

The opportunities for redemption are so few. For some athletes, they never come. That rarity is what makes Olympic success so sweet, Olympic failure so bitter and it is why we and why athletes, for as long as they can, keep coming back for more.

Liu - the hurdler as famous and loved by Chinese as David Beckham is in England and Michael Jordan in the United States - tasted the sweetness once and, now, the bitterness twice.

Liu may never appreciate this and certainly not

LONDON: China’s Liu Xiang sits in a wheelchair after falling in a men’s 110-meter hurdles heat during the athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics. — AP while the pain from his Achilles tendon and from his disappointment in London is so fresh and acute. But, sometimes, Olympic failures live longer in our collective memories than the successes.

Name the winner of the women’s 3,000 meters at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. I would bet good money you didn’t think of Maricica Puica or remember she was Romanian. But, if you saw that race or just the highlights, the names Mary Decker and Zola Budd should bring the memories flooding back of them colliding, of the American tumbling and of her face contorted in anguish as she lay sprawled on the grass while the other runners carried on without her, chasing the gold she had been the overwhelming favorite to win. A more recent one: the men’s 400 meters champion in Barcelona in 1992? It was Quincy Watts. But what you likely remember is not the American’s gold but Derek Redmond being helped across the finish line by his father, Jim, after his hamstring popped in the semifinals.

The British runner’s determination - dragging his damaged leg, hobbling toward the finish - and his father’s support - running onto the track to give Redmond his shoulder to lean on - produced one of the most enduring memories of any games.

And, finally, the winner of the men’s 110 meters hurdles just eight years ago, in Athens in 2004? That’s easier, because it was Liu and because his gold was the first won by an Asian

in a sprint event.

But, as our memories of that success fade, we’ll remember Liu more for his epic Olympic disappointments and the sight of him hopping on his good leg and dragging his bad, both in Beijing in 2008 and now in London.

That is not being purposefully nasty. It’s simply because for mere mortals, nonOlympians, it is difficult if not impossible to truly imagine just how sweet it is to be in an Olympic champion’s shoes. But bitterness and heartbreak, well, they are things we all experience and can share and which, because of that, sometimes mark us more deeply. Crushing failure is tangible for all of us. Knowing what it feels like to stand on the Olympic medal podium, for most of us, is not.

And that is why the crowd in the 80,000seat Olympic Stadium clapped for Liu after he pushed out of the starting blocks, took seven steps, clattered into the first hurdle, fell and, a few minutes later, picked himself up and hopped on his left leg the length of the straight to the finish.

Everyone understood his pain. Everyone could appreciate his courage. Many also will have understood that the London Games were Liu’s chance - perhaps his final chance - to redeem the disaster of Beijing. Liu went into those Olympics, as British heptathlete Jessica Ennis did in London, carrying the hopes of the host nation. And since China has 1.3 billion people, that is a lot of hope, indeed. Anyone who was there will not have forgotten the gasps in the Bird’s Nest stadium and how Chinese spectators wept when Liu pulled up lame after just two full strides in his first qualifying round. Likewise, the sight on Tuesday of Liu briefly resting himself on the 10th hurdle, having hopped the length of the track, will stick with spectators in London.

Same goes for the compassion shown by other hurdlers. Balazs Baji of Hungary waited for Liu at the finish, shook his hand and raised it above their heads as though he were the Olympic champion. Britain’s Andrew Turner and Spain’s Jackson Quinonez helped Liu into a waiting wheelchair so he could be taken away from the track.

“That’s two Olympics in a row he’s limped off with an Achilles problem - I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I rate him as one of the best hurdlers we’ve had in the world ever. I don’t like to see that kind of thing,” Turner said.

But Turner also added “that in a few years” this searing Olympic moment would be remembered “like some Derek Redmond kind of thing.” The fact that Liu was wearing the same bib number in Tuesday’s preliminary race 1356 - as in the race in Beijing was bizarre, but nothing more than that. His “DNF” - “Did Not Finish” on the results sheet then and now had nothing to do with fate and everything to do with the right Achilles tendon that has plagued him for years. He rubbed it tenderly after his fall.

Doctors who examined Liu at the stadium suspected the tendon may have ruptured, said the head of China’s track team, Feng Shuyong.

Feng added that it might have happened when Liu pushed off his right leg to clear the first hurdle, “because we all know that at the moment of taking off the tendon would bear very, very big ... pressure.”

“I’m very sad about this outcome but I’m also proud of him, because Liu Xiang, from 2008 to now, has worked bitterly hard to take part in these Olympic Games. He has given so much,” Feng said. “In the struggle with his injury, he has overcome one difficulty after another and got back to a pretty good level, but at the crucial juncture of the Olympic Games he got injured again.”

Of course, hopping bravely to the finish isn’t why Liu worked so hard. But the bitterness of that, of being unable to right the wrong of Beijing, of those rare, once every four-year chances that evaporated so agonizingly for him, will ensure Liu is remembered for a long, long time. —AP

WEYMOUTH: Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen of Australia sailed three laps of honor yesterday to collect their Olympic gold medals in the 49er skiff class.

The boyhood mates from Wangi Wangi in New South Wales had clinched the gold medal on points Monday, the same day countryman Tom Slingsby won gold in the Laser. They still had to make a “genuine effort” to get around the course yesterday in light conditions.

Their trans-Tasman friends and training partners, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke of New Zealand, clinched the silver medal Monday and also just needed to finish the medals race.

The only battle among the Olympic fleet’s adrenaline junkies was for bronze, and it went to Denmark’s Allan Norregaard and Peter Lang.

Outteridge, 26, has mastered several classes of high-performance boats, including the Moth hydrofoil, A-Class catamaran, 49er and the AC45, the wing-sailed catamaran he skippers for Team Korea in the America’s Cup World Series.

After crossing the line, Outteridge jumped into Weymouth Bay, leaving the tiller in the hands of Jensen, 24. Later, the victorious duo capsized the boat and celebrated in front of a large contingent of Australian fans watching from the Nothe Fort, waving flags and inflatable Boxing Kangaroos.

Four years ago, Outteridge and then-crew Ben Austin were in the lead in the medals race when they capsized not far from the finish, dropping them to fifth.

It’s Australia’s second sailing gold medal of the games, putting them one ahead of the strong, well-funded British team. Tom Slingsby, a tactician with America’s Cup champion Oracle Racing, won the Laser gold on Monday.

The 49ers are normally the fastest boats in the Olympic regatta, but Wednesday’s light, unstable wind kept them from dashing across the waves like they usually do . The class is distinctive for its national flag gennakers which are hoisted for downwind legs.

The gold is the first medal for Australia in the 49er class, which made its Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000. The 4.9-meter boat - or about 17 feet - is based on the Australian 18s or “eyedeens” as they’re called on Sydney Harbor. —AP

LONDON: Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen of Australia sail on 49er Men’s Skiff class during the race 6 at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. — AP

Hungary’s canoeists take upper hand at Olympics WINDSOR: For the first time in 20 years, Germany missed out.

The country’s 500-meter K-4 team lost an Olympic final for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games, falling to a Hungarian quartet looking to spring an upset after second-place finishes at the last three Summer Games.

It also meant Hungary finished the first day of finals at the canoe sprint regatta with the upper hand over Germany in their head-to-head competition in the event’s medals table.

“It’s a very big victory for us,” Hungary kayaker Gabriella Szabo said yesterday through a translator. “In the last 20 years, no Hungarian team had won this four. It’s a kind of revenge that we can finally win.” Hungary’s other gold came in the men’s 1,000-meter K-2, although there was a 20-second wait before the result of a photo-finish with a fast-finishing Portugal was relayed to the teams and the crowd of about 20,000 at Dorney Lake.

Germany claimed its first gold of the competition when European champion Sebastian Brendel won the 1,000-meter C-1, but another of its big hopes, Max Hoff, finished third in the K-1 final over the same distance. That race was won by 36-year-old Norwegian Eirik Veras Larsen, who produced a trademark late surge to overhaul Adam van Koeverden of Canada and reclaim the title he won in 2004.

“If you think you’re better than someone else because you beat them by 0.6 seconds, you’re not,” said Van Koeverden, one of Canada’s leading gold-medal hopes of the games. “You’re just luckier.”

Germany is expected to bounce back in the other two finals days, Thursday and Saturday.

But there will be no more medals for Katrin Wagner-Augustin.

She ended her Olympic career yesterday, finishing with four gold, a silver and a bronze across four Summer Games.

It was a second straight day of disappointment for the 34-year-old kayaker after she failed to make the final of the 500-meter K-1 on Tuesday. On that occasion, she cried and had to be comforted by her husband by the side of the lake. “Normally we start our sprint after 250 meters but it didn’t work here,” she said, then paused briefly. “That’s life. “It was a good career ... I’m proud.” Wagner-Augustin fell four short of fellow German great Birgit Fischer’s haul of eight Olympic golds in canoe sprint. She still has the “B” final of the K-1 to come on Thursday before returning to Germany to compete in the national championships.

That result continued the theme of upset wins on a day of changing weather in Windsor, 15 miles west of London. Van Koeverden and Hoff had been expected to contest for gold in the K-1 final but it was Larsen, the oldest man in

the race, who came through fastest.

He returned to the sport for the 2011 season after retiring at the end of 2009, but plans to hang up his paddle again. “The last two years has been an amazing journey,” Larsen said. “The first year, 2011, was really hard. Getting back into training and getting beaten in training every day by guys I didn’t want to get beaten by.

But I knew I just had to get through it.”

Brendel only made it to the London Games through final qualifying - he originally missed out after his paddle broke during the heats of last year’s world championships in Szeged, Hungary. But he took full advantage of his second chance by taking charge of the second 500 meters of his race to beat David Cal Figueroa of Spain by nearly a second. Cal has now won four Olympic silvers to go with his gold from the 2004 Athens Games in the C-1 1,000. —AP

LONDON: Hungary’s Rudolf Dombi (right) and Roland Kokeny celebrate on the podium after winning the gold medal in the men’s kayak double 1000m at the 2012 Summer Olympics. — AP

18

London 2012 Olympic Games

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Olympic female boxer captures India’s heart NEW DELHI: A month ago, India’s diminutive female boxer Mary Kom was just an occasional story on the sports pages. With an Olympic

medal in hand, she has become the nation’s newest sports star.

She’s been winning world championships for years, but boxing has

LONDON: Great Britain’s Nicola Adams (left) and India’s Chungneijang Mery Kom Hmangte react following a women’s flyweight 51-kg semifinal boxing match at the 2012 Summer Olympics. —AP

few fans in India, and many in this traditional country can’t fathom the idea of a woman landing lethal left hooks. Only now, has “Magnificent Mary” seized the front pages.

Kom, the 29-year-old mother of 5-year-old twin boys, was guaranteed at least a bronze medal with a victory Monday and many were hoping she might bring back the first ever gold medal won by an Indian woman. But she lost her semifinal match to British boxer Nicola Adams at the London Games yesterday.

Nevertheless, the recent outpouring of glowing support for Kom didn’t dim after her loss. “Even though you have to settle for a bronze, Mary Kom you’ll always be our Golden Girl. A true champion,” tweeted Aakash Chopra, an Indian cricketer and sportscaster.

Despite an impressive five world championships, Kom has been outshone by athletes with fewer

achievements who have received lucrative endorsement contracts.

Badminton player Saina Nehwal, who peaked at No. 2 in the rankings and won a bronze medal last week at the Olympics, is hard to miss in newspapers and on TV. So is tennis player Sania Mirza, who is ranked 256th in the world and got knocked out of the Olympic women’s doubles in the first round. Kom has a job as a junior police officer, which pays her about 20,000 rupees ($365) a month, and at least two endorsements, one of them a nutritional supplement. But fighting back against relative sporting obscurity is hardly a challenge for Kom. She is from Manipur, an insurgency wracked state in India’s remote northeast. The eldest of four siblings, she worked as a child in the fields to help out her poor farming family. In the early days as a boxer, she saved part of her food allowance to buy boxing gloves, she

said in a recent interview.

She won four world titles in the 46-kilogram category and one at 48 kilograms. But had to beef up for the 51-kilogram category in London. When she isn’t training or raising her sons Rengpa and Naimai, she trains young boxers at her academy outside Imphal, the capital of Manipur. But Mary Kom’s moment of glory is here. “I have almost reached my destiny. My ultimate goal was to win a medal at the Olympics,” she told news magazine Tehelka just before she flew out to London.

Now she even has Amitabh Bachchan, arguably India’s most famous actor, tweeting her messages of congratulations. “What a story!” said a part of his tweet Monday when she won her bronze.

Saad Sher vani, a New Delhi lawyer, canceled an evening meeting to watch her box yesterday. “It’s a shame she hasn’t gotten attention

before. She’s been around longer and winning longer than the other poster girls of Indian sports,”he said.

In Imphal, the excitement was electric. “Her challenges have been quite hard always. She’s where she is after having two children, playing in a higher weight category. We are very proud of her,” said L. Kailun Kom, a senior officer in Manipur’s police force. The two are not related.

Large screens were put up in Imphal’s city center so everyone could watch the hometown boxer take her shot at Olympic glory.

Many of her fans bought firecrackers, anticipating a celebration.

But the crowd of 200 supporters watching the bout at a sports center in Imphal went away disappointed.

“We were so looking forward to her winning that this has come as very sad news,” said A. Ranjan Singh, a weightlifting coach. “She’s won the bronze. We will have to settle for that.” —AP

US’ Shields advances to gold-medal bout LONDON: The newest American boxing sensation is a cocky teenager with heavy hands, fleet feet and a serious mean streak.

And just like Cassius Clay, Joe Frazier and Oscar De La Hoya before her, Claressa Shields is about to fight for a gold medal.

The US middleweight dominated Kazakhstan’s Marina Volnova in the semifinals

Shields is the last American boxer left in London after flyweight Marlen Esparza lost 108 to Chinese world champion Ren Cancan an hour earlier. Ren will fight Britain’s Nicola Adams for the flyweight title, while Irish world champion lightweight Katie Taylor also advanced with another strong performance, moving into the championship bout today against Russia’s Sofya Ochigava.

Esparza will get a bronze medal, but Shields

LONDON: Kazakhstan’s Marina Volnova (left) fights United States’ Claressa Shields during their middleweight 75-kg semifinal boxing match at the 2012 Summer Olympics. —AP of the first Olympic women’s boxing tournament yesterday, earning a spot in the title bout against Russia’s Nadezda Torlopova.

After pounding away at the slower Volnova for most of the 29-15 fight, Shields pounded her taped right fist against her left shoulder and screamed out for joy. The London crowd loved Shields’ combination of charisma, skill and strength - a familiar formula for so many US Olympic boxers over the years, but not lately.

“I’m still kind of shocked,” Shields said. “I’m thinking in my head, ‘Is it really true? Am I fighting for a gold medal tomorrow?’”

is the 12-member American team’s only shot at gold after all nine men were eliminated in stunning fashion, leaving the winningest team in Olympic history without a medal for the first time in its history. But nobody in London is sleeping on Shields.

The rest of amateur boxing now knows all about this ebullient 17-year-old from Flint, Michigan, who’s one of the sport’s fastest-rising stars.

Less than two years after emerging on the American amateur scene, she won her second bout in three days with punishing right hands and relentless aggression, forcing Volnova to

take a standing-eight count in each of the last two rounds after she was stunned by vicious combinations.

Shields laughed with joy at the verdict and raised both arms sky-high as she walked to the tunnel after beating up an opponent that wasn’t much trouble for her, just as she predicted Monday.

“I was able to put my combinations together, land a lot of clean shots, punch straight,” Shields said. “I took the best of her shots and made her miss a lot. I did what I wanted to do with her.”

While Shields punched holes in Volnova’s defense, Esparza found Ren impenetrable.

Ren’s cautious defensive style in her win over the livelier Esparza got the card off to an inauspicious start. The crowd finally got into it when Adams beat Mary Kom of India 11-6, and ExCel then went nuts for Taylor, the Irish world titlist and pound-for-pound champion of the women’s sport.

Taylor didn’t disappoint, dominating Tajikistan’s impressive teenager, Mavzuna Chorieva. But Taylor didn’t impress Ochigava, her longtime nemesis and gold-medal opponent, who said fighters “begin with minus-10 points” against the wildly popular Irish star.

Esparza gamely tried to force Ren into a fight, but the Chinese champion sat back dispassionately and threw counterpunches that scored just enough points to win. Ren’s rigid strategy and Esparza’s attempts to wait her out earned warnings for both fighters in each of the first three rounds for not throwing enough punches.

Esparza broke down in the fighters’ tunnel after the bout, but soon turned her cerebral analytical skills on the only opponent who has ever beaten her in two straight meetings.

“It’s as boring to me as it is to you,” Esparza said. “Everybody can’t stand it, but it works. ... I thought I did everything I could do. We knew she wasn’t going to commit - ever - so the game plan was just to not go forward. When I did go forward, that was when I got caught.”

Esparza, the 23-year-old veteran, insists she’ll follow through on her plan to retire from boxing and go to college, even though she would still be younger than many of the world’s current top amateurs when the Rio Games roll around. “My body is falling apart already,” she said with a grin. “I’m in sports medicine four hours a day.” —AP

Swiss end 88-year wait for show jumping gold LONDON: Steve Guerdat, riding Nino des Buissonnets, won the Olympic Games individual show jumping gold at Greenwich Park yesterday for Switzerland’s first title in the event in 88 years.

Ireland’s Cian O’Connor and Dutch rider Gerco Schroder faced a jump off to determine the silver and bronze medals after finishing tied with one time fault apiece. Schroder took second place, posting a clear round with O’Connor finishing third after his mount, Blue Loyd 12, knocked a pole off the last fence.

The 30-year-old Guerdat, bronze team medallist in Beijing four years ago, took the title as the only rider to register two faultless rounds. This was the first time individual jumping gold had been won by a Swiss rider since the 1924 Paris Olympics.

Great Britain’s hopes of winning gold for the first time were scuppered when Nick Skelton on Big Star picked up four faults to finish in a tie for fifth with fellow Briton Scott Brash and Mexican Alberto Michan. Guerdat and Skelton were among a group of only six riders to go clear in the first round of the two-legged final. And with the Swiss posting a second faultless display the pressure was on last man out Skelton to force the equestrian equivalent of a penalty shoot-out. The evergreen 54-year-old and Big Star hadn’t put a foot wrong at London 2012, but with one pole down the pair failed in their bid to double up after claiming gold in Monday’s team competition. “It’s just one of those things, Big Star hadn’t touched a jump all week,” said Skelton.

He added: “Everyone thought it was going well, I did too, but I just touched the pole at the wrong time and that was it. “I feel sorry for the people that came today.

We expected to win and it wasn’t to be. But we got one gold, we would have settled for that before we came.”

Saudi Arabia’s Kamal Bahamdan, with a time fault in each round on Noblesse des Tess, came in fourth.

Further back in a tie for ninth on eight faults came Ian Millar, the 65-year-old Canadian who was appearing at a record 10th Olympics. The previous benchmark of nine Games was held by Austrian sailor Hubert Raudaschl.

Despite his years the bespectacled Millar is looking to the future, and Rio in 2016. “Star Power wants to go and he cannot go without me,” he said referring to his 11year-old gelding. Notable names who failed to make it into the second round were Millar’s compatriot and defending champion Eric Lamaze, and France’s European champion Kevin Staut, who picked up 18 faults in an error-strewn display on Silvana. Another to fall by the wayside was Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdullah al-Saud, King Abdullah’s grandson. One show jumping heavyweight who failed to even make it to the first fence was Rolf-Goran Bengtsson. The Swedish world number one missed out when he was forced to withdraw his horse Cassall as he was deemed unfit to compete.

“I am very disappointed,” said the Beijing 2008 silver medallist. “I have been working towards this since Hong Kong. But the horse has to be my first priority.

Therefore it was a hard decision in one way, but it had to be made.” —AFP

LONDON: Russia’s Andrei Kirilenko (right) and Timofey Mozgov (left) battle Lithuania’s Paulius Jankunas (center) for a rebound during a men’s quarterfinals basketball game at the 2012 Summer Olympics. —AP

Russia defeats Lithuania 83-74 LONDON: Dismissed entering the Olympics, Russia can no longer be ignored.

Andrei Kirilenko scored 19 points and Timofey Mozgov added 17 as Russia, not considered a strong medal contender before arriving in England, moved into the semifinals of the men’s basketball tournament with an 83-74 win over Lithuania yesterday.

The Russians were given little chance of being among the tournament’s final four teams, but they’ll play the France-Spain quarterfinal winner in Friday’s semis - one win from a shot at gold.

After trailing by 14, Lithuania was within six in the fourth when Sergei Monya hit a 3pointer for Russia, and Kirilenko, who signed a two-year contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves this summer, converted a three-point play with 1:42 remaining.

Lithuania, which lost by only five points to the US in pool play, was still within five in the final minute, but missed two free throws and Russia ended the game on a 6-0 run.

Rimantas Kaukenas scored 19 and Darius Songaila 15 for Lithuania, which has not won a medal since getting bronze in 2000.

Russia won its group in the preliminary round, beating medal favorites Brazil and Spain in the process. Those tight wins gained the Russians a few believers, but most international hoop experts didn’t think they belonged in the same company with the Americans, Argentina, Spain, France or Brazil. “We’ve been outside that circle,” David Blatt, Russia’s American-born coach, said earlier in the tournament.

Russia’s now on the inside. With size and depth, the Russians, who have never won an Olympic medal in basketball as an independent nation, will be a handful for whomever plays them next.

Russia, involved in three games decided by three points or less in the preliminary round, let a 14-point lead in the third quarter dwindle to two early in the fourth when Lithuania 7-foot-center Jonas Valanciunas, who will play for Toronto next season, scored inside to cut the Russians’ lead to 57-55.

But Monya hit a pair of 3-pointers and Russia’s frontline made it tough for Lithuania to get off any shots close to the basket. The Russian big men contained Lithuania’s Linas Kleiza, who scored just four points on 1 of 7 shooting.

Despite being cheered on by their flagwaving, face-painted, whistling fans - the international game’s version of Duke’s Cameron Crazies - Lithuania started poorly.

The Lithuanians made just 3 of 16 shots and scored nine points during a dreadful performance in the first quarter.

Russia built nine-point lead and appeared in control. But known for their discipline, the Russians, who beat Lithuania in two exhibition games leading into London, got a little too carefree.

“Stop settling for jump shots,” screamed Blatt. But it was too late, and Lithuania began chipping away with Songaila doing the dirty work down low. The former Washington Wizards forward scored 10 points in the second quarter as Lithuania pulled within 32-27 at the break. —AP

Indian media slams poor display

LONDON: Steve Guerdat of Switzerland, rides Nino des Buissonnets to win the gold medal in the equestrian show jumping individual competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics. —AP

NEW DELHI: Indian newspapers and commentators have heavily criticized the country’s eight-time champion men’s field hockey team after it lost five consecutive matches at the Olympic tournament, including a 3-0 defeat to Belgium in its last pool match.

“A new low for Indian hockey: Played 5, lost 5” read a front-page headline in the Hindustan Times yesterday. The Hindu newspaper’s headline for its match report read: “National game now a national shame!” Other newspapers and television networks were also critical of the national team, with only midfielder Sardara Singh receiving praise for his performance throughout the tournament.

India, which failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, plays South Africa on Saturday in the match to determine 11th place. Former captain Dhanraj Pillay blamed field hockey officials and the coaching staff led

by Australian Michael Nobbs for the poor showing. “Overall, it has been a disaster of a performance by the Indian hockey team except for one player, Sardara Singh, who played his heart out for the country,” Pillay wrote in a column in The Times of India on Tuesday. “I don’t know what our coaching staff has been doing in London. Hockey India should learn from this.”

Hockey India replaced the Indian Hockey Federation as the national ruling body three years ago after the IHF was disaffiliated by

world body FIH over administrative issues.

However, the now-rebel India Hockey Federation organized the World Series Hockey league earlier this year in which several former India players participated at the risk of being ignored for national selection. Pillay, who came out of retirement to play in the WSH, blamed Hockey India officials for banning players who played in that league.

“Our selectors have dropped some of the most experienced players,” the four-time Olympian wrote. “There was no competition to select the Olympic team, anyone could have walked in.”

Another former player, Mohammad Shahid, said the current Olympic team did not deserve to be in London. “They have let the whole nation down,” he was quoted as saying on the front page of the Hindustan Times.

India has won eight gold medals at the Olympics, including six in succession beginning in 1928 at Amsterdam. But it has been struggling to stay competitive since synthetic turfs, not prevalent in India, were introduced in the 1970s.

But expectations were high that India, which won the last of its gold medals in the boycott-affected Moscow Olympics in 1980, would finish among the top six after it scored an 8-1 victory over France in an Olympic qualifying tournament in New Delhi. Criticism for the hockey team came amid a rousing welcome home for badminton player Saina Nehwal and rifle shooter Gagan Narang, who both won bronze medals at London. —AP

19 THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Dutch shoot-out N Zealand LONDON: Defending champions the Netherlands won the Olympics’ first ever hockey shoot-out yesterday to beat New Zealand and reach the women’s final.

After the teams were locked at 2-2 at full-time and after extra-time, the Dutch dominated the shoot-out as they put away three

tain Kate Sharland from a penalty corner. Dutch captain Maartje Paumen replied in similar fashion. It was the first goal in London for the Beijing top-scorer.

Krystal Forgesson restored the Black Sticks’ lead but Paumen produced a near-perfect corner flick into the roof of the net to make the score 2-2. The Dutch were awarded a penalty corner in the second seven-and-a-half-minute

LONDON: Netherlands’ Kitty van Male (right) dribbles past Anita Punt of New Zealand during the first semi-final of the women’s field hockey match during the London 2012 Olympic Games.—AFP strikes to New Zealand’s one.

New Zealand, in the last four for the first time, were given a seventh-minute lead by their cap-

period of extra time, which they tried unsuccessfully to have upgraded to a penalty stroke with a video referral. When Paumen took the corner,

she shot wide. But the Netherlands didn’t flinch in the deciding shoot-out, which they won 3-1 and will now face either Argentina or hosts Great Britain for the gold medal. New Zealand coach Mark Hager took the blame for his team’s failure in the shootout.

“We didn’t practice enough. It was not a major concern in our preparation,” he said, adding that New Zealand had never been in a competitive shootout before.

Netherlands have never lost to New Zealand in a world event, which comprises seven encounters in the Olympic Games and World Cups. Kate Sharland, the Black Sticks captain, praised Dutch goalkeeper Joyce Sombroek.

“She read us well and anticipated our actions.

But perhaps we were guilty. All our players basically did the same thing,” she said.Both semifinalists are under foreign coaches.

Earlier, German great Natascha Keller set up a goal with her very last touch as she bowed out of women’s international hockey with a worldrecord 425 caps.

Keller, 35, presented a clear scoring opportunity to Marie Mavers, who gobbled up the chance in the last minute. The 2004 champions beat South Korea 4-1 in the classification match for seventh and eighth place.

Keller also had several scoring attempts but she was unable to add to her 204 international goals, clocked up during her 425 indoor and outdoor women’s hockey appearances.

German captain Fanny Rinne, 32, who won gold alongside Keller at Athens 2004, got on the scoresheet with a low corner strike as she also played her last international. Lisa Hahn scored Germany’s first two goals, which were split by a penalty corner goal by Cheon Seul Ki. Keller’s retirement also spells at least a temporary end to the Keller hockey family dynasty, which has collected four gold and three silver medals since 1936.—AFP

Brazil on course for Olympic glory LONDON: Brazil edged closer to their dream of an Olympic football title Tuesday, easing into a final showdown with Mexico after a comfortable 3-0 victory over South Korea.

The Brazilians, bronze medallists in Beijing four years ago, booked their place in Saturday’s showpiece match at Wembley after two goals from Leandro and Romulo ended the South Koreans involvement in the tournament.

World Cup-winners on five occasions they may be, but Brazil have never won an Olympic gold medal, an anomaly that they are now strongly favoured to consign to the history books this weekend.

South Korea, who had won through to the last four with a nail-biting penalty shoot-out win over Great Britain last Saturday, never threatened the South Americans in an open game at Old Trafford. The opening goal came for Brazil on 38 minutes from Vasco Da Gama defender Romulo after South Korea’s Ki Sung-Yueng was dispossessed in midfield.

Oscar surged forward deep into South Korean territory before feeding Romulo whose shot at the near post slipped under goalkeeper Lee Bum-Young.

Brazil all but made the game safe 12

minutes into the second half with a cleverly worked goal. Marcelo suddenly quickened Brazil’s tempo and found Neymar inside the area, cutting the ball back to Leandro who drilled his low shot beyond Lee. Leandro then bagged his second of the night seven minutes later, deftly toepoking his effort into the bottom corner to make it 3-0.

Earlier, Mexico advanced to the first Olympic football final in their history after coming from behind to defeat Asian giants Japan 3-1.

Japan, who had helped eliminate highly-rated Spain in the first round, appeared set to emulate their female counterparts by reaching the final after Yuki Otsu fired them into a 12th-minute lead. But Mexico hauled themselves back into the contest after 28 minutes when Marco Fabian equalised. Oribe Peralta then scored midway through the second half to put Mexico into their first Olympic football final, where they will face either South Korea or favourites Brazil for the gold medal.

In the final minute Peralta then released Javier Cortes down the right with a clever backheel and the substitute held off the defence before squeezing his shot beneath Shuichi Gonda in the Japanese goal.—AFP

LONDON: Brazil’s goalkeeper Gabriel jumps during the London 2012 Olympic men’s football semi final match between Brazil and South Korea at Old Trafford.—AFP

USA drama queens aim to avenge Japan defeat

China’s men complete title sweep LONDON: China completed a sweep of all the Olympic table tennis gold yesterday when their men stormed to victory over South Korea to clinch the team title on the closing day of the London Games tournament. The heavily favored Chinese defended their 2008 title by slamming South Korea 3-0 to pick up the nation’s fourth gold and keep all Olympic titles in Chinese hands for another four years.

China swept all four titles at Beijing, and some had wondered whether they could maintain the intensity without the home support at the London Games.

However, a chanting crowd festooned with the red flags of China was in full

voice as Ma Long and Zhang Jike won their respective singles matches over Ryu Seungmin and Joo Saehyuk to give the hosts a 2-0 lead. Wang Hao and Zhang then secured the gold by beating Oh Sangeun and Ryu to clinch the best of five matches final and spark delirious cheering from the Chinese fans in the stands at the ExCel Arena hall.

Wang and Zhang embraced and acknowledged roaring fans with pumping fists and a military-style salute before strolling a half-lap of honor around the venue with Ma and their coach. Beijing silver medallists Germany took bronze by defeating Hong Kong 3-1 earlier yesterday, with European champion Timo Boll securing the decisive singles victory in four sets over Jiang Tianyi.—Reuters

Nation G China 35 United States 30 Britain 22 South Korea 12 Russia 10 France 8 Germany 7 Italy 7 Hungary 6 Kazakhstan 6 Australia 5 Netherlands 5 Iran 4 North Korea 4 Cuba 3 New Zealand 3 Belarus 3 South Africa 3 Ukraine 3 Japan 2 Romania 2 Denmark 2 Brazil 2 Poland 2 Jamaica 2 Croatia 2 Switzerland 2 Ethiopia 2 Spain 1 Canada 1 Sweden 1 Czech Republic 1 Kenya 1 Slovenia 1 Georgia 1 Norway 1 Dominican Republic Lithuania 1

S 21 19 13 6 18 9 15 6 2 0 12 4 3 0 3 2 2 1 0 13 5 4 1 1 1 1 1 0 5 4 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 0

B 19 22 13 6 20 11 10 4 3 2 9 6 1 1 1 5 4 0 6 14 2 3 6 5 1 0 0 2 1 8 3 1 2 2 1 1 1 1

Tot 75 71 48 24 48 28 32 17 11 8 26 15 8 5 7 10 9 4 9 29 9 9 9 8 4 3 3 4 7 13 7 5 5 4 3 3 02 2

Algeria 1 Grenada 1 Venezuela 1 Mexico 0 Colombia 0 Egypt 0 India 0 Slovakia 0 Armenia 0 Azerbaijan 0 Belgium 0 Estonia 0 Indonesia 0 Mongolia 0 Serbia 0 Tunisia 0 Cyprus 0 Finland 0 Guatemala 0 Malaysia 0 Portugal 0 Taiwan 0 Thailand 0 Greece 0 Moldova 0 Qatar 0 Singapore 0 Argentina 0 Hong Kong 0 Ireland 0 Kuwait 0 Morocco 0 Puerto Rico 0 Saudi Arabia 0 Tajikistan 0 Trinidad & Tobago Turkey 0 Uzbekistan 0

0 0 0 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 2 1 0 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1

1 1 1 5 4 2 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 1 1

Obara captures gold

Preview

LONDON: South Korea’s Oh Sangeun and South Korea’s Ryu Seungmin return a ball to China’s Zhang Jike and China’s Wang Hao (right) during the table tennis men’s team final at the London Olympic Games.—AFP

LONDON: Medals table after 7 of 16 events yesterday.

LONDON: The United States are determined to avenge their women’s World Cup final defeat to Japan as they prepare to defend their Olympic football crown against the Asian giants today.

For just over a year, the USA women have nursed a sense of grievance over their defeat to the Japanese in last year’s World Cup in Germany where they were beaten on penalties after a 2-2 draw.

The Americans arrived in London thirsting for the opportunity to make amends for that bitter defeat, a ferocious desire that has been evident in a rollercoaster ride into today’s final. In their opening match against France, they were 2-0 down inside the first 20 minutes before regrouping to run out 4-2 winners.

Then on Monday they trailed against Canada three times before finally clinching a sensational 4-3 victory in the final minute of extra-time courtesy of an Alex Morgan header. “For some reason we like to make things dramatic,” the USA’s veteran striker Abby Wambach reflected after the victory over Canada. “This team doesn’t give up.

This is what we’re about. This is what we’ve been working for since the day we lost to Japan in the World Cup final.”

Wambach, scorer of the extra-time winner when the USA won Olympic gold in Athens eight years ago, kept her cool superbly on Monday when she stroked in a pressure-laden penalty to equalise 10 minutes from time.

The 32-year-old has been a key rallying point for her younger team-mates during this Olympic campaign, forging a deadly partnership with the 23-year-old Morgan which has yielded eight of the USA’s 14 goals from five matches. Wambach spoke admiringly of her young strike partner after Monday’s win, hailing Morgan’s winner as “a great goal by a young kid who has big expectations for herself.” Morgan meanwhile is looking forward to the prospect of facing Japan as the USA attempt to win the gold medal for the fourth time in five attempts.

“Now we’re up against Japan and we really want that rematch,” Morgan said. Japan meanwhile have reached the final after a tournament in which they have got progressively stronger following a troubled build-up.—AFP

LONDON: Japan’s Hitomi Obara justified her decision to come out of retirement by winning the women’s 48kg freestyle wrestling gold in her first Olympic Games at London’s Excel Arena yesterday.

Obara, who under her maiden name of Sakamoto won seven world titles in the non-Olympic 51kg class, defeated Azerbaijan’s Mariya Stadnyk 3-1 in a repeat of last year’s world championship final in Istanbul. Stadnyk won the opening period convincingly but the 31-yearold Obara stormed back into the contest with several well-judged takedowns and, after her referee raised her arm to confirm her victory, dissolved in floods of tears. Canada’s Carol Huynh, the 2008 Beijing champion who lost to Obara in the semi-finals, took an early lead in her bronze medal bout when, after the opening period ended scoreless, Senegal’s Isabelle Sambou drew a blue ball-the colour of Huynh’s singlet.

That gave Huynh the right to mount the first leg-grab attack in the 30 seconds of extra-time and she duly scored.

The second two minute period also ended without any points and this time Huynh drew a blue ball and again made the most of her good fortune to secure a bronze medal.

In the other bronze bout, Clarissa Chun of the United States produced a takedown with a couple of seconds remaining in the opening period to go 10 up against Irini Merleni of Ukraine, the inaugural 2004 Athens Games champion and Beijing bronze medallist.

Merleni attacked hard in the second period but Chun’s hip-toss extended her lead and she took the bout 3-0. Merleni was applauded off the mat by Ukraine sporting great and former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka.

Japan will have a chance to make it two golds out of two on the opening day of women’s wrestling action when twotime champion Kaori Icho faces China’s Jing Ruixue in the 63kg final.—AFP

LONDON: Mariya Stadnyk of Azerbaijan (left) and Hitomi Obara of Japan compete in the 48-kg womenís freestyle wrestling gold medal match at the 2012 Summer Olympics.—AP

Dutch shoot-out N Zealand

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

19

LONDON: Palestinian athlete Woroud Sawalha competes in a women’s 800-meter heat during the athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics.—AP

LONDON: Saudi Arabia’s Sarah Attar waves before competing in a women’s 800-meter heat during the athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics.—AP

LONDON: US’ Ashton Eaton competes in the men’s decathlon 100m heats at the athletics event of the London 2012 Olympic Games.—AFP

Jamaicans seek sprint glory First female Saudi runner bows out in 800 metres

LONDON: Jamaica’s sprinters aim to stay ahead of the pack late yesterday as Usain Bolt bids to book a place in the men’s 200 metre final and Veronica Campbell-Brown attempts to become the first woman to win three gold at the distance.

On day 12 of Olympic competition, 16 gold medals will have been decided in sports ranging from beach volleyball to horse jumping and table tennis to taekwondo, but the focus will be on the track when the world’s fastest humans do battle.

China lead the medals table with 35 gold to 30 for the United States, while third-placed Britain are on 22, their best haul for more than a century.

On a cool and cloudy morning at the Olympic Stadium, American Ashton Eaton opened his bid to become the best all-round male athlete of the Games with a 10.35-second 100m dash and long jump of 8.03 metres that helped him to a 105-point lead in the decathlon.

Former Olympic champion Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic bowed out, however, after struggling in his race with an injury to his right heel.

British favorite Mo Farah, winner of the 10,000 at the weekend, was cheered around the track by

80,000 spectators in a 5,000 heat which he came through comfortably despite clashing legs with several rivals.

Sarah Attar became the first woman from Saudi Arabia to compete in the Olympic athletics, coming last in an 800 heat she ran wearing a white head cover. “It’s an incredible experience,” Attar, who has dual United States citizenship and is a student at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, told reporters.

“It is the hugest honor to be here to represent the women of Saudi Arabia. It is an historic moment. I hope it will make a difference. It is a huge step forward. It’s a really incredible experience.” Compatriot Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shaherkani similarly bowed out at the first hurdle, lasting just 80 seconds on the judo mat last week, but the pair have been hailed as heroines by some people in their homeland and around the world.

There was drama in the men’s pole vault when Cuban Lazaro Borges’ pole snapped in two places as he rose towards the bar, but he escaped unharmed. Russia’s 30-year-old double Olympic champion and world record holder in the women’s

event, Yelena Isinbayeva, told Reuters yesterday she would compete again in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 having come a disappointing third in the London Games.

Her compatriot Ivan Ukhov revealed that he had been forced to borrow a T-shirt from a team mate to make his winning leap in the men’s high jump on Tuesday after his own vest was stolen midway through the competition.

It may even have helped. The shirt belonged to fellow Russian and 2008 Olympic champion Andrei Silnov. “I guess Andrei being the 2008 champion just passed me the good luck,” Ukhov told Russian media. Once again the main stadium was packed with enthusiastic crowds yesterday and mostly sold-out Olympic venues have underlined how the Games have caught the imagination of a public spurred on by Britain’s best gold medal haul for 104 years. The women’s soccer final between the United States and Japan at Wembley today is set to break the Olympic attendance record with a crowd of at least 83,000, beating the previous benchmark of 76,489 in 1996 in Athens, Georgia.

International Olympic Committee president

Jacques Rogge said he was satisfied with the way the Games had gone. “All in all I would say these are very good Games and I am a very happy man,” he told reporters. Many Britons would agree, despite serious misgivings in the run-up to the Olympics over London’s ageing transport system, the shortage of guards to secure venues and the wisdom of spending 9 billion pounds ($14 billion) during a recession.

The Games end with a closing ceremony on Sunday at the main stadium which will celebrate British music. George Michael, Muse and Ed Sheeran are confirmed to perform, while Adele, Madness, The Who and Elbow are all rumored to be taking part.

British Olympic organisers are also planning a victory parade through London in September which is expected to draw more than a million people to the streets.

Yesterday, Hungary claimed two canoeing titles — Rudolf Dombi and Roland Kokeny beat Portugal in a photo finish in the men’s kayak double, while their women team mates denied Germany a fifth straight Olympic title in the kayak four.

Steve Guerdat of Switzerland won individual show jumping gold, while in table tennis China completed a second successive sweep of all Olympic titles when the men’s team beat South Korea 3-0.

The Italian men’s volleyball team pulled off a surprise 3-0 quarter-final victory over defending champions the United States to keep alive their dreams of a first Olympic gold.

The BMX bike action got underway with a relatively low key time trial seeding phase, and Dutchman Raymon van der Biezen was quickest in 37.779 seconds.

Today and Friday, eight riders face off in bunch races where the real thrills and spills of the sport are expected. Late yesterday, Campbell-Brown, who took bronze in the 100 on Saturday, lines up in the 200 against three-times world champion Allyson Felix of the United States, whom she beat into silver at the last two Games.

Also in the field are Fraser-Pryce and two top American sprinters, Olympic 400 champion Sanya Richards-Ross and 100 silver medallist Carmelita Jeter.—Reuters

Serbia holds on to reach semis LONDON: Filip Filipovic scored three times and gold medal-favorite Serbia rallied from a three-goal halftime deficit yesterday to beat Australia 11-8 and Boris Zlokovic scored four goals to lead Montenegro past Spain 11-9 and into the semifinals of men’s Olympic water polo.

For three quarters, Australia looked poised to pull off what would have been a massive upset, hitting long distance shots and playing pressure defense that frustrated a powerful Serbia attack.

But Serbia’s talent eventually overcame Australia’s pesky defense, and Filipovic put his team ahead 9-8 with just over four minutes to play and the Serbs held on to reach Friday’s semifinals.

“I expected a tough match, because in these crossovers, the lower

place has an advantage because they don’t have anything to lose and in these circumstances they play freely,” Serbia coach Dejan Udovicic said.

With Serbia trailing 8-5 halfway through the third quarter, Udovicic told his players to relax and focus on closing the gap slowly.

“I tried to put in their head just one (thing): Step by step - we cannot score three goals from one attack,” he said.

“I’m very pleased because we come back, but it’s not the first time for us.”

Even with a particularly strong a deep field in London, a Serbia team boasting 2010 world player of the year Vanja Udovicic and 2011 player of the year Filipovic stood above the crowd as the favorite coming into the Olympics.

The bronze medalists in Beijing, Serbia has won nearly every major event since then, including the 2012 European championship.

But it was Australia, a surprise quar-

terfinalist in London, that held the upper hand for much of yesterday’s match.

“Close, but much too far in the end,” Australia’s Thomas Whalan said. “Three brilliant quarters, but you can’t just play three brilliant quarters, you need to put four together. It was gutwrenching to come out on the wrong side of the goal tally.”

Serbia advances to play either three-time defending champion Hungary or 2011 world champion Italy in tomorrow’s semifinal.

Montenegro, meanwhile, advanced to its second consecutive Olympic semifinal by surviving Spain’s fourthquarter rally to hold on for an 11-9 win.

After a tight first quarter that ended with the teams level at 4-4, Montenegro outscored Spain 6-2 over the next two periods to open up a 10-6 by the end of the third quarter.

Marc Minguell scored to pull Spain within a goal with just over two min-

utes to play, but Montenegro captain Nikola Jankovic responded with a late goal to head off the rally and put his team through to Friday’s semifinals.

“It was a nice game, but we made a few mistakes the last period,” Zlokovic said. “It’s not possible for our team to make these mistakes. We were up 10-6 and it arrived at 10-9, so it’s not possible in these matches. But we win, which is the most important thing.”

Montenegro, which finished fourth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, advances to Friday’s semifinal, will play either Croatia or the United States next.

Yesterday’s win also guarantees the team another shot at winning Montenegro’s first ever Olympic medal. “Last Olympic Games we took fourth place, which is the worst place, and now we arrive here,” Zlokovic said.

“We make preparation two months to take a medal, to give a medal to our country because Montenegro doesn’t have a medal.”—AP

LONDON: Tim Cleland (left) of Australia goes to stop a shot on goal by Dusko Pijetlovic of Serbia during their men’s quarterfinal water polo match at the 2012 Summer Olympics.—AP

BoE slashes forecast for growth, blames eurozone Page 22

CBK operating profit before provisions reach KD 47.3m Page 23

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Standard Chartered sparks scrutiny of India offshoring Page 25

India’s Bharti profit dives 37%, shares at 2-year low Page 25

NEW YORK: In this May 10, 2011 file photo, people carrying Macy’s shopping bags walk past the Macy’s flagship store in New York. Macy’s Inc. is reporting a nearly 16% increase in net income for its second quarter yesterday, as the department store chain continues to benefit from its strategy to tailor its merchandise to local markets. Macy’s says that its net income rose to $279 million, or 67 cents per share, for the three-month period ended July 28. — AP

Germany catches Europe’s crisis fever FRANKFURT: Germany long appeared immune to Europe’s debt crisis, as deep reforms undertaken years ago helped steel the economic powerhouse against the current financial storms lashing its neighbours.

But a raft of new economic data suggest that Germany, too, is slowly succumbing to the crisis fevers and could even fall back into recession later this year, analysts said yesterday. For an economy as open as Germany’s, the route of infection is obvious: its exports.

Germany is the world’s third largest exporter behind China and the United States and until recently, exports were the main driver of its economy.

However, thanks to deep and often painful reforms in recent years that have helped bring unemployment down to record lows, fuelling a corresponding boom in consumer spending, domestic demand has become the twin engine of Germany’s economic miracle.

While many of Germany’s eurozone partners were in recession, the country notched up growth of 0.5% in the first three months of this year.

Nevertheless, with much of Europe in the doldrums, German exports, too, are faltering, threatening to bring the economy as a whole to a near standstill in the second quarter, analysts said.

Following an increase of 4.1% in May, exports fell by 1.5% in June, weighed down primarily by falling exports to the other 16 countries that make up the eurozone, according to the latest data compiled by the national statistics office Destatis. Imports-a barometer of domestic demand-were down, too, falling by 2.9%.

The slump in demand is hitting industry and the manufacturing sector, the backbone of the German economy, separate data published by the economy ministry showed. Factory orders fell by a bigger-than-expected 1.7% in June, more than wiping out the modest increase seen the previous month, and industrial output declined by 0.9%.

Storm clouds have been piling up

Industrial production, exports down in June Global shares flat as policy optimism cools

DUIBURG: In this May 15, 2012 file photo containers pile up in Duisburg, Germany. Germany’s Federal Statistics Office says yesterday, the country’s exports dropped in June as the European financial crisis continues to weaken other countries within the eurozone. Exports dropped 1.5% in June over May, to euro 92.3 billion, when adjusted for seasonal discrepancies and work days. Imports dropped 3 percent to euro 76.1 billion for a trade surplus of euro 16.2 billion. — AP over the German economy for a number of weeks now. And not only exports are being hit, but domestic demand is, too. New car registrations-a key gauge of demand in one of the most important industrial sectors-fell sharply last month, retail sales are also in decline and unemployment is on the rise again, which could hurt consumer spending.

Last month, business confidence dropped for the third month in a row and investor confidence hit a sixmonth low. And the international debt rating agency Moody’s recently took the first step toward stripping Germany of its coveted top triple-A credit rating in view of the incalculable costs of the never-ending crisis.

By contrast, rival rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch both maintained their top AAA credit rating for Germany given the country’s strong fundamentals and outlook.

Commerzbank economist Ulrike

Rondorf noted that the industrial output figures were the last set of hard data for the second quarter before the release of gross domestic product (GDP) numbers next week.

“Manufacturing is unlikely to contribute to growth of the German economy for the third straight quarter and the picture is similar for retail and wholesale sectors,” she said. Only a pick-up in the construction sector, following the weather-related slump in the first quarter, and an anticipated rise in the services sector would keep GDP growth in positive territory of around a quarter of a%age point, Rondorf argued.

And with the outlook for industry gloomy, “we expect the economy to contract in the third quarter,” she said.

For UniCredit economist Andreas Rees, “the million-euro question is whether and how long-German companies and consumers can keep the pace in the face of eurozone turbulence.”

Would further weakness coming from the eurozone be compensated for by higher export demand stemming from the US and China and could ongoing robust internal demand shield the overall German economy from adverse effects, he asked.

“We still think that both questions can be answered with a ‘yes’ but uncertainties and downside risks to our call have significantly increased of late,” Rees warned.

Catherine Stephan at BNP Paribas said that “growth prospects remain negative. Indeed the development in manufacturing orders survey, suggest a decline of activity in the coming months, in line with the crisis in the eurozone.”

And Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics said the industrial output data “provide further evidence that the overall economy is likely to have tipped into recession in the second quarter.” — AFP

NEW YORK: Global shares were little changed yesterday, while the euro fell as a lack of details prompted investors to tone down optimism for early central bank action to tackle the euro zone debt crisis.

Risky assets began rising on Friday after US jobs data eased concerns about global growth but supported hopes of further policy easing by the Federal Reserve. Last week’s signal by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi that it may ease borrowing costs for Spain and Italy provided further optimism.

But conviction waned yesterday after the Bank of England gave no hint of future action despite slashing its growth forecast. The uncertain direction for monetary policy made investors cautious and US and European shares drifted slightly higher in midday trade after declines earlier. “We’re certainly skeptical about the ability of the authorities to really make big changes in the euro zone landscape,” said Richard Batty, strategist at Standard Life Investments. “I think this is just one of those days where the market is coming more round to a more skeptical view of whether they can achieve what they need to achieve given how poor these economies are, and how difficult it is to make the fiscal and structural adjustments to make them more competitive.”

The UK central bank said it did not expect Britain’s recession-hit economy to show much growth at all this year despite all its efforts to pump in cash, but it remained equivocal on whether further measures were likely.

Investors had hoped the Bank of England would point to an easing in policy later in the year as the gloomy contents of its quarterly economic outlook had been widely anticipated.

In a further sign of Europe’s worsening economic conditions, France’s central bank said the French economy was likely to slip into a shallow recession in the third quarter.

The Chinese central bank is next to face the spotlight, with a batch of economic data due on Thursday likely to draw attention to the nation’s cooling growth rate.

Brent crude hit a three-month high after data showed U.S. crude stocks fell sharply and as concerns deepened over the immediate outlook for North Sea oil production.

Brent futures for September were up 90 cents to $112.90 a barrel after earlier hitting a high above $113. US crude gained 65 cents to $94.32. The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares provisionally closed up 0.1%. European shares had gained since Draghi first signaled a more interventionist stance to defend the euro two weeks ago.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 16.12 points, or 0.12%, at 13,184.72. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 1.01 points, or 0.07%, at 1,402.36. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 2.42 points, or 0.08%, at 3,018.28.

“We’ve had a pretty good run,” said Lazard Capital Markets Managing Director Art Hogan. “We’re in a position in the market now where there are no clear catalysts and yet we’ve been inching higher. The market seems to be finding its path of least resistance.”

Standard Chartered Bank, under fire from accusations it violated US laws by hiding $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, clawed back some of its huge losses and was up more than 7%. The British bank’s shares dived 16.4% on T ues day on hefty volume. —Reuters

22

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

BUSINESS

BoE slashes forecast for growth, blames eurozone Economy set to grow by about 2% in 2013 LONDON: The Bank of England yesterday slashed its forecast for growth this year in recession-affected Britain to close to zero%, saying the greatest threat to recovery came from the eurozone crisis.

Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) was predicted to be almost flat in 2012, down from the central bank’s previous forecast of just below 1.0%, according to a chart contained in the BoE’s latest quarterly report.

The British pound and London’s FTSE 100 shares index were little changed on the news as the revision had been widely expected by traders. Analysts said the outlook signalled that further cash stimulus from the BoE was on the horizon as well as possibly a cut to the BoE’s main lending rate-to near zero%-before the end of 2012. “ The outlook for UK growth remains unusually uncertain,” the central bank said in the report. “The greatest threat to the recovery stems from the risk that an effective policy response is not implemented sufficiently promptly in the euro area to ensure that the

adjustments in the level of debt and competitiveness required by some member countries occur in an orderly manner.

“Even if an effective set of policies is implemented, the scale of the necessary adjustments points to a sustained period of sluggish euro-area growth and heightened uncertainty,” it added. Britain is not a member of the eurozone but the bloc is its major trade partner. The BoE added that fiscal consolidation and tight domestic credit conditions were also “likely to continue to weigh on demand.”

Britain escaped a deep downturn in late 2009 but fell back into recession at the end of 2011.

Latest official data showed GDP slumped 0.7% between April and June from the first three months of this year.

The Bank of England last week voted to keep its main interest rate at a record low 0.50% and maintain its level of cash stimulus at £375 billion ($584 billion, 476 billion euros) despite a deepening recession.

The BoE yesterday also forecast that Britain’s economy was set to grow by about

2.0% in 2013. “In the near term, growth is subdued but further out the economy gradually strengthens, as some of the recent headwinds abate and the stimulus policy announcements take effect,” BoE Governor Mervyn King told a press conference.

The BoE’s report meanwhile added that it expected British inflation to fall to the central bank’s 2.0-percent target rate by the end of this year.

Barclays analyst Simon Hayes said following the report that another £50 billion of cash stimulus was likely in November, while there could also be a quarter point cut in interest rates.

“We forecast another £50 billion extension of QE in November, and we believe today’s report indicates that the hurdle to further loosening is low. “Our baseline forecast also includes a 25 basis point cut in the bank rate in November, which we view as a much more marginal call-as Governor King’s comments today affirm, a rate cut is far from a foregone conclusion.” — AFP

Saudi hits 5-week intraday High, Arabtec weighs on Dubai DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s index closed lower yesterday after touching a five-week high in the session, weighed down by large caps, while Dubai’s market was pulled lower by builder Arabtec which posted a surprise quarterly loss.

Heavyweight Saudi Basic Industries dipped 0.6% and Etihad Etisalat slipped 0.4%. Banks were mixed, with Al Rajhi Bank gaining 0.3%, SABB up 0.9% and Banque Saudi Fransi rising 1.2%. However, Arab National Bank dropped 2%, with Riyad Bank down 0.2%.

Volumes have held up well in Saudi Arabia, despite the traditionally quiet holy fasting month of Ramadan which began in mid-July.

“Trading volumes have picked up this month, which is unusual for mid-Ramadan - it may be people taking positions before the market closes for the Eid holiday,” said Tariq Alalaiwat, equity research analyst at NCB Capital.

The Saudi market still looks attractive, Alalaiwat added, backed by its strong economy. Dubai’s index continued its slide from Sunday’s 13-week high, slipping 0.1%. Real estate stocks, which had driven the index upwards, fell. Arabtec, which posted a quarterly loss on Wednesday on increased costs, slumped 4%.

Emaar Properties and Deyaar slipped for the third successive day, down 0.9 and 3.1% respectively. Bucking the trend was Drake and Scull, which gained 4.3% to its highest close since April 26. The contractor is yet to report quarterly numbers and investors are betting on them being positive, with volumes at their highest since March 4.

In Abu Dhabi, the index gained 0.1% as bank stocks continued to show positive momentum after encouraging second-quarter numbers. First Gulf Bank advanced 1.4%

and Union National Bank gained 2% to fresh 16-week and 18-week highs respectively.

In Qatar, the measure rose for a seventhstraight session to close 0.4% higher. Qatar Telecom was the main support, up 2.9% to its highest close since June 7 - its fifth gain in a row.

Industries Qatar climbed 1.4% after posting a slight rise in second quarter net profit, in line with analysts’ average forecast. “The company has benefited significantly from the QAFCO-5 commercial launch in Q1/12 and LDPE-3 launch during Q2/12,” said Hettish Karmani, senior financial analyst at Global Investment House, in a note to clients.

Egypt’s index ended 1.1% lower, with the majority of stocks in the red. Orascom Telecom fell 3.1%, EFG Hermes dipped 2.8% and Palm Hill Development Co dropped 4.7%.

Bahrain’s bourse slumped 1.5% to a fresh nine-year low as banks with strong links to Kuwait suffered.

Ahli United Bank and Ithmaar Bank, both also listed in Kuwait, dropped 1.8 and 4% respectively. BBK fell 7.9%. Political upheaval in Kuwait, a leading OPEC exporter, is keeping away institutional investors, leaving the market at the mercy of day-traders. The Kuwait index slumped to a seven-month low in the previous sessions after members of parliament again boycotted a session of the country’s assembly.

Banks in Kuwait have so far posted disappointing second-quarter results, with high provisions and warnings the economic situation in the country is being hurt by political stagnation.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait, which didn’t trade yesterday, reported lower net profit for the fifth successive quarter as the lender was

forced to book impairments. Burgan Bank and National Bank of Kuwait also revealed sizeable provisions in Q2 numbers.

Kuwait’s bourse ticked up slightly, by 0.05%, from Tuesday’s seven-month low, while the Muscat index closed near-flat for the second successive day.

YESTERDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS SAUDI ARABIA The index dipped 0.1 percent to 6,954 points.

QATAR The benchmark gained 0.4 percent to 8,402 points.

ABU DHABI The index advanced 0.1 percent to 2,514 points.

DUBAI The index slipped 0.07 percent to 1,556 points.

EGYPT The measure dropped 1.1 percent to 4,995 points.

BAHRAIN The measure slumped 1.5 percent at 1,075 points.

KUWAIT The measure edged up 0.05 percent to 5,711 points.

OMAN The index eased 0.07 percent to 5,434 points. — Reuters

TOKYO: Businessmen walk past an electric quotation board showing share prices of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in front of a securities company in Tokyo yesterday. Tokyo stocks jumped 1.63 percent yesterday morning, following a rise on Wall Street that was largely driven by speculation of further stimulus from US and European central banks. —AFP

Brent slips, but stays above $111 SINGAPORE: Brent crude dipped yesterday, coming off a 12-week top hit in the previous session, although worries about falling North Sea output and hopes for more stimulus measures from both sides of the Atlantic kept prices above $111 per barrel.

Optimism that the world’s largest economies-the United States, China and the European Union-will implement more measures to stimulate global growth increased investors’ appetite for riskier assets and pushed up equities.

Brent crude fell 66 cents to $111.34 by 0651 GMT after touching a 12-week intraday high on Tuesday in its third straight day of gains. US crude was at $93.16, down 51 cents. It settled at its highest since May 15 in the prior session, partly supported by a fire at a US refinery.

“There’s been a reassessment of risks in recent days,” Ric Spooner, chief market analyst from CMC Markets in Sydney said. “Mr Draghi’s recent comments in the eyes of the market has reduced the probability of a near-term crisis in Europe,” he said, adding that this has been driving oil prices higher.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week that the bank may again start buying government bonds, but details of how it will stabilise the bloc’s bond markets have yet to be fleshed out.

In the United States, a top Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday the central bank should launch another bond-buying program of whatever size and duration is necessary to get the economy back on its feet while China pledged on Sunday to intensify its monetary policy fine-tuning in the second half of this year.

Brent broke on Tuesday a strong resistance at $111.28, the 200-day moving average, with supply of crude that underpins the Brent contract expected to drop to a record low in September.

“The loading programme for North Sea crude is very low so the front-month Brent spread has firmed,” Yusuke Seta, a commodity sales manager at Newedge Japan said, adding that $115 will be the next tar-

get for Brent.

The price spread between September and October Brent contracts widened to more than $1.60, up from a backwardation of $1 last week, pointing to strong prompt demand.

“Last night we had a fire at Chevron’s refinery which caused gasoline prices to surge and crude followed,” Seta said.

Chevron Corp sought to repair the core of its Richmond refinery on Tuesday, the second-largest in California, after an hourslong fire caused regional gasoline prices to spike on worries that it could be down for months.

Oil could find more support from a hurricane threat and if crude inventories in the United States-the world’s top oil consumerfell more than expected last week.

Hurricane Ernesto is forecast to reemerge Wednesday in the southern Gulf of Mexico, where state oil company Pemex has port facilities and offshore platforms.

US crude stocks fell sharply by 5.4 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said, well above analyst expectations for a 300,000 barrel drawdown, ahead of government data due later yesterday.

On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration cut its 2012 and 2013 forecasts for crude oil production from nonOPEC countries in its monthly report and raised its world oil demand outlook for those years. Continuing tensions in the Middle East are also helping to keep a floor under oil prices.

Western sanctions have curbed crude exports from Iran, while Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad won a pledge of support from Iran as his forces tried to choke off rebels in the northern city of Aleppo.

But the market could see more supply as South Sudan hopes to resume oil production in September after reaching an interim agreement with Sudan on oil export fees. It may take a year to return to full capacity, South Sudan’s top negotiator said. — 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 Egyptian pounds

.2740000 .4350000 .3450000 .2880000 .2800000 .2940000 .0040000 .0020000 .0762840 .7432150 .3860000 .0720000 .7285900 .0430000

.2840000 .4460000 .3540000 .2970000 .2880000 .3020000 .0070000 .0035000 .0770510 .7506840 .4060000 .0780000 .7359120 .0510000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2810000 .2831000 GB Pound/KD .4378680 .4411410 Euro .3475970 .3501950 Swiss francs .2893330 .2914950 Canadian dollars .2816340 .2837380 Danish Kroner .0466930 .0470420 Swedish Kroner .0417180 .0420290 Australian dlr .2963850 .2986000 Hong Kong dlr .0362350 .0365060 Singapore dlr .2258300 .2275170 Japanese yen .0035840 .0036110 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 .0051510 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 .0021530 Pakistan rupee .0000000 .0030200 Bangladesh taka .0000000 .0034860 UAE dirhams .0765350 .0771070 Bahraini dinars .7456550 .7512270 Jordanian dinar .0000000 .4004240 Saudi Riyal/KD .0749530 .0755130 Omani riyals .7301550 .7356110 Philippine Peso .0000000 .0068200

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Malaysian Ringgit

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.553 5.072 3.053 2.141 3.173 220.090 36.173 3.425 6.439 8.876 89.338

GCC COUNTRIES Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

74.883 77.158 729.380 745.850 76.464 ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 48.250 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.466 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.309 Tunisian Dinar 176.65 Jordanian Dinar 396.190 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.884 Syrian Lier 4.899 Morocco Dirham 32.64 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 280.700 Euro 354.52 Sterling Pound 441.820 Canadian dollar 274.79 Turkish lire 152.400 Swiss Franc 295.01 US Dollar Buying 279.500 GOLD 20 Gram 293.000 10 Gram 148.000 5 Gram 75.250

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar

SELL CASH 301.400 750.620 3.710 286.300 554.300 46.000 48.000 167.800 46.810 354.000 37.090 5.310 0.032 0.161 0.234 3.690 399.980 0.191 93.310 44.600 4.340 233.200

SELL DRAFT 299.900 750.620 3.447 284.800

228.900 46.448 352.500 36.940 5.120 0.031

Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal 10 Tola Sterling Pound US Dollar

1.828 48.800 733.150 3.080 6.970 78.070 75.360 228.860 36.440 2.688 444.400 43.000 294.800 4.400 9.270 198.263 76.960 282.600 1.360 GOLD 1,701.440 TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 442.400 282.200

732.970 3.007 6.750 77.640 75.360 228.860 36.440 2.137 442.400 293.300 4.400 9.160 76.860 282.200

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

SELL DRAFT 302.97 287.03 296.20 353.53 281.80 444.97 3.68 3.452 5.101 2.140 3.214 3.001 76.79 750.34 46.41 401.47 733.41 77.82 75.36

SELL CASH 310.000 286.000 295.000 355.000 283.000 445.000 3.630 3.580 5.300 2.350 3.650 3.150 77.450 750.00 47.700 399.000 736.000 78.000 75.800

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd 399.940 0.190 93.310 3.230 231.700

Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank

Selling Rate 282.150 286.860 445.100 352.360 291.455

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

746.985 76.795 77.445 75.205 397.730 46.401 2.136 5.108 3.002 3.448 6.742 692.115 4.595 9.045 4.375 3.235 89.740

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency 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

Rate per 1000 (Tran) 282.300 2.994 5.115 2.145 3.457 6.795 76.965 75.440 750.500 46.447 447.400 2.990 1.550 354.800 288.700 3.195

Al Mulla Exchange Currency 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) 282.200 353.000 442.250 283.910 3.650 5.105 46.465 2.139 3.443 6.738 2.998 750.400 76.800 75.300

MANSOORI

23

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

BUSINESS

US consumers cut back on credit card use in June WASHINGTON: Americans cut back on credit card use in June, a sign that high unemployment and slow growth have made some more cautious about spending. Still, total consumer borrowing increased as many kept taking out loans to buy cars and attend school.

Consumer borrowing rose by $6.5 billion in June from May to total $2.58 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday.

That’s just below the all-time high reached in July 2008.

Auto and student loans rose by $10.2 billion to $1.71 trillion in June. Credit card debt fell $3.7 billion to $865 billion.

That’s only 1.6% above the post-reces-

sion low reached in April 2011.

Americans have been relying less on credit cards since the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. At the same time, student loan debt has steadily increased.

It has risen 54% since mid 2008 to total $902 billion as of March this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Student loans now accounts for roughly 35% of all consumer debt, up from less than a quarter four years ago.

That makes it the biggest source of consumer debt outside of mortgages.

The increase partly reflects high unemployment, which has led many Americans to seek better education and

skills in a more competitive labor market.

“We are probably witnessing a shift in consumers’ attitudes towards debt,” said Paul Edelstein, an economist at IHS Global Insight. “Households may be willing to take on debt to pay for cars and education... . But other forms of consumption will come increasingly from current incomes.” Overall, Americans have been steadily paring debt since the financial crisis. Household debt, including mortgages and home equity lines of credit, has declined for 16 straight quarters to $12.9 trillion in March, according to the Fed. That’s down from $13.8 trillion in March 2008.

Some of that debt has been removed by defaults, such as foreclosures.

A Commerce Department report last week showed that consumers are more frugal. They spent no more in June than they did in May, while their incomes rose at the fastest pace in three months.

The flat pace of spending was likely because hiring has been weak and confidence low. Employers added 163,000 jobs in July, the most in five months. But hiring for most of this year hasn’t been enough to lower the unemployment rate. The rate ticked up to 8.3% in July from 8.2% in June.

Consumer confidence increased in

Cathay Pacific posts H1 net loss of HK$935m Carrier’s business affected by high price of jet fuel HONG KONG: Cathay Pacific Airways posted a first-half net loss of HK$935 million ($121 million) yesterday, citing higher fuel prices, strong competition and economic instability in Europe.

The blue-chip Asian airline’s biggest loss since 2003 compared with a first-half net profit of HK$2.81 billion a year earlier, representing a 133-percent reversal.

Revenue rose 4.4% to HK$48.86 billion.

Cathay shares closed down 4.33% at HK$12.36, as analysts expressed surprise at the depth of the loss despite a May profit warning from the company. “It shows how poor the global economy is-it’s quite a big loss,” said Daniel Tsang, an analyst at Hong Kong-based aviation consultancy firm Aspire Aviation. The results fell well short of analysts’ expectations and followed a 60.8% drop in annual net profit to HK$5.5 billion last year, when the company’s gross fuel costs soared 44.1%. Cathay chairman Christopher Pratt said the carrier’s business had been “significantly affected by the persistently high price of jet fuel, passenger yields coming under pressure and weak air cargo demand”.

“These factors are common to

the aviation industry as a whole.

Airlines around the world are being adversely affected by the current business environment,” he said in a statement. “Our profits from associated companies, including Air China, also showed a marked

ernisation drive and plans to reduce passenger services on transPacific routes to enable the more fuel-efficient Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to replace older Boeing 747400s.

“The Cathay Pacific Group will

Chairman of Cathay Pacific Airways, Christopher Pratt, right, and Chief Executive John Slosar attend a company result announcement in Hong Kong yesterday. —AP decline.” A recent reduction in the fuel price could “provide welcome relief ”, Pratt said. “Our financial position remains strong and we are in a good position to deal with our current challenges,” he said.

To save on fuel costs, the airline has launched a huge aircraft mod-

take delivery of 19 aircraft in 2012.

This will improve the operational efficiency of the fleet,” Pratt said, adding that a total of 92 planes were on order for delivery up to 2019. Plans to retire the fleet of less fuel efficient Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft would be accelerat-

ed, he said. Despite the efficiency drive, Cathay had increased some services in Asia, where demand was “relatively robust and fuel accounts for a smaller portion of operating costs”. Budget-airline subsidiary Dragonair added frequencies on routes to secondary cities in mainland China and resumed flights to six destinations including Chiang Mai in Thailand. It would introduce flights to Kolkata in India and Haikou in China later in 2012.

Cathay carried 14.3 million passengers in the first six months, a rise of 8.6%. “The premium class load factor was adversely affected, with employees of major corporations travelling less,” Pratt said.

The company said economic instability in Europe had a “significant effect” on the business, with routes to continental Europe “generally weak”. Uncertainty on the US financial markets hit premium class revenues on the New York route, but economy class “load factors” were strong on most flights to the United States.

Airlines around the world have been struggling in what the International Air Transport Association last week dubbed a “demand limbo” owing to global economic weakness. —AFP

CBK operating profit before provisions reach KD 47.3m KUWAIT: Commercial Bank of Kuwait (CBK) announced an operating profit before provisions for the period of KD 47.277 million (H1 of 2011: KD 52.333 million). This was allocated as specific and judgemental provisions against the loan and investment portfolios resulting in a net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent bank for the six months to 30th June 2012 of KD 0.451 million (H1 of 2011: KD 1.461 million).

Commenting on the bank’s financial results, Fowzi Al Ateeqi, GM Investments & Secretary to the Board and the bank’s official spokesman said: “The bank continues a prudent policy towards building up a strong provision base and consolidating its balance sheet.

Further progress is noted on the bank’s review of processes for efficiencies and preparation to benefit from any growth opportunities in the future and to ensure superior customer services”.

Al Ateeqi went on to explain that the bank has set a balanced strategy aiming to add further improvements to its operating activities along with reducing non-performing loans within the bank’s short and long term business plans that will focus

on studying available growth opportunities according to the current economic situations with a particular emphasis on core business activities that help the bank return back to high profitability levels.

The bank continues to demonstrate its cost leadership with opera-

Fowzi Al Ateeqi tional efficiency a competitive advantage for the bank which continues to maintain one of the lowest cost/income ratios in Kuwait with 23.77% for H1 of 2012.

“Asset quality indicators showed improvement with non-performing loans falling during the period ended 30th June 2012 to 7.02% (H1 of 2011: 12.97%) with provision coverage of 88% (H1 of 2011: 54%)” added Al Ateeqi.

Commercial Bank’s total assets at the end of June 2012 reached KD 3.7 billion (12/2011: KD 3.7 billion) with shareholders equity of KD 537.8 million (12/2011: KD 530.5 million). The capital adequacy ratio at June 2012 is 18.79% (12/2011: 18.58%) which exceeds the minimum 12% required by the Central Bank of Kuwait. The bank continues to have a strong capital base with more than twice the international ratio required by Basel II. Commercial Bank of Kuwait took the opportunity to thank the bank’s valued customers for their trust and confidence, the Executive Management team and staff for their hard work and loyalty and shareholders for their continued support and faith.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait provides its corporate and retail customers with wide spectrum of banking products and services through one of the largest full service branch networks in Kuwait.

Spain banks may get rescue cash early MADRID: Bankia and other bailed-out Spanish lenders may receive their European rescue funds sooner than the September date previously planned, a government source said yesterday. Spain is a focus of attention as economists warn that it may need a full international bailout to help it pay its debts, up to 100 billion euros ($123 billion) in EU rescue loans agreed for its banks.

“We are working on the demand for funds for Bankia. The deadlines are open.

There is an installment of 30 billion euros and a possibility of an earlier injection,” the source in the economy ministry told AFP.” We are working on that for Bankia and the rest of the nationalised banks” CatalunyaCaixa, Novagalicia and Banco de Valencia, the source added. Spain’s government had planned to announce after the results of an audit, due in September, how much the four banks need to get from

a 30-billion-euro ($37 billion) first installment of eurozone loans.

That is part of the credit line of up to 100 billion euros agreed last month by the euro countries to stabilise Spain’s banks, which are struggling with mountains of bad loans from a property bubble that burst in 2008. Spanish daily El Pais, citing ministry sources, reported Wednesday that the rescue funds for Bankia were being finalised and would be transferred to it within days.

The money is due to be transferred via a Spanish government bank restructuring fund. Bankia’s share price shot up by more than 10% on the Madrid stock exchange yesterday after the reports, but this was only a fraction of its losses since it listed on the market in July 2011. Bankia was formed in 2010 by the merger of several regional savings banks as part of a costly restructuring of a banking sector stricken by the

financial crisis. In May this year it turned to the government for a 23.5 billion euro bailout which drove Spain to seek the eurozone rescue funds for its finance sector. In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly told reporters on Wednesday that Spain had not yet formally submitted a request to activate the emergency aid programme for its banks.

“We can take a decision any day or night,” Bailly said. “For the moment, the obstacle is that we have not received a request.” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has announced a series of unpopular measures including pay cuts and tax hikes in his efforts to lower Spain’s deficit.

His government on Friday said it planned savings of 102 billion euros ($125 billion) by 2014. An EU source said Tuesday Spain was reluctant to seek a broader bailout if it meant accepting more tough conditions on top of these efforts. —AFP

July for the first time in five months, the Conference Board said. But it remains well below healthy levels. The economy is growing too slowly to boost confidence or hiring. It expanded at a 1.5 % annual pace in the April-June quarter, down from 1.9% in the first quarter and 4.1% in the final three months of 2011.

Unless job growth picks up, consumer spending could weaken more and drag down economic growth further. The Federal Reserve’s borrowing report covers auto loans, student loans and credit cards. It excludes mortgages, home equity loans and other loans tied to real estate. —AP

France heads back into recession PARIS: France is headed back into recession for the second time in three years, its central bank warned yesterday in a fresh blow to the recovery prospects of the stricken eurozone. In a gloomy survey of the outlook for Europe’s second biggest economy, the Bank of France predicted a 0.1 percent contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter of this year.

If that outcome is confirmed it would follow a similar fall in output for the three months to June and zero growth in the first quarter of 2012.

France emerged from its last recession-defined by economists as two consecutive quar ters of negative growth-in the spring of 2009.

The economy has since struggled to gain momentum in the face of the eurozone debt crisis, which has sapped business and consumer confidence. Uncertainty over the fate of the euro and related problems in credit markets have resulted in consumers and investors either cancelling or delaying major spending decisions.

This has hit the construction and automobile industries in France particularly hard. New housing starts in the second quarter were 14 percent below 2011 levels while July car sales were down 7.0 percent on a year earlier.

With these job-intensive sectors struggling, unemployment has

spiked. Latest figures put the jobless total at nearly 10 percent of the workforce with a further 5.0 percent working fewer hours than they would like.

Faced with an economy deteriorating on almost every front, the Socialist government was last month forced to cut its growth forecast for the full year from 0.4 to 0.3 percent, and from 1.7 to 1.2 percent for 2013.

Even the revised prediction however is considered optimistic by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank of France’s latest survey will have made uneasy summer holiday reading for President Francois Hollande. Elected in May on a jobs and growth ticket, Hollande faces an increasingly tough battle to deliver while simultaneously meeting a commitment to reduce France’s budget deficit in line with eurozone requirements.

Before embarking on their holidays last week, government ministers were issued with spending ceilings for the next 12 months which will require major cuts in all but a handful of departments.

France is seeking to reduce its public deficit-the shortfall between revenue to spending-from around 4.5 percent of GDP this year to the EU limit of 3.0 percent by the end of 2013. —AFP

24

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

business

Qatar growth set to moderate with LNG expansion Egypt’s economy is running on empty DUBAI: Egypt is getting closer to the brink. A trickle of aid has been enough to keep the economy on life support since the uprising 18 months ago, but the ongoing tussle between the country’s military and its Islamist president is delaying any form of recovery - let alone reform. A $1.1 billion fall in foreign reserves in July was a warning signal about the growing financial fragility of the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Foreign reser ves declined again sharply after a three-month pause. Egypt has little foreign debt, but the redemption of a eurobond and payment to Paris Club member countries during the month totalled $1.6 billion. A monthly breakdown isn’t provided and one-off items may have masked the true extent of the drain. In recent months, Egypt has revalued its gold holdings, received almost $1.5 billion in loans from Saudi Arabia, and agreed a $1 billion deal with the Islamic Development Bank.

With the limited aid it has secured, and by selling treasury bills to the country’s banks at yields of almost 16%, Egypt has limped along and even kept shoring up the pound, which weakened by just five% against the dollar since the revolution. This has helped the country’s military rulers, who retain legislative powers, delay unpopular decisions while the country remains without parliament and

constitution, leaving the newly-elected president with an ambiguous role.

No wonder that the economy is getting worse. Egypt’s GDP has shrunk for the last two quarters after seasonal adjustments, according to Capital Economics. Government borrowing is crowding out lending to the private sector. Tourism is stagnant. The current account deficit is widening. At best, recovery is delayed. At worst, rampant unemployment will lead to a full-blown social and financial crisis.

Egypt, of course, would need to take action to stimulate growth. In the short term, barring a jumbo loan from the Gulf, it must sign a deal with the International Monetary Fund when the two sides meet in Cairo later this month and then devalue its currency. Until then, potential investors will remain on the sidelines while the economy keeps sinking.

Egypt’s foreign reserves fell to $14.4 billion in July from $15.5 billion in June, according to central bank figures. The fall in reserves included the maturity of an Egyptian eurobond and payment to the member countries of the Paris Club totalling $1.6 billion.

Reserves have plunged by more than half since the popular uprising that ousted then President Hosni Mubarak in January 2011. — Reuters

NBK’s GCC Brief KUWAIT: After posting doubledigit growth in 2011 for the sixth consecutive year on the back of near-maximal liquefied natural gas (LNG) and elevated oil prices, Qatar’s output growth is set to moderate over the next few years. Real GDP growth is forecast to slow to 6.5% and 4.1% in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Despite declining oil output from maturing fields this year, Qatar’s economy should benefit from its first full year of maximum LNG output (77 million tonnes) and increased production of liquid fuels from the Pearl GTL (gas-to-liquids) facility, which raised its capacity to 140,000 barrels per day and sold its first cargo of gasoil in 2011. Much of non-oil growth is contingent on government spending. In this regard, the authorities intend to spend more than $100 billion on an ambitious pipeline of mega-projects in line with the National Development Strategy 2011-2016 and ahead of the World Cup 2022.

These include a new railway network, airport, port, city (Lusail) and World Cup stadia. Moreover, in a bid to raise project financing, the government and private sector have tapped the bond markets; $37.5 billion worth of bonds was outstanding by the end of 2011 including a $5 billion three-

tranche heavily oversubscribed Eurobond issued last November.

Qatar ’s CPI rebounded in 2011 af ter t wo consecutive years of deflation, rising to an annual average of 1.9%. This year, however, inflation has retreated to 1.1% y/y. With depressed rental prices persisting, last year’s fuel hikes wearing off, global food and commodity prices down from their highs in 2011, the outlook is moderate: 1.6% in 2012 and 2.0% in 2013 - even in view of

the accommodative fiscal and monetary environment.

Qatar ’s fiscal surpluses are expected two narrow in 2012 and further in 2013, to 5.0% and 2.9% of GDP, respectively. This is on account of slowing hydrocarbon revenue growth - prices are forecast to decline slightly while expansion will be marginal - and rising government expenditures.

These will also be a function of capital outlays (30-40% of the budget over the medium-term) and elevated salary and pension

costs. Qatar’s current account surpluses, while still sizeable, will also narrow in accordance with moderating export revenue growth, from 16.3% in 2012 to 14.0% of GDP in 2013. Risks to Qatar’s outlook will stem largely from international concerns: the Euro zone debt crisis, slowing Chinese and US demand as well as regional geopolitical insecurity. These may transmit to the local economy through volatile energy prices and uncer tain financial and capital flows.

LAHORE: Pakistani labourers sit outside a shop at a market during a power cut in Lahore on July 31, 2012. India may lay claim to the largest blackout in history, but an endemic energy crisis blamed on years of mismanagement in Pakistan cripples the economy and makes millions of lives a daily misery. — AFP

S Korea to resume buying Iranian crude in September SEOUL: South Korean refiners plan to resume buying crude from Iran in September after a twomonth hiatus due to a European Union embargo that made shipping the oil difficult, government and refining sources said yesterday.

The refiners have, like their Chinese and Indian counterparts, asked Iran to deliver crude on Iranian tankers, government and industry sources said.

This shifts the responsibility to Iran for insurance, sidestepping a ban in the EU on insurers from covering Iranian shipments.

Iran has a major interest in keeping its crude flowing to South Korea, China, India and Japan because they are its top four customers. They buy more than half of its oil exports.

They have slashed Iranian purchases this year, though, under pressure from EU and U.S. sanctions that aim to squeeze Tehran’s oil income and curb its nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran wants to develop weapons, which Tehran denies.

Sources said Iran’s crude exports dropped to about 1.1 million barrels per day in June and July from more than 2 million bpd at the start of the year. At current prices, the lower volume means the loss of some $110 million a day in export earnings.

Japan and South Korea, Iran’s third- and fourthbiggest oil buyers, both halted imports in July as they scrambled to work out how to continue imports under the EU sanctions, which have made it tough to ship, insure and pay for Iranian oil.

EU insurers underwrite most maritime shipping, and insurers elsewhere have been unable to offer cover for the billions of dollars in claims that could stem from a spill. The EU sanctions came into force on July 1, after new US sanctions targeted at financial transactions for oil purchases took effect in late June. South Korean refiners and the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) are close to finalising a deal that would allow loading to resume from September, sources said.

“Refiners have requested Iran to deliver crude, and the deal is almost reached,” a government source with direct knowledge of the matter said. If there’s a deal allowing refiners to load crude in September, the firs cargo should arrive in South Korea at the end of that month or in early October, the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject, said.

Two refining sources confirmed the request had been made to NITC. SK Energy and Hyundai Oilbank are the only two South Korean refiners that import Iranian crude. The refiners would buy a similar quantity of oil as they had prior to the July stoppage, sources said. There may be some variance month by month due to the size of vessels available for imports from NITC, one refining source said.

In the first six months of 2012, South Korea’s imports of crude from Iran stood at 190,000 bpd, down 17 percent on the year. Imports in June were just over 176,000 bpd. Tehran offered to provide up to $1 billion of insurance cover to Iranian vessels shipping oil to South Korea, Reuters reported last month.

China, Iran’s biggest customer, which has cut its Iran crude imports by 21 percent in the first half of the year, has agreed for Iran to deliver its oil to get around the EU insurance ban. China has nominated full contract volumes for August deliveries of about 520,000 bpd, about half of Iran’s exports.

Refineries in India, the second-biggest buyer of Iranian oil, have also asked Iran to deliver its crude.

India’s state-run insurers can provide some limited cover for importers, although shippers have yet to use it, saying the promised cover is insufficient.

During the first half of 2012, India’s purchases of Iranian crude were steady compared with 2011, but it cut them by 18 percent in June. Japan, which cuts it first half purchases from Iran by one-third, has taken a different approach with a sovereign insurance scheme to cover its importers.— Reuters

25

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

BUSINESS

China tightens controls on rare earths production BEIJING: China’s government has further tightened curbs on production of rare earths used in mobile phones and other high-tech products in a move that might inflame trade tensions with Washington and Europe.

Regulations issued this week say mines and smelting companies must meet minimum output levels to continue operating. The state newspaper China Daily said yesterday that might result in 20% of the country’s production capacity to be shut down.

China has about 30% of the world’s rare earths deposits but accounts for more than 90% of production. It alarmed foreign manufacturers by imposing export curbs in 2009 while it tries to build up a domestic processing industry to capture more of the profits that go to US, Japanese and European companies that transform rare earths into mobile phone batteries, camera lenses and other

products. Chinese officials have expressed hope foreign companies that use rare earths will shift production to China and share technology with local partners.

The United States, the European Union and Japan filed a World Trade Organization complaint in March accusing China of violating its free-trade commitments. Chinese officials have defended the controls as in line with WTO rules and necessary to protect the environment.

The restrictions are especially sensitive at a time when governments are trying to boost exports to reduce high unemployment. The United States and Europe are looking to increase sales of high-tech goods that include products made with rare earths.

The latest regulations appear to be an extension of Beijing’s effort to force rare earths producers to consolidate into a handful of large

companies that will be easier to monitor and control. Mines must have yearly output of at

according to the Ministry of Industr y and Information Technology.

BAOTOU: In this photo taken Tuesday, July 6, 2010, workers use machinery to dig at a rare earth mine in Baiyunebo mining district of Baotou in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. China’s government has tightened controls on rare earths production in a move that might inflame trade tensions with Washington and Europe. —AP least 20,000 tons, while smelters must have production capacity of 5,000 tons per year,

Up to one-third of China’s 23 mines and about half of its 99 smelting companies will fail to

meet the new standards, China Daily said, citing the director of the ministr y ’s rare ear ths office, Jia Yinsong. Jia said that would eliminate about 20% of China’s rare earths production capacity.

A ministry statement cited the need to protect rare earths resources and the environment and to promote restructuring of the industry. The government also has limited the number of companies that are allowed to export rare earths.

China’s trading partners say export quotas and taxes push up rare earths prices abroad, giving buyers in China an unfair advantage. One mineral, terbium oxide, costs $2,000 per kilogram on global markets this week, more than double its $863.47 price in China, according to Lynas Corp., an Australian miner. Neodymium oxide cost $105 per kilogram on global markets and $67.50 in China.

The dispute reflects the

clash between Beijing’s freetrade pledges and its ambitions to transform China from a low-wage factory into a creator of profitable technology. Rare earths are 17 minerals used to make goods including hybrid cars, weapons, flat-screen TVs, mobile phones, mercury-vapor lights and camera lenses.

China reported total exports last year of 18,600 tons, just 60% of the 30,000-ton quota, due in par t to slack global demand. The government cut the export quota for the first half of this year by 27% from a year earlier to 10,546 tons.

The United States, Canada, Australia and other countries also have rare earths but most mining stopped in the 1990s as lower- cost Chinese ores came on the market. Beijing’s decision to limit exports has prompted foreign producers to announce plans to reopen or develop mines in California, Canada, India, Russia and elsewhere. —AP

Standard Chartered sparks scrutiny of India offshoring US, European firms to move 750,000 jobs to India MUMBAI/NEW YORK: Offshoring of backoffice work to India, a trend among banks and accounting firms, came under new scrutiny with allegations that Standard Chartered Plc moved compliance oversight work dealing with Iranian banking transactions to India to avoid US regulators.

Cost savings, not escaping regulatory oversight, are generally assumed to be the primary goal of sending back-office work to India, where employees are paid far less than in the United States and much of Europe.

New York State’s bank regulator accused Standard Chartered on Monday of setting up an offshore regulatory compliance system dealing with Iranian banking transactions that was “a sham” meant to escape US Treasury Department oversight.

Regulator Benjamin Lawsky, head of the New York Department of Financial Services, issued an order accusing Standard Chartered of hiding 60,000 transactions tied to Iran worth $250 billion over a decade, resulting in substantial fees.

Standard Chartered Plc has said it “does not believe the order issued by the Department of Financial Services presents a full and accurate picture of the facts.”

US and European companies will move 750,000 jobs in information technology, finance and other business services to India and other low-cost nations by 2016, according to the Hackett Group Inc, a US consultancy.

India, because of its English-speaking population and low wages, is an especially attrac-

tive offshoring destination, receiving 58% of global outsourcing contracts last year, according to industry estimates.

Offshoring to India has been a political issue in the United States, with the focus usually being on the jobs it takes away from Americans, suffering from a stubbornly high unemployment rate.

The issue will give more ammunition to groups that oppose outsourcing because of fears of job losses, said Sudin Apte, chief executive of independent advisory and research firm Offshore Insights. But he did not see a long-term effect.

“Some more rigor in compliance, some more rigor in scrutiny and process adherence ... but I think I would welcome that because that makes the system perfect or near perfect,” he said.

Global banks and financial services companies are among the biggest outsourcers to Indian companies, including Infosys Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, which provide services ranging from payroll management to maintaining IT networks.

Indian outsourcing firms such as Wipro and Tata already are marketing compliance services for the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act, which will require US banks to provide massive amounts of data on their risk exposure.

Many banks, including HSBC Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, also have their own facilities in low-cost India with thousands of employees.

The Big Four accounting and consulting firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC, also are offshoring some audit work for US companies to India, where salaries for accountants are a fraction of those in the United States.

In the case of Standard Chartered, compliance work was being done in India on financial transactions, including those tied to Iran.

The United States imposed economic sanctions on Iran in 1979.

Lawsky has alleged that Standard Chartered’s staff in India was not trained to determine whether the transactions were valid under US rules on Iranian trade.

Those rules are overseen by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the state regulator said.

The New York regulator said the bank’s failures included “outsourcing of the entire OFAC compliance process for the New York branch to Chennai, India, with no evidence of any oversight or communication between the Chennai and the New York offices.”

Scope International, Standard Chartered’s wholly owned back office outsourcing centre, is based in the south Indian city of Chennai and employs more than 8,500 people.

A spokeswoman for the bank in Mumbai declined to comment.

The bank has put the value of Iran-related transactions that did not comply with regulations at less than $14 million, much less than Lawsky’s multibillion-dollar estimate. —Reuters

Hyundai Motor’s union stages partial strike

In this photograph taken on March 20, 2012 a Kingfisher Airlines Airbus A321 aircraft makes its final approach for landing at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. India’sstruggling Kingfisher Airlines was forced to cancel more than 30 flights yesterday when pilots and engineers refused to show up for work due to non-payment of salaries. —AFP

Strike forces Kingfisher to cancel 31 flights MUMBAI: India’s struggling Kingfisher Airlines was forced to cancel more than 30 flights yesterday when pilots and engineers refused to show up for work due to nonpayment of salaries. The cancellations were a fresh blow to the debt-laden airline which has been hit by a series of similar strikes in recent months and owes vast sums to banks, suppliers and staff.

Around 22 flights originating in New Delhi were cancelled, along with nine from India’s financial centre Mumbai. An airline spokesman declined to comment on the latest stoppage, but a Mumbai airport official said Kingfisher had cited “operational reasons” for the cancellations.

“For the past five to six months, the air-

line is defaulting on paying us salaries, despite several promises,” said a junior Kingfisher pilot who declined to be named.

“How long can one work without being paid?” the pilot said. Kingfisher, which has $1.4 billion in debts, has been forced to slash its fleet of aircraft and has halted international operations in an effort to curb costs. It now has the smallest market share among Indian airlines at 4.2 percent, after being the second-largest carrier at its peak.

A quarter of Kingfisher is owned by local banks and some have refused to lend the company more cash unless fresh capital is raised. In May, the airline reported quarterly losses tripled to 11.52 billion rupees ($210 million) from a year earlier. —AFP

Malaysian exports sustained

by China, Japan demand KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s June export growth slowed to 5.4 percent but rising demand from regional heavyweights China and Japan helped offset shrinking shipments to struggling Europe, the government said yesterday.

Malaysian exports reached 61 billion ringgit ($19.6 billion) in June, marking a slowdown compared to June 2011, when

exports grew a year-on-year 8.6 percent, and May’s 6.7-percent increase, the trade ministry said.

However, analysts said the country’s vital export sector beat expectations and called the performance positive amid global sluggishness, particularly as regional economies such as Singapore and South Korea have seen recent export declines. —AFP

SEOUL: The union at South Korea’s top automaker Hyundai Motor started a partial strike yesterday, sparking fears of vehicle shor tages caused by robust sales abroad.

The company said its 44,000-strong union downed tools for two hours yesterday, demanding higher wages and an end to night shifts. The union staged its first strike in four years last month.

Unionists will stage a three-hour stoppage today and four-hour strikes tomorrow and next Monday and Tuesday. They will stop work for two hours on Friday next week.

The union at Hyundai’s affiliate Kia Motors plans an eight-hour strike on Friday and will refuse to work over time from next Monday. The labour action came as Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world’s fifth largest automaker by sales, posted robust sales in the first half of this year despite the global economic downturn.

Hyundai’s first-half sales rose 11.5 percent from a year earlier to 2.18 million units, or 51 percent of its annual target of 4.29 million. Kia sold 1.39 million units globally in the first six months, up 12 percent from a year earlier.

Hyundai called for a quick settlement of the disputes, saying the company and union should join forces to ride out an unpredictable business environment. “We must work together to ride out the economic crisis instead of wasting time on wrangling,” the company said in a message to workers.

Hyundai predicted steady growth in the second half thanks to robust overseas sales, especially in the United States and Europe. But analysts said further strikes would hurt sales at both companies because their inventories are already at record-low levels. A prolonged labour action “means a blow to their third-quarter results”, Suh Sung-Moon of Korea Investment and Securities told Dow Jones Newswires John Krafcik, chief executive for Hyundai’s US operations, said last month the company was facing vehicle shortages in the United States after a blistering 10 percent sales increase in the first half. —AFP

PARIS: In this file photograph taken on May 24, 2011 Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel Limited, attends a plenary session at the e-G8 Forum in Paris.

India’s biggest mobile phone company, Bharti Airtel, reported yesterday a surprise 37% dive in quarterly profit, hit by “hypercompetition” that squeezed earnings. —AFP

India’s Bharti profit dives 37%, shares at 2-year low NEW DELHI: India’s top mobile phone company, Bharti Airtel, reported yesterday a surprise 37% plunge in quarterly profits due to “hyper-competition”, sending its shares to a two-year low. Indian mobile firms have been battling aggressively for a share of the world’s secondlargest cellular market after China, driving call rates down to below a cent a minutethe cheapest globally-and hurting bottom lines.

Bharti’s net profit for the first financial quarter to June dived to 7.62 billion rupees ($138 million) from 12.15 billion rupees in the same period a year earlierthe company’s 10th straight quarterly fall.

“Revenues in India have been depressed due to hyper-competition,” Bharti’s billionaire chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said. The announcement sent Bharti’s shares down 6.6% to 274.40 rupees, their lowest in two years.

The performance sharply undershot market forecasts of a 12-billion-rupee profit for the quarter. “Earnings certainly were below expectation. Profitability will remain under pressure,” Motilal Oswal Securities’ markets vice president Rikesh Parikh told AFP. Operating costs climbed by 21% to 92 billion rupees while revenues rose by 14% to 193.5 billion rupees. India’s has nine cellular operators, making it tough to hike tariffs.

“We were cognisant of the effect it (competing aggressively) could have on our bottom line but we made it very clear in the short run we would make a choice in favour of market share,” Bharti Airtel chief executive Sanjay Kapoor said.

The earnings came amid turmoil in

India’s telecom market after the Supreme Court this year cancelled 122 secondgeneration (2G) mobile licences issued in 2008, on the grounds the distribution process was under-priced and corrupt.

The government aims to re-auction the airwaves in November, setting a reserve price of $2.5 billion, around nine times the 2008 sale price. The industry argues the price threatens its viability and jeopardises India’s goal of rolling out mobile network across rural areas. Major operators Bharti and Britain’s Vodafone were not hit by the court ruling but they want to buy more spectrum to ease the load on their overburdened networks.

Other players affected by the judgement say they may exit the market entirely because repurchasing their licences will be too costly.

The developments have created uncertainty about the future of India’s mobile market, which had been seen as one of the nation’s biggest liberalisation success stories and a promoter of economic development.

Also weighing on Bharti’s earnings were interest costs from the $12.1 billion debt it acquired in purchasing faster 3G spectrum two years ago and the African mobile operations of Kuwait’s Zain.

African revenues grew by 31.5% but losses from the division more than doubled to 6.69 billion rupees. Bharti’s subscriber base across India, South Asia and Africa totalled 260.71 million. Separately Bharti said it was mulling an Initial Public Offer (IPO) of its telecom tower unit, Bharti Infratel, in which it would sell up to a 10% stake in the venture which has 33,000 towers. —AFP

Hong Kong Airlines to end London service HONG KONG: Hong Kong Airlines will end its ser vice between Hong Kong and London due to poor demand, reports said yesterday, another blow to the carrier after authorities banned its expansion. “The last flight from London to Hong Kong will be on September 10,” Hong Kong Airlines General Manager Albert Chan told Dow Jones Newswires, meaning the service will have run for just seven months.

The airline uses three Airbus 330-200 planes for the flights which are fitted exclusively with business-class seats. The service costs around HK$10 million ($1.3 million) a month to run, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

The airline did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The move followed an unprecedented aviation authority ban last month on the airline’s expan-

sion, limiting the types of aircraft the company can operate until the airline meets all safety requirements for operating a larger fleet.

The airline said it supported the conditions, adding they were sensible for a company at their stage of growth. “Given the profitability of our regional routes, we believe that we now have the optimal fleet to continue to build a business... focused on Asia Pacific,” an HKA spokeswoman told AFP on Monday.

Hong Kong Airlines was established in 2006 and operates 21 aircraft flying to locations in mainland China and international destinations ranging from Tokyo to Bangkok. HKA flights were severely delayed and cancelled when a typhoon lashed Hong Kong last month, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. —AFP

26

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

business

CRC achieves net profits of KD 1,585,098 for the H1 of 2012 KUWAIT: Abdul Fatah Marafi, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Commercial Real Estate Company (CRC) has announced the achievement of net profits of KD 1,585,098, during the first half of 2012, with a share profit of 0.92 fils.

Marafi indicated that the currentlytraded book value does not express the real value, as the book value of the current period totals 141 fils/share, due to the fact that reserves are not stated in the financial statements based on the conservative policies of the company’s management. Thus, the real value of the share is higher than the book value pursuant to the current financial statements.

The company’s management has deducted additional reserves during the period, which amounted to KD 2.5

million, through performing a comprehensive study, based on conservation and precautions, in accordance with the current economic circumstances, slow markets recovery and continuous economic crisis, Marefi revealed. The company has paid an amount of approximately KD 5 million, equal to 4.6% of the total debts of the company. That confirms the compatibility between the work plan set by the company ’s management and the established goals that aims at selffinancing support and reduction of all debts.

The CRC has continued the execution of its projects and announced the invitation to two tenders for the execution of commercial projects in Kuwait, which would add a distinguished mark to the modern architecture balance in

the State of Kuwait. The projects, which are expected to be completed during the next period, include Light Restaurants Compound project in Mahboula and Dine Zone Restaurants Compound project in Aqila. The Light Restaurants project is located at the most important intersections of the coastal road in Mahboula and embraces an elite of the most exquisite local and international restaurants. Its high-class and different design reflects the architectural modernity and simplicity. The restaurants are distinguished with their external sitting areas that can be connected with the internal areas, with a multi-purpose open area in the middle of the project for special occasions. The Dine Zone Restaurants Compound directly overlooks at Aquila charming area, provid-

ing a mixture of exquisite restaurants with amazing views. The project consists of 26 units of 2 floors each, with a view to the sea and the breath-taking middle area of green spaces with different designs, giving the visitor an interesting journey, starting from the car parts to the coasts surrounded by palm trees. At the end of his statement, Marefi highlighted the future vision of the company pursuant to its capabilities and their investment for the purpose of continuous growth, achievement of excellent profits for shareholders and participation in the architectural development of Kuwait, considering its capacity as a real estate pioneer company.

Marefi expressed his warmest wishes to the shareholders of the company on the occasion of the Holy Month of

Abdul Fatah Marafi Ramadan and said May Allah the almaitygrant everybody the blessings and mercy brought about by this month.

New Boxster generation arrives at Porsche Centre Revamped Boxster range packs a powerful punch KUWAIT: The revamped Porsche Boxster and Boxster S are now available in Kuwait. After a global reveal in Geneva in March, Porsche Centre Kuwait, Behbehani Motors Company, is introducing the comprehensively changed open-top two-seater in the market.

Both variants of the Porsche Boxster have a new, lightweight body and a completely redesigned chassis. Considerably lower weight, longer wheelbase, a wider track and larger wheels significantly enhance the mid-engine

sports car’s driving dynamics undermining its position as the best in its class.

Superior performance is backed by up to 15 per cent more fuel efficiency. Depending on model, they get by with significantly less than eight litres of fuel per 100 kilometres.

Fundamentally changed styling - with shorter overhangs - a significantly forward-shifted windscreen, flatter silhouette and expressive edges all provide the Boxster with a fresh, contemporary look. The new roadster’s posture is decidedly more muscular and striking.

Passengers are enclosed by a completely redesigned, fully electric hood, which now dispenses with a convertible top compartment lid.

The interior gives occupants more space, and reflects the new Porsche outline with a raked centre console, which originated with the Carrera GT. George Wills, Managing Director of Porsche Middle East and Africa FZE, says: “Without any doubt, the new generation Boxster represents a quantum leap in Porsche’s development of midengine vehicles. It combines a breath-taking design with a great day-to-day usability. After the fantastic feedback following its reveal at the Geneva Motor Show, we look forward to introducing the two-seater in our region. This new roadster stands for pure driving pleasure through the principles of Porsche Intelligent Performance.”

Both the Boxster and Boxster S models are powered by flat-six boxer engines with direct petrol injection, enhanced by electrical system recuperation, thermal management, auto start/stop function as well as electro-mechanical power steering.

The base model’s new power unit delivers 265hp from a 2.7 litre displacement - 10 horsepower more than its larger displacement predecessor. Technically, it is now based on the 3.4-litre engine of the Boxster S, which now has an out-

put 315hp; five hp more than before.

Both models feature a manual six-speed gearbox as standard, with the seven-speed Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK) available as an option.

The Boxster’s fuel consumption with PDK is 7.7 l/100 km and 8.0 l/100 km for the S version.

Without interruption to the power flow, the twoseater sprints from zero to 100 km/h in 5.7 sec-

Gulf Bank announces winner in BMW draw KUWAIT: Gulf Bank yesterday announced the lucky winners of its first monthly cards prize draw, which offers all its cardholders the chance to win either a BMW 5, 6, 7 Series, or X6 vehicle, as well as giving 10 winners the chance to earn 100,000 loyalty points each, per month.

The draw took place at Gulf Bank’s Head Office, where the first winner; Waleed Al-Kanderi won a brand new 2012 BMW 520i, while, Mohanad AlHassan, Balqees Abbas, Abdulateef AlRoodan, Brency George, Nora Al-Azmi, Falah Al-Mutairi, Erum Ullah, Talal AlMutairi, Amir Hussain, and Sara AlSarraf each earned 100,000 loyalty points. Aly Shalaby, Gulf Bank’s General Manager, Consumer Banking Group said: “I would like to congratulate all the winners in the inaugural draw of this competition, and we are looking forward to rewarding more of our loyal cardholders each month. In this campaign, we are offering all our cardholders an opportunity to win a range of great prizes and this is our way of thanking them for their continued trust in Gulf Bank’s services. We value our customers and we want them to continue to feel that they are getting the best and fastest banking services in Kuwait whilst also enjoying the opportunity to enter valuable draws.”

Any current or prospective Gulf Bank cardholder who spends more using their credit cards locally and internationally or debit cards abroad will be eligible to enter the draw. The campaign started in June 2012, and will run through to January 14th, 2013.

To find out more about Gulf Bank’s promotions, customers can visit one of Gulf Bank’s 56 branches, or contact the bank’s Customer Contact Centre on 1805805 for assistance and guidance, or log on to www.e-gulfbank.com, Gulf Bank’s website.

onds, the Boxster S in just 5.0 seconds.

The Sport Chrono Package comes as an optional extra for the Boxster, featuring dynamic transmission mounts for the first time. Newly available as an add-on feature in the roadster is Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV), with mechanical rear axle differential lock, the ideal complement to Porsche Stability Management.

Graeme Hunter, General Manager of Porsche

Centre Kuwait, says: “The vehicle’s mid-engine concept is the basis for the vehicle’s outstanding agility. Driving dynamics were enhanced by a balanced weight distribution of 46 (front) to 54 per cent (rear) and the once again lowered centre of gravity. The 60 millimetres longer wheelbase ensures greater stability at very high speeds whilst the wider track on both axles enhances driving stability and agility in bends.

Etihad cargo carries record tonnage in July DUBAI: Etihad Cargo, a division of Etihad Airways, has posted record monthly figures for July with network volumes approaching 33,000 tonnes, an increase of 18% on the same month last year. The figures surpass a previous month record of 31,700 tonnes which Etihad Cargo carried in March 2012.

Total revenues for the month were up 4% on June and up 8% on the corresponding period the previous year.

Last month Etihad Cargo reported strong H1 2012 results, with tonnage up 21% to 175,000 tonnes. Etihad Airways Chief Planning and Strategy Officer, Kevin Knight, said: “We’ve seen a good recovery in business from Europe after the second quarter.

Also, the capability of our fleet with the addition of the 747-400 freighter has enhanced our overall schedule flexibility, and helped support significant project work in what was also a record month for

our Charter team.

“Business across and through the Middle East has remained strong into the Holy Month of Ramadan. “New routes including our recently launched 6-times a week passenger service to Lagos and our new freighter service to Dammam have broadened the reach for our customers. “Looking

ahead, we expect to maintain strong freight performance over the third and fourth quarters of 2012.” Etihad Cargo currently operates a fleet of six freighters, consisting of one Airbus A300-600F, two Airbus A330-200F, one McDonnell Douglas MD-11F, one Boeing B777F and one Boeing B747-400F.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

Judge in Google, Oracle case seeks names of paid reporters, bloggers SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc and Oracle Corp’s copyright and patent battle took astrange twist on Tuesday, after a judge ordered the companies to disclose the names of journalists, bloggers and other commentators on their payrolls. US District Judge William Alsup said he was concerned that Google and Oracle and/or their counsel may have retained or paid people who may have published comment on the case.

The order, several months after a jury found that Google did not infringe on Oracle’s patents, hints at the possibility of a hidden world of for-pay press coverage and injects uncertainty into the widelyfollowed case.

Alsup issued a one page order but did not go into full details of the court’s con-

cerns. “The court is concerned that the parties and/or counsel herein may have retained or paid print or internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in the case,” Alsup wrote in Tuesday’s order. He said the information “would be of use on appeal” and could “make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships to the parties or counsel.”

The companies must submit the information by noon August 17. Oracle sued Google in federal court, claiming the search engine giant’s Android mobile platform violated its patents and copyright to Java, seeking roughly $1 billion

on its copyright claims. But the jury ruled in Google’s favor and the judge decided Oracle could not claim copyright protection on most of the Java material that Oracle took to trial. Oracle has said it will appeal. The trial, which featured testimony from high-profiletechnology executives including Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page, attracted heavy media coverage from the mainstream press and technologyfocused blogs. One of the more wellknown bloggers on intellectual property matters and on the Oracle vs Google case, Florian Mueller, revealed three days into the trial that Oracle had recently become a consulting client of his. People who followed the case said they weren’t aware of any other similar examples.

An Oracle spokeswoman said in a statement that the company has “always disclosed all of its financial relationships in this matter, and it is time for Google do to the same. We read this order to also include indirect payments to entities who, in turn, made comments on behalf of Google.” Google said the company would comply with the order. What impact the order could have on the case remains unclear, legal experts said.

“I haven’t seen anything quite like this before. I think the judge is in uncharted territory with this order,” said Eric Goldman, a professor of Internet law at Santa Clara University School of Law. Goldman said two potential reasons for the order would be if there were evidence that the jury had been swayed by exten-

sive press coverage of the case or if the jury had relied on evidence not properly labeled as unbiased, such as a for-pay news article offered as an exhibit in the trial. Goldman, who blogged about the case, said that he might likely appear on the list, since his website features ads distributed by Google’s online advertising network. “The court has really wide discretion in granting a remedy to fix any kind of wrongdoing,” said Julie Samuels, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Samuels said the judge could order a retrial, but stressed that would be a highly extreme and unlikely scenario. The case in US District Court, Northern District of California is Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc, 10-3561.—Reuters

On YouTube channels, comedians shift punchline All new channels receive coaching from YouTube

CHINA: Photographers take photos of US director James Cameron prior to a signing ceremony at the National Museum of China in yesterday.—AFP

Cameron takes 3-D film venture to China BEIJING: Oscar-winning director James Cameron said yesterday that he will open a joint venture in China to provide 3-D filming technology, the latest move by Hollywood to secure a foothold in the country’s booming movie industry. Box office revenues-growing by leaps and bounds in China thanks to its fast-growing middle class-have whet Hollywood’s appetite despite complaints over government restrictions on access to screens, content control and piracy.

CPG China Division, the new arm of Cameron Pace Group, will offer Chinese film makers three-dimensional camera technology but will not be involved immediately in producing films, Cameron told Reuters in an interview.

“We’re not going to tell Chinese film makers how to make movies. We are going to help them make a transition to 3D production technology as cost effectively as possible, and in a way that doesn’t inhibit creativity,” he said.

Three -dimensional films, which enhance depth perception by being shot from two perspectives, gained in popularity during the 2000s and achieved a breakthrough with Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster “Avatar”, a movie about blue aliens which set a $2.8 billion box office global earnings record. Cameron also directed the second-highest grossing film of all time, the nautical disasterromance starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, “Titanic”.

Cameron said the deal was “huge”, though he would not give details on the amount of the investment or the venture’s equity split with two state-owned entities-film distributor Tianjin North Film Group and Tianjin Hi-tech Holding Group. “This is a huge investment for us, as much in sweat equity ... as it is financially,” he said, noting that initial projects to “build muscle” will focus on 3-D films highlighting Chinese cities.

The Cameron Pace Group, formed 12 years ago with camera guru Vince Pace, earned $58 million last year renting its 3D cameras to crews producing films, concert videos and sports broadcasts. A die-

hard proponent of expanding 3-D viewership, Cameron said the ambitions of the Chinese partners, as well as Chinese state television eager to try out live 3-D broadcast technology, exceeded even his own. “We think we’re on the verge of a kind of media revolution. And we certainly have the enabling technology, we have the methodology, we’ve honed our skills.”

Copycat concerns The director’s move follows a string of other high-profile Hollywood announcements in China. The next “Iron Man” film will be co-produced in China under a joint agreement between Walt Disney Co, Marvel Studios and DMG Entertainment. “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” creator DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc plans to open a 20 billion yuan ($3.14 billion) theme park in Shanghai by 2016 with Chinese partners.

US film producers were excited about a deal hammered out during Vice President Xi Jinping’s February visit to the United States that paved the way for the import of 14 premium format films, such as IMAX or 3-D. If the deal is implemented, those films will be exempt from China’s annual import quota of 20 foreign films per year, a concession offered

by Beijing after losing a World Trade Organization dispute over media distribution in 2009.

Technology transfers have been a stumbling block for other foreign invested joint ventures in China, as companies have complained that handing over intellectual property is sometimes the price of admission to access China’s huge consumer market. CPG China Division will rely heavily on cutting edge cameras, but the director downplayed copycat concerns. “That’s certainly a danger. We are going to look very carefully at how we protect our core technology. But frankly... it is changing so rapidly that you can clone what we are putting in the field now, but we’ll be coming out with something new in 18 months, anyway,” he said.—Reuters

NEW YORK: On the debut episode of “Smart Girls at the Party,” Amy Poehler sits in a dark studio and solemnly introduces her first guest as a “singer, actor, dancer, musician, feminist, entrepreneur and skateboarder.” Sitting across from Poehler is a 7-year-old named Ruby, who cheerfully displays a just-completed drawing. Charlie Rose, eat your heart out. This summer, while much of the TV world is in reruns, a number of comedians have taken to YouTube, including Poehler, Rainn Wilson, Walter Latham and, in a new role, Shaquille O’Neal.

“Smart Girls at the Party” is the flagship show for Poehler’s YouTube channel of the same name, part of an ambitious initiative from Google’s video-sharing site to plant a crop of niche-oriented channels from show business veterans. The rollout has continued through the year, gradually premiering more than half of the nearly 100 channels that YouTube has poured $100 million into, while pledging to spend another $200 million on marketing.

Comedy is only one of the many genres among the new channels (they range from the gaming hotbed Machinima to The Wall Street Journal), but it’s perhaps the most viral-ready: Production value isn’t needed to send a funny clip sailing through social media.

Smart Girls at the Party, which has some 7,500 subscribers thus far and has generated more than 400,000 views, is geared toward adolescent girls and young teens with the stated aim to “celebrate individuals who are changing the world by being themselves.”

“We wanted to celebrate the non-celebrity,” says Poehler. “We wanted to embrace and highlight the cool period in any boy or girl’s life where they’re just so full of possibility and ideas and passion.” The channel includes shows like “Ask Amy,” a weekly check-in where Poehler answers questions from viewers. In one episode, Poehler, who’s currently shooting a film directed by David Wain ahead of the next season of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” waxes about managing stress while sitting in a bathtub.

In “Meow Meow Music,” Poehler’s friend Amy Miles hosts a mini version of a Pee-wee Hermanstyle variety show. Every episode of “Smart Girls” ends with a dance party. “YouTube and Google and the Internet in general is filled with so much - I don’t know - garbage humiliation stuff,” says Poehler, who has two young boys. “We’re trying to do stuff that’s not focused on people falling down. Although don’t get me wrong - I love people falling down, especially when monkeys fall out of trees. That’s my favorite part of the Internet.”

Wilson, who plays Dwight on “The Office,” also has hopes to shift the

NEW YORK: This undated image released by Smart Girls at the Party shows Meredith Walker (left) Amy Poehler and director David Karabinas on the set of “Smart Girls at the Party,” the flagship show for the YouTube channel, and founded by Amy Poehler.—AP online dialogue. His channel is an outgrowth of an earlier SoulPancake website and book, both of which grapple with philosophy and spirituality in a casual way.

“We want to engage users creatively, uplift the conversation, dig into life’s big questions and kind of make thinking and feeling cool and fun and irreverent at the same time,” says Wilson. Wilson, a member of the Baha’i faith, hosts the channel’s “Metaphysical Milkshake,” in which he interviews people in the back of his custom van. He became preoccupied with readying the van for the channel: “I’ve been spending all this time on eBay and Craigslist looking for bubble windows.”

Other shows include “Live a Little,” about atypical high schoolers; “Subcultures,” about niche communities; and “Art Attack,” where artists create something from a suggested “spark.” Wilson is particularly enthusiastic about a pilot called “Last Days,” featuring interviews of people with terminal illnesses. (He promises it’s uplifting.)

Wilson realizes it can be jarring for audiences to see someone who many simply regard as Dwight Schrute discussing such subjects, but SoulPancake has helped Wilson unite his professional life and his spiritual life and mix the profound with the silly. The channel has more than 25,000 subscribers.

“You can ask someone about their toenail polish and then you can also ask them about what they think happens to you when you die,” he says. “It just doesn’t really

happen on television, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”

As the creator and producer of the popular and lucrative “Original Kings of Comedy” tour, Latham has been a trailblazer before, founding the black comedy franchise that featured Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, Cedric “The Entertainer” and D. L. Hughley. As a promoter of comedians and a TV and film producer, Latham likes to call himself “the King of Comedy.”

“It’s the future, man,” Latham says of the YouTube channels.

“Especially for my career as long I’ve been in stand-up, always looking for the next Bernie Mac or the next Steve Harvey. They don’t have shows anymore like they used to on television to find talent. So YouTube is a really good platform for me to introduce new comedians to a new audience. And the audience will tell me if they like them.”

Walter Latham Comedy, which has nearly 9,000 subscribers, draws a considerable chunk of its audience from archived video of some of those comedians, particularly Bernie Mac, who died in 2008. The lineup of original programming includes shows hosted by comedians Hughley, Miss P and Michael Blackson. But its signature show, “Comedy After Dark,” includes a variety of scantily-clad women including Jenna Jameson.

Latham has found that length of videos has a direct effect on their popularity, having watched classic, nine-minute-long material from Bernie Mac get less response than a lesser joke of two-minutes. “Just get to the joke,” is the lesson, Latham

says, and it doesn’t hurt if the thumbnail representing the video is of one of the attractive female hosts.

The producer realizes the strategy opens him up to criticism. “I know that in order to grow and not become a dinosaur, you have to do and try different things,” he says. “ That may not be the only new thing that I try, but I had to try something.”

The new additions add to the growing comedy presence on YouTube’s digital dial, including My Damn Channel, the comedy series website that streams a live show daily; the Onion, a video offshoot of the satirical news site; Above Average Network, a Web series outlet from Lorne Michaels’ production company; and Official Comedy, which features series from Bedrocket Media Ventures.

All of the new channels receive coaching from YouTube on optimizing programming schedules and attracting subscribers. “We really strive to share best practice and at the same time, stay out of the way of the creative process,” says Alex Carloss, global head of original programming for YouTube. Carloss says YouTube is pleased at the progress so far, noting that almost 20 channels are past 100,000 subscribers.

Latham told his Internet-savvy 14year-old son that he wants to be the first black channel to get a billion views. His son was doubtful: “Dad, the only way you’ll get a billion views is if a spaceship landed on Earth with a billion black people in it.” Said Latham: “ Well, I disagree.”—AP

Farmers dig into the digital world KANSAS CITY: Farm apprentice Sarah Dehart, 32, is pulling carrots out of Cultivate KC’s field at Gibbs Road Farm in Kansas City, Kan. She is sporting true farmer’s gear: overalls, a plastic tub of vegetables on her shoulder and a tan. Also tucked into the bib pocket of her overalls is a smartphone, a tool that has the potential to help spread urban farming knowledge in a viral sort of way. Cultivate KC is a not-for-profit organization that encourages and develops urban farming through policy, outreach and marketing. So Ami Freeburg, the farm’s program assistant, and Dehart commiserate that smartphones are too easily lost or soiled out in the fields to make it very practical to snap photos of the produce as it’s picked and upload the images onto the organization’s Facebook page.

Getting farmers wired requires finding an interface for two different ways of life. On the one hand are most consumers, who work and play networked to one another by computer, smartphone or tablet. On the other are the farmers, who are mostly cut off, working in fields where cellphone signals can be weak to nonexistent. Handheld technology isn’t designed with agriculture in mind. Nature’s operating system is powered by mud and rain. And for all the wonderful design that goes into a smartphone, working the earth has not typically been a consideration. (Apple has yet to make a decent

trowel.)

Plus, the time demands of the virtual world can be out of sync with a farmer’s biorhythms.

“It’s hard when you spend sun-up to sundown in the field,” Freeburg, 24, says. “You don’t want to go home and update your Facebook page.”

Consequently, small farmers are falling behind, but consumers may be the ones missing out. It’s a weird symptom of our time that you can go online and find hubs for hipster Disney princesses or people who dress up like animals or any other kind of kink, but there is no easy way to get on your computer and populate your dinner plate with locally grown food.

This green thumb gap separates consumers from direct access to small farmers. But an increasing number of small farmers are finding ways to connect through websites, social media and email alerts. ”Technology is a tool like all the other tools in my garden,” says Linda Hezel, owner of Prairie Birthday Farms, a small farm in Clay County, Mo., that supplies 15 restaurateurs with wild edibles. It’s a tool that might just drop costs, increase farm income and educate the public about where their food comes from and how it gets to the plate. The farmers market is the original network: producers and consumers have always met here and exchanged goods, building relationships and getting to “Like” one another in real-time.

This is why John Goode of Goode Acres of Wathena, Kan., spends part of his weekends at the City Market in downtown Kansas City.

Goode is 56, about the average age for the American farmer, according to the 2007 USDA agricultural census. That census also reports that the fastest-growing group of farmers is 65 years and older. Only 6 percent are younger than 35, and even among the under-45 group, only 68 percent have Internet access.

Goode has a website and now a Facebook page listing what he sells (organic produce and herbs and, a specialty, firewood for barbecuing).

“I’m not at the age group where I’m real literate in it, myself,” he says. “That’s part of the future.”

Much of his business comes through market traffic, selling to restaurants and individuals. He says he has seen a bump in interest from being followed on Facebook.

But Goode is still in the minority when it comes to Kansas City area farmers who have developed an Internet presence. This technology delay has set the stage for the rise of organizations that will do the online organizing for the farmers, arranging marriages between man and yam by operating an online Community Supported Agriculture business model. A CSA operates as a middleman, collecting food from farmers and assembling them for each subscriber. In general, farmers make more money

KANSAS CITY: (From Left) Sarah Dehart and Ami Freeberg of Cultivate Kansas City and Alicia Ellingsworth of Cultivate’s Gibbs Road Farm are tapping into online technology. on their end, and consumers get fresher food on users to go online and choose meat that will theirs. While most local CSAs tend to be pro- travel from a local farmer to a local grocery duce-oriented, a new company is trying to add store. Jones says farmers are too busy running more sustainably raised meat to the mix. their farms “to pick up the phone every week to Naithan Jones saw his wife’s family’s Overland talk about ‘What do you need? What animals do Park farm slowly failing, so he left his position as I have?’ and do that via spreadsheet and phone.” director of the Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac AgLocal sees an opportunity to create that netprogram to start AgLocal, an app that will allow work. —MCT

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

Squeezed by debt crisis, Greeks ditch cars for bikes ATHENS: Greece’s dire economic plight has forced thousands of businesses to close, thrown one in five out of work and eroded the living standards of millions.

But for bicycle-maker Giorgos Vogiatzis, it’s not all bad news. The crisis has put cash-strapped Greeks on their bikes - once snubbed as a sign of poverty or just plain risky - and Greek manufacturers are shifting into fast gear. The high cost of road tax, fuel and repairs is forcing Greeks to ditch their cars in huge numbers.

According to the government’s statistics office, the number of cars on Greek roads declined by more than 40% in each of the last two years. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 bikes were sold in 2011, up about a quarter from the previous year.

Shops selling bicycles, and equipment ranging from helmets to knee pads, are spreading fast across the capital, popping up even between souvenir shops on the cobbled pedestrian streets of the touristy Plaka district. “They’re sprouting up like

mushrooms,” said Vogiatzis, who designs and builds tailor-made bicycles in his workshop on the Aegean island of Rhodes. A former cyclist on Greece’s national team, Vogiatzis opened his business in the mid-80s, combining his love for drawing and mathematics, but only recently watched sales boom from a modest 40 bikes a year to over 350.

“There’s no more money for luxuries and that helps,” said Vogiatzis, who works away furiously with two other staff to meet demand for all sorts of bikes - some lavishly hand-painted in glitter, others flaunting the Greek flag. “People who were never interested in cycling are buying bikes,” he added. Vogiatzis now exports to seven countries including Germany and the United States, and opened shops across Greece, including in Athens where competition is fierce. A far cry from the shuttered shopfronts in the capital that have become a painful reminder of the country’s worst downturn since World War

Two, bike shop owners estimate that at least one store opened every month in 2011. Vogiatzis laughed: “Every neighbourhood has its bike shop just as it’s got its kebab shop.”

In austerity Greece, the once lowly bike is winning new fans every day, from middle-aged commuters who relied on their cars to those who poked fun at former prime minister George Papanadreou’s penchant for cycling as not being macho enough. The new national fashion has even prompted the Athens mayor to start working on a public bike hire scheme similar to those in other European capitals - a first for a city where the few cycling lanes are often dotted with pine trees or parked cars. The lack of infrastructure and Athens’s mountainous landscape have not deterred Greece’s new cyclists who have begun pedalling through traffic jams, up and down steep hills and over potholed roads.

“This is not Berlin. Here it’s risky but

you need to start thinking what you’ll cut back on - taxis, the metro,” said Elena Koniaraki, 39, a music saleswoman who joked about sticking a learner’s sign on her back for the first few bumpy rides. A pay cut two years ago forced Koniaraki to give up her car under a “cash for clunkers” scheme as she could no longer afford to pay the road tax or fill up her tank. She also moved from her house in a leafy northern Athens suburb to the centre.

And to get through a cash squeeze in March, she picked up a second-hand bike for the first time since childhood.

“At first my friends would laugh at me and say: Oh, poverty!” said Koniaraki, who now cycles to work from the foothills of the ancient Acropolis, past shop-gazing tourists in Plaka and through the bustling Syntagma square. “We’ve never had a bike culture in Greece. Sometimes I’ll leave my local street market on my bike, loaded with bags of tomatoes, and people will stop and wave at me,” she said.

With fuel prices catapulted by tax rises to about €1.72 per litre in July - one of the highest rates in Europe - a bike culture may just develop. “A lot of people are starting to see it as an alternative,” said Tolis Tsimoyannis, a cycling aficionado who imports fold-up bikes from Taiwan.

Tsimoyannis, who opened his business in 2006, said he saw a steady increase in demand in the previous two years, many of his customers students and people in their 40s who were struggling to make ends meet. Lately, his business has started to level out - not because of a drop in demand but because the opening of so many bike shops means they each get a smaller piece of the pie. But even as prospects of Greece’s recession-mired economy remain glum and many fear the pain from the crisis will only intensify in the days ahead, bike enthusiasts are optimistic that the appeal of the bicycle will only grow. “ The only way is up,” Tsimoyannis said. — Reuters

US finally starts Vietnam Agent Orange cleanup US accused of maintaining double standards

This image released by NASA on Tuesday shows one of the first views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the day before. — AFP

NASA shows ‘crime scene’ Mars photo WASHINGTON: About 36 hours after NASA landed its $2.5 billion rover on Mars, it released Tuesday what it jokingly dubbed a “crime scene” aerial shot of where the parachute, heat shield and vehicle came down.

The touchdown on August 6 of the Mars Science Laboratory involved the most elaborate attempt yet to drop a robotic car on the surface of the Red Planet, and required a heat shield, supersonic parachute and rocket-powered sky crane. The process, known as entry, descent and landing, or EDL, was referred to as “Seven Minutes of Terror” by NASA, but went off without a hitch, in what US President Barack Obama called an “unprecedented feat of technology”. On approach, a heat shield protected the Curiosity rover’s fiery entry into Mars’ atmosphere, a supersonic parachute deployed to slow it down, and the spacecraft back shell separated. Then, a rocket powered backpack was fired to power the one-ton rover downward before it was lowered by nylon tethers. The sky crane was designed to detach and fly away to crash somewhere to the north. The latest black and white picture released Tuesday was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it flew about 300 km above the landing site of Gale Crater, near Mars’ equator.

It shows the Mars Science Laboratory rover, nicknamed Curiosity, with the now defunct sky crane about 650 m away to the northwest. The parachute and backshell of the spacecraft that separated before it lowered down landed about 615 meters away from the rover to the southwest. The heat shield appears to be about 1,200 m from the rover to the southeast. “This is like a crime scene photo here,” said Sarah Milkovich, a

NASA scientist who is the lead investigator of the HiRISE camera on the Mars orbiter.

“Hopefully in our future images we be able to get even better, more detail,” she said, adding that the dark areas in the photo show where dust was kicked up during the landing. The EDL team has reviewed the latest photos and said “the layout looks kind of the way they expected”, according to mission manager Mike Watkins. The pieces will likely stay on Mars. There are no plans to recover them to bring back to Earth.

NASA is continuing to run tests on the various instruments on board the rover, which aim to help hunt for signs that life may once have existed on Earth’s neighbor planet, once believed to be a wetter place than it is today.

So far most of the checks have gone well and the rover appears to be in good shape.

Yesterday, NASA planned to lift the rover’s remote sensing mast for the first time. More images, including color high-resolution shots, are expected to arrive in the coming days. But the rover is not expected to start moving for several more weeks, and it may be a year before it reaches its scientific target of Mount Sharp.

Deputy project scientist Joy Crisp said the latest analysis shows that the rover is 6.5 kilometers from the base of the mountain, if it were to travel straight there. However, scientists have warned it is difficult to estimate the exact start of the base and they have no plans to drive to it directly, but will likely take a more meandering route. The Mars Science Laboratory is a nuclear-powered vehicle that is designed for a two-year robotic mission on Mars, though scientists hope it will last at least twice its original design life. — AFP

Arrest notice out for Sea Shepherd founder LYON, France: Interpol has issued an interna- “Red Notice”. Watson was detained in tional notice for the arrest of fugitive eco- Germany for a week in May before being warrior Paul Watson, famed for his high-seas released on bail after paying Ä250,000 clashes with Japanese whalers, after he ($310,000) and being ordered to appear skipped bail in Germany. Watson’s Sea before police twice a day. But he skipped bail Shepherd organisation denounced the move on July 22 and fled the country. Watson, as part of a “politically motivated” campaign known to his supporters as “The Captain”, is a led by Japan to put an end to his efforts veteran campaigner whose Sea Shepherd against whaling. Watson, a 61-year-old organisation is known for its muscular attacks on Japanese Canadian, was arrested in May whalers. in Frankfurt on a warrant from Without revealing Costa Rica, where he is wantWatson’s location, the ed on charges stemming from organisation denounced a high-seas confrontation Interpol’s notice as part of over shark finning in 2002. an effort by Costa Rica on “Following confirmation Japan’s behalf. “Today’s elefrom German authorities that vation of the attack against Paul Watson had failed to satour organisation and our isfy the bail conditions estabfounder, Captain Watson, is lished by the German courts not unexpected,” Sea and had fled the country, Shepherd’s administrative Costa Rican authorities director, Susan Hartland, renewed their request... to said. “Japan is driving this issue a Red Notice seeking his effort in retaliation for our detention or arrest with a Paul Watson successful campaigns to view to extradition,” Interpol stop them from whaling in said in a statement posted on its website. “Based on Mr Watson’s failure to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,” she satisfy the bail conditions set by the German said. “We’ve cost them millions of dollars and court, and the additional information provid- exposed their shame to the world because of ed by Costa Rica concerning the underlying their refusal to stop the slaughter of whales charges, it was concluded that a Red Notice in an established sanctuary under the lie and loophole of ‘research’.” The group described could be issued,” it said.

Lyon-based Interpol does not have the as “bogus” Costa Rica’s charges of “causing a power to issue international arrest warrants danger of drowning or of an air disaster”, but can request member countries make which stem from the use of a water cannon arrests based on foreign warrants through a against shark-finners.— AFP

DANANG, Vietnam: Vo Duoc fights back tears while sharing the news that broke his heart: A few days ago he received test results confirming he and 11 family members have elevated levels of dioxin lingering in their blood. The family lives in a twostorey house near a former US military base in Danang where the defoliant Agent Orange was stored during the Vietnam War, which ended nearly four decades ago. Duoc, 58, sells steel for a living and has diabetes, while his wife battles breast cancer and their daughter has remained childless after suffering repeated miscarriages. For years, Duoc thought the ailments were unrelated, but after seeing the blood tests he now suspects his family unwittingly ingested dioxin from Agent Orangecontaminated fish, vegetables and well water.

Dioxin, a persistent chemical linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, has seeped into Vietnam’s soils and watersheds, creating a lasting war legacy that remains a thorny issue between the former foes. Washington has been slow to respond, but today the US for the first time will begin cleaning up dioxin from Agent Orange that was stored at the former military base, now part of Danang’s airport. “It’s better late than never that the US government is cleaning up the environment for our children,” Duoc said in Danang, surrounded by family members sitting on plastic stools. “They have to do as much as possible and as quickly as possible.”

The $43 million project begins as Vietnam and the US forge closer ties to boost trade and counter China’s rising influence in the disputed South China Sea. Although the countries’ economic and military ties are blossoming, progress on addressing the dioxin legacy has been slow. Washington still disputes a claim by Hanoi that between 3 million to 4 million Vietnamese were affected by toxic chemicals sprayed by US planes during the war to eliminate jungle cover for guerrilla fighters, arguing that the actual number is far lower and other environmental factors are to blame for the health issues.

That position irks Vietnamese, who say the United States maintains a double standard in acknowledging the consequences of Agent Orange. The US has given billions of dollars in disability payments to American servicemen who developed illnesses associated with dioxin after exposure to the defoliant during the Vietnam War. In 2004, a group of Vietnamese citizens filed suit in a US court against companies that produced the chemical, but the case was dismissed and the Supreme Court declined to take it up.

Until a few years ago, Washington took a defensive position whenever Agent Orange was raised because no one had determined how much dioxin remained in Vietnam’s soil and watersheds, and the US worried about potential liabilities, said Susan Hammond, director of the War Legacies Project, a US nonprofit organization that mainly focuses on the Agent Orange legacy from the Vietnam War.

“There was a lot of the blame game going on, and it led nowhere,” Hammond said by telephone from Vermont. “But now at least progress is being made.”

Over the past five years, Congress has appropriated about $49 million for environmental remediation and about $11 million to help people living with disabilities in Vietnam regardless of cause.

Experts have identified three former US air bases in Danang in central Vietnam and the southern locations of Bien Hoa and Phu Cat - as hotspots where Agent Orange was mixed, stored and loaded onto planes. The US military dumped some 75 million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971. The defoliant decimated about 5 million acres of forest - roughly the size of Massachusetts - and another 500,000 acres of crops. The war ended on April 30, 1975, when northern Communist forces seized control of Saigon, the US-backed former capital of South Vietnam. The country was then reunified under a one-party Communist government. Following years of poverty and isolation, Vietnam shook hands with the US in 1995 and normalized diplomatic relations. Since then, the relationship has flourished and the two countries have become important trading partners. Military ties have also strengthened, with Vietnam looking to the US amid rising tensions with China in the disputed South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves and is crossed by vital shipping lanes.

Although Washington remains a vocal critic of Vietnam’s human rights record, it also views the country as a key ally in its push to re-engage militarily in the Asia-Pacific region. The US says main-

taining peace and freedom of navigation in the sea is in its national interest. The Agent Orange issue has continued to blight the US-Vietnam relationship because dioxin can linger in soils and at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations, entering the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense and the US now plan to excavate 73,000 cu m of soil from the airport and heat it to a high temperature in storage tanks until the dioxin is removed. The project is expected to be completed in four years. Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Washington-based Aspen Institute, said today’s start “marks the coming together of our two countries to achieve a practical solution to dioxin contamination.”

His organization coordinates the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin, which connects prominent American and Vietnamese scientists, health experts and former officials. The group in May said that $450 million is needed to clean up dioxin hot spots, provide services to people with disabilities, and repair damaged landscapes across Vietnam over the next five years.

The US is rolling out a $9 million project to address disabilities in Vietnam through 2015, but it continues to dispute Vietnam’s claim that dioxin has caused health problems there. It remains unclear whether the US will clean up all of Vietnam’s dioxin, and how much it will allocate in the long term for people who claim to be Agent Orange victims. A national action plan that Vietnam’s government released in June lays out goals for dealing with Agent Orange, but does not give a price tag.— AP

DANANG, Vietnam Ho Thi Lang (left) combs Ngo Diep Uyen’s hair after her nap at a rehabilitation center on Tuesday. The children were born with physical and mental disabilities that the center’s director said were caused by their parents’ exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange. — AP

Baby rhinos get second chance at orphanage MOKOPANE, South Africa: The baby black rhino slurps milk greedily from a cola bottle, hops around and chases its caregiver in South Africa’s newest and largest orphanage for calves whose parents were poached for their horns. The fat-buttocked, fourmonth-old male rhino is the first resident at the orphanage at the Entabeni Safari Conservancy, which hopes to nurse it back to health and give other hundreds of other rhino babies a second chance at life. The youngster doesn’t yet have a name but it does have a personality. “He’ll want to feel your hair and your face with his lip and he wants to get into everything he’s not allowed to. He’s just like what you’d imagine a little four month old to be,” said Alana Russell, an American conservation student and one of the 100-kg calf’s five caregivers.

Located under a mountain range in the rolling green savanna near the city of Mokopane, about 250 kg north of Pretoria, the orphanage is a non-profit offshoot of a swish tourist resort whose visitors pay to see South Africa’s famed megafauna.

Almost 300 rhinos have been poached across South Africa since the start of the year, after 448 were killed last year. The country is home to about three quarters of Africa’s 20,000 or so white rhinos and 4,800 critically endangered black rhinos.

Numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate thanks to increased poaching as black market demand for rhino horn soars. Made of the same material as finger nails, the horns are smuggled to Asia, where they’re used in traditional medicine, even though scientific research shows they have no medicinal properties. A third of the slain rhinos are either pregnant cows or mothers with a calf, said Karen Trendler, an

esteemed conservationist at the orphanage. “Sadly, in many instances there are calves that are orphaned as a result of the poaching and we were concerned that there was a need to address those to provide field response specialist care,” said Trendler, known fondly as “Mama Rhino” for having raised around 200 baby rhinos over two decades. “Now there’s a specialised rhino orphanage that can take the calves and provide

LIMPOPO, South Africa: American conservation student Alana Russell feeds a four-month-old black baby rhino at the Entabeni Safari Conservancy on July 30, 2012. — AFP

that care that they need,” she said.

Once it’s completed in midSeptember, the orphanage will care for between 25-30 young rhinos that would otherwise have likely died. It will include four high-care rooms and one intensive care chamber where sick calves receive 24-hour attention and can be treated in an incubator.

“As they become older, we will release them into areas bigger and bigger and bigger, until they are about two-and-a-half to three years old, and then obviously they are released back into nature,” the conservation manager Arrie van Deventer told AFP on a recent visit to the facility.

If contact with humans is limited, rhinos can successfully readapt to the wild. Behind him, workmen were putting a layer of 10-cm cement onto the care shelter’s concrete roof, so falling rain won’t scare the traumatised little animals - a sign of the care put into the project design. The first orphan the young black rhino - is being housed elsewhere in the reserve until the orphanage is finished. This one is not a poaching victim - its mother rejected her calf, which was found with a protruding rectum and still needs intensive care. After its treatment, human contact will be limited, Van Deventer said. “In the orphanage, the only human contact will be the handlers. — AFP

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Still raw wounds greet US medics in Fallujah FALLUJAH, Iraq: In an Iraqi city where US military offensives levelled entire neighbourhoods in 2004, a hospital has turned to American doctors to treat children with heart problems that residents blame on fallout from the fighting. The decision was not easy for Fallujah, which lies just west of Baghdad and still views the United States with bitterness and extreme distrust. Residents point the finger at US weaponry for causing a rise in birth defects, mainly congenital heart problems, still occurring years later.

Yet when Fallujah General Hospital opened a new cardiac catheterisation laboratory in July, it was American doctors who helped launch it and test the equipment. “I am an educated man,” said Firas Al-Kubaisy, a Fallujah native and one of the hospital’s paediatric cardiologists. “So I know the American people are different from their politicians.” But “our population, they feel something in their hearts. They do not understand what is going on. When they hear there is an American team in our city, they are surprised they are helping us.”

The six-member team - two doctors and four nurses - spent several days here in July, sequestered inside the hospital where the normal Iraqi police guard was boosted during their stay, said hospital director Abdulsattar K adhim Lawas. The team’s head Kirk Milhoan, a former Air Force surgeon who completed two tours in Iraq in 2005 and 2007, said he was frank with Iraqi colleagues. “You know, ‘How many of your friends, how many of your relatives, have been affected by Americans and coalition forces, and also how many sleepless nights did we give you?’,” Milhoan asked them.

After the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, Fallujah, a city of about a half

million people, staged some of the earliest anti-American protests though they were largely peaceful. In 2004, however, four Americans employed by the private US security firm Blackwater, now called Academi, were brutally killed. Pictures of their bodies, mutilated, set alight then hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates, were seen worldwide.

The US response was swift and ruthless. In April, American forces launched an offensive to quell a burgeoning Sunni insurgenc y but it failed. Fallujah became a fiefdom of Al-Qaeda and its allies, who essentially controlled the city. A subsequent

campaign in November saw some 2,000 civilians and 140 Americans killed in a battle considered one of the fiercest for US troops since the Vietnam war. Kubaisy, 36, sitting board examinations at the time, escaped the worst as did his family. “ They went to Baghdad because Baghdad was safer at that time.” But his home? “It’s gone,” he said simply.

And the land? “I left it.” The fighting “was unnecessar y,” Kubaisy feels, adding: “I am not just blaming the US army at that time, but (also) our people, our governorate, our ministers.”

Both researchers and local doctors have linked an increase in bir th

defects to the battles fought in Fallujah.

In Dec 2010, a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health said, “birth defects, with a prevalence of congenital heart defects and neural tube defects, have reached... unprecedented numbers.” In the sole month of May that year, birth defects were present in 15 percent of all deliveries in Fallujah General Hospital, the study said.

“These defects could be due to environmental contaminants which are known components of modern weaponry,” it concluded.

Medics and officials in Fallujah,

FALLUJAH, Iraq: A US nurse helps a Iraqi child draw as he rests on a hospital bed on July 5, 2012. — AFP

however, including hospital director Lawas, have no doubt the defects have been caused by the US forces’ alleged use of depleted uranium rounds in 2004. “Fallujah has seen many wars, and it was attacked twice

by American troops, and many weapons were used in this city,” said Lawas. “We think that there is a link between those weapons and the diseases.”

The American legacy here was a problem for Jeremy Courtney, whose charity Preemptive Love, based in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, helped organise the US medical team’s visit last month. “No one wanted an American coming traipsing through the streets, even if it was ostensibly to try and help people,” Courtney said of attempts to send in a medical crew several years ago. Even when local authorities finally agreed, the US medics’ movements were limited to the hospital compound and the locals’ reception was mixed.

Some people complained they found out too late, given the team’s limited stay. “I only heard recently that US doctors were here,” said 43year-old Mehdi Al-Rubaye, holding 15-month-old Ahmed who has a hole in his heart. “I told my son: ‘At last your heart will be healed’. “But now I have been told they will not see him, and I do not know what I will do.”

Others were simply not pleased. “The Americans did not bring humanitarianism or democracy, they did nothing good for us,” said 28-year-old engineer Omar Abid Ouda. “Even if they brought all of America to Fallujah to help us, what they did was far more cruel than anything we have seen in our lives.” Ouda not only lost his father and brother in the battles, his wife of two years recently gave birth to a boy with a heart defect. “I would rather let my son die than go to the Americans,” he said. — AFP

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SEND US YOUR INSTAGRAM PICS hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! This summer, let other people see the way you see Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds. If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

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Aware Centre he AWARE Management is glad to inform you that Summer 3 Arabic language courses will begin on August 12, 2012 until September 26, 2012. AWARE Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel, cultural understanding, and conducting business or simply to become more involved in the community. We cater to teachers, travelers & those working in the private business sector. Arabic classes at the AWARE Center are unique because students are provided with the chance to practice their Arabic through various social activities that aim at bringing Arabs and Westerners together.

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AWARE Arabic courses highlights * Introductory to Level 4 Arabic language basics * Better prepare you for speaking, reading and writing Arabic * Combine language learning with cultural insights * Taught in multi-nationality group settings * Provide opportunities to interact with Western expatriates and native Kuwaitis/Arabs.

For more information, call 25335260/80 or log onto: www.aware.com.kw.

The Ministry of Public Works hosted a ghabqa recently at its building. The event was attended by minister Dr Fadhel Safar, as well as top ministry officials and staff. —Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

KIB announces Ramadan working hours uwait International Bank has announced its working hours during the holy month of Ramadan in a press statement released by the bank stating: “We would like to congratulate our valued customers on the start of the holy month of Ramadan, and we are glad to announce that the bank’s working hours will be from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm at the head offices and its 18 branches distributed around Kuwait.”

Similar to every year, KIB services and products will be accessible to all customers during the bank’s working hours, and around the clock customers can perform their banking transactions and submit their enquiries through Al-Dawli Weyak which offers a dedicated 24/7 call center and can accessed from anywhere around the world. KIB customers can also use Al-Dawli Online and SMS Banking to further manage their accounts and banking needs around the clock. For more information on KIB’s services and products, please visit the bank’s website on www.kib.com.kw or check the latest updates on www.facebook.com/aldawlibank or follow us on Twitter @alDawliBank.

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Burgan Bank announces branch timings for Ramadan urgan Bank announced its new branch timings which will be applicable all throughout the holy month of Ramadan. All Burgan Bank branches will commence work in one shift from 10 am to 1:30 pm.

Additionally, the Airport branch will be open seven days a week in the mornings from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm and in the evenings from 9:30 pm to 11:30 pm. On this occasion, Burgan Bank extends its best wishes to everyone during the holy month of Ramadan.

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Attention Kids!

EF VBS 12 starting from Aug 24, 2012. Six Exciting days of singing, games & bible stories for children of all ages. HURRY Limited Seats. Register Online www.cefkuwait.org.

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India’s Flag Hoisting Ceremony n the occasion of the Independence Day of India, a Flag Hoisting Ceremony will take place at the Indian Embassy premises on Arabian Gulf Street at 0700 hours on Wednesday, August 15, 2012. The flag hoisting will be followed by the reading of the message of the Honorable President of India and singing of patriotic songs. All Indian nationals are cordially invited to attend the function. The customary Open House Reception after the ceremony is not being held this year in view of the holy month of Ramadan.

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Register and Win promotion at Q8India.com ity Centre, Kuwait’s premier mega-market, in association with Q8India.com, a leading online Indian community portal, is holding a month-long ‘Register and Win’ promotion campaign. Any resident in Kuwait can participate in the promotion by visiting www.Q8India.com and registering their name, email and phone number. A winner will be picked each day (except Friday), from the list of names registered on the previous day, and receive a free shopping voucher worth KD10 from City Centre.

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Write to us Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

‘Leniency of Islam’ An unprecedented initiative of KTV2 (English channel) is the new program by the name ‘Leniency of Islam’ presented by Shaikh Musaad Alsane and directed by Hamid AlTurkait. The program is mainly meant to address the expatriates living in Kuwait. Religious questions are received through the program email qislam@tv.gov.kw and sms can be sent to- 97822021 and answered by the lecturer and Imam in Awqaf Ministry Shaikh Musaad Alsane - a Master Degree holder in Sharia and fiqih from Kuwait University.

So don’t forget to watch the program every Friday at 1:00 pm.

Registration for Ramadan STARS Squash Tournament begins Once again this year, the stage is set for the fourth annual ‘Ramadan STARS Squash Tournament’ to be held from August 3 to 9 at the Kazma Sporting Club, Adailiya.

Abdulrahim Al-Awadi, the Chairman of the Higher Organizing Committee has announced that doors are now open for registration to all those who are interested in participating, stating that the deadline for registration will be August 1. The participation in this tournament is open to all and will fall under three categories this year. The first category is for amateurs from ages 17 and above, second category is for professional players from ages 20 and above and

the third category is for ladies 17 and above. Following its last three years of grand success, the 4th annual Ramadan STARS Squash Tournament is being organized during Ramadan for squash lovers who will have an opportunity to practice the sport while being encouraged to develop their skills in a healthy, competitive and social environment. All details pertaining to the tournament and means to participate can be found on the tournaments facebook page under ‘Ramadan Stars Squash Tourney’ or follow the official twitter page @RamadanStars for updates. The registration is taking place at GO SPORT store located at The Avenues Mall. Alawadi also pointed out the great interest the ‘Ramadan Stars Squash tournament’ received from the private sector, where companies took the initiative in sponsoring the tournament. Alawadi expressed his gratitude and thanks to Kazma Sporting Clun, Go Sport, Comtel, Vio, Unite Colors and Alawadi Photography guaranteeing unique prizes for all winners.

Aware Center Ramadan Diwaniya “The AWARE Center cordially invites you to its third Ramadan diwaniya presentation entitled, “The Fascinating and Delicious World of Dates,” by Claudia AlRashoud on Tuesday August 7th, 2012.

One of nature’s most perfect foods, the date holds a special place in the history, hearts, and homes of Kuwaitis.

Dates were once a vital source of sustenance for desert travelers and a staple commodity of Kuwait’s seafaring

trade. Today, the date is still one of the most important cash crops in the region, with between 600 to 700 varieties grown.

Of all the traditional foods eaten during Ramadan, nutritious and delicious dates undoubtedly have the most benefits for those who are fasting. With this Ramadan coinciding with the local date harvest, now is the time to enjoy them, whether you are fasting or not.

Join local photojournalist Claudia Farkas Al Rashoud for a diwanniya presentation that will immerse you in the fascinating world of dates on August 7th, 2012 at 8:00pm at the AWARE Center premises where you will learn about dates in local tradition, culture, cooking, and agriculture, and sample some of the different types of these healthy fruits of the desert.

Originally from California, Claudia Farkas Al Rashoud has enjoyed working as an author and photojournalist in Kuwait since 1979. She was the first female reporter/photographer for the Arab Times newspaper, and her photographs and in-depth feature articles continue to be published in this local daily as well as in many international publications. She has written a number of books, with photographs, about Kuwait which include Kuwait Before and After the Storm, Kuwait’s Age of Sail, Kuwait Kaleidoscope, Dame Violet Dickson (also available in Arabic), and a children’s book about Kuwait’s desert environment and the animals that live in it called What the Camels Said to Santa.

For more information, please call 25335260/80 or log onto: www.aware.com.kw

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

WHAT’S ON

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Australian Embassy Kuwait does not have a visa or immigration department. All processing of visas and immigration matters in conducted by The Australian ConsulateGeneral in Dubai. Email: info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com (VFS) immigration.dubai@dfat.gov.au (Visa Office); Tel: +971 4 355 1958 (VFS) - +971 4 508 7200 (Visa Office); Fax: +971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office). In Kuwait applications can be lodged at the Australian Visa Application Centre 4B 1st Floor, Al-Banwan Building Al-Qibla Area, Ali Al-Salem Street, opposite the Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait. Working hours and days: 09:30 - 17:30; Sunday - Thursday. Or visit their website www.vfs-au-gcc-com for more information. Kuwait citizens can apply for tourist visas on-line at www.immi.gov.au/e visa/e676.htm ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF ARGENTINE

The Embassy of Argentina requests all Argentinean citizens in Kuwait to proceed to our official email ekuwa@mrecic.gov.ar 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 Argentinean Government to contact and assist Argentineans living abroad in case of any emergency.

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EMBASSY OF BANGLADESH

The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Kuwait will follow the following office hours during the holy month of Ramadan. Sunday to Thursday: 9 am - 3:30 pm. Friday and Saturday: Weekly holidays.

Top figures attend ICM ghabqa The Islamic Constitutional Movement hosted a ghabqa Tuesday night at the diwaniya of its Secretary General Dr Nasser Al-Sane’a. The event was attended by top state figures including the Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah, former Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Al-Sabah and former Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Khalid AlSabah. Diplomats, lawmakers and other dignitaries were also present. —Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

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EMBASSY OF BRITAIN Consular section at the British Embassy will be starting an online appointment booking system for our consular customers from Sunday, 01 July 2012. All information including how to make an appointment is now available on the embassy website. In addition, there is also a “Consular Appointment System” option under Quick links on the right hand side on the homepage, which should take you to the “Consular online booking appointment system” main page.

Please be aware that from 01 July 2012, we will no longer accept walk-in customers for legalisation, notarial services and certificates (birth, death and marriages). If you have problems accessing the system or need to make an appointment for non-notarial consular issues or have a consular emergency, please call 2259 4355/7/8 or email us on consularenquirieskuwait@fco.gov.uk. If you require consular assistance out of office hours (working hours: 0730-l430 hrs), please contact the Embassy on 2259 4320.

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EMBASSY OF INDIA During the holy month of Ramadan, the office timings of the Indian Passport and Visa Service Centres of BLS International Visa Services Co, Kuwait, situated at (i) Emad Commercial Centre, Basement Floor, Ahmed Al Jaber Street, Sharq, Kuwait, and (ii) Mujamma Unood, 4th floor, Office No. 25-26 Makka Street, Fahaheel, Kuwait, will be from 8.00 am - 3.00 pm from Saturday to Thursday (i.e. six days a week). Tokens for submission of applications will NOT be issued after 2.00 pm. Delivery of passports and visas will be from 11.00 am onwards. Embassy of India, Kuwait, will maintain its usual working hours.

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EMBASSY OF KENYA The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to inform Kenyan residents throughout Kuwait and the general public that with effect from June 1, 2012 the Embassy has moved from its current location to a new location in Surra Block 1, Street 8, Villa 303.

Please note that the new telephone and fax numbers will be communicated as soon as possible. For enquiries you can contact Consular Section on mobile 90935162 or 97527306.

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

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

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

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EMBASSY OF PHILIPPINES

In reference to our announcement last July 14 2012 announcing the transfer and opening of our new Philippine Overseas Labor Office due on August 1 , we regret to inform Filipinos in Kuwait that due to unavoidable circumstances, the August 1 opening will be moved to new date August 5. POLO will be closed to public transactions on July 30, 31 and August 1 & 2. For emergency please contact the POLO hotline at Tel 99558527.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

TV PROGRAMS

00:45 I’m Alive 01:40 Untamed & Uncut 02:35 Wildest Latin America 03:30 Galapagos 04:25 Monster Bug Wars 05:20 Monkey Life 05:45 Animal Battlegrounds 06:10 Rescue Vet 07:00 Baboons With Bill Bailey 07:25 Crocodile Hunter 08:15 Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild 08:40 Breed All About It 09:10 Natural Born Hunters 10:05 Monster Bug Wars 11:00 Wildlife SOS 11:25 Orangutan Island 11:55 Animal Cops Houston 12:50 Escape To Chimp Eden 13:45 Animal Precinct 14:40 Monster Bug Wars 15:30 Baboons With Bill Bailey 16:00 Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild 16:30 Pandamonium 17:25 Bad Dog 18:20 Cats 101 19:15 Wildlife SOS 19:40 Orangutan Island 20:10 Monkey Life 20:35 Animal Battlegrounds 21:05 Monster Bug Wars 22:00 Whale Wars 22:55 Venom Hunter With Donald Schultz 23:50 Animal Cops Houston

00:30 Come Dine With Me 01:20 What Not To Wear 03:05 Saturday Kitchen 2007/08 04:30 MasterChef 05:00 Living In The Sun 05:45 Living In The Sun 06:30 MasterChef 07:00 Saturday Kitchen 2007/08 07:25 MasterChef Australia 08:40 What Not To Wear 09:30 What Not To Wear 10:20 Bargain Hunt 11:05 Antiques Roadshow 12:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 12:40 10 Years Younger 13:30 Masterchef: The Professionals 13:55 Masterchef: The Professionals 14:50 Bargain Hunt 15:35 Antiques Roadshow 16:25 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 17:10 Come Dine With Me 18:00 Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers 18:25 The Hairy Bikers’ Cookbook 18:55 Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey 19:45 Come Dine With Me 20:35 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 21:20 Antiques Roadshow 22:10 Bargain Hunt 23:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 23:40 Holmes On Homes

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

Puppy In My Pocket Tom & Jerry Kids Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Flintstones Pink Panther And Pals Looney Tunes Popeye Classics Dexter’s Laboratory Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes The Scooby Doo Show Johnny Bravo The Flintstones The Jetsons Wacky Races The Garfield Show Tom & Jerry Kids Bananas In Pyjamas Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Ha Ha Hairies A Pup Named Scooby-Doo The Garfield Show Johnny Bravo Dexter’s Laboratory Pink Panther And Pals The Scooby Doo Show

10:30 Doo 10:55 11:15 11:40 12:00 12:15 12:40 12:55 13:20 13:35 14:00 14:50 15:15 Doo 15:40 16:00 16:40 17:30 18:10 18:35 19:00 19:15 19:40 19:55 20:20 20:35 21:00 21:25 21:50 22:15 22:40 23:05

Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDastardly And Muttley The Flintstones Wacky Races Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Ha Ha Hairies Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Puppy In My Pocket Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDastardly And Muttley Tom & Jerry Pink Panther And Pals The Garfield Show Johnny Bravo Dexter’s Laboratory Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Ha Ha Hairies Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Dexter’s Laboratory Johnny Bravo Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye

00:30 Bakugan: New Vestroia 01:20 Powerpuff Girls 02:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 03:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 03:25 Ben 10 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Powerpuff Girls 04:40 Generator Rex 05:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:55 Angelo Rules 06:00 The Marvelous Misadventures...

06:25 Casper’s Scare School 07:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 07:15 Adventure Time 07:40 Johnny Test 08:05 Grim Adventures Of...

08:55 Courage The Cowardly Dog 09:45 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:10 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 10:35 Powerpuff Girls 11:25 Chowder 12:15 Ed, Edd n Eddy 13:05 Ben 10 13:30 Sym-Bionic Titan 13:55 Foster’s Home For...

14:45 Angelo Rules 15:35 Powerpuff Girls 16:25 The Amazing World Of Gumball 16:40 Johnny Test 17:00 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 17:55 Green Lantern: The Animated Series 18:20 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 18:45 Young Justice 19:10 Bakugan: Mechtanium Surge 19:35 Adventure Time 20:25 Courage The Cowardly Dog 21:15 Grim Adventures Of...

22:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 22:50 Ben 10 23:40 Chowder

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

Amanpour World Sport Piers Morgan Tonight World Report Anderson Cooper 360 Piers Morgan Tonight Quest Means Business The Situation Room World Sport Talk Asia World Report World Sport Business Traveller World Business Today Amanpour Mainsail World One Piers Morgan Tonight News Stream World Business Today International Desk

18:00 18:45 19:00 19:30 20:00

Global Exchange CNN Marketplace Middle East World Sport Mainsail International Desk

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

I Was Bitten I Escaped: Real Prison Breaks Stan Lee’s Superhumans Mythbusters I Was Bitten How Do They Do It? How It’s Made American Loggers American Chopper Mythbusters Ultimate Survival Border Security Auction Kings How Do They Do It? How It’s Made American Guns Surviving The Cut One Man Army Border Security Auction Kings Ultimate Survival American Chopper Fifth Gear American Loggers Mythbusters How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Border Security Auction Kings The Gadget Show American Guns First Week In

00:35 Building The Biggest 01:25 How Stuff Works 02:15 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 03:05 The Gadget Show 03:35 Scrapheap Challenge 04:25 How The Universe Works 05:15 Building The Biggest 06:05 How Stuff Works 07:00 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 07:50 Head Rush 07:53 Weird Connections 08:20 Sci-Fi Science 09:40 Scrapheap Challenge 10:30 Sport Science 15:35 The Gadget Show 16:00 Head Rush 16:03 Weird Connections 16:30 Sci-Fi Science 17:00 How Stuff Works 17:50 Sport Science 18:40 How The Universe Works 19:30 Sci-Fi Science 19:55 Sci-Fi Science 20:20 Bang Goes The Theory 21:10 The Gadget Show 22:00 Prank Science 22:50 Bang Goes The Theory 23:40 Sport Science

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

Fairly Odd Parents Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Emperor’s New School Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fish Hooks Timon And Pumbaa So Random Wizards Of Waverly Place A.N.T. Farm A.N.T. Farm Hannah Montana Forever Hannah Montana Forever Jessie Jessie Austin & Ally Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Shake It Up Shake It Up Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck So Random

14:35 15:00 15:25 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:00 18:25 18:50 19:15 19:40 20:05 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:40 22:05 22:30 22:55 23:20 23:45

00:25 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 00:55 Style Star 01:25 THS 03:15 Behind The Scenes 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Khloe And Lamar 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Mrs. Eastwood And Company 14:05 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 15:00 Style Star 15:30 E!es 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Ice Loves Coco 17:25 Ice Loves Coco 17:55 E! News 18:55 E!es 19:55 Giuliana & Bill 20:55 Mrs. Eastwood And Company 21:25 Fashion Police 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 00:30 Unwrapped 01:45 Unique Sweets 02:35 Food (Ography) 03:25 Grill It! With Bobby Flay 03:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 04:15 Meat & Potatoes 04:40 Unwrapped 05:05 Unique Eats 05:30 Chopped 06:10 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 06:35 Extra Virgin 07:00 Food Network Challenge 07:50 Unique Sweets 08:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 08:40 Paula’s Best Dishes 09:05 Cooking For Real 09:30 Hungry Girl 09:55 Food (Ography) 10:45 Unwrapped 11:10 Unique Eats 11:35 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 12:00 Chopped 12:50 Jenny Morris Cooks Morocco 13:15 Cooking For Real 13:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 14:05 Hungry Girl 14:30 Unique Sweets 14:55 Paula’s Best Dishes 15:20 Unwrapped 15:45 Iron Chef America 16:35 Jenny Morris Cooks Morocco 17:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 17:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 17:50 Unique Eats 18:15 Food (Ography) 19:05 Unique Sweets 19:30 Food Network Challenge 20:20 Iron Chef America 21:10 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 21:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 22:00 Cooking For Real 22:50 Hungry Girl 23:40 Meat & Potatoes

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

TAKE SHELTER ON OSN CINEMA

So Random Sonny With A Chance Sonny With A Chance Hannah Montana Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Radio Rebel Wizards Of Waverly Place Jessie A.N.T. Farm Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie So Random Suite Life On Deck Jonas Los Angeles Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Kim Possible

The Haunted Dead Tenants Australian Families Of Crime American Greed Extreme Forensics The Haunted Dead Tenants Disappeared Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

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

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

True Crime With Aphrodite Disappeared Nightmare Next Door

00:00 Into The Drink 01:00 Race To The Bottom of The Earth 02:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 03:00 Danger Beach 04:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 05:00 Bondi Rescue 06:00 Into The Drink 07:00 Race To The Bottom of The Earth 08:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 09:00 Danger Beach 10:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 11:00 Bondi Rescue 12:00 Into The Drink

13:00 Danger Beach 14:00 Kimchi Chronicles 15:00 One Man & His Campervan 16:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 17:00 Bondi Rescue 18:00 Into The Drink 19:00 Around The World For Free 20:00 Market Values 21:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 21:30 Pressure Cook 22:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy 23:00 Danger Beach

00:15 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:15 20:00 22:00

Fading Of The Cries-18 Thick As Thieves-18 Paranormal Activity 2-18 Star Trek: First Contact-PG True Justice: Dark Vengeance Secret Window-PG15 Dangerous Flowers-PG15 True Justice: Dark Vengeance In The Line Of Fire-PG15 Dangerous Flowers-PG15 Alien-18 Alien Resurrection-18

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:15 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Take Shelter-PG15 The Conspirator-PG15 Sounds Like Teen Spirit-PG15 West Is West-PG15 The Conspirator-PG15 Fast Five-PG15 Win Win-PG15 Goodbye Solo-PG15 Oceans-PG15 Vampires Suck-PG15 Honey 2-PG15 Attack The Block-PG15

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Friends 02:30 Seinfeld 03:00 2 Broke Girls 03:30 Community 04:00 Weird Science 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Weird Science 06:00 Friends 06:30 Dharma And Greg 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Weird Science 08:30 2 Broke Girls 09:00 Weird Science 09:30 Parks And Recreation 10:30 Dharma And Greg 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Friends 13:00 Weird Science 13:30 Dharma And Greg 14:00 Community 14:30 Parks And Recreation 15:00 Parks And Recreation 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Friends 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 2 Broke Girls 18:30 Community 19:00 Don’t Trust The B In Apartment 23 19:30 How I Met Your Mother 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Family Guy 22:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 23:00 Seinfeld 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 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 22:00

Grimm Alphas Supernatural Hawthorne Desperate Housewives Good Morning America The Practice Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Desperate Housewives The View Alphas Hawthorne Live Good Morning America The Practice The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Parenthood One Tree Hill Scandal

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Law Abiding Citizen-18 The Daisy Chain-PG15 Fantastic Four-PG15 Rocky-PG15 Triassic Attack-PG15 Fantastic Four-PG15 Behind Enemy Lines-PG15 Triassic Attack-PG15 Spider-Man-PG The Hit List-18 Child’s Play 2-18 Malibu Shark Attack-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Can’t Hardly Wait-PG15 Josie And The Pussycats-PG15 Mr. Wrong-PG15 Whatever Works-PG15 Josie And The Pussycats-PG15 Paper Man-PG15 Fat Albert-PG My Sassy Girl-PG15 Paper Man-PG15 Submarine-PG15 The Other Guys-PG15 Made In Dagenham-PG15

01:00 03:00 PG15 05:15 07:00 09:00 10:15 12:30 14:30 16:00 18:45 21:00 23:00

Sea Of Love-18 When A Man Loves A WomanShout-PG15 Ice Dreams-PG15 Across The Sea Of Time-FAM Pina-PG15 Greener Mountains-PG Across The Sea Of Time-FAM Miracle-PG15 Grace Of My Heart-PG15 Stand By Me-18 Le Syndrome Du Titanic-PG1

THE SPY NEXT DOOR ON OSN MOVIES HD

00:45 03:00 05:45 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00

When A Man Loves A Woman My Name Is Khan-PG15 Open Season 3-FAM Jane Eyre-PG15 Mr. Popper’s Penguins-PG 12 Dates Of Christmas-PG15 The Spy Next Door-PG The Smurfs-PG Mr. Popper’s Penguins-PG Knight And Day-PG15 Honey 2-PG15

00:00 Ulysses-PG 02:00 The Prince Of Dinosaurs-PG 04:00 The Proud Family Movie-FAM 06:00 The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2-PG 08:15 Olentzero Christmas Tale-FAM 10:00 The Ugly Duckling Goes On Holiday-FAM 12:15 The Prince Of Dinosaurs-PG 14:30 Legend Of Sleeping Beauty 16:30 Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown-PG 18:00 The Ugly Duckling Goes On Holiday-FAM 20:00 Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore-PG 22:00 Legend Of Sleeping BeautyPG

00:00 Olympic Sailing 01:30 Trans World Sport 02:30 European Tour Weekly 03:00 Senior European Tour Highlights 04:00 Futbol Mundial 04:30 Volvo Ocean Racce Highlights 06:00 Super Rugby Highlights 07:00 Trans World Sport 08:00 PGA European Tour Highlights 09:00 Super Rugby Highlights 10:00 Futbol Mundial 10:55 Live Olympic Athletics 18:25 Live Olympic Women’s Boxing 20:25 Live Olympic Athletics

00:05 01:45 04:15 05:15 07:00 09:00 09:30 10:00 11:00 14:25 18:35 19:55

Olympic Women’s Boxing AFL Premiership Trans World Sport NRL Premiership Super Rugby PGA European Tour Weekly Futbol Mundial Trans World Sport Olympic Men’s Table Tennis Live Olympic Equestrian Olympic Men’s Sailing Live Olympic Sailing

01:30 Golfing World 02:30 Trans World Sport 03:30 NRL Full Time 04:00 Super Rugby Highlights 05:00 AFL Highlights 06:00 European Challenge Golf Highlights 06:30 European Tour Weekly 07:00 Golfing World 08:30 AFL Highlights 09:30 PGA European Tour Weekly 10:00 Challenge Series Golf Highlights 10:30 Total Rugby 11:00 Olympic Athletics 14:55 Live Olympic Women’s Wrestling 17:50 Olympic Sailing 18:50 Live Olympic Women’s Basketball 21:50 Live Olympic Men’s Hockey

01:30 V8 Supercars Highlights 03:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 04:00 UFC 150 Countdown 05:00 UFC Unleashed 07:00 WWE SmackDown 09:00 V8 Supercars Highlights 11:00 Olympic Cycling 13:30 Olympic Women’s Beach Volleyball 14:50 Live Olympic Women’s Football 17:30 Olympic TBC 18:40 Live Olympic Women’s Handball 21:35 Live Olympic Women’s Footbal

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

Pawn Stars Ax Men Lock N’ Load Top Shot Decoded Battle 360 Ax Men Pawn Stars Decoded Battle 360 Pawn Stars Ax Men Lock N’ Load Top Shot Battle 360 Decoded Lock N’ Load Top Shot Battle 360 Decoded Pawn Stars Ax Men

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

Jerseylicious Bridalplasty Videofashion Daily Videofashion News How Do I Look?

Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

Clean House Videofashion News Videofashion Daily Open House Videofashion News How Do I Look?

Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

Clean House Mel B: It’s A Scary World The Amandas How Do I Look?

The Amandas How Do I Look?

Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane Glam Fairy Big Rich Texas Big Rich Texas

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:20 Pokemon: Black And White 06:45 Rated A For Awesome 07:10 Kickin It 07:35 Phineas And Ferb 08:25 Pair Of Kings 08:50 Kick Buttowski 09:15 Zeke & Luther 10:05 Phineas And Ferb 10:55 Kid vs Kat 11:20 Zeke & Luther 12:10 Phineas And Ferb 13:00 Kid vs Kat 13:25 I’m In The Band 13:45 Kid vs Kat 14:10 Pair Of Kings 14:35 Zeke & Luther 15:00 Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge 15:25 Rekkit Rabbit 15:50 Rated A For Awesome 16:15 Kickin It 16:40 Pair Of Kings 17:05 Zeke & Luther 17:30 Mr. Young 18:00 Phineas And Ferb 20:05 Zeke & Luther 20:30 Zeke & Luther 20:55 Mr. Young 21:20 Aaron Stone 21:45 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 22:10 Phineas And Ferb 22:35 Kid vs Kat 23:00 Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

00:05 Adventure Guides - Fishing Edition 00:30 Ford’s Fishing Frontier 01:45 Saltwater Series 03:00 Trout Unlimited On The Rise 04:15 Ford’s Fishing Frontier 05:30 Adventure Guides - Fishing Edition 07:00 Total Outdoorsmen Challenge 08:15 Hot Rods & Reels 09:30 Total Outdoorsmen Challenge 10:45 Fall Flight 12:00 Ducks Unlimited

12:25 13:15 14:30 15:45 17:00 18:15 19:30 20:45 22:00 22:25 22:50 23:15 23:40

Ducks Unlimited Wingshooting The World Fall Flight Ducks Unlimited Wingshooting The World Fall Flight Ducks Unlimited Wingshooting The World Total Outdoorsmen Challenge Total Outdoorsmen Challenge Total Outdoorsmen Challenge Hot Rods & Reels Hot Rods & Reels

00:15 Little Einsteins 00:40 Jungle Junction 01:10 Little Einsteins 01:30 Special Agent Oso 02:00 Lazytown 02:25 Little Einsteins 02:50 Jungle Junction 03:20 Little Einsteins 03:40 Special Agent Oso 04:10 Lazytown 04:35 Little Einsteins 05:00 Jungle Junction 05:30 Little Einsteins 05:50 Special Agent Oso 06:15 Jungle Junction 06:45 Handy Manny 07:00 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Lazytown 07:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 08:10 The Hive 08:20 Handy Manny 08:30 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 08:45 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 09:05 The Hive 09:15 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 09:20 Mouk 09:35 Mouk 09:45 The Hive 09:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 10:20 Lazytown 10:45 Art Attack 11:10 Imagination Movers 11:35 Lazytown 12:00 The Hive 12:10 Handy Manny 12:25 Jungle Junction 12:40 Imagination Movers 13:05 The Hive 13:15 Special Agent Oso 13:30 Lazytown 13:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 14:20 The Hive 14:30 Handy Manny 14:45 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 15:00 Mouk 15:15 The Hive 15:25 Handy Manny 15:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 15:55 Imagination Movers 16:20 Lazytown 16:45 Art Attack 17:10 Handy Manny 17:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 18:10 Little Einsteins 18:35 Pixie Hollow Games 19:00 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 19:05 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:25 101 Dalmatians 19:40 Mouk 19:50 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 20:20 The Hive 20:30 Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 20:35 A Poem Is...

20:40 Animated Stories 20:45 Mouk 21:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 21:25 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 21:40 Special Agent Oso 21:55 Little Einsteins 22:20 Timmy Time 22:30 Jungle Junction 22:45 Handy Manny 22:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 23:20 Special Agent Oso 23:35 Special Agent Oso 23:50 Lazytown

01:20 02:55 05:05 07:00 08:45 10:30 12:25 13:55 15:35 PG 17:05 18:35 20:00 22:00

The Last Run Ziegfeld Girl-FAM Now, Voyager-PG Come Fly With Me-FAM High Society-FAM The Twenty-Fifth Hour-PG What’s Up, Doc?-FAM Catlow-PG Where Were You When The...Lassie Come Home-FAM Moonfleet-PG The Yellow Rolls-Royce-PG Heart Of Darkness

Classifieds THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines KAC QTR JZR SAI ETH CLX RJA GFA UAE ETD FDB MSR QTR THY DHX KAC BAW JZR KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY IRA QTR IZG IRA FDB ETD BAB GFA UAE MEA MSR KNE MSC SYR JZR MSR OMA KNE QTR SVA RJA KAC KAC KAC JZR JZR ETD UAE UAL GFA SVA JZR TAR JZR ABY KAC KNE KAC KAC BAB KAC KAC MSR MSC RBG KAC KAC KAC JAI KAC AXB FDB OMA MEA QTR GFA ALK FDB UAE ETD ABY QTR AIC GFA UAL JZR DLH MSR THY KLM JZR JAI

Arrival Flights on Thursday 9/8/2012 Flt Route 1710 JEDDAH 148 DOHA 267 BEIRUT 441 LAHORE 620 ADDIS ABABA 792 LUXEMBOURG 643 AMMAN 211 BAHRAIN 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 67 DUBAI 612 CAIRO 138 DOHA 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 412 MANILA 157 LONDON 529 ASSIUT 206 ISLAMABAD 382 DELHI 555 ALEXANDRIA 302 MUMBAI 332 TRIVANDRUM 352 COCHIN 284 DHAKA 362 COLOMBO 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 605 ISFAHAN 132 DOHA 4161 MASHAD 617 AHWAZ 55 DUBAI 301 ABU DHABI 436 BAHRAIN 213 BAHRAIN 871 DUBAI 404 BEIRUT 618 ALEXANDRIA 470 JEDDAH 401 ALEXANDRIA 341 DAMASCUS 201 DAMASCUS 610 CAIRO 645 MUSCAT 472 JEDDAH 140 DOHA 500 JEDDAH 640 AMMAN 788 JEDDAH 546 ALEXANDRIA 118 NEW YORK 535 CAIRO 357 MASHAD 303 ABU DHABI 857 DUBAI 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 215 BAHRAIN 510 RIYADH 177 DUBAI 328 TUNIS 777 JEDDAH 127 SHARJAH 176 FRANKFURT 474 JEDDAH 502 BEIRUT 542 CAIRO 438 BAHRAIN 786 JEDDAH 104 LONDON 624 SOHAG 405 SOHAG 3553 ALEXANDRIA 774 RIYADH 618 DOHA 674 DUBAI 572 MUMBAI 562 AMMAN 389 KOZHIKODE 61 DUBAI 647 MUSCAT 402 BEIRUT 146 DOHA 221 BAHRAIN 229 COLOMBO 59 DUBAI 859 DUBAI 307 ABU DHABI 129 SHARJAH 136 DOHA 981 CHENNAI 217 BAHRAIN 981 BAHRAIN 239 AMMAN 636 FRANKFURT 614 CAIRO 772 ISTANBUL 411 AMSTERDAM 539 CAIRO 574 MUMBAI

Depature Flights on Thursday 9/8/2012 Time 0:15 0:20 0:50 1:30 1:45 2:05 2:10 2:20 2:25 2:30 3:10 3:20 3:25 4:35 5:00 6:15 6:30 6:40 7:15 7:30 7:35 7:50 7:55 8:05 8:15 8:20 8:25 8:30 8:35 9:00 9:10 9:15 9:20 9:30 9:35 10:00 10:45 10:55 11:25 11:35 12:00 12:05 12:30 13:30 14:00 14:15 14:25 14:30 14:55 15:00 15:05 16:00 16:00 16:20 16:35 16:55 17:10 17:20 17:20 17:30 17:35 17:40 17:45 17:45 17:55 18:00 18:15 18:40 18:40 18:45 18:55 19:00 19:05 19:10 19:20 19:25 19:35 19:50 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:25 20:35 20:55 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:30 21:35 22:25 22:35 22:40 22:55 23:10 23:35 23:40 23:40 23:40 23:50

Airlines BBC AIC UAL DLH JZR MSR THY SAI ETH RJA CLX UAE FDB ETD MSR QTR QTR JZR GFA THY KAC BAW ABY JZR IRA KAC UAE QTR KAC FDB ETD IRA BAB JZR IZG GFA KAC KAC JZR MEA KAC UAE MSR KNE MSC SYR KAC JZR MSR KAC OMA KAC KNE KAC RJA KAC SVA JZR ETD JZR QTR UAE GFA TAR ABY UAL SVA KNE JZR BAB KAC RBG MSR MSC JAI FDB KAC KAC KAC OMA MEA KAC GFA FDB DHX ALK ABY ETD UAE QTR KAC KAC AXB QTR GFA KAC KAC JZR

Flt 44 976 981 637 554 615 773 442 621 643 792 854 68 306 613 139 149 200 212 771 545 156 126 534 606 787 856 133 101 56 302 616 437 356 4162 214 541 165 776 405 501 872 623 471 406 342 785 176 611 561 646 673 473 617 641 773 505 538 304 238 141 858 216 328 128 982 511 475 266 439 283 3554 607 402 571 62 331 343 351 648 403 543 222 60 171 230 120 308 860 137 301 205 390 147 218 411 415 502

Route DHAKA GOA/CHENNAI WASHINGTON DC FRANKFURT ALEXANDRIA CAIRO ISTANBUL LAHORE ADDIS ABABA AMMAN HONG KONG DUBAI DUBAI ABU DHABI CAIRO DOHA DOHA DAMASCUS BAHRAIN ISTANBUL ALEXANDRIA LONDON SHARJAH CAIRO MASHHAD JEDDAH DUBAI DOHA LONDON DUBAI ABU DHABI AHWAZ BAHRAIN MASHHAD MASHHAD BAHRAIN CAIRO ROME JEDDAH BEIRUT BEIRUT DUBAI SOHAG JEDDAH SOHAG DAMASCUS JEDDAH DUBAI CAIRO AMMAN MUSCAT DUBAI JEDDAH DOHA AMMAN RIYADH JEDDAH CAIRO ABU DHABI AMMAN DOHA DUBAI BAHRAIN TUNIS SHARJAH BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH BEIRUT BAHRAIN DHAKA ALEXANDRIA LUXOR ALEXANDRIA MUMBAI DUBAI TRIVANDRUM CHENNAI KOCHI MUSCAT BEIRUT CAIRO BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN COLOMBO SHARJAH ABU DHABI DUBAI DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD MANGALORE DOHA BAHRAIN BANGKOK KUALA LUMPUR LUXOR

Time 0:05 0:05 0:25 0:30 0:30 0:35 2:15 2:30 2:45 3:10 3:35 3:45 3:50 4:05 4:20 4:50 5:40 7:00 7:05 7:10 8:10 8:25 9:05 9:10 9:35 9:35 9:40 10:00 10:00 10:05 10:15 10:15 10:25 10:30 10:35 10:45 11:30 11:45 11:50 11:55 12:00 12:20 12:25 12:25 13:00 13:05 13:10 13:20 14:30 14:40 15:00 15:05 15:15 15:45 15:50 15:55 16:00 16:50 17:20 17:30 17:45 18:05 18:20 18:25 18:25 18:30 18:35 18:45 18:50 19:30 19:30 19:45 19:55 20:00 20:35 20:40 20:50 20:55 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:30 21:35 21:50 21:50 21:55 22:10 22:20 22:25 22:35 22:40 22:45 23:10 23:10 23:30 23:40 23:50 23:55

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

ACCOMMODATION Sharing accommodation available for a Keralite bachelor at Sharq, near Amiri hospital, beside Holiday Inn. Call 99387111..

Sharing accommodation for Christian couples or working ladies in Abbassiya. Contact: 66538532. (C 4099) 9-8-2012 One big room for couple or bachelor, Filipino only near Gulf Mart Farwaniya.

Contact: 94418396.

1-8-2012

CHANGE OF NAME I, Rejimol Joseph holder of Indian Passport No: J5394310 hereby change my name REJIMOL JOSEPH PARAMMAVIL. (C 4098) 8-8-2012 I, Rajee Ramanathan Koolathu, daughter of Koolath Velappan Ramanathan holder of Indian Passport No. K1677756 have embraced Islam religion with new name Fathima Raja. (C 4095) 6-8-2012 SITUATION VACANT

FOR SALE Toyota Prado 2006, golden color, 6 clr, full options, KD 4,900. Tel: 50699345.

(C 4096) Mitsubishi Galant 2011, excellent condition, km 20000, KD 2,950. Tel: 66729295. (C 4097) 7-8-2012

A Kuwaiti family looks to hire an Indian or Filipino driver. Tel: 96156162 (Akram). (C 4093) 4-8-2012

POLICE STATION

Al-Madena Police Station 22434064 Al-Murqab Police Station 22435865 Al-Daiya Police Station 22544200 Al-Fayha’a Police Station 22547133 Al-Qadissiya Police Station 22515277 Al-Nugra Police Station 22616662 Al-Salmiya Police Station 25714406 Al-Dasma Police Station 22530801 Prayer timings Fajr: Duhr: Asr: Maghrib: Isha:

03:46 11:54 15:29 18:33 19:58

No: 15534

MATRIMONIAL Orthodox parents (Ex NRI) invite proposals for their daughter (22/166) B.Tech, fair from parents of professionally qualified boys (M.Tech, B.Tech) with good family background Orthodox or Jacobite.

Email: bsamuel@nascorporate.com.

(C 4094) 4-8-2012

GOVERNMENT WEB SITES Kuwait Parliament www.majlesalommah.net

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

Ministry of Interior www.moi.gov.kw

Public Authority of Industry www.pai.gov.kw

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

Prisoners of War Committee www.pows.org.kw

Kuwait News Agency www.kuna.net.kw

Ministry of Foreign Affairs www.mofa.gov.kw

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

Kuwait Municipality www.municipality.gov.kw

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

Kuwait Electronic Government www.e.gov.kw

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

Ministry of Finance www.mof.gov.kw

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

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

Ministry of Justice www.moj.gov.kw

Ministry of Education www.moe.edu.kw

Ministry of Communications www.moc.kw

Ministry of Information www.moinfo.gov.kw

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

Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation www.awqaf.org

34

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

stars CROSSWORD 762

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Tempers may get hot today when someone says something that pierces you to your core.

Address this problem right away, Aries, instead of letting it fester through the rest of the day. The solution requires sensitivity and caring. Let the offender know that he or she has hurt you significantly, if that is indeed the case. There’s no need for you to try to hide your feelings.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Don’t be surprised if you leap out of bed with a spark of inspiration that wasn’t there last night, Taurus. Let your dreams linger a bit before you face the world. This flash of genius is likely to strike quickly and unexpectedly, so keep an eye out for it, but don’t consider it something that you can plan on or force into happening.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. The executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget.

4. A linguistic element added to a word to produce an inflected or derived form v 1.

9. An aromatic ointment used in antiquity.

13. Chiefly perennial grasses of cool temperate regions.

14. English monk and scholar (672-735).

15. A slender double-reed instrument.

16. (Norse mythology) Goddess of old age who defeated Thor in a wrestling match.

18. Lacking excess flesh.

19. A member of the North American Indian people living in southern Arizona and northern Mexico.

20. West Indian tree having racemes of fragrant white flowers and yielding a durable timber and resinous juice.

21. A port city in southwestern Iran.

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

25. Panel forming the lower part of an interior wall when it is finished differently from the rest.

27. A light strong brittle gray toxic bivalent metallic element.

30. A public promotion of some product or service.

34. In bed.

36. (folklore) A corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living.

38. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.

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

42. A state in the Rocky Mountains.

43. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

44. The hair growing on the lower part of a man's face.

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

50. The content of cognition.

52. The branch of computer science that deal with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively.

54. A member of a Turkic people of Uzbekistan and neighboring areas.

56. Any of various dark heavy viscid substances obtained as a residue.

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

61. A gradual decline (in size or strength or power or number).

62. Sour or bitter in taste.

64. The month following April and preceding June.

65. Having lost freshness or brilliance of color.

66. A small cake leavened with yeast.

67. The branch of engineering science that studies the uses of electricity and the equipment for power generation and distribution and the control of machines and communication.

DOWN 1. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the sale of petroleum.

2. Among the largest bony fish.

3. A narrative song with a recurrent refrain.

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

5. (Middle Eastern) Small croquette of mashed chick peas or fava beans seasoned with sesame seeds.

6. A fixed charge for a privilege or for professional services.

7. An agency of the United Nations affiliated with the World Bank.

8. An antianxiety agent (trade name Xanax) of the benzodiazepine class.

9. A genus of the cactus family with scarlet flowers.

10. Dwell (archaic).

11. Capital and largest city of Italy.

12. An administrator in charge of a division of a university or college.

17. The villain in William Shakespeare's tragedy who tricked Othello into murdering his wife.

22. Top part of an apron.

24. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

26. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

28. A human limb.

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

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

32. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

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

35. Having undesirable or negative qualities.

37. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

39. Counting the number of white and red blood cells and the number of platelets in 1 cubic millimeter of blood.

40. Used as a Hindi courtesy title.

45. A hat that is round and black and hard with a narrow brim.

46. The capital and largest city of Bangladesh.

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

49. Jordan's port.

51. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

52. A boy or man.

53. Made agreeably cold (especially by ice).

55. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

57. An awkward stupid person.

58. A unit of surface area equal to 100 square meters.

59. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

63. A metallic element having four allotropic forms.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Sometimes your emotions overtake your rational thoughts, Gemini, and you end up acting on impulse. Today you’ll find that your head and heart are aligned on significant issues, and that they’re working well together. Try not to swing the other way by becoming too rational. Your goal is to find the best working balance.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Review your day as you watch the sunset and observe the clouds turning from white to purple, Cancer. Make sure that your head is in tune with your heart. Think about the day’s emotions and thought patterns and how they affected your actions. Determine if your actions were a result of either your rational mind or fluctuating moods.

NON SEQUITUR

Leo (July 23-August 22)

Your mind is buzzing like a bee, Leo. You’re apt to find that there’s very little you can do to slow it down. Make sure you add compassion to the chain that’s holding everything together. Also make sure that you don’t become a victim of your thoughts by losing control over how you act simply because the voice in your head has completely taken over.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

Mornings aren’t usually your best time, Virgo. You aren’t fully awake until afternoon. Try not to discount the events of this particular morning, however.

More than likely, you’ll enjoy your best mental clarity sometime before noon. Surprise people with an upbeat attitude and a solution for every problem that comes your way.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Your world may seem rather tight and rigid this morning, Libra, but the good news is that difficulties are apt to melt away as the day progresses. Don’t assume that opinions are fixed in stone. Things can change in an instant. Even if they seem one way at one point, more than likely they’re going to manifest themselves completely differently later.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)

This is one of those days in which you’re better able to stand back and look at your emotions intellectually, Scorpio. Your freedom-loving nature isn’t built to deal with heavy emotional baggage and turmoil, so don’t bother trying. Be especially wary of those who seem to plop a problem in front of you and expect you to deal with it.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Prepare for a surprise today, Sagittarius.

Perhaps it will come from someone else or perhaps it will come from you. Either way, by evening you’re apt to be feeling quite lovey-dovey and rather spaced out.

Give in to the lethargic attitude that might sweep over you. This is your time to play, so put work aside and have a good time while letting your emotions dictate your actions.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

Things seem to be going quite well for you in many respects, Capricorn. Your thinking is clear, your emotions are under control, and the puzzle pieces are fitting into place. This is your time to take advantage of these pockets of good fortune and turn them into something huge. You have the power to make anything happen - especially now.

To

Yesterday’s Solution

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Yester

Your engine may sputter this morning as your gears begin to turn, Aquarius. It could be that you’re working out something important in you mind that’s helping clarify your emotions. The answer you seek is probably nothing like the one you’ll find. By the time night comes, you’ll have everything figured out. All the answers you need will be right there in front of you.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

Be careful not to overdo things today, Pisces. You may so zealously want to meet your goals that you overshoot the mark by quite a bit. Feel free to express your exuberance and let your enthusiasm shine in whatever you do. At the same time, be careful about getting so carried away that you don’t notice that you’ve already reached the finish line.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

i n f o r m at i o n For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128 GOVERNORATE Sabah Hospital

24812000

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Kaizen center

25716707

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Keifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

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

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

Hawally

ST TATE T OF K KUW WAIT A

Te el.: 161

DIRECTORA AT TE GENE GENERAL OF CIVIL AV VIA ATION T METEOROLOGICAL DEP PARTMENT A

262 - 2630 Ext.: 2627

WWW.MET.GOV V.KW .

BY Y DA AY:

Very e hot h with light to moderate north westerly wind, with speed of 10 - 32 km/h

BY Y NIGHT:

Relatively hot with light to moderate north westerly wind, with speed of 06 - 26 km/h

22459381

47 °C

34 °C

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

KUW WA AIT AIRPOR RT

47 °C

29 °C

Al-Mirqab

22456536

NUW WA AISEEB

45 °C

30 °C

WA AFRA

ST TAT TION

47 °C

27 °C

SALMI

46 °C

30 °C

ABDAL LY

47 °C

29 °C

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

JAL ALIY YA AH

47 °C

30 °C

Maidan Hawally

25623444

FAILAKA A

43 °C

29 °C

Bayan

25388462

AHMADI POR RT

39 °C

35 °C

Mishref

25381200

UMM AL-MARADEM

38 °C

33 °C

W.Hawally

22630786

WA ARBA A - BUBY YAN A

38 °C

34 °C

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

SFC. CHART

08/08/2012 0000 UTC

4 DA AY YS FORECAST Temperatures DA AY

DA AT TE

WEA ATHER T

MAX.

MIN.

Wind Direction

Wind Speed

New Jahra

24575755 Thursday

09/08

very hot + blowing dust over open area

47 °C

31 °C

NW

15 - 40 km/h

West Jahra

24772608

Friday

10/08

very hot + blowing dust over open area

47 °C

32 °C

NW

20 - 40 km/h

South Jahra

24775066

Saturday

11/08

very hot

48 °C

31 °C

NW

20 - 38 km/h

North Jahra

24775992

Sunday

12/08

very hot + raising dust

47 °C

33 °C

NW

15 - 40 km/h

North Jleeb

24311795

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Kheitan

24710044

Fintas

RECORDED YESTERDA AY AT KUW WAIT A AIRPORT

PRA RA AY YER TIMES Fajr

03:45

MAX. Temp.

46 °C

Sunrise

05:12

MIN. Temp.

30 °C

Zuhr

11:54

MAX. RH

23 %

Asr

15:29

MIN. RH

05 %

Sunset

18:35

MAX. Wiind

N 32 km/h

Isha

19:59

TOT TAL AL RAIINF FALL A L IN 24 HR.

00 mm

All times are local time unless otherwise stated.

23900322

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

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

Dr. Salem soso General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil Dr. Mousa Khadada Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

22666300 25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

3729596/3729581

Neurologists

22639939

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

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

Kaizen center 25716707

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

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

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

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23980088

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23711183

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23262845

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25610011

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25616368

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WA ARNING

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24884079

22418714

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Al-Ardhiya

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25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

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

Iran 0098 Iraq 00964 Ireland 00353 Italy 0039 Ivory Coast 00225 Jamaica 001876 Japan 0081 Jordan 00962 Kazakhstan 007 Kenya 00254 Kiribati 00686 Kuwait 00965 Kyrgyzstan 00996 Laos 00856 Latvia 00371 Lebanon 00961 Liberia 00231 Libya 00218 Lithuania 00370 Luxembourg 00352 Macau 00853 Macedonia 00389 Madagascar 00261 Majorca 0034 Malawi 00265 Malaysia 0060 Maldives 00960 Mali 00223 Malta 00356 Marshall Islands 00692 Martinique 00596 Mauritania 00222 Mauritius 00230 Mayotte 00269 Mexico 0052 Micronesia 00691 Moldova 00373 Monaco 00377 Mongolia 00976 Montserrat 001664 Morocco 00212 Mozambique 00258 Myanmar (Burma) 0095 Namibia 00264 Nepal 00977 Netherlands (Holland) 0031 Netherlands Antilles 00599 New Caledonia 00687 New Zealand 0064 Nicaragua 00505 Nigar 00227 Nigeria 00234 Niue 00683 Norfolk Island 00672 Northern Ireland (UK) 0044 North Korea 00850 Norway 0047 Oman 00968 Pakistan 0092 Palau 00680 Panama 00507 Papua New Guinea 00675 Paraguay 00595 Peru 0051 Philippines 0063 Poland 0048 Portugal 00351 Puerto Rico 001787 Qatar 00974 Romania 0040 Russian Federation 007 Rwanda 00250 Saint Helena 00290 Saint Kitts 001869 Saint Lucia 001758 Saint Pierre 00508 Saint Vincent 001784 Samoa US 00684 Samoa West 00685 San Marino 00378 Sao Tone 00239 Saudi Arabia 00966 Scotland (UK) 0044 Senegal 00221 Seychelles 00284 Sierra Leone 00232 Singapore 0065 Slovakia 00421 Slovenia 00386 Solomon Islands 00677

MANSOORI

36

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

LIFESTYLE G o s s i p

Lopez files $20 million extortion suit inger-actress Jennifer Lopez has filed a $20 million lawsuit against a former driver whom she claims threatened to spill her secrets if she did not pay him $2.8 million, court records showed Tuesday.

Lopez, 42, maintains that Hakob Manoukian, who was in charge of her security and transportation, engaged in extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy. Manoukian, who started working for the star in 2005, has also been clashing with her manager, Benny Medina, over alleged contractual differences. Lopez alleges that Manoukian wanted more money and additional control of her security team. She is seeking $20 million in damages, the documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court show. “Manoukian plotted to retaliate against Ms. Lopez and her management and to use his apparent position of trust to exploit and extort substantial sums from Ms Lopez,” the lawsuit reads in part. “In the furtherance of this plot, he abruptly terminated his employment with Ms Lopez and began to threaten her” with revealing “sensitive and personal information that he had allegedly overheard while driving Ms. Lopez.” On July 13, Lopez announced she was quitting ratings-challenged TV talent show “American Idol,” a day after fellow judge Steven Tyler announced his departure. She is also singing on tour with co-headliner Enrique Iglesias.

S

Arnie in native Austria for documentary on his life ormer California “governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday visited the Austrian village where he was born to film parts of an upcoming US television documentary on his life. “People need to understand where I grew up and what was important in my upbringing and my life,” the 65-year-old Hollywood film

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actor and former Mr Universe and Mr Olympia bodybuilding champion said.

Schwarzenegger showed the crew from US network CBS around his twostorey childhood home in Thal in the southern state of Styria that last July opened as a museum with around 1,000 exhibits including his very first weights and movie memorabilia. The

documentary is to accompany the release in October of his autobiography “Total Recall,” named after one of his many action films. He left office in California last year after two terms in office.

Elton

brands Madonna fairground stripper

lton John has reignited his public spat with Madonna, calling her a “fairground stripper” whose career is over. The British star added that she had been “so horrible” to pop

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view on Australian television this week. “Her tour has been a disaster,” he said. “If Madonna has any common sense, she would have made a record like ‘Ray of Light’, stayed away from

diva Lady Gaga, the godmother to his son Zachary. “She’s such a nightmare.

Her career is over, I can tell you that,” he told music personality Molly Meldrum, an old friend, in an inter-

the dance stuff and just been a great pop singer and make great pop records, which she does brilliantly.

“But no, and she looks like a fairground stripper. “She’s been so horri-

McQuarrie

circling Without Remorse

hristopher McQuarrie is in negotiations to write and direct Paramount Pictures’ “Without Remorse,” an individual with knowledge of the production told TheWrap. McQuarrie is best known for his mind-bending screenplay for “The Usual Suspects” and for penning the script to the historical drama “Valkyrie.” “Without Remorse” is set in the Jack Ryan universe, but it does not center on the CIA analyst. Instead, it focuses on another Tom Clancy character, John Kelly/John Clark, a black ops agent for the CIA and U.S. Army who plays a supporting role in “Clear and Present Danger” and “The Sum of All Fears.” The book pits Kelly/Clark against a brutal drug ring, after its members kill his girlfriend. For Paramount, the film represents an opportunity to expand its Ryan franchise, which it plans to reboot with Chris Pine in the lead role. McQuarrie recently worked with the studio on “Jack Reacher,” its upcoming adaptation of the Lee Child’s mystery series starring Tom Cruise. Deadline first reported McQuarrie’s involvement.

C

Lohan

will appear in Lady Gaga s next video

Barlow

thanks fans for support

ary Barlow has thanked fans for their “lovely messages” of support following the loss of his fourth child. The Take That star and his wife Dawn are devastated with grief after Poppy Barlow was delivered stillborn on Saturday and Gary has now gone onto twitter to relay his thanks to those who have helped him deal with the tragedy. He wrote this yesterday: “Your kind words and lovely messages are overwhelming. thank you (sic)” Meanwhile, a fan of the 41-year-old singer has started a memorial fund in response to the tragic birth. Michelle Pierce launched the page www.justgiving.com/RIPPoppyBarlow on behalf of Fans of Gary Barlow United, and she hopes to raise £100,000 for stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands. She wrote on the site: “As fans and many of us as parents we all want to show love and support to the Barlow family. Here we can make a difference, and leave united messages of love and support. This is a united donation from all Gary Barlow and TT fans.” So far, nearly 300 donations have been made totaling more than £2,000.

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ble to Gaga,” he added. It is not the first time Elton John has hit out at Madonna, blasting her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes this year as “embarrassing”. But he only had good words for Lady Gaga. “She’s amazing. Wherever she is in the world, she sends texts asking how he (Zachary) is. She’s a good godmother, she really pays attention,” he said.

Zachary was born in late 2010 to Elton John and his partner David Furnish, and they are planning another child.

“In the future I think we will definitely have another kid,” Elton John said in the interview. “I don’t want him to be an only child, it’s bad enough being the child of someone famous and I want him to have a relationship with a brother or sister, without question.”

Elton John has sold more than 250 million records in a career spanning four decades and the singer-songwriter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

he controversial actress is set to star in the promo with her new friend Gaga, who she spent time with at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood recently. A source told the New York Post newspaper: “Lady Gaga and Lindsay caused a stir last month when they had their ‘sleepover’ at the Chateau. And now it turns out that Lindsay will be starring in Gaga’s new video from her upcoming album.” Although she will reportedly appear in a video, it is not known what song it will be for, or when, as Gaga has only

T

just revealed the title of the album, ‘ARTPOP’, and little else. However, insiders think the project will be great exposure for Lindsay’s career, which has stalled after she ran into legal problems for being caught driving under the influence (DUI) in 2007, which snowballed and eventually saw her jailed, placed under house arrest and undertake community service. The source added: “Due to Gaga’s superstar status, this would be Lindsay’s biggest role by far in many, many years.” Since staging her comeback this year, Lindsay has filmed in TV movie ‘Liz & Dick’ about the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - and starred opposite porn star James Deen in ‘The Canyons’, but she has not broken back into mainstream Hollywood. Gaga recently finished filming her first ever film role, in Robert Rodriguez’s new film ‘Machete Kills’.

Kidman

sells New York apartment

icole Kidman has sold one of her New York homes for $16 million.

The 45-year-old actress completed the sale of the 12th floor condo which she didn’t live in and had listed for rent at $45,000 per month - in July, according to The Real Deal. The 3,785-square-foot residence situated at 176 Perry Street in the West Village with views over the Hudson River. The building is popular with celebrities with fellow Australian actor Hugh Jackman reportedly splashing out on a property in 2008, while Jim Carrey was said to have considered buying a home in the building two years ago. Nicole and her husband Keith Urban - with whom she has two children, Sunday Rose, four, and 19-month-old Faith Margaret - have another apartment in New York City which they bought in 2011. The couple reportedly paid $10 million for the penthouse flat on Eleventh Avenue, which was listed at £12.5 million. It has been speculated that Nicole and Keith could be planning a more permanent move to Australia after the sale of the second New York property and their accumulation of a third apartment in the Sydney building where they base themselves when in the country. The couple bought the home adjoining theirs on the 21st floor of an apartment block in Milsons Point for $7 million in which they also have a 19th floor flat. —Agencies

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Weisz

expects her son to rebel

achel Weisz expects her son to “rebel” and become a banker. The ‘Bourne Legacy’ actress doesn’t think six-year-old Henry - her child with her former partner, ‘Black Swan’ director Darren Aronofsky - will want to follow in his family’s footsteps and pursue a career in performing, and she is determined not to push him into a career direction he may not want.

Rachel - who is married to James Bond star Daniel Craig - said: “He is really into science and batteries and magnets and how things work. “He is just finding his own way but he has so many people around him in the arts that he will probably rebel and become a banker. “I don’t push him towards anything, I just let him be.” The 42-year-old actress admitted she finds it difficult to relax when she isn’t working because she doesn’t enjoy being alone. Asked how she relaxes, she told Stylist magazine: “With difficulty. I’m not brilliant at being on my own - I don’t have a hobby. I don’t play guitar or knit. “I’m better with people. My son and I hang out, take trips, and go to the park. I find the school run relaxing because that routine is very comforting. When I’m working I can’t do it, which is sad.”

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

lifestyle M U S I C

&

M O V I E S

Black Keys, Foo Fighters sign up for charity show

This film image released by Lionsgate shows (from left) Yu Nan, Terry Crews, Sylvester Stallone, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren in a scene from ‘The Expendables 2.’ — AP

Stallone skips ‘Expendables 2’ promotions

File photo shows Dan Auerbach, lead singer of The Black Keys at Spike TV’s Video Game Awards in Culver City, Calif. — AP

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he Black Keys, Foo Fighters and Neil Young & Crazy Horse will headline one of this year’s hottest concerts, but don’t bother trying to buy tickets. Fans will have to earn entry to Global Festival 2012 on Sept 29 in New York City’s Central Park by taking action against extreme poverty around the world through a website and app designed to get people moving before a big event, not after. “The scale of things that they’re trying do just felt really cool, and we’re trying to get the ball rolling,” said Patrick Carney, The Black Keys’ drummer. “Especially with everything that’s been going on for the last three years, I suppose, after the stock market crashed. There’s attention on the amount of people living below the poverty line and the disparity between the rich and the poor and everything that’s going on now.... It just felt like the right time to do something.”

Organizer Hugh Evans of Global Poverty Project calls the concert a “crescendo” to an ambitious antipoverty effort that coincides with the United Nations meeting in New York. Fans can attend through a special lottery of 54,000 tickets. They earn their way in with points awarded for charitable acts performed through the Global Citizen website, which launched yesterday. Points can be earned by simple acts like posting information on social media, donating money to charity or signing a petition, among other simple activities.

Evans hopes the chance to see some of rock’s biggest acts will spur fans to take 100,000 actions

by September. The overall goal is to raise $500 million in practical solutions by leveraging commitments from the world’s leaders while they’re in New York. Evans said a difference can be made for children trapped in extreme poverty with a polio vaccine that costs just 30 cents. Yesterday’s news release announcing the project says there are an estimated 1.3 billion people living on the equivalent of less than $1.50 a day. “I think what’s exciting is all the world leaders are going to be in town that week for the United Nations meeting,” Evans said in a phone interview. “And this concert and the associated campaign will give us the opportunity to ask these world leaders to make practical and tangible monetary commitments to the world’s poor and to the achievement of the UN’s Millenium Development Goals.”

Produced by Goldenvoice/AEG, the concert has partnered with a number of charities and is supported by Sumner M. Redstone and the Pratt Foundation. The musical acts, which include Band of Horses and K’Naan, also have donated their time.

The Keys have a charity they founded in their hometown of Akron, Ohio, to help the mentally handicapped. And Carney and guitarist Dan Auerbach donated a few dollars from each concert ticket on this year’s tour to a variety of charities as well. But the chance to affect change on such a large scale drew them to the Global Festival. “Dan and I try not to be too political about things,” Carney said. “... This is not a political thing. This is a humanitarian cause.” — AP

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he cast of “The Expendables 2” say they’re giving costar and writer Sylvester Stallone space after the death of his son last month. Stallone’s 36-year-old son Sage died on July 13 in his Los Angeles home - a day after Stallone was joined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and other “Expendables” stars at Comic-Con in San Diego. “Something like that is so severe. You can’t really do anything. I sent him a handwritten note. I contributed to a charity for his kid,” said Dolph Lundgren, one of a number of aging action stars featured in the film, which opens Aug. 17. “He knows we’re thinking about him,” Lundgren said at a recent media event for the film.

“He knows us. He knows our prayers go out to him. But what are you going to do? I have two kids. And all you can do is hug your kids and go thank God it didn’t happen to you.” Stallone has not made any public appearances since the death. His publicist said in a statement that the star was “devastated and grief-stricken.” No cause of death has been announced. Sage Moonblood Stallone was the oldest of Sylvester Stallone’s children and co-starred with his father in two films: 1990’s “Rocky V” and 1996’s “Daylight.” Mixedmartial-arts veteran turned actor Randy Couture said the cast was missing Stallone during promotion of the film, which includes a European trip and next week’s Los

Hollywood, Broadway composer Hamlisch dead at 68

Film critic Judith Crist dies at 90

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US composer Marvin Hamlisch and his wife Terry Blair arrive for the 67th Golden Globe Awards in this January 17, 2010 file photo in Beverly Hills, California. — AFP

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arvin Hamlisch, the composer behind a string of Broadway and Hollywood hits including “A Chorus Line,” “The Way We Were” and “The Sting,” has died, his publicist said Tuesday.

He was 68. “He died last night in Los Angeles,” Ray Costa told AFP, adding that Hamlisch had been admitted to hospital in suburban Burbank last week. He did not disclose the cause of death. “I’m devastated,” wrote his longtime friend and collaborator, singer Barbra Streisand, on her website. “He was a true musical genius, but above all that, he was a beautiful human being. I will truly miss him.”

“Today, we lost a world class virtuoso and native New Yorker whose music

US director Bob Byington poses during the photocall for the movie ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ at the 65th Locarno International Film Festival, yesterday, in Locarno, Switzerland. — AP

brought stages and screens to life from Broadway to Hollywood and all points in between,” added New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a statement. “As a child of immigrants, Marvin’s life was a great New York success story,” he said. Broadway theaters said they would dim their marquees last night for one minute in Hamlisch’s memory.

Born in New York in 1944, Hamlisch studied music at the city’s prestigious Juilliard School as it’s youngest-ever student, then played piano on Broadway before embarking on a successful career writing music for stage and screen. He was one of only a handful of entertainment artists to collect all the most coveted prizes in American popular culture, including three Oscars, two Golden Globes, four Grammys, four Emmys and a Tony.

In 1974 he picked up three Academy Awards on a single night-for best original dramatic score and best original song for Sydney Pollack’s “The Way We Were” and best musical adaptation for George Roy Hill’s “The Sting.” He also won a Tony and a Pulitzer for “A Chorus Line” in 1975 — just one of many Broadway productions he composed, others including “They’re Playing Our Song” in 1978, “The Goodbye Girl” in 1993 and “Sweet Smell of Success” in 2002. In Hollywood, Hamlisch scored more than 40 films, including “The Spy Who Loved Me” in 1977, “Sophie’s Choice” in 1982, “Three Men and a Baby” in 1987 and “Frankie and Johnny” in 1991.

Most recently, he teamed up with Steven Soderbergh in 2009 for the soundtrack of “The Informant!” Hamlisch was close to Streisand, who starred alongside Robert Redford in “The Way We Were.” He was musical director of her US and British tour in 1994 and took part in the Emmy-

Angeles premiere. “He is the leader of this group, both onscreen and off-screen. And so we miss him here,” Couture said. “But we understand. We’re parents. We have kids. We can’t really imagine what he’s going through now. But what do you say? So we’re giving him space.” Co-star Terry Crews, a former NFL player turned actor, said the cast would handle publicity for the film to allow Stallone time to grieve.

“The best thing that we can do right now is hold it down here for him. This is his baby,” Crews said. “This is one thing that he came up with that he’s changed the world yet again. And I’m proud to be here and repping for him.

Whatever he needs, we got him.”—AP

udith Crist, a blunt and popular film critic for the “Today” show, TV Guide and the New York Herald Tribune whose reviews were at times so harsh that director Otto Preminger labeled her “Judas Crist,” has died. She was 90. Her son, Steven Crist, said his mother died Tuesday at her Manhattan home after a long illness.

Starting in 1963, at the Tribune, Crist wrote about and discussed thousands of movies for millions of readers and viewers, and also covered theater and books.

She was the first woman to become a full-time critic at a major US newspaper and was among the first reviewers of her time to gain a national following. Roger Ebert credited her with helping to make all film critics better known, including such contemporaries as The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris of the Village Voice. With the growing recognition of such foreign directors as Francois Truffaut and Federico Fellini, and the rise of such American filmmakers as Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese, the 1960s and 1970s were an inspiring time for reviewers.

Crist duly celebrated many movies, but her trademark quickly became the putdown.

An early review was for “Spencer’s Mountain,” a sentimental family melodrama starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara.

Unmoved by a story that became the basis for the T V series “ The Waltons,” Crist denounced the film’s “sheer prurience and perverted morality” and cracked that “it makes the nudie shows at the Rialto look like Walt Disney productions.” The critic really poured it on for “Cleopatra,” the budget-busting historical epic that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and was overwhelmed by the actors’ off-screen love affair. “At best a major disappointment, at worst an extravagant exercise in tedium,” Crist called the film, dismissing Taylor as “an entirely physical creature, no depth of emotion apparent in her kohl-laden eyes, no modulation in her voice, which too often rises to fishwife levels.”

Her conclusion: “The mountain of notoriety has produced a mouse.” Crist was occasionally banned from advance screenings, while studios and theaters would threaten to pull advertising. When her “Cleopatra” review brought her a prize from the New York Newspaper Women’s Club, officials at 20th Century Fox, which released the movie, withdrew from the ceremony. Preminger, whose “Hurry Sundown” she called the “worst film” she had seen in memory, referred to her as “Judas Crist.”

After she condemned Billy Wilder’s crossdressing classic “Some Like It Hot” for its “perverse” gags and “homosexual ‘in’ joke(s),” Wilder allegedly remarked that asking her to review your movie was like “asking the Boston strangler to massage your neck.” But Crist had many friends in the business, from Bette Davis to “Cleopatra” director Joseph Mankiewicz. She ran a film festival for decades out of suburban Tarrytown, NY, with guests including Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Steven Spielberg. Woody Allen liked her well enough to give her a cameo in his 1980 drama “Stardust Memories,” widely

believed to have been based in part on Crist’s Tarrytown gatherings.

She was born in New York in 1922 and would say that Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpiece “The Gold Rush” was her first and most vivid film memory. By age 10, she had decided she wanted to be a reviewer; movies became her passion and her voice.

She would cut classes for a chance to visit a theater or two, including a cherished day in which she took in showings of “Gone With the Wind,” “ The Grapes of Wrath” and “Grand Illusion.”

Her edge was likely formed by her Dickensian childhood. The daughter of a successful fur trader, she lived in Canada until age 9, attending private school, enjoy-

This Oct 20, 1967 file photo shows NBC critic Judith Crist at the Front Page Awards presented by the Newspaper Women’s Club of New York in New York. —AP ing the luxuries of multiple homes, live-in servants and the family’s bulletproof Cadillac. But in the 1930s, her father’s business was ruined by the Great Depression.

“And then suddenly, our most gracious home was gone. The servants left,” she wrote years later in Time magazine. “After we lost the last of our homes, we moved to New York to get some kind of assistance from my mother’s family. Well, from both of my parents’ families. We lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment while my father went out on the road, recouping things.”

She still managed to attend Hunter College and receive a master’s degree from Columbia University’s journalism school. In 1945, soon after graduation, she was hired as a feature writer by the Herald Tribune, where she remained until the paper closed, in 1966, and where colleagues included Jimmy Breslin and Tom Wolfe. In 1950, her education reporting brought her a George Polk Award, and she was honored five times by the New York Newspaper Woman’s Club. Crist reviewed film and theater for the “Today” show from 1964-73, and as a print critic worked for New York magazine, TV Guide and the New York Post. —AP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

lifestyle F E A T U R E S

Image shows a late eighteenth century photo of Kuwait City and its fort (Al-kut).

A group of Bedouin men pictured wearing traditional clothes.

Highlights of

Kuwait’s S

ome believe that the age of famous Kuwaiti historian Abdul-Aziz Kuwait is in the range of 300 Al-Rashid says that the location of years, as it has been previously this fort is in the same place as the stated that ‘Grane or Qurain’ was the current building housing the earlier name of Kuwait, according to American hospital on the gulf street local Kuwaiti historians. Grane at the near the national assembly. Further, time was a small fishing centre, or Al-Rashid said that it was probable tiny coastal village, located south of that the fort was built by Al-Sabah, the current Kuwait city. The first themselves, though the majority of direct mention of Grane was in historians believe it was built by Dutch documents from 1756, its Bani Khalid. name being shortened to Qarn, referring to the “animal horn”, as the Bani Khaled and the shape of Ras Ardh on the chart of the emergence of Kuwait Gulf on the map, and it is important Kuwait derived its name from a to recall that the residents of this small fort (Al-Kut), Kuwait being Mahmoud Zakaria area from that period used to minishortened to this word, which is callAl-Rraheem mize the names of places and viling on all of the nearby sea or rivers lages, as example for the shortened and is suitable for docking of vessels, name “Shuwaikh and Fahaheel”. Most probably the this small fort belonging to Bani Khaled, a leader of current Kuwait City was not of strategic importance the tribe which Kuwait formed as a part of the terriat the beginning of the 17th century due to there tory of the Bani Khalid, the powerful Hasa tribe which being no human settlements, as its nature was an dominated north-east Arabia. arid desert, with the exception of Failaka Island, They came to power in 1670 when Barak, their which was considered the centre of Maritime trading leader, defeated the Ottoman Turks, forcing them to activity centre and Jahra (Khadmah) a centre of trade, leave ‘Al-Hasa’, which had been under them since particularly in road convoys travelling from the Arab 1555. It is said that Mohammed bin Ghurair AlPeninsula to the Levant, and vice versa.

Hamid, successor to Barrak, built this fort in 1670 or shortly thereafter.

Assets of the name ‘Kut’ The fort was built using dried mud, and they conThe concept of the word Kuwait (nomenclature) trolled the fort as a weapons store for his arms and was shortened for the word Al-”kut”, referring to the ammunition, and for housing guards. The Bani Khalid small fort, a Babylonian expression Iraqis inherited maintained peace and ensured the free flow of comfrom the Babylonians, where it was one of the cities merce by safeguarding the movement of goods from of Babylon, named “CÙte”. The word is popular the coastal areas to Syria by the nomad tribes of his among residents of Najd and Iraq and some non- people, and as a result of this situation groups of Arab lands, while others say that it’s an Indian term Bedouin and fishermen settled around the fort for a referring to the city of Calicut. period of time. This period that preceded the rule of Other believe it is a Portuguese word belonging Al-Sabah, estimated to have lasted seventy years, to the period of Portuguese occupation of the bay at saw a steady increase until the population grew and the beginning of the sixteenth century where they was in need of representatives who could conduct used to build such “kuts” on the Gulf Coast, but the their affairs.

The way to Kuwait

foundation

The founding of the original settlement of Kuwait is believed to have taken place about 1713, when a group of people of pure Bedouin Arab origin from central Arabia were, according to tradition, driven by drought to leave their own lands as a result of famine and forced them to move in search of water and pastures. The name of this group is Utub or Bani, Utba (Ottoobee) from the Arabic root meaning to travel from place to place, they are a part of a famous Arabian tribe (Anza), such as Al-Sabah (ruling family of Kuwait), Al-Khalifa (ruling family of Bahrain), AlGalahma, and Al-Zayed, and they formed a confederation of roving families who immigrates from Al-Aflaj at the centre of Najd (Saudi Arabia).

The Utub were originally related families who moved from central Arabia either as a group or separately, settling in various places on the eastern coast of Arabia before establishing themselves permanently in Kuwait. No definite date can be given for the migration of the Utub, though some believe that their migration occurred around 1660.

Across ‘Qatar’ Qatar was the first destination for them when it was under the influence of Bani Khalid, and they must have learned seafaring in Qatar, as they learned to live as pearl traders and fishermen and stayed for about forty years. Later they were forced to leave Qatar, following quarrels with Al-Musalm, the residents of the town under the influence of Bani Khalid.

To the Persian coast After leaving Qatar, they dispersed into the country, some of them living in Persia while others living on the island of Qais in the Persian Gulf, and still others emigrated to Khor Al-Sabiyya south of Basra.

According to Ottoman historical documents, the people of Utub, including Al-Subah and Al-Khalifa, settled along the Persian coast in the city of “Bandar Daylam”, located on the north side of the Iranian coast. During that time there were thought to have been several battles between themselves and the “AlHola” clan, who were supported by the king of Persia.

The cause of their dispute was due to claims on pearl diving areas.

Basra is the next step The Utub were forced to leave the town after being attacked by the “Hola” clan. They eventually chose to go to Basra to live under the stability of Ottoman sovereignty in about 1701. They arrived in Basra in about 150 vessels, and then asked permission from the Ottoman governor to live there.

After negotiations, the Ottoman governor apologized for not being able to accept their request, fearing that their trade would be threatened across the Gulf by the “Hola” clan, since the “Hola” considered the “Utub” their enemies. Ottoman officials believed that the “Hola” would attack Ottoman commercial vessels in the Gulf if the Ottoman provides shelter to the Utub.

Finally, they arrived in Kuwait Sailing south they landed at Kuwait, which was under the influence of Bani Khaled. Kuwait derived its name from the fort they built there, called “kut”, and as indicated in some documents, the history of their settlement is often given between 1713 and 1716. According to some chronicles, the Utub also stopped at Sobbya and Feilka before settling in Kuwait.

Kuwait before Utubs arrival

Al-Subah worked to re-trade across the desert road east of Kuwait - Aleppo 1750.

Water vendors suffered from scarcity of water all the time.

Kuwait before the arrival of the Utubs was a small village that was economically prosperous and inhabited by a group that was loyal to Bani Khaled.

The Bani Khaled, who were based in Al-Hasa, a city in Saudi Arabia, allowed the Utub to reside in Kuwait. According to traditional accounts, the settlement was led by three Utub families, each having their own responsibilities. The wealthy Al-Khalifah were in charge of pearl diving and trade; the AlJalahma commanded the boats and supervised naval protection; the Al-Sabah served the governor, who imposed law and order and handled Kuwait’s relations with the Bani Khalid and others living in the Arabian desert.

In less than four decades they had reached a degree of prosperity, which with the expansion of their community made it necessary to choose a

leader from among them. Especially if we know the extent of the conflicts that took place between the princes of the Bani Khalid for succession, this situation offered a chance to the Utub to practice some form of independence.

Sabah I (1756-1764) - Founder of the ruling dynasty The absence of strong centralized rule in Eastern Arabia made it possible for the Al-Sabah to become totally independent of the Bani Khaled. Sheikh Sabah Bin Jaber Al-Autbi was chosen as the head of state by the inhabitants of Kuwait to administer justice and the affairs of the thriving town, probably around 1752 to 1756, and he ruled for almost 10 years. He was succeeded by his younger son, Abdullah (17641814), and from that time onward the Sabah family has continuously ruled Kuwait.

Murtadha Bin Alwan in kuwit 1709 The first mention of Kuwait was in a manuscript from a Syrian pilgrim called Murtada Bin Alwan who visited the area in 1709, including an earliest description of the town of Kuwait, with the text first being published in 1978.

“Fifteen days after our departure (from Al-Hasa) we came to a town (balad) named Al-Kuwait in the diminutive from (of Al-kut). It is a sizable town that resembles Al-Hasa. To be true, it is smaller (than AlHasa) but in its buildings and towers it is similar. We had pilgrims with us from Basra who parted with us here in Kuwait and continued their journey on a road called Al-Jahra. The distance from Kuwait to Basra is four days, though by boat it is only one day, since the harbour is in the immediate vicinity of Kuwait. Fruits, melons, and other victuals are brought to Kuwait from Basra by boat every day. We stayed there one day and two nights and then in 20th of the month moved on with God’s blessing in the direction of Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf.

“This town Kuwait is also called Al-Qurayn. All the cereals, wheat and others arrive by sea because Kuwait’s soil does not allow for agriculture, nevertheless prices are lower there than in Al-Hasa because so much is transported here from Basra and elsewhere.” There are some notes in Murtada’s story.

There is the first mention of the name Kuwait.

“Qurain” and also Al-Jahra are the second note, along with the similarity between the two cities, Kuwait and Al-Hasa.

It certainly refers to political relations between the two cities, although Murtada did not give any signals about the ruling power in Kuwait, but his speech highlights the economic prosperity around it. On the other hand, his speech indicates stable, friendly relations between Kuwait and the two cities

of Hsas and Basra.

Carsten Niebour report (1764)

In 1764 the Danish explorer Carsten Niebour visited Kuwait and estimated its population at about 10,000. He told how the inhabitants lived by fishing and pearling, which employed more than 800 boats.

It was obvious from this account that the settlement had grown in wealth and importance and that, under the Subah leadership, it had retained its independence in an area dominated by the Ottomans and various powerful sheikhs.

Early boundaries of Kuwait There is no written evidence to show the boundary of the Utub with certainty north of Kuwait. It must have extended to Jahra village, where the wells were superior to those of Kuwait Failaka, and Um AlNaml, which was ruled by the sheikh.

The wall The town was not walled in from the beginning, as Bani Khaled protected it and other Bedouin tribes respected them. The date estimated as when the new wall was built is 1760; about eight years after the Bani Khaled had lost their influence among the Arab tribes. English records state that the town was walled in by 1770, and in any case the wall served as an adequate defence against Bedouin raids as recently as the early 20th century.

After this brief presentation on the history of the founding of Kuwait, it has to be pointed out that well-established facts indicate that Kuwait was not governed by any other governor, except the AlSabah family, since its founding and, second, that there were no internal wars since its founding. The reason for this is the cohesion of Kuwaitis with each other. A third point is that since it was founded, it has never been occupied by any foreign country.

Sources: English sources: Kuwait, prospect and reality - By Zahra Freeth 1972, London The origins of Kuwait - By B J Slot, 1991, Kuwait Rulers of Kuwait - By Ledia Al-Qattan, 2004, Kuwait Kuwait - By Ralph Shaw, 1976, London The modern history of Kuwait - By Dr Ahmad Abu Hakimah, 1983, London Kuwait - By Ministry of information, 1997, Kuwait Arabic sources: History of Kuwait - By Abdul Aziz Al-Rashid, Baghdad, 1926, first edition Pages from history of Kuwait - By Yusef Al-Qenaai, 1968, fourth edition Historical geography of Kuwait - By Dr Rasid Al-Feel, 1972, Kuwait

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

lifestyle T R A V E L

Lost among the hill tribes of northern

Thailand

By Brian Carovillano

T

he Kok River is a cocoa-colored expressway into the heart of hill tribe country.

Rushing down from Myanmar and through Thailand’s northern mountains to the city of Chiang Rai, its banks and the surrounding slopes and valleys shelter hundreds of villages of a half-dozen major tribes - Lahu, Lisu, Karen, Hmong, Yao and Akha - which in turn are subdivided into many smaller groups.

These communities range from secluded mountain hideaways reachable only by foot or four-wheel-drive, to roadside attractions where tribal people dressed in elaborate traditional costumes pose for photos and peddle handicrafts to busloads of tourists. The hill tribes and their unique culture have been on the backpacker’s Southeast Asia itinerary for decades. This has led to widespread exploitation by unscrupulous tour operators, as well as rampant drug abuse

File photo shows a woman crossing a wooden bridge over the Mae Kok River in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province. —AP photos and prostitution. In recent years, luxury resorts have also sprung up.

So if you’re looking for some sort of primitive time-capsule village, you’re out of luck.

But this remains a place of breathtaking natural beauty, with a fascinating blend of cultures coexisting at close proximity, and there are a growing number of opportunities to visit the hill tribes on their own terms.

One of these is Akha Hill House, a rustic guest house operated by an Akha community in a mountain hamlet 14 miles (22 kilometers) west and 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above Chiang Rai. Village headman Apae Amor runs it and employs many of the villagers. A portion of the proceeds goes toward tribal educational programs, he says. It’s also highly affordable.

The most basic rooms at Akha Hill House start at about $10 a night, and free transportation is offered to and from Chiang Rai in the back of a pickup truck.

Or, you can opt to go by water, as I did. I caught a long-tail boat from the public dock on the outskirts of Chiang Rai for a noisy hourlong ride up the river, called Mae Kok in Thai.

The once-a-day public boat is 100 baht (about $3.25), though you could spend a lot more chartering a private boat that would stop wherever and whenever you want. I had the boat to myself when other tourists disembarked at a riverside elephant camp.

As the boatman chugged up a waterway swollen by monsoon rains, I sat near the bow and took in a landscape in a million shades of green: fields of corn and rice planted at impossibly steep angles; limestone peaks covered in jungle. There were small villages of bamboo and wood houses, people fishing the shallows with nets, a huge white Buddha looming over a bend in the river.

I was dropped at a grassy field containing a steaming hot spring and the headquarters of Lamnamkok National Park, which encompasses the surrounding hills. My destination was a three-mile (five-kilometer) uphill walk from there. “Follow signs,” said the website. After a half-hour search, I finally found a single handpainted sign pointing up a dirt road toward Akha Hill House, and started walking. It was the last sign I saw.

But if I was lost, it was a pleasant kind of lost. The road snaked through fields and forests. Grazing water buffalo looked up from fields and chickens scampered away as I passed through Lahu and Karen villages.

Asking directions was a challenge. I can usually manage enough Thai to find my way, but many people here, particularly the elderly, speak tribal languages.

Eventually, a smiling young guy with a motorbike offered a ride back to where I’d gone astray. Like most men in these parts, he carried a sheathed, machete-like knife on his hip for cutting bamboo. After a wild bumpy ride on the back of his bike, he stopped and pointed up a steep track that I’d walked right by an hour earlier.

The home stretch was a quadriceps-busting climb along a stony brook, past flooded terraces of young rice plants to a Lahu village where the road suddenly dead-ended. A narrow path continued through open fields, offering panoramic views all the way to Myanmar.

Finally, after cresting a saddle between two forested summits and descending through coffee and citrus groves, I arrived at Akha Hill House.

The guest house sits at the edge of an Akha village, perched at the head of a curving valley on the slopes of Doi Hang mountain. Most houses are still made of traditional bamboo, raised on stilts with covered outdoor platforms. But a few concrete houses have appeared, and even a handful of satellite dishes poking from the thatched rooftops, signs that despite the Akha’s reputation as the most impoverished of the hill tribes, this particular village is more prosperous - and modern - than some.

A retired American couple staying in Akha Hill House and volunteering as English teachers at the village school proffered that the lack of signage might be a way to ensure steady work for local guides.

The accommodations are rustic. My room

File photo shows the Huai Kaeo Waterfall, a short walk from the Akha Hill House, a rustic guest house in a hill tribe village in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province. was a mud and wood shack with an electric fan, cold-water shower and mosquito net draped over the bed. But it was perched on a steep slope with a spacious balcony that offered an amazing view. The common area has cold beers and inexpensive, tasty food, especially after a long day on the trail.

The Akha share this lovely vale with a Chinese village where some of the wooden houses are decorated with red paper lanterns.

Together, the two villages have no more than a few hundred people living among rushing streams, hillside orchards and a sprawling tea plantation.

Many Chinese nationalists came south from Yunnan Province when the communists

took power. Some settled in the border region where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet - the notorious Golden Triangle, once epicenter of the world’s heroin trade. Both the hill tribes and the Chinese were prolific growers of opium poppies, but an aggressive government eradication campaign has led most fields to be replanted with coffee, tea and fruit, though the continued use of primitive slash-and-burn agriculture can be seen in the blackened stumps amid the greenery.

These days, tourism pays the bills. Apae Amor and several other village men are registered guides who can arrange mountain treks of up to seven days, by foot, elephant or bamboo raft, as well as sightseeing tours of the temples, museums and other sights of Chiang Rai Province.

I, however, came for fresh air and solitude.

The beautiful Huai Kaeo waterfall is a 15minute walk from the village through the dripping jungle. The falls plunge over three drops, each with a swimmable pool at the bottom and plenty of big rocks to sit on and read a book or listen to the sounds of the forest.

Climbing another 30 minutes on a muddy track will bring you to an open summit that offers more stunning views of the countryside.

One day, walking through the village toward the falls, I heard the familiar sound of Christian hymns sung in the unfamiliar tones of the Akha language. It was Sunday morning and churchgoing villagers were inside a little wooden house of worship.

Like most of Thailand’s hill tribes, the Akha started in southern China and moved south into Myanmar (then known as Burma) where they were exposed to Christianity by British and American missionaries. While some tribes trace their history in Thailand over hundreds of

years, the Akha are more recent arrivals, crossing over from Myanmar over the past 50 years to escape persecution by that country’s military rulers. Even today, their brand of Christianity is blended with traditional animist beliefs and ancestor worship.

The Akha are perhaps most famous for their traditional dress. The most decorative of the hill tribe costumes, it is highlighted by colorful embroidered fabrics and headdresses intricately decorated with beads, feathers, shells and silver coins. These days, you are more likely to see Akha women in traditional dress selling trinkets at the Chiang Mai night bazaar. Most here dress in sarongs and flipflops; the men wear T-shirts with logos of their favorite English football teams.

This is not a place where the outside world has been kept at bay, nor is it a tourist trap where bygone village life is re-enacted for the benefit of visitors. But it is a wonderful place to spend a few days relaxing amid stunning natural wonders and learning a little bit about a vanishing culture. That is, if you can find it.

If you go...

Akha hill house: http://www.akhahill.com/.

Located in the Doi Hang subdistrict of Chiang Rai Province in Northern Thailand. Proprietor Apae Amor also operates Akha River House, in Chiang Rai city, and offers free rides (in the back of a pickup truck) at 4:30 pm daily from there to Akha Hill House.

Taxi fare from Chiang Rai Airport to the village is $20-$35 each way. Room rates range from $5 a night for wooden hut with outdoor shower to $35 for “VIP bungalow” with air conditioning, cable TV and Wi-Fi. Air Asia, Nok Air and other discount carriers often fly from Bangkok to Chiang Rai for under $100. — AP

File photo shows terraced rice paddies outside a Lahu hill tribe village high above Thailand’s Mae Kok River.

One&only Cape Town is top city hotel in Africa and ME

O

ne&Only Cape Town has been named the top city hotel in Africa and the Middle East in the Travel + Leisure World’s 2012 Best Awards, confirming it is officially the best city hotel in the region.

Leading international travel publication Travel + Leisure announced today One&Only Cape Town’s position as the Number One Top City Hotel in the Africa and Middle East region and voted Number 14 on the list of Top 100 Hotels with score of 95.33 overall, based on ratings from T+L readers in five categories: rooms/facilities, location, service, restaurants/food, and value. The Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards are arguably the most prestigious international awards program for luxury hotels. Given the size and diversity of these continents and regions, these awards have understandably been met with great excitement from the One&Only international team. Our home city, Cape Town was voted number 4 on the list of Top 10 Cities overall.

“It is the never ending pursuit of service excellence, combined with authentic South African hospitality, genuine friendliness and ensuring guests needs and expectations at every touch point are exceeded, that has contributed to this recognition” comments Clive Bennett, Managing Director One&Only Cape Town.

Fiercely determined to be the best in South Africa, the team at One&Only Cape Town is committed to excellence that has not gone unnoticed. Travel + Leisure’s

recognition of One&Only Cape Town as the Number one City Hotel in Africa and the Middle East is a much coveted award for the resort’s dedication to service and unparalleled experiences, with validation that One&Only Cape Town is not only the best in the city, but among the best in the world.

Due for publication in Travel + Leisure magazine this August and available online at www.travelandleisure.com now, the Travel + Leisure 2012 World’s Best Awards is a fully audited awards program based on reader (identified travel-industry professional votes are eliminated) that recognizes the top destinations, hotels, airlines, cities, island, cruise lines, car-rental companies, tour operators and safari outfitters.

The results are from an annual World’s Best Awards Survey, where readers rate their favourite destinations and travel companies on a variety of characteristics. The survey methodology is available at www.TravelandLeisure.com/worldsbest.

In order to maintain integrity in the voting process and during the data collection process, a questionnaire developed by the editors of Travel + Leisure, in association with ROI Research Inc., was made available to Travel + Leisure readers at TLWorldsBest.com from December 1, 2011, to March 31, 2012. Readers were invited to participate through Travel + Leisure magazine, T+L iPad editions and newsletters, and online at TravelandLeisure.com. After March 31, 2012, respondents were screened by Travel + Leisure and responses

from any identified travel-industry professionals who completed the survey were eliminated from the final tally.

One&Only Cape Town is the African flagship of the world-renowned One&Only collection. This five-star luxury urban resort was the first city-based resort initiated by the brand and since its opening just three years ago in 2009 has achieved outstanding success, receiving a number of local and international awards for its varied world class offerings. Understandably, the resort, situated in the heart of Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, is one of the city’s most desired luxury destinations.

The resort itself boasts spectacular

views of Table Mountain, 131 deluxe rooms and suites and two purpose-built islands, one of which plays host to the most luxurious spa in the city. Spanning over 1000m2, the Afro-Zen style Spa includes some 10 treatment rooms, heated vitality pools, sauna and aroma-steam rooms, a suitably extensive menu of treatments, an outdoor yoga pavilion and 2 Bastien Gonzalez Pedi:Mani:Cure nail studios where the podiatrist-to-the-stars’ signature hand and feet treatments are provided by specially trained practitioners. The Spa has achieved great success since the resort’s opening, among some of its awards for 2011 are the Spa Silver Sage Readers Choice Award for

Best Spa in the Middle East and Africa as well as Best Spa in Africa at The World Spa Awards and the Spa Finder Readers’ Choice Award for favourite Spa in Africa as well as Top 10 for Best Interior Design in the same awards.

One of the most popular drawcards at One&Only Cape Town is the world-class dining. In 2011, Nobu Cape Town achieved a Top 10 place in the Eat Out Awards, South Africa’s most prestigious restaurant awards program. The first representative of the Nobu brand in Sub Saharan Africa, the restaurant has built on the already-impeccable Nobu reputation to become one of the most respected restaurants in South Africa. The other main dining destination at One&Only Cape Town is Reuben’s. With celebrity South African chef Reuben Riffel as its Executive Chef and award-winning sommelier Luvo Ntezo at the helm of the 5000-bottle strong wine cellar, the busy eatery serves as an exemplary ambassador for contemporary South African cuisine and fine wines. Aside from the impressive hotel facilities for those enjoying a business or leisure break at this five-star urban resort, One&Only Cape Town is fast becoming one of the most sought after wedding offerings in the city. The new look banqueting space, with its ivory paneling and glittering Italian chandeliers is a must-see for style-conscious brides and with a dedicated team poised to create a spectacular wedding celebration, it’s no surprise that couples in the know are making their bookings well in advance.

Stallone skips ‘Expendables 2’ promotions

37

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

A hairdresser works on a hairstyle on July 22, 2012 during the Openhair competition in the central Polish town of Sieradz.

Competitors wait with their hairstyles. — AFP photos

Antoine, the Polish genius of modern French coiffure A

ntoine of Paris, the world’s first celebrity hairdresser who revolutionized the look of women in the early 20th century with a boyish bob, was in fact a Pole. Antoni Cierplikowski was better known as “Monsieur Antoine” in his adopted city where he created the cut made famous by Coco Chanel and other fashion icons of the times. Ironically, this pioneer in an industry today worth an annual 50 billion dollars worldwide has been largely forgotten. But his legacy is slowly being revived in his beloved 1884 birthplace, the sleepy central Polish town of Sieradz, thanks to a hair-

dresser’s competition held each summer.

He was nothing short of a “revolutionary”, said his onetime apprentice Janusz Szymanski, now in his sixites, at the Openhair event dedicated to Monsieur Antoine. “He’s bar none the greatest figure in hairdressing in the 20th century.” The Polish stylist not only championned the daring short bob, his innovations included what have become salon basics. Among these are shampooing a customer’s hair, using hair spray, which he concocted with spirits and gum Arabic, and coloring hair with non-organic dyes-including the blue rinse for grey hair favored by grannies.

Antoni was only 17 when he arrived in the French capital but within a decade was the talk of the town.

Around 1910, 40-year-old French star Eve Levalliere was cast in the role of an 18-year-old and turned to Antoine for a make-over. His inspiration came when a little girl with short hair and bangs skipped into the salon to

deliver mail. “That’s how the unprecedented ‘a la garconne’ (boyish) or ‘shingle bob’ cut was born-it became an instant hit and a sign of the times,” said Szymanski.

The style still resonates, worn at one point or another by modern-day celebrities from Victoria Beckham, Rihanna, Katie Holmes, Cameron Diaz or Renee Zellweger to supermodel Naomi Campbell. In addition to Chanel, Antoni’s client list read like a who’s-who of the 1920s to the 1960s: French stage legend Sarah Bernhardt, American jazz star Josephine Baker, French singer Edith Piaf, German silver-screen diva Marlene Dietrich, Swedish actress Greta Garbo, US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and even French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot. Szymanski called Antoni an ace judge of character who could size up a woman’s age, personality, needs and woes. “The psychological aspect is absolutely crucial in the hair business, and he knew it,” he said.

‘He created modern coiffure’ Among those Antoni charmed was Coco Chanel, whose Rue Cambon atelier in the heart of Paris was a stone’s throw from the Pole’s salon. “She created modern couture, and he modern coiffure,” said Szymanski. In the roaring 20s, his short, chic cut was all the rage with the libertine Flappers who traded Victorian corsets and conventions for Chanel’s short skirts and free-spirited smoking, drinking, driving, dancing and dating whom they pleased. In 1925, Antoine opened a US salon in New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue department store, the first of a chain that would grow to 110 shops across the country.

At its peak, his hair empire stretched from Paris to Melbourne, Tokyo and Vancouver and as his fortune grew, so did his eccentricity. Obsessed with his own mortality, he slept in a crystal coffin, wore glass slippers he made himself, dressed as royalty, played cathedral organs at home, designed extravagant period costumes, sculpted, recited poetry and strolled through Paris with his dog dyed mauve. By the mid-1960’s, however, Antoni started sinking into obscurity. He had left his business-savvy wife, and his apprentices like the now legendary Alexandre de Paris had set up shops of their own.

“Emperor Antoine” returned to then-communist Poland to a simple life in Sieradz where he grew vegetables and chopped wood, but still dressed up as something of a royal for visitors. He died in 1976 age 92 of pancreatic cancer, but in 1992 Alexandre de Paris sent envoys to Sieradz to have his body exhumed and the right hand cut off and brought back to France, where it was interred in Paris’ Passy cemetery. “I symbolically chose his right hand as it had styled Coco Chanel, Sarah Bernhardt and even Queen Marie of Romania,” Alexandre de Paris, who died in 2008, told AFP at the time. At this year’s Openhair, young Polish talents

yearning to be the next Antoine snip away to the music of Edith Piaf’s classic “Je ne regrette rien” (No Regrets).

“Antoine, he pioneered hair styling-it’s his vision, his art and innovation that’s the basis of today’s salon industry,” 18-year-old winner Przemyslaw Debczynski told AFP. “Of course stylists these days have their own ideas, but to be honest, after Antoine it’s been difficult to think up something really new.” — AFP

Judges look at a hairstyle.

‘Modest’ swimwear sheds its mothballs in US

M

odest bathing suits have shed their mothballs and come back in style in the United States, with a clientele spanning the religious, the curvy and the sun-sensitive.

“Definitely, there was a need for it,” said New York fashion designer Regine Tessone. “There are a lot of women who need to wear one, including myself,” added Tessone, an orthodox Jew who calls her line “original kosher swim wear”. While still a niche industry, modest swim wear is experiencing a boom as retailers see a steady stream of new buyers eager to snap up their four-yes, four-piece swim sets, cover-up dresses and body suits.

With sales ranging in the thousands to tens of thousands of items per retailer, industry representatives say these suits fill a gaping void in an industry projected to bring in overall 2.6 billion dollars in 2012, according to market research company IBISWorld. Zeena Altalib, who owns the Primo Moda boutique in Sterling, Virginia, said she started “out of frustration of things not being available”.

“I had to look until I found something I would be satisfied with that looked nice and stylish but was also cut modestly, especially for the summer,” the practicing Muslim said.

Alongside dresses and athletic wear, Altalib sells swimsuits that conform to conservative Muslim customs: long sleeves, ankle-length pants, headscarves all in synthetic fabric made for and approved by public pools. She said that for Muslim women the “lifestyle is changing,” explain-

ing that they “want to and need to participate in everyday activity” as well as “participate in canoeing, go to the beach, enjoy what God has offered us.”

“As long as we have the appropriate clothing, we can do all of this,” she said. An image on her website shows a woman clad in a beige headscarf, tunic and pants playing basketball. Tessone, meanwhile, wanted to offer clients-including young girls-the possibility to “shop modest, swim modest and be modest.” She launched her online label and New York shop Aqua Modesta about 10 years ago in response to a lack of options for women seeking to avoid unwanted ogling by men at the beach and gym. Her four-piece swim sets include a skirt with briefs and a fully lined sports bra beneath a top with three-quarter sleeves and abide by Orthodox Jewish dress codes of “tzniut” modesty.

‘Shop modest, swim modest’ “Everything that I learned as a designer, I had to do the opposite in creating my own line,” she laughed, calling herself somewhat of an outcast in fashion school. “We were taught always to emphasise the breasts, the hips, all the sensual areas of a woman-and here I have to detract,” she said, explaining that under tzniut guidelines a woman can be beautiful but should avoid eliciting sexual desire outside the bedroom. The idea is echoed by Jen Clothing, which targets Mormons with bathing suits that are modestly cut in a 1950s

style, revealing less of the thigh and gathered high up at the bust.

“Is exposure really all that sexy?” the group asks on its website, promising its clients “a bit of mystery and class”. But Muslims and Mormons are not alone in seeking modesty. Some more conservative Christian women-especially evangelical and born-again Christians-and even a secular crowd of older and plus-size women, in a country with a growing problem of obesity, are also joining the trend. “I see a lot of women who would never walk around in their undergarments and then do just that on the beach! It is crazy,” a user who went by the name Nicole commented on Christian blog Created to be His (CreatedtobeHIS31.blogspot.com).

Amber Gray of Simply Modest clothiers spoke of a “backlash” against the kind of feminism that “promises freedom, but in reality locks women into thinking that they have to fit a certain idea of what a woman is-and part of that is showing off her body to whomever cares to see it.” She and her sister Heather, who were home-schooled by their parents, purchased the business in 2009 because “we believe God meant it when he commanded his women to dress modestly,” according to their website. Joan Ferguson, founder of Oregon-based WholesomeWear, said her customers are not all motivated by their faith. “A lot of it is for religious purposes,” she said. “But I have noticed I have gained customers over the years that are buying my suits for weight issues, to stay more covered

from the sun, and as a woman ages, and she is more self-conscious in a skimpy suit.” Others may have skin diseases or want to cover up scars from surgery. —AFP