17 Apr

pt io n ri bS C Su THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF

24 PAGES

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2010

Kuwait’s economic diplomacy vital for Arab development

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Kuwait cancels flights to Europe

By B Izaak KUWAIT: The volcanic ash cloud that blanketed European skies yesterday forced the cancellation of all flights between Kuwait International Airport and many European capitals and cities.

The cancellations mainly affected flights between Kuwait and London, Rome, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. It also affected flights between Kuwait and the United States via Europe, especially London.

British Airways morning flight for today (Saturday) has been cancelled both ways, while Lufthansa flights from Frankfurt have also been grounded especially after the German carrier decided to cancel all flights until midday today.

Some flights to and from Europe have been rescheduled with a delay of several hours with the hope that the ash cloud would disappear.

PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy greets Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Sabah prior to their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. — AP

Kuwait, France ink nuclear energy deal PM, Sarkozy discuss Rafale jets sale France has the world’s second largest nuclear sector and generates a greater proportion its own electricity through nuclear power than any other economy-around 75 percent of its needs.

It has also made the export of nuclear technology an economic priority. French engineering giants Areva and EDF are promoting the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), a third-generation reactor design that France considers the most advanced in the world.

Sarkozy vaunted the “safety and reliability” of this reactor and “France’s ability to provide a service covering the whole nuclear energy cycle,” according to the presidential statement.

The French firms recently lost out on a $20 billion (14 billion euro) contract to supply four reactors to the United Arab Emirates after South Korean firm Kepco came in with a lower offer.

Sarkozy and Sheikh Nasser yesterday also discussed the sale of French Rafale fighter jets to Kuwait. — AFP

NO: 14701

Obama: Americans to Mars within my lifetime

Israeli troops kill Palestinian in Gaza

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PARIS: France and Kuwait opened the way for joint nuclear energy projects in the Gulf country, giving major French players a foothold months after they embarrassingly lost a big contract in the region.

An agreement “to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy” was signed in Paris by Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and French government officials.

“This agreement will permit the development of cooperation between France and Kuwait in several areas of nuclear energy” including electricity generation, a French government statement said. Sheikh Nasser discussed nuclear cooperation yesterday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes the new accord will “result in industrial cooperation,” according to the presidency.

France hosted a gathering of 60 energy-hungry nations in Paris last month, with Sarkozy urging international bodies to finance a new era of global nuclear power.

JAMADA ALAWAL 3, 1431 AH

150 FILS

Inter blank Juventus 2-0 in Serie A PAGE 24

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Volcanic ash cloud turns Europe into no-fly zone Around 17,000 flights cancelled • Disruptions worst since 9/11 LONDON: A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread out across Europe yesterday causing air travel chaos on a scale not seen since the Sept 11 attacks and costing airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.

Significant disruption of European air traffic was expected today because of the dangers posed by volcanic ash drifting from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in much of Britain, France and Germany remained closed and flights were set to be grounded in Hungary and parts of Romania.

“I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11,” a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s aviation regulator, said.

“In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we’ve probably seen.”

Following the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, US airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.

Disruption from the volcanic ash eruption in Iceland is costing airlines more than $200 million a day, the air industry body IATA said. “At current levels of disruption, IATA’s initial and conservative estimate of the financial impact on airlines is in excess of $200 Continued on Page 19

SOFIA: People stand in front of an information board in the departure hall of Sofia airport yesterday as flights were cancelled due to ash from a volcano eruption in Iceland. — AFP

A volcano sneezes, world gets paralysis ‘All we can do is to wait’ PARIS: A volcano sneezes, and the whole world gets a major case of paralysis. As the Icelandic eruption closed airspace over Europe, German soldiers wounded in Afghanistan couldn’t get home, Europe-bound tulips risk wilting in Kenyan airports, and express mail lumbers overland instead of by air. Barack Obama is wondering whether he can make it to Poland for a presidential funeral and royals can’t get to the birthday bash of the Danish queen.

It’s as if an international conveyer belt has abruptly ground to a halt, all because of a cloud of dust high up in the sky — hurting businesses, governments and ordinary travelers in a world increasingly dependent on the freedom to move around far and fast.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg purchased an iPad while in New York earlier this week and found it a useful tool for remotely governing his nation while stranded in the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was managing Europe’s biggest economy by remote control yesterday from Portugal, after her plane home from the United States was diverted to Lisbon. The government said the plane won’t be able to continue its journey until today lunchtime. No planes can take off or land from many German airports yesterday because of the danger that the ash cloud could stall aircraft engines, including Ramstein Air Base, a key US military hub.

Continued on Page 19

China quake toll crosses 1,000

This satellite image annotated and provided by NOAA shows volcanic ash from Iceland sweeping toward mainland Europe. — AP

Europe grapples with Muslim dress code Veils compromise women’s dignity?

THE HAGUE: In this Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 file photo, unidentified women are seen wearing a niqab during a demonstration outside the Dutch parliament against a proposed ban on the burqa, in The Hague, Netherlands. — AP

ANTWERP, Belgium: Chances of seeing a burqa in Belgium are only a little better than spotting a liquor shop in Saudi Arabia. Yet Belgium soon may be the first European nation to outlaw the burqa and other Islamic garb that completely hides a woman’s body and face.

Neighboring France and the Netherlands may also outlaw attire that is viewed by many in western European societies as demeaning to women. It also is considered a gateway to radical Islam, a fear that is stoking rightwing sentiment across the continent.

“There is all-party public support for this,”

says Leen Dierick, a conservative member of the Belgian parliament’s Interior Affairs committee that unanimously backed the proposed ban March 31. The initiative is expected become law in July and would apply to all public places, including streets.

Anxieties that visible signs of Islam erode national identity are combining with complaints that immigrants are stealing jobs amid the worst economic slump in decades to deepen a sense of unease in many European countries, small and large alike, over the role of Muslims in society. Threats against cartoonists and

artists over depictions of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) have also raised fears that Islam is not compatible with Western values of freedom of speech. Swiss voters recently voted to ban the construction of new minarets. In recent years, both mosque and minaret construction projects in many European countries, including Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Germany and Slovenia have generated protests, some of them violent. French President Nicolas Sarkozy favors a burqa ban, saying the veils compromise women’s dignity.

Continued on Page 19

JIEGU, China: The death toll from a strong quake that rocked a remote Tibetan region of China surged past the 1,000 mark yesterday, as tons of food, clothes and other vital supplies started pouring in. Meanwhile preparations were under way for the cremation of hundreds of victims of the disaster as concern turned toward the risk of disease outbreaks in the quake zone, centered on the town of Jiegu in Qinghai province.

A journalist saw hundreds of bodies laid out on the floor of a warehouse-like structure at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery overlooking the town, with locals saying the dead were to be cremated from today morning.

As of yesterday evening the official number of dead had risen to 1,144, the state Xinhua news agency said, up from a toll of 791 earlier in the day. Yet it could rise further with more than 400 still missing.

The wail of sirens and stench of death filled the air as relief vehicles thundered through the hard-hit town in Yushu county. Thousands of survivors of Wednesday’s 6.9-magnitude earthquake have waited desperately for largescale shipments of food and other aid having spent two freezing and hungry nights out in the open after many buildings crumbled.

“I have lost everything,” a distraught ethnic Tibetan woman who gave her name as Sonaman said.

Wandering the streets with her four-yearold nephew tucked under her coat, Sonaman, 52, said through tears that her mother, father, and sister had died. “My house has been destroyed. It’s been flattened. My family lost 10 people. We have nothing. We have nothing to eat.”

Premier Wen Jiabao wrapped up a two-day tour of the disaster area by casting recovery efforts as a chance to foster unity in a region whose Buddhist ethnic Tibetans have a history Continued on Page 19

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NATIONAL

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Driver charged with involuntary manslaughter

Two-year-old dies in tragic accident KUWAIT: A two-year-old boy died in a tragic accident, when the family’s chauffeur reversed the car without realizing that the toddler was playing behind it. Although the child was rushed to hospital, he was declared dead on arrival. The driver has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Meanwhile, after a fire broke out in the engine of a car, the driver managed to steer it safely to the roadside, with firemen quickly at the scene, extinguishing the blaze after it had destroyed the car engine.

No casualties were reported and preliminary investigations suggest that the blaze was caused by faulty wiring.

Grim discovery The dead body of an Asian man was found in the Jleeb vegetable market area. The cause of death has not yet been determined. Police removed evidence from the scene and the body was removed for autopsy to determine the reason for the man’s demise.

Sheikh Ahmad calls for democracy in sport KUWAIT: A senior government official said on Thursday that it is important to implement the democratic principle in organizing and running sports contests and to emphasize the educational and social roles of sports.

Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Deputy Premier for Economic Affairs and State Minister for Development Affairs and for Housing

Affairs, who also chairs the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), made the statement in his opening speech at the eighth International Sports Accord Conference in Dubai, which is being held to discuss various sports-related issues.

In his speech, Sheikh Ahmad also said that Olympic committees worldwide seek more recognition of the need for respect for privacy in sports people’s personal

lives in order to preserve sport and bring back a sense of balance, reported AlWatan. Sheikh Ahmad emphasized his personal pride in Dubai being chosen as the host of the first sports-related conference to be held in the Middle East, where senior sports officials from around the world are coming together to discuss the most significant problems faced by the international sporting community.

in the news

AMMAN: Sheikh Faisal Al-Homoud Al-Malik Al-Sabah with board members of Zain company.

Kuwait’s economic diplomacy vital for Arab development AMMAN: Kuwait’s Ambassador to Jordan Sheikh Faisal Al-Homoud Al-Malik AlSabah said here yesterday the diplomatic mission was keen on highlighting and enhancing economic diplomacy.

Al-Sabah’s statement came during a luncheon held at his place of resident in honor of the board members of Zain company. The mission is keen on implementing the directions of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-

Sabah on economic diplomacy through holding such events, the Ambassador said.

The luncheon is an opportunity for Kuwaiti businessmen to meet Arab and Jordanian officials and businessmen, ht said.

He praised the KuwaitiJordanian cooperation in all development sectors, stressing on the significance of Kuwaiti investments in Jordan.

On his part, Chairman of Zain Asaad Al-Banwan praised

the Ambassador’s initiative in bringing Arab and Jordanian figures together. He told KUNA that Zain Jordan was a successful investment.

Meanwhile, the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nabeel Bin Salama said that Zain’s delegation met with officials from the company’s branches in Jordan and Iraq.

Zain Jordan employs more than 1000 Jordanians and provides services to about two million people. — KUNA

Information ministry warns ‘Scope’ KUWAIT: The Ministry of Information has sent a strongly worded letter to the ‘Scope’ satellite TV channel warning it not to broadcast a recently recorded interview with controversial political activist and former parliamentary candidate Mohammed Al-Juwaihel.

The ministry warned the channel not to broadcast the interview in order to prevent AlJuwaihel from talking about subjects that could threaten national unity, as he is said to have

done on his own ‘Al-Sour’ channel, which was recently taken off the air. Information ministry officials reportedly watched the making of the program containing the interview with AlJuwaihel.

The political activist stands accused of bringing about the grilling of the interior minister by giving inflammatory speeches about dual citizenship on the ‘Al-Sour’ channel, which angered MPs.

Rain forecast KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Sarrayat (changeable weather) season has begun, according to a renowned local weather expert, who warned of possible scattered rain showers today (Saturday) and brief but intense thunderstorms over the next few days. Dr. Saleh Al-Ajairi told local daily Al-Anba that one can typically see ‘four seasons in one day’ in the Sarrayat season, with high temperatures at noon plunging to extremely cold ones at night. Dr. AlAjairi said that while the thunderstorms, which are usually accompanied by rain or sandstorms, might only last for a couple of hours the accompanying weather meant that the effects could be significant.

ensure accurate diagnosis of this rare blood condition. He added that it has already successfully formed a multi-disciplinary team grouping health professionals - hematologists, orthopedic consultants, physiotherapists, nurses and doctors - interested in working with hemophiliacs.

Dr. Al-Qallaf said that the society’s “greatest” achievement has been in implementing the national protocol for the management of hemophilia, which he said will provide guidelines for doctors on the diagnosis, management and treatment of the condition.

He explained that the protocol was derived from international hemophilia protocols and had been discussed with the multi-disciplinary group and other specialists to garner their support for the document.

“The overall aim of the society is to generate greater awareness about hematology, and we are happy to be celebrating World Hemophilia Day for the first time in Kuwait.

It will be an even greater celebration to sign the national protocol in the next few weeks,” he said.

Apart from Dr. Al-Qallaf, Kuwait Hemophilia Society’s core founders include Dr. Faisal Al-Sayegh, Dr. Rana Al-

escalating to a fistfight. Both were quickly taken into custody.

He took the couple immediately to the local police station.

Phone pest A Kuwaiti man has filed charges at Reqqa police station against an Asian man who he said had frequently phoned the citizen’s maids, urging them to run away and join him. He provided the police with records of the phone calls and the accused man’s number and an investigation is underway.

Forgery accusation A Kuwaiti man reported at Abu Halifa police station that another citizen had illicitly transferred ownership of two of his vehicles to a third Kuwaiti national without his knowledge.

The complainant has filed forgery charges and police have launched an investigation into the allegation.

Substation theft Thieves broke into an electricity substation in Qairawan, stealing several air conditioning units. A staff member discovered the thefts the next day and immediately called police, with crime scene officers removing fingerprints and other evidence to assist their efforts to apprehend the culprits.

Officer disgraced Ahmadi police arrested a National Guard officer who beat two Arab workers at a car leasing office in the area for parking their cars in an open area, taking the disgraced officer to Abu Halifa police station. The two men he attacked said that they were surprised at being accosted by a well-built man who told them to move their cars immediately from where they had parked them. They told him that the place the vehicles were parked was a public area and suggested that he had no business interfering. At this, he took out his ID showing his status as a National Guard officer before beating the two men and storming off. The two immediately sought medical help and obtained reports detailing their injuries before complaining to police about their attacker’s behavior. He was subsequently arrested in a health club close to where the incident took place and taken to Abu Halifa police station.

Landmine find A Kuwaiti man immediately called the emergency hotline on finding landmines left over from the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion in a deserted area of Subaihiya near Kabad. Bomb squad officers were quickly at the scene, successfully defusing the abandoned ordnance before removing it.

Drug bust A Kuwaiti man arrested in Sabah Al-Nasser on drug use and possession charges was discovered to be a fugitive. When the man was taken into custody, police confiscated a total of 147 narcotic tablets from him.

Traffic pile-up A female Gulf citizen and her daughter were trapped in their car after both suffering multiple fractures a six-vehicle pile-up on the Fourth Ring Road. Emergency personnel rushed to the scene, with firefighters cutting the two trapped women from the car and an

Expensive tip Two waiters at an Al-Qasr restaurant ended up in the local police station after fighting over a tip. After the customer left the restaurant, the waiter who had served him picked up the tip he had left on the table and pocketed it. Seeing this, his colleague became angry, with the situation

Car thieves Jahra police have arrested two Bedoon (stateless) men responsible for 16 car thefts in the area. The men were caught when patrol officers became suspicious of their behavior and pulled their vehicle over, discovering that it was stolen.

Both are in custody awaiting trial.

Thorough thief A very thorough housebreaker emptied a Kuwaiti man’s Ahmadi home of everything, including electrical goods and even air conditioning units while the homeowner was at work at a local oil company. On returning home, the shocked householder immediately called police to report the burglary. An investigation is underway.

Bad date A Kuwaiti man caught his maid and her boyfriend in a compromising position in her room at his home in Qairawan.

Cell brawl A group brawl broke out between 12 North Koreans and 15 assorted Indians and Pakistanis being held at Firdous police station. When their Egyptian cellmates failed to break up the fight, they called in police officers who quickly brought an end to it.

Woman scorned A 24-year-old woman who found out following an intimate date that her Saudi boyfriend had been making false promises to her. She told her father about her discovery, with her father in turn filing charges against the man at Rabiya police station.

New CID chief KUWAIT: Lieutenant General Yousef Al-Saudi is set to officially assume his new post as Director General of the Central Investigation Department tomorrow (Sunday), reported Al-Watan. Lt. Gen. AlSaudi was promoted to the position by Amiri decree, with the Ministry of Interior now seeking a replacement for the post of Assistant Undersecretary for Border Crossing Affairs, which he is vacating.

Stroppy passenger An American woman who arrived at Kuwait International Airport early yesterday morning was arrested after she refused to join the queue at the Arrivals desk, shouting and abusing staff and other passengers. Officers at the scene took the woman aside and she was later taken into custody in Jleeb AlShuyoukh police station.

Kuwait marks World Hemophilia Day KUWAIT: This year, Kuwait will for the first time join the rest of the world in marking today’s World Hemophilia Day, with the 2010 event having the motto, ‘The Many Faces of Bleeding Disorders: United to Achieve Treatment for All.” “The Kuwait Hemophilia Society has been working with specialists interested in this blood disorder to put a national hemophilia management protocol in place,” explained Dr. Ahmad Al-Qallaf, the society’s general coordinator. “This protocol has gained the support of health minister Dr. Hilal Al-Sayer and will be signed in the next few weeks.”

Dr. Al-Qallaf, a specialist in internal medicine and one of the founders of the society (which is still under establishment), explained that this would be the first national protocol to be issued for the management of any disease in Kuwait by ministerial order.

“Over the past four years, we have been working to bring together specialists and patients in order raise awareness about hemophilia,” he revealed.

Listing the society’s achievements to date, he said that it is engaged in compiling a patient data registry from the lists available at the different hospitals, seeking to

ambulance rushing them to Sabah Hospital.

Abdulrazzaq and Dr. Sheikha Al-Muhareb, Hadeel Malallah, as well as two hemophiliacs, Ali and Abdullah Al-Thubairi.

Hemophilia, von Willebrand disease, and other conditions known as Factor Deficiencies are lifelong bleeding disorders that prevent blood from clotting properly.

People with bleeding disorders either do not have enough of a particular clotting factor, a protein in the blood that controls bleeding, or their own protein does not work properly.

People with hemophilia can experience uncontrolled internal bleeding that can result from even a seemingly minor injury.

Bleeding into joints and muscles causes severe pain and disability, while bleeding into major organs, such as the brain, can cause death.

The Kuwait Hemophilia Society is working closely with the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) to raise awareness of this hereditary blood condition. The WFH is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with hemophilia and related bleeding disorders.

Established in 1963, it is a global network of patient organizations in 113 countries which has official recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO). — KUNA

KUWAIT: Forty-seven Asian expatriates were arrested in a security crackdown in Jleeb AlShuyoukh on charges related to thefts from campsites in the area. All are being held in custody for questioning. — Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

KJA head accuses MP’s secretary KUWAIT: The head of the Kuwait Journalists’ Association (KHA) has strongly condemned insults directed at parliamentary editors’ committee member Nasser AlHussaini by an MP’s secretary. KJA Secretary General Faisal Al-Qinae accused MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun’s secretary of

No plans to increase power bills KUWAIT: A senior Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) official has reassured customers that the forthcoming privatization of power stations will not result in bill increases.

Mashan Al-Otaibi, the Assistant MEW Undersecretary for Planning, said that the new strategy would ultimately result in savings in energy production costs for the companies engaged to run the stations and ultimately in costs to consumers.

Al-Otaibi also pointed out that consumers will continue to deal solely with the MEW rather than with the companies contracted to build and run the new stations, reported Al-Watan.

attempting to interfere with press freedom and freedom of expression after the secretary’s unfavorable comments on statements made by Al-Hussaini in a column in local daily Alam Al-Yaum.

Al-Qinae urged the veteran parliamentarian to intervene in order to quell suspi-

cions that his secretary’s comments had been made with his blessing.

The KJA head also urged officials to respect journalists and the freedom of opinion and to avoid attempting to use pressure or influence to obstruct journalists’ freedom to express opinions.

Wataniya Telecom offers 50% discount on SMS to Syria KUWAIT: Based on its belief to reinforce its ties with all Arab and foreign communities residing in Kuwait, Wataniya Telecom announced a special promotion to all its customers on the occasion of the National Day for the Syrian republic.

The promotion includes 50% on SMS sent to Syria yesterday which falls to be its National day where Syrians celebrate the anniversary of their independence from the French occupation and gaining their own sovereignty.

Regarding the special promotion, Abdol Aziz Al-Balool PR Manager at Wataniya Telecom expressed:

Abdol Aziz Al-Balool Wataniya’s promotion comes from the desire to share with its customers their joy wherever they are, in addition to the company’s contribution to aid and facilitate easy communication with relatives and friends for a lower cost.”

The 50% discount on SMS will be valid for 24 hours from the beginning of the day on Saturday. Wataniya has offered similar promotions to other communities in Kuwait such as Bangladesh and many other countries to be able to enjoy the special promotions to stay in touch with their friends and families for half the price.

Wataniya Telecom continuously aims to provide the best and most innovative services to its customers in fine qualities. The offer reinforces Wataniya’s social responsibility towards its customers and to pave the pathway for them to keep in touch with their loved ones in Syria.

NATIONAL

Saturday, April 17, 2010

3 Arabic-German translation

Poetry Smugglers Caravan holds reading at GUST

By Hussain Al-Qatari KUWAIT: The Gulf University of Science and Technology (GUST) in cooperation with the Berlin Literature Workshop and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Kingdom of Bahrain have organized a poetry reading session in Kuwait as part of the organizations’ joint project ‘The Poetry Smugglers This one-week event is being held simultaneously in various countries of the GCC. It was launched in Manama, the capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain last Sunday, and will conclude with an awards ceremony to be held next Sunday in Muharraq, also in Bahrain.

The participants in Kuwait included Kuwaiti poet Mohammad Al-Nabhan,

Mohammad Al-Harthi from Oman, Tom Schulz and Ron Wilkner from Germany.

The event included poetry reading in both German and Arabic, as well as a short documentary presented by poet AlNabhan which shows the workshop members at work during one of their translation sessions in Berlin, Germany. The poets have all published their work in

Caravan.’ Poets from Germany and various parts of the Arab world have worked together on translating a number of poems from Arabic to German and vice versa. Out of the members’ belief that poetry is the most elevated form of art in any nation, the project is meant to fortify friendships between the Arab speaking countries and the West, and to find the similarities between the different cultures.

numerous publications across the world.

The themes discussed in the poems varied from personal intimate memories, to poems praising the rich history and culture of both Europe and the Arab world. A book that includes a collection of poems and their translations in German and Arabic was launched during the event. The poetry reading event

was attended by students, literature enthusiasts, as well as some diplomats from the Embassy of Germany, including the German Ambassador to Kuwait Dr Michael Worbs.

The humble project aims to establish intimate dialogue between the two nations, using the form of art as the main medium. The initiative was taken by Mai Mohammad Al-

Khalifa, the Minister of Culture and Media of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The organizers aim to hold similar events in this region for the future. Some of the poems discussed can be found on the workshop’s website www.lyrikline.org. For more information about the Berlin Literature Workshop, visit www.literaturewerkstatt.org.

Praise for role of Kuwaiti women

SOUSSE, Tunisia: The Arab Women Creators’ Festival in progress.

Finance minister requests KIA report after criticism

PARIS: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed AlAhmad Al-Sabah and his accompanying delegation visiting the Arab Planning Institute in Paris on Thursday.

Premier to deliver lecture at Oxford University on reforms LONDON: His Highness the Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Nasser AlMohammed Al-Ahmad AlSabah will arrive in the UK today on a visit during which he is to deliver a lecture at Oxford University’s Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, entitled ‘The Reform Agenda in a Volatile Environment: A Kuwaiti Perspective.’

The Kuwaiti Ambassador to the UK Khalid AlDuwaisan, who is also the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in London, told KUNA that HH Sheikh Nasser would be delivering the lecture at the center on Monday, explaining that the venue is one of the world’s most prestigious institutions involved in conducting academic studies related to Islam, and acting as a bridge between the Western and Islamic worlds.

Ambassador Al-Duwaisan also noted that the centre attracts elite researchers and politicians from around the world who are interested in Islamic studies and the Muslim world, adding that it is engaged in research, teaching and spreading knowledge about the Muslim world.

He further explained that the centre seeks to create a deeper understanding of

Islam and the Muslim world in non-Muslim nations.

Kuwait has been one of the center’s greatest supporters through the contributions of Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS), as directed by the late Amir Sheikh Jaber AlAhmad Al-Sabah, the ambassador continued, adding that the KFAS continues to support the centre today under the directions of its current chairman, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

Moreover, said Ambassador Al-Duwaisan, Kuwait made a substantial financial contribution to the centre’s library, which is under construction in its new building and will bear Kuwait’s name. With this new addition, the area of the library will quadruple, he revealed.

The ambassador also noted that the KFAS finances the Kuwait Chair for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the center.

The new building, showcasing classical Islamic architecture, will include a mosque with a dome, a high minaret and a large exhibition hall.

HH the Amir had recently

made a 10 million pound contribution to the center, which was presented by Kuwait’s Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr. Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, a member of the centre’s Board of Trustees, to HH Prince Charles in January.

HH Prince Charles is the honorary president of the Kuwaiti-British Friendship Committee, as well as being the center’s honorary president since its establishment in 1985.

HH Sheikh Nasser will be the first Arab premier to deliver a lecture at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

The delegation accompanying HH the Kuwaiti Premier on his visit includes Advisor at the Amir’s Office Abdulrahman Al-Ateeqi, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr. Mohammad Sabah Al-Sabah, Advisor at the Premier’s Diwan Faisal Al-Hajji, Finance Minister Mustafa AlShimali, Commerce and Industry Minister Ahmad AlHaroun and other senior government officials, as well as delegations from the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and the Kuwait Journalists’ Association (KJA). — KUNA

MP faces prosecution KUWAIT: The Public Prosecution Service has launched an investigation into a complaint lodged by the Burgan Bank against MP Faisal Al-Mislem. The bank has accused Al-Mislem of exposing confidential account information by publicly displaying personal cheques written

by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah at the National Assembly in violation of the law.

Prosecutors have reportedly already taken the testimony of former Burgan Bank chairman Tariq Abdulsalam under oath. A senior official said that the former bank head had told

officials that the bank launched an internal investigation after Al-Mislem displayed the cheque in parliament, but those conducting the investigation were unable to discover who had leaked a copy of the premier’s personal cheque to the MP. Based on this failure to uncover the culprit, the bank requested that the prosecution service take action on the issue, reported AlQabas. Abdulsalam also reportedly told the prosecution service investigators that the bank learnt about the incident in parliament through the press.

KUWAIT: Finance minister Mustafa Al-Shamali has reportedly asked the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) to prepare a detailed report, including responses to parliamentary criticisms of its performance and allegations concerning insider deals and possible excessive risk-taking.

According to a ministry insider, the minister demanded that the report also include detailed answers to comments by Audit Bureau officials on the issue.

The official said that AlShamali intends to brief the cabinet on the truth behind

MPs’ allegations against the KIA and to refer any outstanding issues to the Public Prosecution if the circumstances merit doing so.

The report may also provide an opportunity to evaluate AlShamali’s readiness to face threats of interpellation during the next parliamentary term, which he has consistently insisted are based on false information, the official suggested.

The cabinet is also set to deal with the debt of approximately KD 5 billion owed by the government to the Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS).

SOUSSE, Tunisia: Tunisia’s Minister of Culture and Protection of National Heritage Abderraouf El-Basti praised here yesterday the contributions of Kuwaiti women to the Arab cultural movement.

He said on the occasion of the 15th session of the Arab Women Creators’ Festival that kicked off here Thursday, that Kuwait achieved a great cultural alternation and a leading intellectual revival.

Tunisia is proud of the participation of Arab countries, Kuwait in particular, in the festival, he said. Participating countries include Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and

Abderraouf El-Basti Palestine. The festival will include seven panels to discuss the notion of modernity and the role of women in different areas of innovation, including literature, music, painting, sculpture, cinema, and theatre.

It will also address prospects for Arab women innovation. — KUNA

Govt firm on minimum wage KUWAIT: Labor minister Dr. Mohammad Al-Afasi has warned that the business dealings of any private sector company found not to be complying with the recently introduced minimum wage legislation will be suspended from next month.

The minister said that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) had taken the decision in order to alleviate the suffering of expatriate workers, especially those on low wages who are being exploited by some employers.

“Is it realistic for any worker to get a wage of KD 18 per month under the current living conditions?” the minister asked. “How will he get his food? Do we find this acceptable?” The minister also asserted that the MSAL will continue with implementing its

computerized system, which he said will eventually eliminate corruption there, despite the obstacles it has faced. Iqama or residency visa traders will no longer be able to operate within the new system, he continued, and it will not exclude anyone, regardless of their position. The minister further stated that the computerized system will also quickly expose fake companies and those exploiting workers’ situations, reported Al-Qabas.

Dr. Al-Afasi also revealed that the MSAL has managed to reduce the number of expatriate workers in the country by nearly 200,000 in one year alone, explaining that the ministry is working to limit the numbers of unskilled workers and others not required by the job market.

KUWAIT: A recent crackdown by municipality inspectors in Ahmadi resulted in 14 citations being issued to outlets in Abu Halifa, Fahaheel and Riqqa, mainly for health and hygiene-related violations. Ahmadi municipality director Engineer Fahad Al-Fahad has urged local shop owners to comply with municipality regulations and ensure that food items meet all the health, hygiene and safety criteria, warning that shop owners and staff who fail to do so will face legal action.

11 expats held in Farwaniya crackdown KUWAIT: Eleven expatriates were taken into police custody, while a large quantity of subsidized food items being sold illegally were confiscated, along with a number of ice cream vendors’ pushcarts, during a recent crackdown by municipality officials in Farwaniya.

The campaign in Hasawi and Jleeb AlShuyoukh, among other areas in the governorate, also resulted in 38 citations

being issued, reported Al-Anba.

Dr. Saad Al-Firdaus, the Director of Cleaning Services with the Municipality’s Farwaniya office, said that ice cream vendors’ pushcarts had been parked illegally in front of a number of schools in the area.

He also revealed that a number of unlicensed vendors had been doing door-todoor sales, adding that all such vendors had to acquire licenses before being able

to legally operate such businesses.

Dr. Al-Firdaus further revealed that a number of unlicensed roadside peddlers had been arrested near Hasawi Clinic for illegally selling large quantities of subsidized food items, which are only supposed to be sold to Kuwaiti citizens at the approved outlets.

Among the subsidized foodstuffs confiscated were milk, rice, vegetables, cook-

ing oil and tomato paste. Meanwhile, another impromptu market stall in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh was selling used electrical equipment.

The senior official warned that the municipality would continue to launch such unannounced crackdowns periodically to ensure that everyone complies with the laws, which he stressed will be strictly and equally applied to all.

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internAtiOnAL

Saturday, April 17, 2010

National partnership needed for stability in Iraq BAGHDAD: Iraq’s incumbent Shiite Muslim prime minister said the next government to be formed after an inconclusive election in March had to include the Sunnibacked coalition that won the most seats.

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who is seeking a second term, said in an interview aired yesterday it was too early for Iraq to be run by a majority government and a “national partnership government” was needed to ensure stability after years of war.

That meant the next government would be weak due to its subservience to conflicting interests, he said. “I had wished that the

(next) government would be formed on the basis of a political majority, leaving behind the quota-based system, but it seems that idea is still premature,” Maliki told the USfunded Al-Hurra television network.

“The thing we have to accept is that there must be a national partnership government. A national partnership government means all main factions making up the Iraqi community are represented in it.”

Maliki’s Shiite-led State of Law alliance came second in the March 7 vote with 89 seats in the 325-seat parliament.

The cross-sectarian Iraqiya bloc led by

former prime minister Iyad Allawi won the most seats at 91 after gaining broad backing from minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein and who are hungry to regain influence after seven years of Shi’ite political supremacy.

The results still need to be certified, a process that could yet take weeks. In the meantime, Maliki’s bloc and Iraq’s other main Shiite-dominated coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), have been inching toward a tie-up that could sideline Allawi, a secular Shiite. That could increase sectarian tensions if Sunnis feel aggrieved, at a time

when the all-out sectarian conflict that followed the 2003 US-led invasion has faded and US troops are preparing to end combat operations and withdraw.

Sunni resentment at their loss of power after Saddam’s fall helped fuel a fierce insurgency and fighting in which tens of thousands died. Negotiations over forming the next government are taking place against a backdrop of threats by Sunni Islamist insurgents seeking to reignite wholesale sectarian slaughter.

“The Iraqiya bloc represents most Sunni Arabs, therefore they must be partners in

forming the government because this element must be represented,” Maliki said.

“I fear that the next government will be weaker than the current government because all the partners in the political process are claiming ministerial positions in advance. It is an unfortunate thing,” he added. Asked about Allawi specifically, the prime minister said he had nothing against him personally. But he criticised those he believed yearned for a return to Saddam’s Baath Party-led past and who put partisan interests over national interests.

Maliki’s comments came amid growing

speculation that his chances of being reappointed prime minister are dimming.

One of the INA’s most powerful factions, anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s movement, has opposed his nomination and merger talks between the INA and Maliki’s State of Law have included discussions on an internal election to pick a prime minister, a vote that Maliki may not necessarily win.

“An alliance to form the government that only consists of two blocs and which excludes other blocs will destroy the political process and national unity,” Maliki said. — Reuters

US calls for ‘bold leadership’

Israel PM must show sincerity on peace WASHINGTON: The United States called Thursday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prove his commitment to a Palestinian state, warning that prolonged conflict only strengthened extremists. Amid US tensions with Speaking at a dinner attended by the ambassadors of Israel and several Arab states, Clinton was forthright in her demands of Netanyahu, urging Israel to “refrain from unilateral statements and actions” that could undermine peace. “Prime Minister Netanyahu has embraced the vision of the two-state solution,” Clinton said.

“But easing up on access and movement in the West Bank, in response to credible Palestinian security performance, is not sufficient to prove to the Palestinians that this embrace is sincere,” she said.

“We encourage Israel to continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza.”

Clinton warned that the long freeze in the peace process was strengthening hardliners, including Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Praising efforts by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to tackle violence, corruption and economic woes, Clinton said she feared his constituents would look to the Islamist movement Hamas if he is unable to show achievements.

“What I worry about is that the failure to act now when there are changed circumstances... will not just set us back but may

Netanyahu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged “bold leadership” from all sides to resolve one of the world’s most intractable disputes and also pressed Arab states to show they wanted to make peace.

irreversibly prevent us from going forward,” she said.

Clinton was speaking at the dedication of a Center for Middle East Peace named after US entrepreneur Danny Abraham, a longtime advocate for Israeli peace efforts who created the Slim-Fast dieting drink.

President Barack Obama’s administration has vowed to remain steadfast in US support for Israel but has also pushed to resolve the Middle East conflict, saying it was a vital interest for the United States.

Clinton said that when she was first lady in the 1990s, the Middle East was rarely a top issue on travels to far-flung parts of the world. “Now it is the first, second or third item on nearly every agenda of every country I visit,” she said.

On a visit to Israel last month, Vice President Joe Biden was said to have argued that Middle East peace would help improve the safety of the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Biden’s trip turned into a fiasco when Israeli officials announced plans to build 1,600 Jewish settlements in annexed east Jerusalem while he was still on the visit.

Clinton later called the Israeli move “insulting.” The Obama administration has come under harsh attack by some of Israel’s US supporters, who say that the United States is putting the Jewish state at risk.

Representative Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, said the White House “has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations.”

“It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration,” said Cantor, the only Jewish House member from the minority party.

Cantor accused the Obama administration of “manufacturing fights with Israel to ingratiate itself with some in the Arab world.”

“By confusing the firefighter with the arsonist we only dilute our moral standing on the world stage,” Cantor said.

Clinton in her speech also pressed the Arab world, calling on the Palestinian Authority to increase efforts against antiIsraeli “incitement and violence” and for Arab leaders to do more to reconcile with Israel.

She called for “action, not just rhetoric” on the so-called Arab Peace Initiative in which Arab states agreed in general terms to normalize ties with Israel in return for its withdrawal from Palestinian lands.

“If the Arab Peace Initiative is indeed the genuine offer it appears to be, we should not face threats by certain Arab states that it will be ‘taken off the table’ each time there is a setback,” Clinton said. — AFP

Syria plans to nominate Bosra city as world wonder

NAIROBI: Sudanese election official hold a ballot at the start of counting votes of Sudanese living in the Kenyan capital Nairobi yesterday. Sudan’s first multiparty presidential, parliamentary and local elections in 24 years, which began last Sunday, were marred by allegations of fraud and boycotts, and have now raised concerns of new unrest. — AP

Kidnapped peacekeepers make contact in Sudan KHARTOUM: Four kidnapped South African peacekeepers have made their first contact with their mission in Sudan’s Darfur region, a force spokesman said yesterday.

“Now we have proof of life,” said Noureddine Mezni, spokesman of the largest UNfunded peacekeeping mission in the world (UNAMID). “We were able to talk to our colleagues, all four of them, and they are fine.”

The two men and two women were taken from just outside Darfur’s largest town Nyala five days ago, and a group purporting to be their captors told Reuters they were demanding a ransom of around $450,000.

A wave of kidnappings of foreign nationals in Sudan’s west has restricted aid operations to the more than 4 million people affected by the rebellion in the vast desert region, mostly by young armed men demanding money.

Reports from tribal leaders of money exchanging hands has fuelled the abductions, although the government denies paying any cash to the kidnappers.

Last month the last foreign hostage was freed. Red Cross worker Gauthier Lefevre was the longest-held hostage, spending 147 days in captivity before being rescued by Sudanese security forces.

Sudan said it had arrested one

member of the “criminal gangs” who abducted Lefevre but most remain at large.

Mezni said they had not had a request for ransom but that the mission’s policy was not to pay.

The kidnappings began last year after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of masterminding war crimes in Darfur.

Bashir dismisses the court, calling it a colonial conspiracy.

The western Darfur region has been troubled by seven years of conflict, pitting mostly nonArab rebels against Sudan government forces and allied militias. —- Reuters

DAMASCUS: Syria is planning to nominate the historical site of Bosra, with its rich multicultural heritage, as one of the World Wonders, said the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums yesterday.

Due to the variety of timehonored Islamic and Christian sites installed at Bosra such as the famous castle of Bosra, churches and mosques, Syria decided to nominate the site, sources in the directorate told KUNA. Monuments such as the Tarjan castle constructed in the second history, underground market, the Roman theater which had room for with room for about 15,000 spectators are all found in Bosra, it said.

One of the famous sites of the Byzantine era is the Monastery of Bahira, the Christian monk who to foretold Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) who was passing through the city during his travels from Mecca to the Levant that he will be the next prophet, it said.

Byzantine cathedral which became the standard for churches in Constantinople and Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock) is yet another Christian monument, it said.

As for Islamic historical sites, Al-Omari Mosque founded in the reign of Caliph Omar bin Al-Khattab in 634-644 AD is one of the city’s landmarks; however, the minaret was build

by Caliph Yazid II in 720-724 AD and the mosque was renovated by Caliph Marwan II, it said.

Meanwhile, the city located 140 kilometer off Damascus was first established by Nabataeans and was then the capital of the Arabian Peninsula province governed by Roman Empire and became the impregnable fort of eastern Jordan.

It thrived in reign of Marcus Julius Philippus - known in English as Philip the Arab who was conceived in the city of Bosra and it became an important Christian site in forth century. — KUNA

GAZA STRIP: Palestinians take cover from shots fired by Israeli troops as they try to reach the body of Palestinian militant Mohammed Salim, 24, near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, yesterday. Israeli troops killed Salim along the border fence between Israel and the Hamas-controled Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. — AP

Palestinian shot dead in Gaza GAZA CITY: Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant yesterday along the border fence between Israel and the Hamascontrolled Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

The military said troops spotted the gunman early yesterday as he planted a bomb along the fence, a tactic used often by Gaza militants.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry confirmed that a militant was killed by Israeli troops, and AP Television News footage showed medics searching the dry grass near the fence for the man’s body before loading it onto a red stretcher.

None of Gaza’s militant factions immediately claimed the militant as its member.

Palestinian rocket attacks

and violence along the GazaIsrael border have dropped since Israel’s devastating offensive in the Palestinian territory ended in early 2009. But some attacks have continued. They are usually claimed by small militant factions and not by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who have been trying to rein in violence to avoid provoking an Israeli response.

Also yesterday, Palestinian residents and the Israeli military said Jewish settlers vandalized property overnight in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. The incident took place in the village of Jen Safout, where 34-year-old Abdullah Anash said three settlers entered the village and burned his car and that of a neighbor.

APTN footage showed two burned cars and a wall spraypainted with the words “price tag” in Hebrew _ a reference to a radical settler tactic of harming Palestinian property to protest Israeli government policy. The Israeli military condemned the incident Friday and said police would investigate.

About 300,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

While the Islamic militants of Hamas control Gaza, the West Bank is home to a Western-backed Palestinian government that wields limited power in the Israeli-controlled territory.

Meanwhile, Palestinian residents and the Israeli military

say Jewish settlers vandalized property overnight in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. The incident took place in the village of Jen Safout, where 34-year-old Abdullah Anash says three settlers entered the village and burned his car and that of a neighbor.

TV footage showed two burned cars and a wall spraypainted with the words ?price tag? in Hebrew _ a reference to a radical settler tactic of harming Palestinian property to protest Israeli government policy. The Israeli military condemned the incident Friday and said police would investigate.

About 300,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. — AP

BEIRUT: Lebanese army troops intervene as residents of southern Lebanon, some holding up national flags, try to dismantle a barbed wire fence set up by Israel in a disputed border area in the Lebanese village of Abbassiyeh yesterday. Israeli troops had set up the fence three days ago near the Blue Line in a move described by the Lebanese army as a violation of Lebanon’s territory, but a UN peacekeeping force stationed in southern Lebanon said it had no evidence Israeli troops had crossed the Blue Line, a UN-drawn border separating Israel from Lebanon. —AFP

Lebanese tear down Israeli barbed wire AABASIYA, Lebanon: Residents of southern Lebanon yesterday dismantled a barbed wire fence set up by Israeli troops in a disputed border area earlier this week, a military spokesman said.

“The residents have taken down the barbed wire near the village of Aabasiya, which Lebanon considers part of its territory,” the spokesman said.

Israeli troops set up the fence on Tuesday near the Blue Line, in what the Lebanese army claims was a violation of Lebanese territory.

But officials of the UN peacekeeping force stationed in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) say they have no evidence that Israeli troops crossed the Blue Line, a UN-

drawn border separating Israel from Lebanon.

Dozens of Lebanese, led by MP Qassem Hashem, marched into Aabasiya near the disputed area of Ghajar at the Lebanese border with Syria and Israel and tore down the fence, an AFP correspondent said.

Two Israeli tanks and dozens of soldiers immediately arrived at the border as Lebanese troops went on alert across the Blue Line, which was established after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000 following a 22-year presence.

Lebanon on Tuesday filed a complaint to the UN Security Council accusing Israeli troops of crossing into its territory at the

weekend near the Wazzani river, close to Aabasiya.

The Lebanese army on Sunday said 11 Israeli soldiers had crossed into Lebanese territory and dismantled a bulldozer at a construction site near the Wazzani.

UNIFIL said that it only had evidence of Israeli troops crossing the technical fence but not the Blue Line.

Israel and Shiite militant group Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006 that destroyed much of southern Lebanon, largely considered a Hezbollah stronghold.

There are persistent fears another conflict may be brewing amid a constant war of words between the militant group and Israel. — AFP

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INTERNATIONAL

Saturday, April 17, 2010

A never-ending wait for justice in Philippine jail MANILA: Jerry Ballento entered the brutal Philippine prison system when he was just 17 after being accused of robbery and homicide. Eight years later, he is wasting away at the infamous Manila City Jail, as his seemingly endless trial continues.

“It does not matter anymore. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I am paying for it,” Ballento said as he fought for space to take an afternoon nap on the grimy floor of cell block number five.

“I have long given up hope of ever walking free.”

Ballento said that counting against him is the fact that he cannot afford a full-time lawyer and that his family appears to have deserted him-including an uncle who is a police general.

He said he only had a hazy recollection of the crime for which he is accused. What he remembers is that he was drinking with friends on a hot summer night, and somehow ended up robbing a man.

Police say the victim later turned up dead on a

garbage-littered Manila alley. At the time he was jailed, Ballento was not a gang member, knew little about the criminal underworld, and was not even “markado”-a prison term for men with gang tattoos.

He now has a thriving underground livelihood selling cigarettes to fellow inmates, whom he said had become his closest friends.

At 25, Ballento looks about twice his age, his wiry frame bearing scars of untold prison fights. “You have to do everything to survive, including becoming a member of a criminal gang,” Ballento told an AFP reporter who was allowed a rare trip inside the facility.

More than 200 are crammed inside cell block five, where the only source of ventilation is the barred window. A putrid smell wafts from a stagnant moat separating the block from a high wall, which stands opposite a warren of shanties.

From inside, one can see the city’s overhead railway system and hear the bustle of city life.

Originally built in the 1890s during Spanish colonial times and used to house prisoners of war during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the city jail and its facilities have been in a constant state of disrepair.

The 1.2-hectare (three-acre) facility has also become a symbol of the government’s overburdened judicial system.

Many inmates such as Ballento end up serving more time while on trial than the actual penalty for the crimes that they have been charged with.

About 95 percent of all inmates here are still undergoing trial for various crimes, and the majority of them have been inside for years living in squalid conditions.

The jail was designed to hold a maximum of 1,000 inmates, but now houses more than four times that number, according to prison wardens.

Those whose families have money to spend can pay for a cot and tiny space separated from others by wooden walls. Most however are poor, and have to

sleep on the hard, dirty floor with only sacks or newspapers to protect their backs.

The cell blocks resemble poorly lit dungeons. They turn into virtual ovens by day, and the blistering heat causes a steady outbreak of diseases, including tuberculosis, boils and other infections.

At cell block number five, a huge crucifix stands in the shadows so inmates can pray. But officials say chances of rehabilitation are nil, with the guard-toinmate ratio running at one to 50.

“We cannot implement inmate welfare and reform programmes,” Rosendo Dial, director of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, which supervises city and municipal jails, told AFP. “We do provide them with basic health services, recreation, but only limited because it’s too overcrowded. We also have an alternative learning system, but they won’t be able to learn anything because how can you teach when its too crowded and noisy? They

end up not learning anything.”

Dial said he had launched a programme to trim the prison population that involved providing poor inmates with legal help to speed up their trials.

A team of paralegal officers aided by law students have been asked to sift through a pile of cases gathering dust at a small room at the city jail, leading to some releases in the past months, he said.

But Dial admitted this did little to address the bigger issue. “We take in an average of three inmates a day-they can’t afford bail, they don’t have lawyers and public attorneys are also all stretched,” he said.

And the fear is that overcrowded prisons are becoming breeding grounds for master criminals, instead of places for reform. “These inmates, they enter the prison system with only a bachelor’s degree in crime. You go inside, and once you’re out-if you’re lucky-you already have a doctorate,” Dial said. “You learn everything in jail.” — AFP

UN panel presents report

Pakistan under pressure to probe Bhutto murder UNITED NATIONS: Pak ista ni a uthorities could have prevented the 2007 m urder of ex-prem ier Bena zir Bhutto a nd deliberately failed to properly investigate her dea th, a UN-a ppointed independent panel sa id. “Ms Bhutto’s a ssa ssination could have been prevented if a dequa te security mea sures ha d been ta ken,” said a report out Thursda y by a three-m em ber pa nel hea ded by Chile’s

MANILA: Presidential candidate Sen Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III autographs the shirt of a supporter during his campaign sortie at Lucena city, Quezon province south of Manila yesterday. Aquino III is leading in latest surveys among the nine presidential candidates for the country’s first automated national elections on May 10. — AP

Fonseka to be convicted next week COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s detained ex-army chief and opposition leader Sarath Fonseka is likely to be convicted early next week to prevent him appearing in parliament, his party said yesterday.

Fonseka, who won a seat in parliament while in custody, is in custody in the capital Colombo and faces a court martial.

He is charged with entering politics while in uniform and making irregular army procurements, in a process that began on March 16 and will continue on Monday.

“We strongly suspect that a court martial called for Monday will convict him before Thursday and block him from attending parliament,” spokesman for Fonseka’s Democratic National Alliance,

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, said.

The party had requested that Fonseka attend parliament as his first outing from his detention cell since he was arrested on February 8, just 12 days after he lost to incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse at presidential elections.

“We maintain that the courts martial against General Fonseka are illegal,” Dissanayake said, adding that the military judges were disciplined by Fonseka when he was the army commander and would therefore be biased against him.

Dissanayake said they believed the government would try to prevent Fonseka using the floor of the legislature to speak out against his incarceration and an alleged

political vendetta against him.

Fonseka’s wife, Anoma, told reporters in Colombo yesterday that the former army general’s health had deteriorated while being confined to a poorly-ventilated room at the naval headquarters in Colombo.

Fonseka, who led the military to victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels last year, denies all the charges against him and says they are part of a smear campaign to keep him out of politics.

Rajapakse has been accused by political opponents and international rights groups of suppressing dissent since his resounding re-election. Fonseka entered politics after quitting the military in November. — AFP

Benazir Bhutto ordered and executed this heinous crime... and brings those responsible to justice.”

Munoz told reporters that the UN probe, which began last July, was not a criminal investigation.

He said his panel conducted more than 250 interviews, meeting Pakistani officials and private citizens, foreign citizens with knowledge of the events, and members of Britain’s Scotland Yard who probed some aspects of the killing.

Bhutto’s supporters cast doubt on an initial Pakistani probe into her death, questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast and criticizing authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes.

According to Scotland Yard’s inquiry, Bhutto died from the force of a suicide bomb and not gunfire.

The UN report, which was requested by Zardari’s political party, was turned over to UN chief Ban Ki-moon earlier Thursday.

The panel-which also included Indonesian former attorney general Marzuki Darusman and Peter Fitzgerald, an Irish ex-police officialurged Pakistani authorities to make sure that further investigation into the Bhutto assassination “is fully empowered and resourced and is conducted expeditiously and comprehensively, at all levels, without hindrance.”

The UN report was unveiled following a two-week delay requested by Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who wanted input from former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Saudi Arabia included.

In Islamabad, a spokesman for president Zardari said yesterday that the government will give its reaction after studying the report.

“We are reading the report and a detailed reaction would be given after it,” Farhatullah Babar told AFP. State television quoted Babar as saying the government “is not oblivious to its duties and it is investigating the murder of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.” Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Nawaz, interior minister when Bhutto was assassinated, refused to comment. “I cannot comment on the UN report because the matter is sub-judice,” Nawaz said. — AFP

Briton arrested over terrorism allegations

Japan voters unhappy over funding scandals TOKYO: Japan could hold a general election if Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigns ahead of an election for the less powerful upper house of parliament this year, Jiji news agency quoted a cabinet minister as saying yesterday.

The remarks by national strategy minister Yoshito Sengoku come as Hatoyama’s support rates nosedive, hit by financial scandals in his ruling Democratic Party and criticism of his handling of a row with Washington over a US Marine base.

Some, even within Hatoyama’s own party, say he may have to resign if he fails to find an acceptable new location for the Futenma base by the end of May as he has repeatedly promised.

Sengoku said the two elections could be held on the same day, Jiji said. The upper house poll is expected in July or August.

“There is a chance of a double (election). In fact logically speaking that is the way it would go,” Jiji quoted Sengoku as saying in a television interview.

Support for Hatoyama’s government sank to 23.7 percent in a poll published by Jiji news agency yesterday.

The Democrats’ fading chances of an outright win in the upper house election raise the possibility of a rejigged coalition or even a fullfledged realignment of loyalties on the increasingly fragmented political scene.

Some analysts say starting over with a new leader would give the party a better chance of an upper house majority.

Voters have been disillusioned by financial scandals enveloping the party’s No.2 executive Ichiro Ozawa and other Democrats, and by Hatoyama’s perceived lack of leadership on a range of issues. — Reuters

The charismatic, Oxford-educated Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed on Dec 27, 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.

Her death threw the world’s only nucleararmed Islamic nation into chaos, sparking violence and months of political turmoil that ended in September 2008 when her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, claimed the presidency.

The Munoz-led panel said in its 65-page report that the federal government, the government of Punjab and the Rawalpindi district police were responsible for Bhutto’s security the day of her assassination.

“None of these entities took the necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh, urgent security risks that they knew she faced,” it added.

It noted that the Pakistani government failed to provide Bhutto with the same stringent and specific security measures it ordered on October 22, 2007 for two other former prime ministers belonging to the main political party supporting then-president Pervez Musharraf.

“This discriminatory treatment is profoundly troubling given the devastating attempt on her life only three days earlier and the specific threats against her which were being tracked” by Pakistani intelligence.

The report said the subsequent Pakistani probe “lacked direction, was ineffective and suffered from a lack of commitment to identify and bring all of the perpetrators to justice.”

It added that it was up to Pakistani authorities to carry out a “serious, credible criminal investigation that determines who conceived,

UN am ba ssador Hera ldo Munoz. The pa nel, ta sked w ith esta blishing the circumsta nces of the killing, sa id it believed the Pak istani police’s fa ilure to effectively probe the sla ying “w a s delibera te.” The report a lso sa id the investiga tion w as severely ham pered by intelligence a gencies a nd other officia ls w ho im peded “a n unfettered sea rch for the truth.”

DHAKA: Bangladeshi police have arrested a Bangladeshi-born British citizen wanted in London on allegations of financing Islamist groups, Dhaka’s police chief said yesterday.

Golam Mostafa, who police say has links to a number of South Asian militant groups, was arrested late Thursday in the northwestern district of Sylhet, A.K.M. Shahidul Haq said.

“Mostafa is wanted in London under the Terrorist Financing Act as they found he had been collecting money for the Afghan Mujahedeen and for Bangladeshi militants,” Haq said.

The Bangladeshi-born 45-year-old fought in the Afghan war alongside the mujahedeen against Soviet forces, Haq said, adding that Mostafa had been under surveillance for years and his Dhaka house was raided in 2007.

The Bangladeshi police believe he is also the head of the British arm of banned Pakistanbased militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI).

The information used to arrest Mostafa was provided by two recently detained suspected militant financiers: a Bangladeshi-born British citizen Faisal Mostafa, and the founder of HuJI

China quake survivors desperately await help KOLKATTA: Indian boys collect unripened mangoes from an uprooted tree that had fallen due to a sudden hailstorm in a field in Malda, some 350 km north of Kolkata yesterday. Farmers suspect a major loss of mango production will result following a strong hailstorm which hit the city late Thursday, resulting in hundreds of mango trees being uprooted. — AFP

Victims of thunderstorm on the rampage in India KOLKATA: Anger at the slow pace of relief efforts in storm-ravaged northeast India boiled over yesterday as destitute and hungry locals attacked officials and looted an aid depot, a minister said.

A violent thunderstorm and tornado ravaged hundreds of thousands of mud and tin-roofed homes and killed more than 130 people on Tuesday night when it tore across several northeastern states of India and neighboring Bangladesh.

Efforts to send food aid and shelter have been frustrated by uprooted trees blocking highways and downed power lines in the worst-hit Indian states of West Bengal and Bihar, some of the poorest parts of the country.

Riot police were deployed in Karandighi and

Hematabad villages in northern West Bengal yesterday where protests turned violent, a senior office said.

“Thousands of villagers staged angry protests in front of government offices demanding more relief materials and assaulted officials when they came to open the offices,” West Bengal relief minister Mortaza Hossain said.

“Even some protesters scaled the boundary wall of a civic body office in Karandighi, one of the worst affected villages, broke open the godown (storage area) and looted tarpaulin sheets and other relief materials.”

Jabbar Sheikh, a resident of Karandighi, told AFP by telephone: “Villagers are angry as the relief material is very inadequate and in places no relief has reached as yet.” —- AFP

JIEGU, China: Hungry and dazed survivors of China’s earthquake waited desperately for a relief response to kick in yesterday as the government rushed supplies to the isolated area high on the Tibetan plateau.

Preparations were under way for the cremation of hundreds of victims of the disaster, which killed at least 791 people, as concern turned toward possible disease outbreaks in the stricken town of Jiegu in Qinghai province.

An AFP journalist saw the bodies of 600 people laid out on the floor of a warehouse-like structure at the main Tibetan Buddhist monastery overlooking the town, with locals saying they were to be cremated beginning Saturday morning.

The wail of sirens and stench of death filled the air as relief vehicles thundered through the hard-hit town in Yushu county near the epicentre of Wednesday’s quake.

Thousands of survivors of the 6.9 magnitude earthquake waited for large-scale shipments of food and other aid after spending two freezing and hungry nights without food or shelter.

“I have lost everything,” a distraught ethnic Tibetan woman who gave her name as Sonaman told AFP. Wandering the streets with her

four-year-old nephew tucked under her coat, Sonaman, 52, said through tears that her mother, father, and sister had died.

“My house has been destroyed.

It’s been flattened. My family lost 10 people. We have nothing. We have nothing to eat.”

The death toll looked set to climb with another 300 people feared trapped under rubble as Premier Wen Jiabao called for allout efforts to find survivors in a tour of the area Friday.

“We will make all-out efforts to build a new Yushu,” Wen told victims, according to official Xinhua news agency, a day after urging rescuers to step up search efforts.

The quake flattened thousands of the mud and wood homes inhabited by ethnic Tibetans, who make up more than 90 percent of the region’s people, and also heavily damaged sturdier concrete structures such as schools.

State media said the dead included 103 students and 12 teachers as schools and dormitories collapsed, with dozens more buried or missing.

The casualties recalled the devastating 2008 earthquake in neighboring Sichuan province, in which thousands of students were among the 87,000 killed or missing in that disaster amid allegations shoddy construction was to blame.—AFP

Bangladesh, Mufti Abdus Salam, Haq said.

Salam now claims to have renounced militancy, left HuJI and founded the Islamic Democratic Party with the aim of competing in Bangladesh elections, although the country’s election commission refused to allow him to register.

Faisal, 45, who owned the Britain-based Green Crescent charity, was arrested in Bangladesh in April 2009 after police raided a Islamic school, or madrassa, on the remote southern island of Bhola, which was run by the charity. — AFP

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

British bishop fined in Germany for Holocaust denial

REGENSBURG, Germany: Renegade British Catholic bishop Richard Williamson was fined 10,000 euros ($13,500) by a German court yesterday for Holocaust denial in a case that has deeply embarrassed the Vatican.

The court in this southern German city convicted Williamson, 70, of inciting racial hatred for stating in a television interview aired in January 2009 that only “200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps”.

He also denied the Nazis had used gas chambers. “The statements by the accused represent a denial of the actions taken under the National Socialist regime,” said presiding judge Karin Frahm.

“Bishop Williamson must have assumed that his remarks would draw attention.

Williamson knowingly accepted that attention.”

The high-profile proceedings opened Friday without Williamson after his breakaway ultra-conservative Catholic fraternity

ordered him not to testify, but he acknowledged the offending comments in a statement read in court.

Williamson gave the interview to a Swedish television crew in Regensburg so Frahm ruled that Germany’s strict laws against disputing the Nazis’ slaughter of six million Jews during World War II applied to him.

He was fined 12,000 euros earlier this year over the same case but refused to pay, prompting the new trial.

The Saint Pius X Society, a Swiss-based Catholic fraternity, appointed Williamson a bishop without the pope’s blessing after it broke away from Rome over the Vatican II reforms introduced in 1965.

Among the reforms rejected by the organisation was a declaration, Nostra Aetate, which ended a Church doctrine by which the Jews were held responsible for killing Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI unleashed a deluge of criticism last year for reversing the excom-

munication of Williamson and three other Saint Pius X Society bishops in a bid to bridge the rift with the fraternity.

Williamson’s interview, given in Regensburg in November 2008, was broadcast in January 2009, the day after the papal decree lifting his excommunication but two days before the pope’s decision was made public.

The bishop had also made similar assertions in the past, dismissing records of millions killed in gas chambers as “lies, lies,

lies”.

The case prompted a rare comment on religious matters by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called on Pope Benedict to “clarify unambiguously that there can be no denial” the Nazis killed six million Jews.

The German pope later admitted mistakes in his handling of the case, saying he was unaware of Williamson’s latest remarks and stressed that it was “intolerable” to dispute the facts of the Holocaust. — AFP

Poland funeral to go ahead despite cloud Air traffic disrupted WARSAW: Poland pushed ahead yesterday with plans for the weekend funeral of president Lech Kaczynski despite a volcanic ash cloud that has disrupted air traffic and threatens the arrival of foreign leaders. Authorities had earlier warned they could delay Sunday’s ceremony after the ash from Iceland’s volcano eruption forced Poland to close most of its

airspace and shut the airport in Krakow, where US President Barack Obama and other heads of state are due to land. “The will of the family is that in no circumstances should the date of the funeral ceremonies be changed, and that they should go ahead as planned,” presidential aide Jacek Sasin told reporters.

Kaczynski and 95 other people, mainly senior Polish dignitaries, were killed Saturday when his government jet crashed in thick fog in western Russia while taking a delegation to a memorial service for a World War II massacre.

“Respect for the dead and for all those involved in the preparations does not allow for any change,” Sasin added.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among a host of other national leaders who are due to attend the funeral in Krakow’s historic Wawel castle.

Britain’s Prince Charles and Vatican envoy Cardinal Anglo Sodano are also on the list.

No dignitaries have so far cancelled their plans to attend, despite the huge travel disrupFRANKFURT: Passengers queue in a terminal at Germany’s largest airport tion caused by the eruption of in Frankfurt yesterday. The airport was closed due to a cloud of volcanic ash the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, which covered the skies in the upper atmosphere above much of Europe, emanating from a volcanic of northern Europe Thursday. eruption Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland. —AP Poland’s aviation agency said that the country’s airspace would be closed from 8:00 am (0600 GMT) until further notice.

It initially said Krakow and Rzeszow airports, both in the south, would remain open.

But Krakow-where some 80 planes carrying foreign digniFAMAGUSTA, Cyprus: The frontrunner in with broad autonomy for the two zones, but an taries are scheduled to land on Turkish Cypriot polls said he would demand broad effective central administration.

Sunday morning for the funeralAny secessionist proposals are a red flag for sovereign powers in settlement talks with Greek was shut down later Friday, Cypriots and ruled out any Greek Cypriot return Greek Cypriots, who represent Cyprus in the EU spokeswoman Justyna to land now held by Turks-a stance that could bury and will bar Turkey from joining the bloc until the Zajaczkowska said. conflict is resolved. hopes for a deal.

“Two days is a distant perEroglu said one of his own “red lines” is the Dervis Eroglu, a staunch backer of indepenspective in terms of weather dence for Turkish Cypriots, told Reuters in an return of Greek Cypriots to their former homes forecasts, we must wait to have interview late on Thursday he would resume talks and business in the north. further information,” “I don’t want our people to be migrants again ... to reunify the island because a settlement would Zajaczkowska told private teleallow northern Cyprus’s integration into the It needs to be Turkish Cypriots living in the north vision. and Greek Cypriots in the south. The territory on European Union.

“For the time being, regardResolving the 35-year dispute between Greek both sides is enough for each people,” he said, less of the information about the and Turkish Cypriots is crucial to Turkey’s own adding he opposed any expulsion of mainland (volcanic) cloud, we are doing Turks who have moved to the island since 1974 in bid to enter the EU. everything to be ready” for the “If a new structure is formed...it will be a part- a deal. arrival of the funeral guests, she Turkish Cypriots belong in the EU, whether nership between equal, sovereign peoples,” said.

Eroglu said. “If Turkish Cypriots will be tied to with Greek Cypriots or Turkey, he said. “The reaPresidential aide Sasin had that state (a united Cypriot state), this is not a set- son why we are seeking an agreement is because earlier said postponing the tlement. This means the end of the Turkish we need an agreement to enter the EU.” funeral was a “very serious Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s govCypriot people.” alternative which must be taken Opinion polls suggest Eroglu will sweep to vic- ernment has backed Talat’s efforts to end the into consideration.” tory in the April 18 presidential election. Cyprus stalemate on the Mediterranean island. If elected, A memorial service for all President Demetris Christofias, the chief Greek Ergolu said he would seek support from the govthe crash victims is also being Cypriot negotiator, has said an Eroglu win may ernment in Turkey, which he called the “motherheld on Saturday in Warsaw, in a land.” Eroglu, who currently serves as Turkish halt peace efforts. square that was the location for Eroglu’s support for separate sovereignty is at Cypriot prime minister, leads with 55 percent of the vast masses celebrated by odds with the basis of peace talks between his the vote to Talat’s 41 percent, according to a poll late Polish pope John Paul II on rival and incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat. At these last week by research firm Kadem. About pilgrimages to his deeply talks, Talat and Christofias have agreed, in princi- 164,000 people are eligible to vote in northern Catholic homeland. ple, that Cyprus should have a single sovereignty Cyprus. — AFP The decision to hold Sunday’s funeral for Kaczynski and his wife Maria at Wawel castle, where the country’s past kings and national heroes are laid to rest, has sparked protests and a Facebook campaign.

Kaczynski was a divisive political figure in life due to his conservative, nationalist policies.

The row fractured the sense of national unity at the loss of the president and senior figures including Poland’s four top military commanders and the governor of the central bank.

Russian investigators were set to finish inspecting the crash site near the city of Smolensk on Friday, the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Investigators said Thursday that pilot error was suspected in the crash, following the first analysis of the jet’s black box flight recorders.

Polish authorities said the recordings showed that the crew knew they were doomed after hitting trees while trying to land.

Kaczynski’s delegation had been headed to a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of NICOSIA: People visit the Arasta Street Bazaar in Nicosia yesterday. the Katyn massacre, when thouWhoever emerges victorious from this weekend’s election in the self-pro- sands of Polish officers were claimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ankara’s writ will still hold slaughtered by the Soviets during World War II. — AFP sway in the breakaway statelet, analysts believe. —AFP

Turkish Cypriot frontrunner to resume settlement talks

SAN DIEGO: First Lady Michelle Obama with students from a local community group during a visit in San Diego on Thursday.—AFP

Health care rights for gay partners WASHINGTON: In a move hailed as a step toward fairness for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama is ordering that nearly all hospitals allow patients to say who has visitation rights and who can help make medical decisions, including gay and lesbian partners.

The White House on Thursday released a statement by Obama instructing his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive US funds for elderly or needy patients to clarify patients’ rights. The move was called a major step toward fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. It said hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients _ which include most of the nation’s facilities _ may not deny visitation and consultation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Medicare is the US health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid is the government health care program for the needy.

The designated visitors should have the same rights that immediate family members now enjoy, Obama’s instructions said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “a critical step in ending discrimination” against same-sex couples and other gay people.

Some gay advocacy groups say Obama has moved too slowly to fulfill campaign promises to expand their civil rights. The nation’s top military leaders recently said it is time to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that has kept gays from serving openly in the armed services.

Still, the Human Rights Campaign, which backs gay rights, called Obama’s decision an “important action” that was inspired in part

by a New York Times article about a lesbian couple in Miami.

They were kept apart while one lay dying in a hospital despite having an “advanced health care directive” asking for full visitation rights for each other.

In his statement, Obama said: “Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides - whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay.

Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend.”

He added: “Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives - unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.” — AP

US lawmaker hits hard at France-Russia warship deal

NAIROBI: A passenger train makes its way past makeshift homes, as vendors line the track to sell goods, in the Kibera slum in Nairobi yesterday. An estimated 50,000 people who live alongside Kenya’s railway lines could be evicted and have their homes destroyed after the government-owned railway company gave the squatters 30 days to move, a community organizer said. —AP

To fight pirate scourge, follow the money: US

WASHINGTON: International efforts against pirates off the Horn of Africa need to target the money extorted from commercial ships, a senior US Navy officer said on Thursday.

“We have to go after the money,” Admiral Mark Fitzgerald told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

Somalis enriched by banditry off the coast are buying up properties in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and in Mombasa, as well as in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, said Fitzgerald, commander of US naval forces in Europe and Africa.

“So it’s not a surprise where this money is going,” he said.

He said it was unrealistic to expect a stable government in Somalia to emerge any time soon, and that governments should instead organize a joint campaign to crack down on the financiers and the logistical supply network for the pirates.

“I think some progress is being made here but I think we need a more international effort on that,” he said.

The cost of skiffs, outboard motors and fuel have “gone up exponentially in countries like Yemen,” where the pirates get much of their supplies, he said.

Efforts to track finances need not be US-led, but should be placed under an international “framework,” he said, pointing to the United Nations or the European Union.

And he cautioned that countering piracy in the Indian Ocean with naval patrols, like those carried out by the US military and an array of governments,

would not ultimately fix the problem.

“We could put fleets of ships out there, we could put a World War II fleet of ships out there and we still wouldn’t be able to cover the whole ocean,” he said.

“So this problem is not going to go away until we go after the root causes.”

The admiral also said the United States had yet to decide the legal fate of five suspected pirates captured earlier this month near the Seychelles.

The men were detained after opening fire from a skiff on the missile-guided frigate USS Nicholas, which returned fire and quickly chased down the small boat. The US State Department and Justice Department were reviewing the case, including evidence seized by the navy crew and photographs of the skiff firing on the American warship, he said.

Kenya is no longer willing to take into custody pirate suspects detained by international navies off the coast, but US officials were approaching other countries, he added.

Pirates are often detained and then let go days later by foreign navies patrolling the region.

“Catch and release is not a very good option,” he said. The end of the winter monsoon in the region has spurred a fresh spate of attacks by pirates able to venture hundreds of miles (kilometers) from their bases and approach their prey on relatively calm seas.

Armed with AK-47s, GPS navigation and satellite phones, pirates raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in ransoms last year. — AFP

WASHINGTON: France should abandon its proposed sale of four advanced warships to Russia, which could inflict “irreparable damage” on NATO and transatlantic ties, a top US lawmaker warned yesterday.

“This sale threatens to shake the NATO alliance to its core, bolstering Russia’s offensive military capabilities as it intensifies its campaign of intimidation against neighboring countries,” said Representative Ileana RosLehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Writing in The Hill, a newspaper focused on the US Congress, the Florida lawmaker urged her colleagues to back a non-binding resolution she authored declaring “unequivocal opposition” to the transaction.

“By going through with its proposed sale of Mistral ships to Russia, France risks causing irreparable damage to the NATO alliance and the trans-Atlantic relationship,” she wrote.

“Empowering Russia with such capabilities blatantly undermines the security of those NATO allies that are withstanding Russia’s policies of intimidation and outright aggression,” she said.

France announced in March that it had entered into “exclusive” talks with Russia on the sale of the four Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, capable of carrying up to 16 helicopters and a 750-strong landing force.

If the deal goes through, it would be the first sale of advanced military technology by a NATO country to Russia.

France has argued that Russia must be treated like a partner and not a threat in Europe, but it has been unable to alleviate deep misgivings from the Baltic countries, Georgia and also the United States over the sale. —AFP

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Agreement to cut refinancing costs

Qatar’s Qtel to sign $2bn refinancing deal: Bankers MUMBAI: Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO of automobile giants Renault and Nissan (right) and Anand Mahindra, Managing Director of Indian automobile major Mahindra and Mahindra pose with the Logan car at its launch in Mumbai. — AFP

Renault exits Indian car alliance with Mahindra MUMBAI: Renault has pulled out of a joint venture with Indian car manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra which produced its first car for the growing South Asian market, the Logan, the companies announced yesterday.

The Logan was launched in 2007 by the joint venture-51-percent owned by Mahindra-but its sales have struggled since amid criticism by some car experts of its boxy, dated design and fierce competition.

“The parties have in principle agreed that M and M will take over the operations of the company,” the companies said in a statement which did not say how much the stake had been sold for by Renault.

The Logan is the only passenger car sold by India’s Mahindra, which has traditionally been a large manufacturer of two-wheelers, tractors and jeeps.

Analysts say the French car maker is keen to establish an independent presence in India, having already announced it will launch the Micra small car in India in July this year with Japanese partner Nissan. The Renault-Nissan car-making alliance has also confirmed plans for another small car in the future with another local partner-motorcycle and scooter manufacturer Bajaj Auto.

Renault’s chairman Carlos Ghosn had said earlier this year that he was discussing the future of the relationship with Mahindra in an open way, where “both can find their own interests.”

The Logan, a mid-sized car priced at 450,000570,000 rupees ($10,150-$12,850), has seen a gradual dip in sales in the past two years, hit by growing competition and higher prices, due to taxes.

Logan sales have dipped from a peak of around 2,000 per month in 2008 to about 350 in March this year amid competition from mid-sized cars from rivals Tata Motors, Hyundai and Ford Motors, analysts say.

“The Logan will now be re-engineered and redesigned as a Mahindra product, starting in the next two to three months,” Pawan Goenka, president of Mahindra and Mahindra said.

Rajesh Jejurikar, chief of car operations at Mahindra, said the group sees the change “as an opportunity to strengthen our presence in the car segment.”

Renault and Mahindra said they had sold 44,000 Logans in India and exported 2,600 units to South Africa and Nepal since 2007.

As part of the agreement, the French company will continue to supply key parts of the Logan, including the engine and transmission, the companies said.

The Logan will be sold exclusively as a Mahindra car by the end of the year.

“The Logan’s future will depend on how Mahindra positions the car now,” said Vaishali Jajoo, auto analyst with Mumbai-based Angel Broking. — AFP

LONDON: Qatar Telecommunications Co (Qtel) is signing a group of senior banks into a $2 billion loan that will reduce its borrowing costs, banking sources said.

As previously reported, Qtel is refinancing a $2 billion forward start loan agreed last September, a growing trend among borrowers keen to replace forward start deals signed last year following a dramatic reduction in pricing for highly rated companies in Europe and, to a lesser extent, the Gulf.

Forward start loans were popular in 2009 for companies facing maturing loans, as they enabled borrowers to extend the deals in return for a hefty increase in pricing on the existing credit.

However, in light of falling margins, they are now looking expensive.

The new deal is split between a $1.25 billion, three-year tranche that pays a fully drawn margin of 125 basis points (bps) over LIBOR and a $750 million, five-year tranche that pays a fully drawn margin of 155 bps, the bankers said.

That compares with a margin of 250 bps over LIBOR on last year’s $2 billion forward start loan and 22.5 bps over LIBOR for the original three-year, $2 billion revolving credit facility agreed in November 2006.

Initial mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners on the new loan are BNP Paribas, DBS, Qatar National Bank, Societe Generale and Royal Bank of Scotland, the banker added. — Reuters

Bank of Ireland sale plan hastens capital hike

MANILA: A construction worker prepares steel reinforcement bars of an unfinished building in Manila yesterday. The Philippines will avoid recession and post growth of at least 0.8 percent this year, despite the effects of the global economic slump and a series of killer storms, the government said recently. —AFP

StanChart Kenya looks to keep profit growth in 2010 NAIROBI: Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya is targeting last year’s sectorleading profit growth but it is too early to tell how the full year will pan out, its chief executive said yesterday.

Ranked the third largest bank in the east African nation by assets, StanChart posted a 43 percent jump in its pretax profit in 2009, the highest growth rate in the industry. “If we did as well as we did last year it will be exceptional and so we are aiming to do as well,” Richard Etemesi told Reuters.

Like other Kenyan businesses, the bank, which is majority owned by UKbased Standard Chartered, could benefit from faster growth in east Africa’s largest economy, Etemesi said.

Officials expect the economy to expand by about 4 percent this year from an estimated 2-2.5 percent last year, lifted by good rains which could boost the agriculture sector after several years of decline. “We are not see-

ing the same kind of negative perceptions that clouded the whole of last year especially in the business sector.

There was a lot of doom and gloom ... this year there is a lot of positive sentiment,” he said.

He attributed the bank’s good performance in its last full year to the culmination of several years of work aimed at transforming the business.

“We have moved from a deposittaking institution where we used to take deposits and put them in Treasury bills to a full retail and commercial bank,” he said.

“We are now able to do, apart from just lending, overdraft and trade, we are able to do derivatives, aircraft leasing and so on.” StanChart Kenya plans to double the contribution of business from the small and medium enterprises from 10 percent this year in order to boost its performance. It is also seeking to be a banker to other banks, Etemesi said. — Reuters

DUBLIN: Bank of Ireland said it was moving closer to replenishing its capital base as it put profitable units up for sale to get EU approval for its state bailout last year.

Ireland’s biggest bank by market value agreed to an EU demand to sell its asset management and life assurance businesses and a building society, in exchange for allowing last year’s capital injection from the government.

The bank, which could also be precluded from paying a dividend for up to two years, expects a final nod from Brussels for its restructuring plan by mid 2010. The asset sales will not have a direct impact on the bank’s capital base, but clarity on what it needs to sell, together with last month’s launch of Ireland’s “bad bank” scheme, will allow it to hone its plans for raising capital, it said. “Events are now much more in the Bank of Ireland’s control as to how we go about strengthening our capital,” Chief Executive Richie Boucher told an analyst call.

The bank, in which the government has a 16 percent stake plus an entitlement to another quarter via preference shares, remains in talks with investment banks on raising capital, Boucher said, although he would not say when it would make a move. The bank will need 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion) of fresh capital to make up for losses on loans transferred to the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), the “bad bank”, and to meet new capital ratios demanded by the financial regulator.

At the end of March, the bank said it could raise from private sources much of the capital needed, potentially becoming the only member of the NAMA scheme to escape a fresh bailout.

The assets it put up for sale made around 40 million euros of pretax profit in the nine months to Dec. 31 and include New Ireland Assurance Co, which handles life insurance and had around 12 billion euros in life assets.

Other anticipated disposals were of Bank of Ireland Asset Management Ltd, which had 25 billion euros under management, and ICS Building Society, which had mortgage loans of approximately 7 billion euros-of which the bank would sell a minimum of 2 billion-and deposits of 4 billion euros.

In addition, the bank expects to sell its FCE foreign exchange business and its stakes in Paul Capital (asset management) and the Irish Credit Bureau. By 1100 GMT, its shares gained 2.3 percent, outperforming a 0.6 percent stronger Irish stock market. “It’s not the worst news,” said Kevin McConnell at brokerage Bloxham. “The positive surprise is that they are managing to keep the (deal with the) UK Post Office in place.”

Bank of Ireland has a joint venture with the Post Office. It reiterated it was winding down its UK intermediary-sourced mortgage portfolio and also certain discontinued international corporate lending portfolios.

It said it would attempt to accelerate the wind-down of these portfolios by selling them, but would not be obliged to sell at less than book value. — Reuters

JAKARTA: Indonesian people walk past a mirror shop in Jakarta yesterday. Indonesia’s GDP growth reached 4.5 percent last year, a higher number than in most other countries that were also caught in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, a report said. —AFP

Arab bank to lend Zambia $90 million for key road NAIROBI: The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa has approved a $90 million loan to Zambia to build a road that will link it to Angola and boost regional trade, the bank’s CEO said yesterday.

State ZANIS news agency reported that Abdelaziz Khelef, the bank’s director-general, had met Zambian Vice-President George Kunda to discuss the loan, which will be used for constructing the KalaboAngola road. The bank is funded by Arab governments and was set up to strengthen cooperation between Arab and African

countries.

Kunda said the road would help strengthen trade ties between the two neighbours, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other countries in the region.

The road is also expected to enhance regional integration which is critical for Africa’s development, Kunda said.

Landlocked Zambia, Africa’s largest copper producer, also plans to construct a railway line from the mineral-rich copperbelt to the border with Angola to link with the

Benguela line, which runs up to the Atlantic port of Lobito.

The Benguela line used to be an important link between oil-rich Angola and Zambia but was badly damaged during Angola’s decade-long civil war.

The World Bank says Africa needs to invest more than $90 billion a year to drag its dreadful roads, railways and power grids into the 21st century. In November, China announced a $10 billion, three-year infrastructure investment and aid package for the continent. — Reuters

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Euro-zone to tighten economy oversight MADRID: Euro-zone nations agreed yesterday to tighten joint oversight of the economies in Europe’s currency union in an effort to stem a government debt crisis that has already forced them to make billions of euros in standby loans available to troubled Greece if it can’t borrow from markets.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of a group of finance ministers from the 16 countries that use the euro, said they would start discussing how member economies were faring, as a step toward tackling wider problems beyond the group’s limited focus on debt and deficit levels. Spain and Finland would come up for review first, followed by Portugal and Luxembourg, he said. Both Spain and Portugal have rising debt levels and have attracted some attention from markets looking to see if Greece’s debt problems could spread to other vulnerable euro economies which are facing high unemployment and sluggish economic growth.

Portugal received a warning from the European Union’s executive commission

this week that it might need to make bigger budget cuts if a hoped-for economic recovery fails to provide extra revenue the government is counting on.

Markets have hiked Greek borrowing costs because they believe the country might be unable to repay debt. Greece needs to borrow some 54 billion euros this year, 11 billion euros of that next month and says the high costs could force it to seek a bailout from euro-zone nations and the International Monetary Fund.

Last week, it secured a pledge for some 30 billion euros in loans from other eurozone nations-with possibly another 15 billion euros from the IMF yet to be agreed The government has called in EU and IMF officials for Athens talks on Monday but insists that this is not a signal that it will formally request a bailout within days.

Greece had an opportunity to trigger the financial lifeline at the Madrid talks between euro-zone finance ministers yesterday morning-but did not use it.

Greek woes prompt wider EU anti-crisis push Juncker said they “didn’t put forward a request.” Greece had hoped that news of the last-resort loans would reassure markets. Initially it did-but spreads, or the difference between interest rates, widened in recent days after Germany said its share, the largest at 8.4 billion euros, would require lengthy parliament approval.

Greece on Thursday asked the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to step up work on the aid package. It insisted that this was not a signal that it would demand a bailout within days.

Greece’s flagrant flouting of EU debt and deficit limits has triggered drop in the euro’s value against the dollar and exposed the flaws in the loose way euro-zone governments are supposed to coordinate their economies. Most euro-zone nations are now running deficits above the EU’s maximum 3 percent and are promising to reduce

US March housing starts gain on multi-family homes WASHINGTON: Housing construction in the US posted a better-than-expected performance in March, rising to the highest level in 16 months on the strength of multi-family homes.

But the Commerce Department report yesterday showed that construction of single-family homes, the most important segment of the market, fell. It dropped 0.9 percent to an annual rate of 531,000 units, after a strong 5.7 percent gain in February.

The sluggish nature of the housing recovery has helped slow the rebound of broader economy. the Overall, construction rose 1.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 626,000 last month. That was higher than the 610,000 level that economists had expected. In addition, the government revised February to show a 1.1 percent gain rather than the initially reported drop of 5.9 percent.

Applications for building permits, considered a good barometer of future activity, also recorded a better-thanexpected increase, rising 7.5 percent to an annual rate of 685,000.

Analysts are looking for any rebound in housing to be modest at best given the severe problems still facing the industry. These include record home foreclosures and high unemployment, which robs potential buyers of the incomes they need to support a home purchase.

The weakness in single-family construction was offset by an 18.8 percent surge in the smaller multifamily sector, which rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 95,000 units. Analysts do not expect this strength to con-

tinue given a multitude of problems facing commercial real estate at the moment from high apartment vacancy rates to rising foreclosures of commercial properties.

Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, noted that even with the March gain, the level of housing construction is still slightly more than onefourth of where it was during the boom years in the middle of the decade. He said this burst of activity could well fade after home buyer tax credits expire at the end of this month.

By section of the US, all the strength in March came in the South, where construction activity jumped 18.2 percent, the best advance in 10 months.

Building activity plunged 28.4 percent in the Midwest and was down 8.3 percent in the Northeast and 2.1 perThe cent in the West.

National Association of Home Builders said Thursday its housing market index, which tracks industry confidence, jumped four points to a reading of 19 in April, the highest level since September.

Builders are reporting a pickup in sales and customer traffic as homebuyers rush to qualify for expiring tax incentives. The tax credits — $8,000 for new buyers and $6,500 for current owners — expire at the end of this month.

Many economists believe the tax incentives will boost the number of buyers now but lead to a drop in sales in the second half of the year.

Home sellers are also having to cope with banks tightening up on lending standards and a sizable supply of unsold homes. The number of homes seized by

those over the next few years.

The EU’s economy commissioner Olli Rehn said he wanted to check euro-zone states’ budget spending before parliaments do and should monitor how euro member economies are performing. This could prevent a country like Greece overspending and failing to reform its economy. He criticized euro-zone members for “rather optimistic” assumptions that the economy would bounce back quickly-warning that many of them may need to increase budget cuts if they aren’t on track to bring down deficits. EU officials are also warning that richer euro nations, like Germany and the Netherlands, need rely less on exports and consume more, saying they could help rebalance wide differences in the euro area by stoking domestic demand and investment.

Belgium and Ireland’s ministers missed the euro-zone talks as volcanic ash held up flights in northern Europe. — AP

Russian billionaires double rich list

SACRAMENTO: A construction worker hammers in particle board on a home under construction in Sacramento, California. Housing construction posted a better-than-expected performance in March, rising to the highest level in 16 months, as strength in the South offset declines in the rest of the country. — AP banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

In addition, households facing foreclosure increased 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three

months of 2009. More homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when the foreclosure listings firm began reporting the data. —AP

MOSCOW: The number of billionaires in Russia has doubled over the last year, with the country’s super rich defying sluggish post-crisis growth to substantially boost their fortunes, a report said yesterday.

The annual rich list published by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine showed the Russia’s moneyed elite have staged a comeback after the financial crisis slashed their fortunes. Forbes said that the number of billionaires on its 2010 rich list had almost doubled to 62 from 32 in crisis-hit 2009. The total worth of the billionaires on the list also doubled to 297 billion dollars from 142 billion in 2009, said Forbes, whose list builds on the research of the world rich list published by its US sister publication. The share-based assets of Russia’s richest men-many of whom made their fortunes in the chaotic privatizations of the 1990s and then accrued major political influence-were hit hard by the slump in global stock markets.

But now they have bounced back even though the Russian economy’s rebound from the crisis has hardly been stellar.

The economy contracted 7.9 percent in 2009 and is expected to grow by around 4.5 percent this year. “It’s interesting to note that Russia’s main stock market index, the RTS, rose twofold in the same period even while the economy as a whole was stagnating,” said Forbes.

The list confirmed the US Forbes list’s promotion of publicity-shy steel magnate Vladimir Lisin, who owns leading steel producer Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), as Russia’s richest man with a fortune of almost $16 billion. — AFP

MADRID: European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet gestures during a family photo before the first session of an Ecofin meeting at the Congress Palace of Madrid yesterday. —AFP

Oil declines to $84 on demand jitters, dollar LONDON: Oil prices fell towards $84 a barrel yesterday as concerns over US crude demand re-emerged and the dollar strengthened, making imports more expensive for emerging economies.

The dollar gained 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies on Thursday, while US stock markets stumbled, raising doubts over the strength of economic recovery in the world’s largest energy consumer. US crude for May delivery fell $1.51 to $84.00 a barrel by 1346 GMT, more than $2 lower than an 18-month high above $87 reached last week.

“The dollar is a bit stronger and equity markets are not too

friendly today and that is having a negative impact (on oil prices),” said Eugen Weinberg, oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “We’ve seen this for the last month that oil prices are more affected by macro factors impacting sentiment rather than fundamental factors,” Weinberg added.

News that US housing starts rose more than expected in March offered hope that the housing market recovery was on course but it was not enough to lift US stock markets knocked by disappointing earnings results from Google.

The May London Brent crude oil contract reached 18month highs just before it

expired on Thursday, jumping to a premium over the frontmonth US crude contract of over $1.60.

The June contract, now the front-month contract, was trading about $1 higher than the equivalent contract for US crude on Friday, shedding $1.04 to $86.55. Strong economic data out of China painted a more positive outlook for demand across Asia, giving relative support to prices of Brent crude, the benchmark for most of the oil produced in Europe, Africa and Asia. May Brent settled at $87.17 on Thursday, the highest close since front-month Brent ended at $90.25 on Oct. 3, 2008. — Reuters

ATHENS: Pedestrians walk past a huge replica of the last edition of the old Greek drachma in central Athens yesterday. The euro extended recent losses against the dollar yesterday on intensifying worries over Greece’s debt problems as they set the stage for a request for emergency loans, analysts said. — AFP

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

.2820000 .4410000 .390000 .2695000 .2830000 .2660000 .0045000 .0020000 .0778010 .7579950 .4020000 .0750000 .7430810 .0045000 .0500000

US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian dollars Danish Kroner Swedish Kroner Australian dlr Hong Kong dlr Singapore dlr Japanese yen Indian Rs/KD Sri Lanka rupee Pakistan rupee Bangladesh taka UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi Riyal/KD Omani riyals Philippine Peso

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2866000 .4436660 .3920980 .2714370 .2855850 .0526670 .0403050 .2677130 .0369390 .2065000 .0030780 .0065130 .0025250 .0034420 .0041990 .0780690 .7606000 .4053320 .0764660 .7447910 .0064400

US Dollar Sterling pounds Swiss Francs Saudi Riyals

TRANSFER CHEQUES RATES .2887000 .4468000 .2733600 .0769530

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees

3.119 6.467 3.435

.2920000 .4490000 .3965000 .2777000 .2900000 .2720000 .0075000 .0035000 .0785830 .7656130 .4170000 .0790000 .7505500 .0072000 .0580000 .2887000 .4468000 .3948670 .2733600 .2876070 .0530400 .0405910 .2696040 .0372000 .2079620 .0031000 .0065590 .0025430 .0034670 .0042290 .0785670 .7654500 .4082030 .0769530 .7495410 .0064850

Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

2.527 4.044 207.300 37.142 4.159 6.429 8.915 0.301 0.292 GCC COUNTRIES 76.880 79.210 748.930 765.640 78.513

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Egyptian Pound - Cash Egyptian Pound Yemen Riyal Tunisian Dinar Jordanian Dinar Lebanese Lira Syrian Lier Morocco Dirham

ARAB COUNTRIES 55.000 52.280 1.284 208.430 407.100 193.400 6.309 35.574

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 288.150 Euro 393.040 Sterling Pound 446.040 Canadian dollar 288.440 Turkish lire 193.810 Swiss Franc 273.800 Australian dollar 265.700 US Dollar Buying 286.250 GOLD 225.000 115.000 60.000

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

SELL CASH 271.900 765.600 4.370 291.400 565.300 15.800 53.400 167.800 54.200 397.000

37.800 6.790 0.035 0.293 0.257 3.180 408.670 0.194 91.800 47.000 4.250 208.700 2.183 50.000 747.830 3.500 6.590 79.620 76.870 210.480 42.190 2.728 448.000 40.800 277.400 6.400 9.270 217.900 78.550 288.300 1.380

10 Tola

GOLD 1,247.860

Sterling Pound US Dollar

37.650 6.480

406.940 0.193 91.800 4.070 207.200

SELL DRAFT 270.400 765.600 4.155 289.900

210.500 52.289 395.500

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Cyprus Pound Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees

Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co.

275.900 9.110 78.550 287.900

Rate per 1000 (Tran)

US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah Nepali rupee Yemeni Riyal Jordanian Dinars Syrian Pounds Euro Candaian Dollars

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 446.000 287.900

289.350 293.915 446.300 392.170 269.830 709.215 765.875 78.760 79.455 77.125 408.315 52.586 6.523 3.459

2.537 4.184 6.457 3.075 8.929 6.312 3.077

Currency 747.650 3.430 6.460 79.190 76.870 210.480 42.190 2.527 446.000

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash

Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria 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

287.950 3.445 6.480 2.540 4.160 6.500 78.460 76.955 765.100 52.240 448.800 0.000032300 4.100 1.550 408.800 5.750 398.500 295.500

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 287.500 394.500 445.800 289.500 3.100 6.470 52.240 2.527 4.155 6.444 3.438 764.000 78.350 76.750

9

TECHNOLOGY

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Obama: Americans to Mars within my lifetime CANAVERAL, Florida: President Barack Obama predicted on Thursday his new space exploration plans would lead American astronauts to Mars and back in his lifetime, a bold forecast relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.

Obama spoke near the historic Kennedy Space Center launch pads that sent the first men to the moon, a blunt rejoinder to critics, including several former astronauts, who contend his planned changes will instead deal a staggering blow to the nation’s manned space program. He said he expected the US to pioneer trips to an asteroid and then on to Mars: “I expect to be around to see it,” he said.

Obama said as he sought to reassure NASA workers that America’s space adventures would soar on despite the impending termination of space shuttle flights. “We want to leap into the future,” not continue on the same path as before, he said.

Obama’s prediction was reminiscent of President John F. Kennedy’s declaration in 1961, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” That goal was fulfilled in 1969. Obama did not predict a Mars landing soon. But he said that by 2025, the nation would have a new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow the US to begin the “first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space.” “We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history,” he said. “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow.” The biggest criticisms of Obama’s plans have been that they have lacked details and goals. Thursday’s speech was an attempt to answer, especially since an asteroid is the next step away from Earth’s reach.

Asteroids zip by Earth fairly often and have occasionally smacked the planet with disastrous results. For example, asteroids have been blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Landing on an asteroid would give scientists a better idea of how to handle a future killer asteroid that could wipe out much of life on Earth. Also, it would be a feat sure to win great attention — and there is far less gravity than the moon, meaning it would be easier and cheaper to leave. “I think he said all the right things” in declaring a commitment to space exploration, said George Washington University space scholar John Logsdon, who has served on several NASA advisory boards.

“I don’t know what more you could have asked for.” But several Republicans, including Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Rob Bishop, assailed Obama’s plan and speech, calling his plans “job-killing.” “The president’s new plans for NASA are flat-out irresponsible,” Vitter said. “He has evidently decided ... that it’s time for us to simply walk away from

manned space exploration for the foreseeable future, with no clear timeline for returning or for achieving any of our goals for deep space exploration.” Obama said he was “100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future.” He outlined plans for federal spending to bring more private companies into space exploration following the soon-toend space shuttle program.

He acknowledged criticism for his drastic changes to the space agency’s direction. But, he said, “The bottom line is: Nobody is more committed to manned space flight, the human exploration of space, than I am. But we’ve got to do it in a smart way; we can’t keep doing the same old things as before.” Obama said the space program is not a luxury but a necessity for the United States.

He said the Kennedy Space Center has inspired the nation and the world for half a century. He said NASA represents what it means to be American — “reaching for new heights and reaching for what’s possible” — and is not close to its final days.

Obama sought to explain why he aborted President George W Bush’s return-to-the moon plan in favor of a complicated system of public-and-private flights that would go elsewhere in space, with details still to be worked out. “We’ve been there before,” Obama said of the nation’s moon landings decades ago.

“There’s a lot more of space to explore.” He said his administration would support continued manned exploration of space “not just with dollars, but with clear aims and a larger purpose.” The Obama space plan relies on private companies to fly to the space station, giving them almost $6 billion to build their own rockets and ships. It also extends the space station’s life by five years and puts billions into research to eventually develop new government rocket ships for future missions to a nearby asteroid, to the moon, to Martian moons or other points in space. Those stops would be stepping stones on an eventual mission to Mars itself. Among Obama’s most vocal critics on his space plan has been Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Obama did not mention Armstrong, who did not attend the speech, but he did praise Buzz Aldrin, one of Armstrong’s Apollo 11 crewmates.

Aldrin did attend the speech — flying in with Obama on Air Force One. Obama also said his administration would rescue a small part of the moon program: its Orion crew capsule. But instead of taking four astronauts to the moon, the not-yet-built Orion will be slimmed down and used as an emergency escape pod for the space station.

Obama spoke in the vast launch complex’s Operations and Checkout building _ the place where Orion is scheduled to be eventually prepared for launch. White House science adviser John Holdren summed up Obama’s program as “a faster pace in space, more missions to more destinations sooner at lower cost.” — AP

Oracle to buy Phase Forward for $685m REDWOOD SHORES, California: Oracle Corp has agreed to buy Phase Forward Inc, which makes software used to manage clinical drug trials, for $685 million, the companies said yesterday.

Oracle, the leading maker of database software, plans to merge Waltham-based Phase Forward into its Health Sciences unit. The combination will help researchers, physicians, regulators and patients share and access drug data, the companies said.

Oracle is paying $17 per share in cash, 30 percent more than Thursday’s $13.08 closing price for Phase Forward’s stock.

Phase Forward’s shares rose $3.78, or 29 percent, to $16.86 in premarket trading.

Oracle shares were down 10 cents at $26.10 in premarket trading. The deal announced yesterday is expected to close in the middle of the year. Phase Forward’s software has been used in over 10,000 clinical trials, it says. Customers include AstraZeneca PLC, Boston Scientific Corp, Eli Lilly & Co and the US Food and Drug Administration.

Oracle’s last major acquisition was that of software and server maker Sun Microsystems Inc, for $7.4 billion. It closed in January.

Oracle is based in Redwood Shores, California. — AP

SAN FRANCISCO: Shown is the new Flip SlideHD pocket video camera in San Francisco.

Pure Digital Technologies spawned a revolution back in 2007 with its first Flip Video pocket camcorder, making it quick, cheap and easy for anyone to shoot and upload clips to the Web. Since then, the company has sold over 4 million cameras and been purchased by Cisco Systems. And now, Cisco is rolling out the latest Flip innovation: a $280 video camera with a touch screen that slides into an upright position and a headphone jack for better on-the-go viewing. — AP

FLORIDA: President Barack Obama walks to the stage to speak at an operations and checkout building on Thursday at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. — AP

Astronauts put cargo carrier back on shuttle Discovery CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Discovery’s astronauts tucked a cargo carrier back aboard the space shuttle yesterday, then surveyed their ship to make sure it was safe for the ride home.

With their space station visit drawing to a close, the shuttle astronauts finally got the carrier — and its 2 1/2-ton load of trash and discarded equipment — into Discovery’s payload bay. The job was supposed to be completed Thursday, but problems with the latching system for the carrier delayed its removal from the International Space Station.

The trouble dragged on so late Thursday that Mission Control let all 13 astronauts sleep in Friday morning. Soon after they awoke, Stephanie Wilson and Japan’s Naoko Yamazaki used the space station’s hefty robot arm to transport the 21-foot carrier the final short distance. The arm and carrier had been parked near the payload bay overnight. “Good job, ladies,” astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger said once the carrier was securely in place. Then MetcalfLindenburger and her colleagues powered up the shuttle robot arm to inspect Discovery’s wings and nose. The four-hour procedure normally is conducted following undocking. But the failure of the shuttle’s main antenna, way back on launch day April 5, prompted NASA to move up the operation so that all the mega files of images could be transmitted from the space station.

In this image provided by NASA, Space Shuttle and International Space Station crew members gather for a group portrait in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station while space shuttle Discovery remains docked with the station on Wednesday.

Space Shuttle crew members pictured (light blue shirts) are NASA astronauts Alan Poindexter, commander; James P Dutton Jr, pilot; Clayton Anderson, Rick Mastracchio, Dorothy MetcalfLindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko Yamazaki. Expedition 23 crew members pictured are Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov, commander; Mikhail Kornienko and Alexander Skvortsov; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, and NASA astronauts TJ Creamer and Tracy Caldwell Dyson.óAP

NASA wants to be certain the shuttle’s heat shield did not suffer any damage from space junk that could jeopardize its return to Earth. Discovery is due to leave the station Saturday and land in Florida on Monday.

The astronauts had to watch out for all the space station pieces protruding every which way, as they used a 100-foot (30.5-meter), laser-tipped boom to scrutinize the shuttle.

NASA officials said the job was tricky because of the tight clearances — in some places just 1 1/2 feet (46 centimeters). But there were lots of good views from inside to help the crew avoid hitting the station. This procedure already was in development for one of the three remaining shuttle flights.

The astronauts skipped lunch to wrap up the survey early. They finished three hours ahead of schedule, in fact, and thanked flight controllers for their help with all the preparations. The images were being relayed to Mission Control as quickly as possible, so experts could analyze every single one.

With their main objectives accomplished, the astronauts got to take it easy for the rest of the day. Currently making its next-to-last flight, Discovery will blast off on NASA’s final shuttle mission in September and take back up the cargo carrier, filled with one last load of supplies and equipment. Then, the carrier will be left permanently attached to the space station, to serve as an extra closet. The Italian-built chamber is named Leonardo, as in da Vinci. — AP

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson posts Q1 profit STOCKHOLM: Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson posted its first quarterly profit in nearly two years yesterday, boosted by gains from highend devices such as smartphones and cost cuts.

Net profit for the first quarter was 21 million euros ($29 million), compared with a loss of 293 million euros a year earlier.

Although sales dipped in the three months ended March 31 to 1.4 billion euros, from 1.74 billion euros, the gross margin of the LM Ericsson and Sony Corp joint venture still jumped to 30.6 percent from a previous 8.4 percent. Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Nordberg said new high-end devices including the smartphones Xperia X10 and Vivaz, which began shipping at the end of the first quarter, had been “well received” by the market.

Operating costs dropped to 423 million euros from 528 million euros, helping to bump up the company’s bottom-line figures. “Increases in both gross and operating margins show that we are on the right track to build the correct cost structure for our business organization and strategy,” Nordberg said in a statement.

In 2008, Sony Ericsson launched a cost-cutting program under which it had by the end of the quarter had slashed its global work force by around 3,150 people to 8,450. Sony Ericsson, which aims to cut operating costs by 880 million euros said the program is running according to plan, with full benefit still expected in the second half of this year. Total costs associated with it now amounts to 342 million euros.

The group said it shipped 10.5 million units in the quarter, a 28 percent decrease compared with the same three months in 2009. It was down from the 14.6 million units shipped in the fourth quarter.

The average selling price for its phones also jumped substantially, increasing 12 percent both sequentially and year-on-year.

Ericsson shares were largely unchanged at 79.55 kronor ($11.12).

Helena Nordman-Knutson, an analyst with Ohman Fondkommision in Stockholm, called the report “really good.” “If only this is long-term it is fantastic,” she said, adding “it’s the new phones that are behind this.” The first-quarter profit took the market by surprise she said, saying a turn-

around had not been on the analyst cards just yet.

“We thought we’d have to wait until at least next quarter.” The report represented the first net profit for Sony Ericsson since the second quarter of 2008, Redeye analyst Greger Johansson said. After enjoying strong sales of products such as its Walkman music phones, Sony Ericsson was hard hit by the economic downturn, losing ground to some of its competitors.

“It was a combination of becoming a bit too content with what they had already accomplished as well as by failing to stay as a front-runner on the technology side,” Johansson said.

In a separate statement later yesterday, the group said it had appointed William Glaser Jr. as its new CFO. He succeeds Ulf Lilja. — AP

Speedy scanner re-writes book on publishing technology TOKYO: Simply flipping through a book may not seem like the best to way to scan it, but a Japanese research group at Tokyo University has created new software that allows hundreds of pages to be scanned within minutes.

Scanning paper is normally a tedious process with each page having to be inserted into a flat-bed scanner, but the team led by professor Masatoshi Ishikawa use a high speed camera that takes 500 pictures a second to scan pages as they are flipped.

Normal scanners can only scan the information that is actually before them on the page. The new scanner being developed is able to deal with the fact that pages that are being flipped are normally deformed in some fashion. “It takes a shot of the shape, then it calculates the shape and uses those calculations to film the scanning,” Ishikawa said, explaining the system used to reconstruct the original page.

“As it can film while understanding the underlying shape, it’s very easy to then take the pages that are being scanned and save them as a normal flat copy.”

The current system is able to scan an average 200250 page book in a little over 60 seconds using basic computer hardware that is available off-the-shelf.

While it now requires extra time to process the scanned images, the researchers hope to eventually make the technology both faster and much smaller.

“In the more the distant future, once it becomes possible to put all of this processing on one chip and then put that in a iPad or iPod, one could scan just using that chip. At that point, it becomes possible to scan something quickly to save for later reading,” Ishikawa told Reuters.

Being able to scan books with an iPhone may be further off, but Ishikawa says that a commercial version of the large-scale computer based scanning system could be available in two to three years.

While the technology has the potential to take paper books into the digital age, it remains to be how publishers will react to people scanning their books while just flipping through them. — Reuters

MADRID: A man plays a computer game during the Campus Party, one of the world’s biggest on-line electronic entertainment events, at the new Caja Magica sports complex in Madrid on Thursday. Some 800 Internet enthusiasts from across Europe are expected to attend the four-day Campus Party, organizers said. Participants will gather to share ideas, experiences and all types of activities related to computers, communications and new technology. — AFP

HEALTH & SCIENCE

10

Saturday, April 17, 2010

INDIANA: Former US Army medic Corey Gibson is shown at his home in Terre Haute, Indiana. Gibson’s right leg bounces when he sits. At 29 he sleeps fitfully, with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle mounted above his bed. “That’s my sense of security,” he says. (Right) US Army veteran Laurie Emmer is shown at her home in Sycamore. Emmer suffers from the combination of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. — MCT

Costs soar for compensating veterans with mental disorders CHICAGO: Corey Gibson’s right leg bounces when he sits. At 29 he sleeps fitfully, with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle mounted above his bed. “That’s my sense of security,” he says.

Laurie Emmer, a 47-year-old mother of four, shuns crowds and strangers. She always sits facing the restaurant door when she goes out to eat and, before sitting down, makes sure to identify the quickest route out. And Eric Johnson, 62, who revisits Vietnam nearly every night in his head, escapes the demons who rob him of sleep by patrolling the streets of his South Side neighborhood with his yellow Labrador retriever, Che. The veterans come from different generations and different wars, yet they share a common and increasingly costly wartime affliction - post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of psychological damage. Last year, mental illnesses accounted for 35 percent of the $22 billion spent on disability payments to veterans who served in the Vietnam, Persian Gulf and “global war on terror” eras, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis. Compensating veterans with psychological scars has helped fuel a 76 percent surge in service-related disability costs since 2003, the Tribune found, burdening an already overwhelmed system and underscoring the reality that the biggest

costs of war are not often immediate or visible.

Studies suggest costs will continue to soar.

The percentage of military evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan that were attributed to mental disorders has increased sharply in the last four years, a recent Defense Department study shows. Another survey of about 100,000 Afghanistan and Iraq veterans found that 31 percent had been diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial problems. “When you look at the epidemic of PTSD, you see the future,” said Harvard University’s Linda Bilmes, co-author of the 2008 book “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.”

The Tribune’s analysis of claim records from the Department of Veterans Affairs found that vets’ psychological wounds are by far the most expensive type of disability.

Compensating wartime veterans since Vietnam for PTSD and other mental conditions is four to five times costlier than the average for all disability categories, the Tribune found.

Victims of PTSD also are more likely to suffer other serious and costly health problems than other disabled veterans. In short, they are sicker. Gibson, Emmer and Johnson represent veterans at different stages of an evolving psychological struggle.

Johnson is a reminder that psychological damage can consume an adult life - in his case, 40 years. Johnson left South Vietnam in 1970, returning to Chicago after a year of tracking and killing the enemy in the jungle. He says he was ill-prepared for an abrupt transition to civilian life. “I felt stripped naked without a gun,” said the burly, dreadlocked Johnson, who after his return would wear twin shoulder holsters carrying .45 automatics. When Johnson showered, he always took a gun, sealed in a plastic bag. He slept with a gun under his pillow. His first wife, Cookie, knew not to shake him awake or touch his feet. For years he couldn’t acknowledge he had a problem, but in 1979 Johnson was diagnosed with PTSD. The VA spent an estimated $5.6 billion last year compensating Vietnam veterans like Johnson for mental disorders, according to the Tribune analysis. That’s $4 of every $10 paid to disabled veterans from that war. Johnson also reflects the reality that compensation payments to Vietnam veterans with psychological damage are, on average, 134 percent higher than payments to other disabled Vietnam vets.

Johnson receives compensation for diabetes, high blood pressure, an intestinal disorder and a back injury sustained during a helicopter crash in Vietnam, in addition to PTSD.

PTSD has changed Johnson, a guarded man who is slow to trust strangers and rarely socializes. He ignores holidays and birthdays (including his own) and avoids family functions. The night terrors of Vietnam have receded but not gone away. Johnson still returns to Vietnam nearly every night.

Johnson’s second wife, Erma, has learned to recognize and deal with the enemy in his dreams. She’ll wake me up and say, ‘Don’t go I got him,’ he said. A retired postal worker who worked through his injuries, Johnson said he does not drink or take drugs, beyond pain relievers for his back and legs and medications to treat his diabetes. “Mentally, I’m a survivor,” he said with a smile. “I’m more fortunate than the average veteran because I’ve figured a few things out.”

Gibson is today where Johnson was in 1970. Volatile and solitary, Gibson tallies his losses after his tour of duty in Iraq - his fiance; three jobs from which he was fired; an active, engaging life that seems forever lost. Gibson is part of a generation of younger vets whose problems are only starting to emerge. Last year, veterans of the war-on-terror era received $329 million in disability payments related to mental disorders, or 34 percent of the money paid to all disabled vets from the

5 good Samaritans start chains of life Donating kidneys to strangers

CHICAGO: Five Chicago-area adults who have stepped forward to give kidneys to strangers will help save the lives of as many as two dozen people, thanks to transplant chains that will multiply the impact of the donations. Two of the donors are young women in their early 20s, in perfect health and eager to help others. One is a dad honoring a 17-year-old Often, the designated recipient has friends or family willing to donate but prevented from doing so by medical circumstances. If that person decides to give an organ to a stranger who is a better match and has loved ones willing to return the favor, the chain adds more links. The goal is to allow the first generous act to help as many people as possible. No transplant chains had originated in Illinois until Loyola University Medical Center entered the five so-called “good Samaritan” organ donors with the National Kidney Registry, an organization that helps arrange matches between potential kidney donors and recipients.

In doing so, Loyola committed to sending the organs wherever they were needed most. “That’s really unusual,” said Garet Hill, founder of the registry, which is working with about 50 hospitals across the country. Medical centers tend to hold on to good Samaritan donors, seeking to help their own patients. That practice can make it hard to arrange timely matches, and even when they succeed, only one transplant results.

From Loyola’s perspective, chains have a much bigger impact, justifying a different approach.

“We see every good Samaritan donor as a national treasure, not an institutional commodity,” said Dr. John Milner, director of Loyola’s living donor kidney transplant program. A single large pool of donors and would-be recipients could facilitate more matches and shorten long waiting lists for organs significantly, he predicted. The National Kidney Registry has launched 17 chains resulting in six transplants apiece, on average.

Three chains will emerge from the five Chicago-area donors. The first started on March 18, when Christina Lamb, 45, of Melrose Park, Ill., gave a kidney to Robert Rylko, 21, of Rockford, Ill., who has Alport syndrome, a degenerative disorder. Lamb wanted to give something back after her husband, Allen, received a kidney

daughter killed in a car accident. Another is a dental hygienist inspired by her father’s death. The fifth is a woman eager to repay a cousin’s act of kindness. The transplant chains - a new development in the field of kidney transplantation - begin when someone like these five individuals offers to give a kidney to a stranger.

ILLINOIS: Doctors Ahmer Farooq (left) and David Holt clean and stitch the donated kidney of Cynthia Ruiz after its removal at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. The kidney was being prepared for Melissa Clynes. —MCT from a cousin in May 2006.

“Someone close to us gave my husband the gift of life; I felt it was important to do the same,” she said.

The match was arranged after

Loyola entered Lamb’s and Rylko’s information with the National Kidney Registry, along with information about Cynthia Ruiz, another donor. Ruiz, 22, who lives in LaGrange, Ill., came

forward after her mom, Amy, became friends with Rylko’s dad on the Internet and told Ruiz about Rylko’s illness. “It was really, really upsetting and I wanted to do something,” Ruiz said. Testing

revealed that she was a “universal donor” who could be a match with any number of people. Knowing that Rylko could get a kidney from Lamb, she agreed to give to a stranger.

That made all the difference to Melissa Clynes, 19, of St Louis, who had a heart transplant as a child and a kidney transplant at 16 after anti-rejection drugs wreaked havoc on her body. Her mother, Mary, donated that kidney; it was destroyed last year when Melissa contracted a virus. With the teenage girl on waiting lists at St Louis Children’s Hospital and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, her mom distributed 11,000 fliers in St Louis earlier this year asking potential donors to come forward.

Eighteen people did, but none worked out.

This month, in despair, her mom Googled “how to find a live kidney quickly” and found the National Kidney Registry. Hill arranged for the family to register Melissa, and almost immediately a match with Ruiz popped up. The young women’s operations took place Monday at Loyola. Both are reportedly doing well. The next link in the chain is Sarah Clynes, Melissa’s 23-year-old sister, a senior at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who hopes to go to nursing school next year. Sarah’s kidney is likely to go to New York, Milner said.

A second chain will start when dental hygienist Jodi Tamen, 45, donates a kidney in early April, probably to a patient at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Tamen works at Loyola. Her motivation springs in part from the memory of her father, who died of a heart attack at 62. “I just feel a strong pull to do this,” she said.

The third chain begins with Tim Joos, 53, of St Charles, Ill., who plans to donate a kidney in mid-April. Joos is honoring his daughter Samantha, who died at 17 in a car crash almost seven years ago. Samantha had signed up as an organ donor when she got her driver’s license.— MCT

same era. A paramedic from Terre Haute, Ind., Gibson signed up in 1999 for a five-year stint with the Army’s 555th Forward Surgical Team, whose job was to penetrate deep into the battlefield and provide emergency treatment for wounded soldiers advancing to the front. He entered Iraq in March 2003. Gibson chooses not to dwell on what happened in Iraq, other than brief mentions of mortar attacks, taking prisoners and being blown from a truck during an attack on the way to Baghdad.

When he returned home in 2004, “My fiance knew right away. ‘You’ve changed, you’re different,’ she kept saying,” he said.

There were night terrors and flashbacks. He became hypersensitive to perceived slights.

“It doesn’t help that I’m a male nurse,” he said.

Gibson sleeps little and spends a lot of time alone, walking the neighborhood with his dog, Gibby. One night, while his fiance slept with her head resting on his chest, Gibson had a terrible nightmare and curled his body, putting her in a powerful headlock. She pounded on his chest to wake him up. Soon after, she left him, Gibson said.

He has been diagnosed with PTSD but also complains of other troubles, such as dizziness, a loss of long-term memory and back pain, which he says stems from his being thrown

from the truck. After returning in 2004, he often slept less than an hour a night until he bought and mounted the rifle above his bed.

“My sleep went from 45 minutes a night to about two hours,” he said. He calls the gun “an extension of my arm.”

Gibson, who receives compensation for PTSD, recently filed a claim with the VA for traumatic brain injury. He spends most of his time at home, on his computer or watching videos. The shades are drawn. Emmer, a retired Army sergeant, is among about a quarter-million women who have served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. But the number that speaks to Emmer’s life-changing experiences is $50 million, the amount spent last year by the VA to compensate all female veterans from the war-on-terror era for psychological damage, according to the Tribune’s analysis.

A medic in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, Emmer waited 20 years to get an overseas combat assignment. Within a couple months of arriving in Afghanistan, her career as a skilled medic began to unravel. Emmer reported being raped by a coalition officer in Kandahar Province in the spring of 2003. In a separate incident, she injured her head falling off a military vehicle.— MCT

Nutrition ‘key’ to diabetes control Prevalence estimate of people with diabetes in Kuwait hits 20% KUWAIT: Diabetes-specific Nutrition, as part of a multi-disciplinary approach to managing diabetes is key to the effective control of the disease. This was the central theme of the first-ever regional medical summit aimed at creating awareness among physicians about the importance of diabetes nutrition for management of diabetes, a growing pandemic in the region. Under the patronage of the Government of Dubai, Dubai Health Authority, the summit highlighted the introduction of Total Nutrition Therapy for Diabetes, a unique nutrition education program for physicians developed specifically for diabetes, by diabetes nutrition experts.

The summit was facilitated by a panel of regional and international diabetes nuthtion experts, and attended by key endocrinologists, internal medicine practitioners and clinical nutritionists. The summit highlighted the sharing of new insights on diabetes nutrition, providing physicians with nutrition management tools and techniques on how they can use nutrition as part of overall diabetes care. Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases worldwide affecting, over 200 million people.

According to the International Diabetes Foundation, the prevalence estimate of people with diabetes in Kuwait reaches up to over 20%, where many have developed diabetes-related complications due to lack of control of their disease. “Unlike other diseases, the treatment of diabetes is not just about compliance to prescribed treatment medication. If is also about engaging patients in physical activities and providing them with sufficient nutrition. People with diabetes have specific nutritional requirements. Meeting those requirements is a critical part of the treatment and is the essence of the Total Nutrition Therapy for Diabetes,” Dr Nawal Al Hamad, Director of Food and Nutrition Administration, Ministry of Health.

In type II diabetes, the most common form of the disease, the build-up of sugar in the blood (known as hyperglycemia) can, over time, lead to diabetes complications. Over the long term, poorly controlled hyperglycemia can impair function of the heart, kidneys, eyes, and nerves, and lead to cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, blindness, lower limb amputation, and death.

But people with diabetes can take steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications.

One of the important components of the Total Nutrition Therapy for Diabetes program is the recommendation of clinically proven, diabetes-specific formulas that improve glucose control, lipid profiles, and gut health in people with diabetes. Such formulas come in unique blends of slowly digested carbohydrates and key ingredients scientifically designed to help manage blood sugar spikes, help the body’s own insulin work better and meet the nutritional needs of people with diabetes.

Prof Patrizio Tatti, keynote speaker at the summit and Chairman of Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, National Health Service Reviewer, Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews in Rome, Italy urged people with diabetes to learn more about the benefits of diabetes-specific nutrition, and to incorporate it into the daily management of their disease.

“Food choices can be difficult for individuals with diabetes but by incorporating diabetes-specific nutrition into their daily diets, blood sugar control is more easily achieved. The new insights presented at today’s meeting shows diabetes-specific nutrition, when used as part of a diabetes management plan, can help people with diabetes manage their disease better,” Prof Tatti said. Total Nutrition Therapy for Diabetes Sum mit is supported by Abbott, the global healthcare company.

What produced Volcanic ash? olcanic activity and earthquakes are common in Iceland, which sits on the mid-Atlantic Ridge - a 10,000-mile seam across the floor of the Atlantic where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are moving apart. This volcano last erupted in 1821.

V

by commercial jetliners. The abrasive particles damage airplanes by scouring windscreens and scraping aircraft frames. The fine dust can foul delicate electronic components. “The silica can melt inside the jet engine - and then recoat parts of the engine,” Burton said.

What is the ash made of?

Volcanic ash is hard and abrasive - tiny particles of exploded rock and glass. As magma rises inside the earth, bubbles of gas produce explosive pressure that shatters the molten material into fragments, said Bill Burton of the US Geological Survey’s Volcano Hazards Program.

How do scientists track volcanic plumes?

Nine volcanic ash advisory centers scattered across the globe follow ash clouds’ progress using satellite images and reports from pilots and seismologists. Researchers use wind models and look at altitude and velocity to predict where the ash may go.

Where is the ash cloud?

The plume as of late Thursday was between 15,000 and 33,000 feet above sea level, at least 50 miles wide and heading south and east with the prevailing winds. It took about nine hours for the plume to reach Norway, Burton said, but its spread is dependent on winds.

Will the ash cloud travel to the US? Unlikely, Burton said. The plume would have to travel east all the way around the globe.

Such global impact is typically only seen in major eruptions, such as Krakatau.

How does ash pose a danger to aviation?

Ash clouds tend to travel at roughly the same altitudes or slightly lower than those used

How long will the cloud last?

Depends on the length of eruption, how much ash it produces and weather conditions that could disperse it.

The last eruption of this volcano lasted on and off for more than a year. —MCT

Saturday, April 17, 2010

HEALTH

11

Study finds drop in childbirth deaths worldwide Report provokes widespread criticism and confusion LOS ANGELES: Deaths of women during childbirth dropped by a startling 35 percent from 1980 to 2008, from more than half a million yearly to 343,000, according to a new analysis reported online this week in the journal Lancet. Or maybe not, depending on whom you listen to. The report has provoked widespread criticism and confusion, as well as conflicting media reports.

The new report, by researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Queensland in Australia, is startling because most previous studies, including a UN report released only two years ago, have indicated that the rate has remained fairly steady at about half a million, with only modest improvements in some areas. But the new report by Dr Christopher Murray of Washington and his colleagues suggests that the rate has been dropping by an average of about 1.4 percent per year since 1980. If they are

correct, that is good news because it means that countries are making a concerted effort to reduce maternal deaths.

But an analysis released about the same time by a group called Countdown to 2015 - so-named because two of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals for 2015 include significant reductions in both maternal and child deaths before that year - says its own analysis shows that 350,000 to 500,000 women still die in childbirth each year, with the number probably at the higher end of the range. Overlaying the dispute on numbers is a political disagreement, fueled by that most contentious of topics: money.

Countdown to 2015 and other groups say that an additional $16 billion in donor funds over the $4 billion currently received will be required by 2015 to help meet the development goals.

But good news about a reduction in mortality might put a crimp in their plans.

Typically, when success is being achieved in any public health area, there is less urgency to donate new funds to continue the effort. Thus, the editor of the Lancet, Dr. Richard Horton, noted in an editorial that he had been pressured by some - as yet unnamed - maternal health advocates to delay publication of Murray’s report until September, after the end of the current fundraising season.

Murray and his colleagues say they are confident in their figures because they have compiled a lot more data than has been possible before, from vital registration data, censuses, surveys and autopsy studies. Using this data, they have generated a maternal mortality ratio (MMR) for each country, as well as for the world as a whole. An MMR is the number of women who die during childbirth for every 100,000 live births. Globally, the MMR fell from 422 in 1980 to 251 in 2008, they reported. The highest MMR was 1,575 in

Afghanistan, while the lowest was four in Italy. The US ranked 39th worldwide, with an MMR of 17.

More than 80 percent of all maternal deaths were concentrated in 21 countries in 2008, while 50 percent were in only six countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite Murray’s observed reduction in maternal mortality, the team concluded that only 23 countries were on track to achieve their target of lowering MMR by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015. Among those doing the best are Egypt, China, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Among developed countries, the US, Canada and Denmark have been trending in the opposite direction, according to the study. The MMR in the United States has increased from 12 in 1990 to 17 in 2008, a 42 percent increase. Part of the increase may be due to changes in the way such

deaths are reported, the authors concluded, but that does not explain why deaths in the US are occurring at double the rate of in Britain, triple the rate in Australia and four times the rate in Italy. The analysis found that nearly one in five deaths in 2008, a total of 61,400, were associated with HIV infections. The high incidence of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is a major reason why many countries there are having difficulty lowering their MMR. Some possible solutions to the problem of maternal deaths are simple “if the will and the funds are present,” said Dr Flavia Bustreo, director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, a group of more than 300 organizations that plays a major role in Countdown to 2015.

For example, if women were to go to clinics with trained staff or midwives and proper equipment, an estimated 50 percent of mothers and newborns could be saved, she said. If mothers received ade-

quate prenatal care, up to two-thirds of them could be rescued. Reducing stigma linked to childbirth and deaths also is important. In many parts of Southeast Asia, for example, childbirth is considered dirty and women are forced to deliver in cowsheds, where they must remain for a month.

Cords are often cut with dirty tools, leading to infections. Babies with pneumonia do not get antibiotics. And families know that many mothers and babies will die, so they simply accept it and do not report it. “Millions of babies die without people realizing it can be different,” said Dr Joy Lawn of Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children. “This is not high tech. Up to 3 million newborns can be saved each year with simple approaches” like using clean tools, providing antibiotics to treat pneumonia and kangaroo care, where the mother acts as an incubator for her preterm infant. — MCT

12

SPECTRUM

Saturday, April 17, 2010

H

ugh Hefner and his girlfriend Crystal Harris’ relationship is now exclusive. The Playboy founder - famed for having a harem of girlfriends living with him in his Playboy Mansion - says he has found “true love” at 84 and is planning a future with Crystal. Hugh, who celebrated his birthday in Las Vegas last weekend, said: “She’s very real, and although she has her aspirations, the major thing in her life is our relationship. The problem with some of the other girls is that there were other motivations, their careers.

This is more like true love. She is, as they say, ‘the real

deal.’ “The magazine magnate asked his other girlfriends to move out of the Playboy Mansion and into the neighboring Playmate House at the beginning of this year, and has previously hinted he is considering marrying Crystal. He has also vowed to never cheat on her, despite being surrounded by beautiful women on a daily basis. He added: “When you get married, you make a commitment. I had a lot of girlfriends, but it’s not the same as cheating. I don’t cheat. I am very open about what I do.” He also had stern words for motorcycle entrepreneur Jesse James, who has been

accused of cheating on his wife Sandra Bullock with a string of other women. Hugh added: “Sandra Bullock’s husband looks like a real creep. I think that when you are in a relationship, you should be honest. The real immorality of infidelity is the lying.” On the subject of marriage, twice wed Hugh has previously said: “It’s certainly possible. I certainly love her enough. We’ll see. I’m having more fun than I did when I was 20. “I haven’t had a lot of luck with marriage. I don’t have a good track record and I don’t want to screw this one up.”

Paris Hilton feels ‘used’ by Reinhardt

P

aris Hilton split with Doug Reinhardt as she was worried he was just using her to help his career. The hotel heiress was forced to reassess her 14-month relationship with the former ‘Hills’ star after it was revealed he was to become a producer on a reality TV show for his sister and wanted Paris to take part. According to website RadarOnline.com, a source said: “Paris never had any plans to participate in the reality show, but Doug was pressuring her to be a part of it, and she flatly refused.

Without her involvement, it’s a no-go.”

Paris, 29, was seen partying in Las Vegas last weekend and Doug was reportedly planning to fly out to see her on his way back

from a family holiday to Aspen, but decided not to at the last minute. A source said: “He was in Aspen with his dad this weekend and was considering stopping by Vegas on the drive back, but changed his mind.”I’m pretty sure that’s why he went to Aspen... to hide out and try to get over her.” Paris was spending time with her parents, Kathy and Richard, and even went partying in Vegas with them at nightclub and restaurant Tao. Earlier this year, the couple spent a week with his mother Kelly and stepfather Duane Roberts at a luxury villa on the Caribbean island of Anguilla, where the former ‘Hills’ star’s family were referring to Paris as “daughter-in-law”.

Boy George does not feel apologetic

T

he 48-year-old singer - who spent four months in prison last year for the false imprisonment of a male escort - claims the media often want him to say sorry for his past, but he feel he has already paid his penance. He said: “I think that is terribly sanctimonious. I’ve already been to trial. I’ve paid my price.

“Why should I have to explain myself to anybody, let alone seek their forgiveness?” The former Culture Club frontman also claims he has received great reactions from the public since his release from prison in May 2009. He said: “Ever since I’ve come out, I’ve had nothing but affection, everyone from the doorman at The Dorchester Hotel to taxi

drivers. “None of them have expected me to apologize. They just all seem really glad that I’m out, and that I’m back.

“It’s made me realize that people do care for me. And before you ask, yes, I am grateful for that. I am.” The eccentric star also says he has now “grown-up”, despite not liking the term. He told The New Review: “I’ve grown up. I always used to hate it when people said things like that; it made me wretch. But I’ve realized that just because you’ve grown up, it doesn’t mean you necessarily have to become boring. I certainly haven’t.

“All that has happened is that my desire for drama is greatly diminished. And it’s a relief to be able to say that.”

Why was Sheridan slapped by Cherry?

N

icollette Sheridan was slapped

by Marc Cherry - but only as he showed her how to stage a scene. The actress - who has filed a lawsuit against the ‘Desperate Housewives’ creator, alleging he hit her and she was sacked from the show after complaining - has had her allegations corroborated by an unnamed member of the cast, though the insider insists the incident “didn’t merit” legal action. The source said: “Marc did slap Nicollette; I was there and I saw it. Nicollette was trying to slap somebody for a scene, and she couldn’t get it right.” Marc intervened to show the actress what to do, demonstrating “a slap” on her.

However, the source added to E! Online: “But I have to say it was his hand barely on her head; it sure didn’t seem to me to merit the suit she has filed.” Last week, ‘Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria Parker

admitted she is “confused” by the legal action being taken by 46-yearold Nicollette, who is seeking $20 million in damages. Eva - who was not on set at the time of the alleged incident in September 2008 - said: “Marc is funny and sweet and probably couldn’t harm a fly. He’s just so sweet. I do know they had a thing on set. I guess it was a couple of years ago. “Nicollette’s a sweet girl, too.

I’m really confused about this whole thing.” Nicollette - who portrayed man-eater Edie Britt in ‘Desperate Housewives’ - filed a lawsuit against Marc at Los Angeles Superior which alleged assault and battery, gender violence and wrongful termination.

The 46-year-old actress’ departure was announced in February 2009, and she was killed-off from the show in series five, when her alter-ego died in a car accident.

— BangShowbiz

Kate Moss exhibition called off

Is Crystal Harris ‘The One’ for Hugh Hefner?

A

n exhibition dedicated to the career of Kate Moss has been cancelled. In September 2008, Paris museum Musee des Arts Decoratifs announced it would have a show in homage of the supermodel and explore the myth behind her. The exhibition was set to include images of Kate, which have been taken by some of the world’s greatest photographers over the past 20 years.It was due to be opened last November, but it was temporarily postponed due to lack of funds. Now the museum has announced that “given the economic situation” it is no longer planning to stage it at all. While an exhibition is no longer happening, it was recently reported Kate’s life is to become a play, which is being written by her musician boyfriend Jamie Hince with her help. An insider said: “Jamie is addicted to playwriting and is always jotting down scenes. “He mentioned an idea to Kate, based around the lives of her and her friends - and Kate leapt at the chance to get involved.” The script will be backed by her friend and Topshop boss Sir Philip Green. The 36-year-old beauty‘s life would certainly make for interesting theatre, as well as modeling for Burberry, Dior and Chanel, she has dated a host of famous men including Johnny Depp and Pete Doherty. She also has a seven-year-old daughter Lila Grace from her relationship with magazine publisher Jefferson Hack.

The scent of Fergie F

ergie’s debut scent will be “strong and empowering” but not “cutesy”.

The Black Eyed Peas singer is releasing her debut fragrance Outspoken - developed with cosmetic firm Avon - in September and said the name was of prime importance as it had to reflect her attitude as well as being original. Fergie - real name Stacey Ferguson - told WWD: “I didn’t want to call it Duchess, or Glamorous, or Fergalicious, or something that I’ve already done.”I didn’t want it to be so cutesy. I wanted it to be strong and empowering, something that represents me as a whole woman, a fearless woman. “From my music to my wardrobe, my style is all about speak-

ing up and making a statement. That’s why my first-ever fragrance exudes independence. Outspoken definitely turns heads, but it also lets your true personality shine through.” The scent mixes notes of starfruit, tuberose, jasmine, and passion flower with base notes like black leather and smoky vetiver, and has already won over one person, Fergie’s husband, actor Josh Duhamel. He said: “I didn’t like what she was wearing before, but I never told her. But this is good. It just works with my nose, I think.” Outspoken by Fergie will be launched in September in the US and sell at $28 a bottle.

13

SPECTRUM

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Dream vacation spot in Lebanon at enemy’s gate O

n a lush green hillside that dips into a river, dozens of laborers are busy building a dream vacation getaway deep in Lebanon’s south. The construction site in the tiny village of Al-Wazzani may look like any other except that in this case it sits right at the enemy’s gate-literally a stone’s throw from Israel. “Many told us we were crazy to build so close to the border with Israel,” said Khalil Abdallah, the man behind the three-million-dollar project located three meters (10 feet) from the UN-drawn border that separates Lebanon from Israel, two countries still technically at war.

“Many also think it’s a great idea,” added the 58-year-old entrepreneur who recently returned to settle in his native Lebanon after living and working in Africa for 40 years.

But the so-called Wazzani Fort, a rest and recreation resort in a region largely controlled by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, has already raised hackles from across the border.

Israeli troops earlier this month crossed onto the construction site and dismantled the hydraulic arm of a bulldozer, according to the Lebanese army.

The incident prompted Lebanon to lodge a complaint before the UN Security Council.

Abdallah and his sister and business partner Zahra, however, remain undaunted. “This is

Khalil Al-Abdullah, owner of “Hosn Al-Wazzani” resort (The Fortress of Al-Wazzani), overlooks his project in the southern area of Wazzani River on the Lebanese-Israeli borders. — AFP our land and we have every right to make use of every last inch of it,” said Zahra, 45. “We want to live in peace and we want to realize this old dream.”

She expressed confidence the resort would be a success and attract lots of clients, both Lebanese and foreign, despite its strategic location. “You’ll see, we are going to be fully

booked when we open and we already have five weddings booked for this summer,” said Zahra. As she spoke, an Israeli armored vehicle slowly cruised by across the border, on a

hilltop overlooking the resort. A Lebanese army tank was meanwhile stationed on the construction site while two vehicles from the UN peacekeeping force in southern LebanonUNIFIL-patrolled the area.

“The first time I saw Jewish soldiers up close I panicked,” Mohammed Scheybar, a Syrian construction worker, told AFP. “They sat there and watched us for five hours and then left. “Now I am used to their presence and it doesn’t bother me anymore.” Israel occupied much of southern Lebanon for 22 years between 1978 and 2000 preventing people like the Abdallahs from accessing their land.

The region was also devastated in 2006 following a war between Hezbollah and the Jewish state. And there are persistent fears another conflict may be brewing amid a constant war of words between the militant group and Israel. Given the turbulent history of southern Lebanon, some say Abdallah is pinning his dreams on a sleeping volcano.

“The Jews are not okay with this project and local residents fear a backlash,” said Ghazala, 45, a mother of seven who lives in the nearby village of Wata Al-Khiam. The UNIFIL force for its part said it is keeping a close watch on the project which appears to be too close for comfort to the Israeli border. “The

Blue Line is always very sensitive and therefore utmost caution is necessary in any activities along this area,” UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh told AFP, referring to the UNset border.

“We are in contact with the parties to ensure that there is no misunderstanding leading to any escalation of the situation,” he added. “We have asked the parties to refrain from any action that could be viewed as provocative.” Construction of Wazzani Fort began in July last year, and the resort is due to be partially inaugurated in June of this year with nine guest rooms, a restaurant and swimming pool. Once completed in 2012, it will also include several bungalows, villas, a gym, a health clinic, tennis courts, horseback riding and a supermarket.

Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said it was heartening to see people like the Abdallah’s invest in such a “daring” project. “This is a top quality tourism initiative in a region that had been abandoned for years,” he said. “It is also a form of resistance and reflects the will of the local population to develop the region.”

Abdallah said his aim was only to fulfill a lifelong wish and offer guests a unique experience. “This is a dream come true for me and my dad,” he said. “All I want is to end my days here.” — AFP

Latest Murakami novel goes on sale in Japan E

ager fans waited in drizzling rain yesterday to buy the third volume of Haruki Murakami’s best-selling, multi-part novel “1Q84” and learn if its main characters - long-ago schoolmates now searching for each other - would be reunited.

Publisher Shinchosha said 500,000 copies would hit bookstores on the first day of sales in Japan and 200,000 more copies would be printed this month.

Television images showed 30 people in line outside one Tokyo bookstore. “I’ve been waiting for today.

I am dying to know whether the two characters will finally stay together,” said Kayoko Takeuchi, a 35year-old office worker, at Tokyo’s Yaesu book center in a business district.

She stopped by the bookstore during her lunch break. A Shinchosha spokesman said demand for the book was amazing. “We heard that one bookstore sold 100 copies in just one hour,” Takashi Machii said. Like many of Murakami’s previous best-sellers, “1Q84” is a complex and surreal narrative. The story shifts between two characters, a young Japanese man and woman who knew each other as schoolmates but parted. He, an aspiring novelist, and she, a sports instructor and an assassin, are now searching for each other.

The second volume of “1Q84” - which can be read as the year “1984” in Japanese - ended with the man and woman finally close to seeing each other. The novel explores social and emotional issues such as cult religion, violence, family ties and love. Kanji Otsuka, a 51-year-old businessman

A shop clerk arranges a stack of Haruki Murakami’s third volume of bestselling novel “1Q84” as they are on sale at a book store in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday. — AP at a pharmaceutical company, said he has read almost all of Murakami’s works, and “1Q84” is among his favorites. “His books are easy to read, but touch on serious issues in our lives. His books also spark imagination,” a smiling Otsuka said as he held the sequence of “1Q84” at the Yaesu book-

store.

Shinchosha declined to say if the third volume would be the end of the “1Q84” story, saying Murakami would decide when the tale was finished.

The first and second volumes of “1Q84” ranked as Japan’s top-selling book in 2009, according to pub-

lishing distributor Tohan Co Ltd. Shinchosha said it has printed a combined 2.44 million copies of the two volumes “1Q84” since their release in Japan last May. The two earlier volumes total 1,000 pages, with the third volume at around 600 pages. Murakami’s past works include global best-sellers “Norwegian Wood,” “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.”

More than 10 million copies of “Norwegian Wood” have been sold in Japan alone since its release in 1987, according to the book’s publisher, Kodansha Ltd. He is considered a top Japanese candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Toshiaki Uchida, an assistant manager at the Yaesu store, said Murakami is a special author.

“Unlike other authors, the number of Murakami’s fans keeps snowballing. I cannot think of any writer who commands such popularity,” Uchida said as he restocked more copies of “1Q84” on a table at the store entrance. The first and second volumes of “1Q84” are available in South Korea and Taiwan.

The publisher said it didn’t know when English versions would be available. Murakami, who has lived in the US, including stints at Princeton and Harvard, is fiercely private. He was not immediately available for comment yesterday. Murakami has also written works of nonfiction, including a book based on interviews of victims of the 1995 deadly nerve gas attack in Tokyo, and has translated works by Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, John Irving and J D Salinger. — AP

“G

lee,” the award-winning musical comedy about a misfit high school show choir, might be doing more for music than its fellow Fox juggernaut, “American Idol.” In its first 13 episodes, the show treated viewers to covers of songs by Neil Diamond, Rihanna, Kanye West, Barbra Streisand, Beyonce, Queen, Liza Minnelli and more. The music from “Glee” is a huge success in its own right, with more than 4 million digital downloads sold and two soundtracks already certified gold.

A nationwide tour, “Glee Live,” featuring key members from the show’s cast, kicks off in May and has sold out, and the show is boosting sales for the original artists behind the songs. Its stars are even featured on the current issue of Rolling Stone.

When the hourlong hit returns Tuesday for a nine-episode run, expect twice the tunes per show and even more mash-ups and musical diversity. “Every single possible musical style and taste is going to be in there,” says “Glee” co-creator Brad Falchuk. “It doesn’t matter what you like - you’re going to find what you like and stuff you never heard of that you’ll love.”

But the commercial success of the “Glee” songs wasn’t a reason for the boost, he says. Instead, he said the decision was made because the music greatly enriches the show by giving viewers an emotional understanding of what the characters are going through. Falchuk says he and fellow show creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan intentionally upped the number of songs to a minimum of five per episode for the balance of the first season (three to five had been the norm).

Falchuk says Murphy, also creator of the cult TV hit “Nip/Tuck,” is the master behind the music: “He’s the iTunes library, the Rainman of music.” This season, the characters will express their joy and frustrations through the songs of best-selling acts like AC/DC, the Beatles, Lionel Richie, Olivia Newton John and Madonna.

In fact, Madonna gets her own entire episode - a tribute to the Material Girl packed with 10 songs, seven of which appear on a separate soundtrack, “Glee: The Power of Madonna,” set for release April 20. Practically every member of the show’s cast can and does sing, recording their songs regularly at the storied Jim Henson Studios in

Los Angeles. The dozen actors comprising McKinley High School’s New Directions glee club sing several songs each episode, while other stars - including caustic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), cranky football coach Ken Tanaka (Patrick Gallagher) and neat-freak guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) chime in from time to time.

Producer Adam Anders arranges, records and mixes all the featured tracks - sometimes as many as 10 a week. “I have eight studios going at all times on ‘Glee,”‘ says the 34-year-old, who counts Disney’s “High School Musical” and “Camp Rock” among his credits. “I have a partner in Sweden, and we basically get 27 hours out of a day because we have a nine-hour time change.” The pair works around the clock to craft the songs, usually a couple weeks before each episode is shot. When the episode airs, they know immediately which songs are hits by simply clicking on iTunes.

“As a songwriter or producer, you never get that kind of instant reaction,” Anders says. “It’s really cool.” Some bands covered on “Glee” have seen a resurgence in their own popularity. The cast’s version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin”‘ hit No. 1 on iTunes when the show premiered and helped return the original 1981 version to the charts (that song also jumped on iTunes charts after it was used in the “Sopranos” finale).

“It’s a testament to how much the music is really affecting people and that a whole new generation is being introduced to these songs,” Falchuk says. Still, the success of the music depends on the success of the storytelling, so script always precedes song. “We never have a song and then say we need to find a story for this song,” says Falchuk.

“The thing about a musical is what emotional experience do you want the audience to have by hearing that song at that moment?” It’s those experiences that inspire sales success. “The songs that sell the best are the ones where the integration of the story and music really worked, where there’s an emotional connection to what’s going on in the scene,” he says.

“It’s independent of genre. It could be classic rock or a musical, it’s just a song that made people feel good.” — AP

W

omen in the movies is not just about Marilyn Monroe, after Kathyrn Bigelow picked up the best-director Oscar, and with the likes of Jane Campion or Claire Denis enjoying a global following. At a women’s film festival taking place outside Paris for the 32nd year running, the gender divide often took a back seat to broader frustrations over poor distribution of independent film. Jackie Buet, festival director, disagreed that a special event for women confines women’s’ films to a “ghetto”, but Argentine film-maker Julia Solomonoff was more concerned with the art house circuit than her gender.

Solomonoff, whose second feature was in competition at the Creteil festival, is part of a vibrant generation of film-makers in Argentina from the 1990s that includes Ana Katz, who resists the “woman” label, and critically-acclaimed Lucrecia Martel. Her time studying at Columbia University in New York showed her how difficult getting a film made in the US could be as an independent director: “very slow, too much speculation, focus on business and no risk-taking”.

There has also been a rise of what Solomonoff calls the “Entertainment lawyers” who deal with contracts and take key decisions, leaving many projects unrealized, with the result that “the real creatives go into television”. But these are problems affecting men and women alike. Belgian director Dorthee Van Den

Berghe, whose “My Queen Karo” about a 1970s commune in Amsterdam was awarded this year, does evoke a “feminine perspective” when she says she can often guess if a film is directed by a man or a woman.

“Usually there are more details about the day-today, more personal elements, it is less dramatic and there are fewer big themes”. She says it is “super” that Bigelow won with a war film, referring to the Oscar-winning “The Hurt Locker” about the Iraq conflict, because women rarely make genre films. Both Van Den Berghe and Solomonoff agree that the physical weight of cameras is no longer a constraint for women in the digital age, but refer to problems at a psychological level.

“Film directing is like leading an army”, Van Den Berghe said, “which is not what women are used to”.

She said she works “spontaneously” and shows she has doubts, which does not always go down well.

Directing can be a very peripatetic and precarious job, said Van Den Berghe, and “women may find it less easy to live with this uncertainty”. It is not just gender discrimination that is the problem but more the values and interests of newer generations. As the French feminist movement MLF celebrates 40 years this year, the directors wondered whether women build on feminist advances. —AFP

Rapper Jay-Z sues David Ortiz over nightclub name

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Jay-Z

ay-Z and a business partner are suing slugger David Ortiz, claiming the Boston Red Sox star named his Dominican nightclub after the mogul’s chain of 40/40 clubs. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court, accuses Ortiz of naming his Santo Domingo club Forty-Forty in the hopes of trading in on the rap star’s fame. The suit seeks over $5 million in damages and for Ortiz to forfeit any use of the 40/40 name.

Jay-Z’s string of bars can be found in Manhattan, Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

“David Ortiz is fully aware of Plaintiff’s Manhattan 40/40 club, since he had been a patron there on several occasions before he opened his Infringing Forty/Forty club,” the lawsuit states. The clubs are named after the feat of hitting 40 homers and stealing 40 bases in one season. A message seeking comment was left Thursday night with SFX Baseball, the agency that represents Ortiz. —AFP

Roger Waters

In this publicity image released by Fox, Lea Michele (left) and Cory Monteith perform in a scene from “Glee.” — AP

Waters to celebrate ‘Wall’ anniversary with concerts I

t’s been 30 years, but Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” still means a great deal in the rock world - and to its co-creator Roger Waters. So to commemorate the groundbreaking album’s anniversary, Waters plans a tour this fall of the music from the concept album, with new staging that will bring the story - loosely inspired by his life - to a new generation. “In the 30-odd years since I first performed this piece, it’s taken on some new meanings for me,” Waters, co-founder, bassist and main lyricist for Pink Floyd, said in an interview last week.

“Thirty years ago when I was kind of an angry and not very young lad, I found myself driven into defensive positions because I was scared of stuff, and I’ve come to realize that in that personal story, maybe somewhere hidden in there exists an allegory for more general and universal themes, political and social themes,” he said. “It’s really for that reason that I decided that I’d try and create a new performance of this piece using a lot of the same things that we did all those years ago.” But Waters said he won’t just be dusting off the show that the now-defunct Pink Floyd performed decades ago. In fact, Waters said part of the excitement surrounding his new staging of “The Wall” involves new technology that allows him to do things he could only dream about in the 1980s and ‘90s.

“Projection systems now are completely different from what they were then, which means that I would be able to project over the entire 250foot expanse of the wall ... which we couldn’t do in those days,” he said. Though the tour promises plenty of grand theatrics, more important to Waters is the legendary album’s political and social commentary, which he believes is still relative. “When we did it then, we were after the end of the Vietnam War, and we’re right now in the middle of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so there’s a very powerful anti-war message in ‘The Wall.’

There was then and there still is now,” he said.

Waters plans a segment in the show that will pay tribute to soldiers who lost their lives, not only in the recent wars, but also in other conflicts.

The US tour will kick off Sept 15 in Toronto and end Dec 15 in Anaheim, Calif. It will also head to Europe. For Waters, the concerts will likely mark the end of his performing days. “I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m not like B B King, or Muddy Waters,” the 66-year-old said. “My friend Eric Clapton ... he’ll be playing guitar and he’ll be on stage ‘til the day he dies, because that’s what he does.” “I’m not a great vocalist or a great instrumentalist or whatever, but I still have the fire in my belly, and I have something to say,” he continued. “I have a swan song in me and I think this will probably be it.” — AP

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SPECTRUM

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Model shift: Could older be the new black?

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Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

mong the more avant-garde looks shown on the runways of New York, London, Paris and Milan was one that seems ho-hum in real life: gray hair. More mature models - some even in their, gasp, 40s - were stars at the previews of fall styles. And in the fashion world, that’s a radical turn from the use of models not old enough to drive a car, let alone wield a credit card. “I wanted something different,” said Francisco Costa, creative director for the Calvin Klein Collection. “I wanted a cast that really represented a customer I design for, and that’s not really a 16-year-old.” Costa hired gray-haired Kristen McMenamy, who also appeared at Viktor & Rolf, as well as ‘90s sensations - and now mothers - Stella Tennant and Kirsty Hume.

Marc Jacobs, widely considered the most influential American designer, cast 47-year-old Elle Macpherson in his Louis Vuitton show, along with Bar Refaeli and Alessandra Ambrosio. Trendsetting Miuccia Prada used Ambrosio, Isabeli Fontana, Doutzen Kroes and Miranda Kerr - all best known as voluptuous Victoria’s Secret models and all in their mid-20s, a relatively advanced age for runway models. It’s a smart move by the fashion industry

to make itself more relatable to consumers. Costa acknowledges that the tough retail climate has helped force design houses to speak more directly to their customers. “The woman who puts my clothes on needs a certain level of sophistication,” says Costa. “We wanted to acknowledge women who have always worn our clothes, women with their own identities, have full lives, have kids.” It also may help counter perennial complaints about skinny models. It’s said that age brings wisdom; it also usually brings curves.

The more mature look was on-trend with the chic, retro styles shown for fall, so helping models’ health may be icing on the maybe-not-entirely-fat-free cake. Still, Nian Fish, creative director at fashion-show powerhouse producer KCD, says designers, stylists, casting agents and modeling agents all collectively heeded the call to put forth a healthier image.

“This is fashion coupled with compassion,” says Fish, who helped the Council of Fashion Designers of America launch its health initiative back in 2007. “But I think the compassion came first, and then the fashion suited these bodies. I loved seeing these bodies in Prada. We’re always

looking for trends at Prada, and seeing Victoria’s Secret girls on the Prada runway woke up a lot of people about what a women should look like.” Older models have had far more success in print, where 41-year-old Christy Turlington and 39-year-old Claudia Schiffer, for example, still star in top-tier campaigns.

But while ads have always been specifically crafted to sell something, the runway had been about fantasy. The reaction to Costa’s more womanly look - a shift from the house’s usual almost androgynous muse - has been very positive, he notes. “You can see a Kristen McMenamy wearing the clothes. You can see a woman who’s so cool, but her hair is so real - it’s amazing,” he says. “These runways looked great,” agrees Fish. “Our eyes adjusted very quickly because we wanted it to. Everything looked fresh and new. Seeing clothes on post-pubescent bodies didn’t look fresh.” The current controversy about models’ weight actually goes back to the early ‘90s and the days of Kate Moss, her waif body and a look dubbed “heroin chic.”

But the conversation turned to age at a panel discussion earlier this year where Kroes, 25, and Coco Rocha, all of 21, both said they weren’t getting much runway work

because of their age and curvier figures.

“I had been away from fashion shows seven or eight years, other than Victoria’s Secret,” says Ambrosio, who also walked for Giles Deacon. “It was really nice to participate. It was surprising because, for such a long time, designers were only using girls that weren’t so sexy, whose bodies were less curvy.” It was a coup for her to be cast, she says, but it also helped score public interest in the shows. “People were interested in the known faces on the runway,” she says. “We’ve all been working for such a long time, and the more you walk, the more you work, the more confidence you have. You can relax, smile more, add personality. You walk the way the clothes need to be shown.” Ed Razek, president of Victoria’s Secret, is amused that the fashion world is rediscovering boldface models, who, naturally, have to have a few years under her belt to become famous.

The first time he met Chanel Iman, she was already considered an It Girl in the fashion world, starting on the runways at 15. But she was too scrawny and young, Razek recalls. Now at age 20 she has a lucrative Victoria’s Secret contract. “She promised in the next year, she’d grow

curves _ and she did,” Razek says.

This season, girls of 13 or 14 were told this season to come back when they were a bit older, says KCD’s Fish.

And other models who looked unhealthy were advised to take the season off but with an open pledge to embrace them when they return after getting treatment. The CFDA’s voluntary wellness guidelines link age and health, even if they don’t set specific standards, says Steven Kolb, the organization’s executive director. There are standing recommendations that models under 16 not be hired and those under 18 not work past midnight and have supervision, rest and regular meals.

“The age and thinness thing go hand-in-hand,” Kolb says. Fish says she hopes the younger girls do come back - with many more years of work in front of them. “This is all going to snowball now. Once these few key designers do this, it snowballs and it makes it OK for everyone else to do.” Will McMenamy and her gray hair be back, too?

Costa won’t commit, saying he does embrace newness.

But, he adds, that doesn’t have to be synonymous with youth. “Kate Moss has grown up,” he says. “Now she’s the woman I wish to wear my clothes.” — AP

Models display creations by Mexican designer Lidia Lavin during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Mexico City on April 15, 2010. — AFP

Models display creations by Mexican designer Sebastian Y Maria Luisa. — AFP Models display creations by Mexican designer Blanca Estela Sanchez. — AFP

Empire State Building statue provokes chaos

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rantic 911 callers have been flooding New York police lines after seeing what appeared to be a person perched on an elevated ledge of the Empire State Building and preparing to jump. But the nightmare scenario turned out to be false, with police realizing upon rushing to the scene that they were dealing with a lifeless cast-iron statue and not a suicide attempt, the New York Post reported Thursday. The life-size sculpture is among 31 statues of realistic looking men by British artist Antony Gormley installed on dangerous roofs and ledges of the city’s most famous buildings early last month. Four of them were placed street-side, including one on Fifth Avenue.

“It’s a pain in the a**,” one officer told the Post about the “Even Horizon” art installation. “It’s a waste of manpower. We’re short cops to begin with and we don’t have enough cops to waste answering calls of statues committing suicide.” Police have been informed of the art project, which is also supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Passersby and police may have reason to be worried: since it opened in 1931, 34 people have jumped from the observation deck of the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan. The metal man on the building’s ledge was present when a Yale University student became the latest to jump to his death on March 30. — AFP

A handout image obtained yesterday, from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, shows outfits from an exhibition entitled ‘Grace Kelly: Style Icon’ which opens at the museum today. Dresses from films such as ‘High Society’ and ‘Rear Window’ feature in the new exhibition.— AFP

WHAT’S ON IN KUWAIT

Saturday, April 17, 2010

GIS celebrates Parents’ Day

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Swimming classes

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he British School of Swimming is not full! Many might believe that admissions have closed but now new classes have been started in the Red School on Sundays and Wednesdays at 4:00 pm and in the Yellow School at 11:00 am on Saturdays and 5:15 pm on Tuesdays. We also still have the option of 3 new classes at 12:20 am on Saturdays and 6:35pm on Tuesdays and they could well be open next week. We have opened a new class for Water Babies at 3:30pm on Tuesdays and there are three places left. There are still places for men to learn to swim, but ladies who register now are going on a waiting list. Our policy of continuous enrolment means that new students can be accepted at any time during a course, and they will be placed in a class that best suits their ability.

Jayne and David would also like to inform you that registration for our Sizzling Summer Swim School, which will begin on June 6 and end on July 8, will be available next week. This is a five-week course where students swim three times a week. Please direct all enquiries to David, phone 9965 6305 or mail to bsswim@gmail.com

French education forum

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T

he Pre-Primary wing of Gulf Indian School celebrated Parents’ Day on March 15, 2010. The program began with ‘Ek Chidiya’ by the tiny tots conveying the message that unity is strength. Colors of the rainbow, days of the week, and months of the year were depicted through lively songs and actions enhanced by striking costumes. Old Mother Hubbard and her dog entertained the audience with their skillful acting. The need for exercise for healthy living was depicted in the form of aerobics by the children in smart outfits. The program concluded with ‘Helping Hands’ where children thanked various people in society who help us. The tiny tots performed with ease, self discipline and confidence. Each and every child of the Pre-Primary section took part in this marvelous program which delighted the parents. Congratulations to all the wonderful budding artists and the teachers!

Announcement Basil Arts A revival meeting of the Basil Arts will be held today 7 pm at Hidine Auditorium Abbassiya. All duly registered members are requested to attend the meeting on time.

Fun Day in KES Kuwait National English School (Hawally) will be holding its annual Fun Day today from 10 am -8 pm to raise funds for Haiti and we would like to invite you to come! It promises to be a very exciting day with rides, swimming, games, and lots of entertainment for the whole family!

he First French Education forum will be held the April 22, 2010 at the Radisson Blu hotel, from 4 to 8 pm. It is open for all students. This educational fair is organized by the Cultural service of the French Embassy and Campus France (www.campusfrance.org), which is in charge of promoting French higher education abroad. This forum is part of a global regional tour which includes Kuwait. Abu Dhabi and Doha. A total of 20 high profile French educational institutions will be represented for this occasion. Among them the universities of Grenoble and Perpignan, a group of 115 institutes of technology (affiliated with universities throughout France), 6 engineering schools offering courses in different fields of engineering studies, four business schools, three language schools and three art schools will take part in this fair. A special website has been created for this event: www.gulftour.campusfrance.org for more information.

TRASSK welcomes new committee members

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hrissur Assoication of Kuwait (TRASSK) Jahra area committee conducted its general body meeting on March 19, 2010 at Jahra. The meeting presided by Area Convener Sherin and Secretary K M Raju welcomed the gathering. TRASSK President Vijayan Thayath, General Secretary K R Prasad and Treasurer Ramaswamy briefed the gathering this year’s activities of TRASSK. Area Treasurer Areesh C R proposed vote of

thanks. General Body elected Areesh C R as Area Convener, Sibi Puthussery as Secretary and Sunil K B as Treasurer and Shivadas P S (Area Joint convener), Shinoy M P (Area Joint Secretary), Sherin M K, Shijo manjaly, Baiju C D as Central Committee members Raju K M, Sathyan P S, Randheer Jose, Johnson V J, Suresh P K and Sunil P S as area committee members for the year 2010-11.

Aware diwaniya The AWARE Center cordially invites those interested to its diwaniya on “Communication and time management,” by Linda Fouke. When asked to identify stress in their lives, adults list ‘time’ as one of the top three sources of stress. Dr Linda is currently a school administrator and former founder of “Room4 Improvement,” a management consulting company, where Linda helped her clients get better organized, increase productivity and decrease their stress levels. If you are looking for tips to improve work performance and remain in control of a busy life, join Dr Linda as she shares ways to hone time management skills on Tuesday April 20 at 7 pm. For more information, please call 25335280/60 ext 105 or e-mail: Htaware.hassan@gmail.com or log onto: www.aware.com.kw” Unveiling fashions of the Middle East Reflections of Who We Are: AWARE & Kuwaiti Youth Volunteers Present: Thursday, April 22 Reflections of Who We Are - “Unveiling the Fashions of the Middle East” A Middle-Eastern-Gulf Country Cultural Clothing Fashion Show & Charity Event (All proceeds will be donated to Animal Friends League) from 7-9 pm at PAAET College, Adaliya.

Radiating confidence and reflecting on their cultural roots, Kuwaiti youth join hands with AWARE to model the culturally rich backgrounds of fashion from the Middle-Eastern Gulf Countries. Fashion is a prevailing custom or style of dress selected primarily on one’s national identity & religious beliefs. Nationals of Middle Eastern Gulf countries enjoy a style uniquely their own while sharing an element of modesty in their traditional dress. We invite you to join for a lively, traditional clothing fashion show as our models present, for the first time, costumes from Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. For further details contact AWARE at 2-533-5280 or email: info@aware.com.kw CHRISCCAA annual meeting Christian College Chengannur - Alumni Association, Kuwait Chapter (CHRISCCAA), executive committee, have decided to conduct its annual general body meeting on Saturday, April 24, at United Indian School, Jleeb, from 8 pm onwards.

Presentation of Annual Report, Annual Accounts, selection of Office bearers and executive committee will be held during the meeting. All the association members are requested to attend the meeting. Contact any of the following office bearers for more details. Mathew Alexander, President (99553036), George Mathew, vice president (94060522), Sunil Thomas, Gen.Secretary (66265702), Jacob Varghese, Treasurer (66223348).

Al-Thaalib Scholarship 2010 Al-Thaalib Scholarship is a financial aid scheme for under privileged school students in Kuwait, sponsored by Islam Presentation Committee (IPC) & Ministry of Awqaf in association with Friday Forum and Pakistan Kuwait Welfare Association. Last year we were able to provide financial assistance to nearly 900 students of various Indian & Pakistani Schools in Kuwait for the academic year 2008-09. These scholarships were given to the needy students irrespective of their religion or nationality. We are pleased to inform that the process for Al-Thaalib Scholarship for the current academic year, 2010-11, has begun for all Indian, Philippine and Pakistani Schools in Kuwait.This year we shall endeavor to reach the scholarship to as many needy students as possible to help them continue with their education without any financial hindrance. In order to avail this scholarship, applicants are requested to collect the Application Form, from Al-Thaalib Office located in CAMS, Ahmed Al-Jaber Street, Darwaza, Near Warba Insurance Co, Int’l Islamic Charity Organization Building, 2nd Floor, Al-Sharq. The duly filled application form shall be submitted to Al-Thaalib office on or before April 30, 2010 along with all supporting documents specified in the Application Form. For more information, you may contact 55046318 or 22418934 ext 204/202.

Areesh

Sibi

Youth India Sports 2010

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outh India, the youth wing of KIG organizes Sports 2010 for the Keralite community (gents only) on April 23 at Khaifan Amateur Athletic Federation stadium. “Sporting for the well being of the human society” is the slogan of the event and it is open to the entire Keralite community living in Kuwait, irrespective of caste, creed or religion. The event will kick start with a colorful parade of the team members from 6 participating zones of Youth India, namely, Kuwait City, Salmiya, Abu Halifa, Fahaheel, Farwaniya and, Abbasiya, in a march past at 3 pm and continue till 11 pm in the stadium. The team with the highest points will be awarded with the Youth India rolling trophy and individual trophies will be awarded to champions in each category. An individual can participate in a maximum of three items and the competitions will be held for Men, Senior Boys, and Junior Boys and Sub Junior Boys categories in track and field events as follows: Men: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 4*100 relay, Long Jump, High Jump, Shot put, Discus throw,

Javelin throw , Tug of war.

Senior boys: 100m, 200m, 400m, Long jump, High jump, 4*100 relay, Shot put , Discus throw , Javelin throw, Junior boys: 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump, High jump Sub junior boys: 50m, 100m, 200m, long jump, Sack race. Those who wish to participate can contact the zonal captains: Saji Pappachan - 97345407 Abbasiya Zone (Abbasiya, Hasawi, Ardiya) Hajinas - 66327183 Farwaniya Zone (Farwaniya , Khaitan, Sabhan) Navas - 66581915 Salmiya (Salmiya , Hawally) Shaheer - 97884737 Fahaheel (Fahaheel , Mangaf , Sabahiya) Subair - 99212817 Abu Halifa ( Abu Halifa, Mahboula, Fintas). Asimon - 66123045 Kuwait City (Kuwait City , Riggai , Amghara) For more info please contact 67714948/97939049.

Alternatively, you can register online on www.youthindiakuwait.com . The last date for registration is April 21, 2010.

Admission to technical institutions in India

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inistry of Human Resources & Development, Govt of India, has entrusted the central coordination of admission under Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA) Scheme to NITK Surathkal, Mangalore, Karnataka, India. Admissions are open for Foreign Nationals / Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) / Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) under DASA Scheme for the Academic Year 2010-11 to various National Institutes of Technology (NITs), and other premier Institutes (for details refer to www.nitk.ac.in). Attention of all interested students is drawn to the revised procedure of drawing up the Merit list for allotment of branches and Institutes based on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT II) subject scores only (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics

Level 2). Hence, students are advised to register for SAT examination likely to be conducted on June 05, 2010, whose registration date is May 05, 2010. Please note that students applying under SPDC scheme for seeking admission in NITs are also required to qualify the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT II) examination.

This will, however, not affect students seeking admissions under SPDC to other institutes having an MOU with EdCIL. Complete details about the SAT examination are available at www.collegeboard.com . Detailed admission procedure, online application and brochure for the current revised scheme would also be available on NITK website (www.nitk.ac.in) effective 01.04.2010. Any queries may be addressed to jsfs@moia.nic.in

Kozhencherry Association Kuwait hold annual get-together

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ozhencherry Association Kuwait cordially invites all its members with family and well-wishers for a get-together today at 7 pm at the United Indian School auditorium in Abbasiya. There will be a variety of entertainment programs where the main focus will be on ‘Kallan Kayariya Veedu’. The program is followed by sumptuous dinner. For further details, contact 97214950, 66511065, and 99006163.

Sunil

IEI Kuwait Chapter announcement

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EI Kuwait Chapter presents IIT Bombay’s Road Show Cum Induction Program Certificate Course on Piping Engineering at Holiday Inn, Down Town (Sharq) on April 19, 2010 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm.

Individuals belonging to the following sectors are requested to attend: Mechanical/Chemical/Production /Industrial/Instrumentation/Civil/Co nstruction/Petroleum Engineers in Oil & Gas, Chemical Process Industry, Power Sector, Cross Country Piping, EPC Companies, Design Contractors & Consultants, Inspection Agencies, Ship Building Industry, Municipal Corporations in distribution of utilities (gas, water, chilled water), City Gas Distribution etc. Corporate: Companies in the above manufacturing or service sectors. EPC companies servicing the above sectors. For more information on the road show or course, visit: www.CEPGlobe.com

Embassy information EMBASSy oF LAo The Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic will be closed tomorrow on the occasion of Lao’s New Year and will reopen on April 19, 2010.

EMBASSy oF UKRAInE The Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait informs that it has started updating the information about Ukrainian citizens, who live and work in Kuwait. In this connection, we are asking you to refer to the Embassy and update your file in consular register in order not to be excluded from it. For additional information please call: 25318507 ext.106 or visit the embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait (address: Hawalli, Jabriya, bl.10, str.6, house 5). The consular section of the Embassy open every day from 09:30 till 14:30 except Friday and Saturday.

EMBASSy oF InDIA The Embassy of India has further revamped and improved its Legal Advice Clinic at the Indian Workers Welfare Center, and made the free service available to Indian nationals on all five working days, i.e. from Sunday to Thursday every week. Kuwaiti lawyers would be available at the Legal Advice Clinic daily from Monday to Thursday, while Indian lawyers would be available on Sundays. Following are the free welfare services provided at the Indian Workers Welfare Center located at the Embassy of India: [i] 24x7 Helpline for Domestic Workers: Accessible by toll free telephone no.

25674163 from anywhere in Kuwait, it provides information and advice exclusively to Indian domestic sector workers (Visa No. 20) as regards their grievances, immigration and other matters. [ii] Help Desk: It offers guidance to Indian nationals on routine immigration, employment, legal, and other issues (Embassy premises; 9 AM to 1 PM and 2 PM to 4.30 PM, Sunday to Thursday); (iii) Labour Complaints Desk: It registers labor complaints and provides grievance redressal service to Indian workers (Embassy premises; 9 AM to 1 PM and 2 PM to 4.30 PM, Sunday to Thursday); (iv) Shelters: For female and male domestic workers in distress; (v) Legal Advice Clinic: Provides free legal advice to Indian nationals (Embassy premises; Kuwaiti lawyers 3 PM to 5 PM, Monday to Thursday; Indian lawyers 2 PM to 4 PM on Sunday); and (vi) Attestation of Work Contracts: Private sector worker (Visa No. 18) contracts are accepted at the Embassy; 9 AM to 1 PM; Sunday to Thursday; Domestic sector worker (Visa No. 20) contracts are accepted at Kuwait Union of Domestic Labor Offices (KUDLO), Hawally, Al-Othman Street, Kurd Roundabout, Al-Abraj Complex, Office No 9, Mezzanine Floor; 9 AM to 9 PM, Saturday to Thursday; 5 PM to 9 PM on Friday.

EMBASSy oF PHILIPPInES The Embassy of the Philippines wishes to inform the Filipino community in the State of Kuwait, that the recent supreme court decision to extend the registration of voter’s applies only in local registration in the Philippines under Republic Act no. 8189 and does not apply to overseas voters which is governed by Republic Act no. 9189, hence it has no impact on the plans and preparations on the conduct of overseas absentee voting. The overseas absentee voting for presidential elections will continue uninterrupted until May 10, 2010 daily at the Philippine Embassy. Registered overseas absentee voters are advised to schedule their days off in advance to avoid complications in their schedules. Qualified voters are encouraged to get out and vote.

Send to What’s on upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

Aware Center announces

Arabic course

T

he AWARE Center is glad to announce that the Summer 1 Arabic course will begin on May 2 until June 16, 2010 (introductory Arabic begins on May 2 till June 3, 2010). The AWARE Center offers Arabic classes on a regular basis from Introductory Arabic to level 4.

AWARE Arabic classes are designed with the expat in mind. Our Arabic language courses offer a relaxed approach to communicating in basic Arabic for those who wish to learn Arabic for travel, for better understanding the culture of the Arabs, for conducting business or for simply feeling more involved while residing in

Kuwait. Whether you are a teacher, a traveler, or work in the private business sector, AWARE Arabic courses introduce Arabic language basics that will offer you a start into the skills that will better prepare you for speaking, reading and writing Arabic. AWARE Arabic courses combine language learning with cultural insights.

All courses are taught in group settings which provide additional opportunities to interact with other Western expatriates studying the language. For more information, call 25335260/80 ext 105 or 104 or e-mail: Htaware.hassan@gmail.com.

SPECTRUM

16 CROSSWORD 961

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Calvin Aries (March 21-April 19) Cooperation, support and service will bring you to a new level of life experience now. Be aware of what your motivations are and express yourself with no expectations of a return on your time or feelings. This is a time during which you could accomplish a lot through sheer discipline—control of your zeal and drive. A decision to move forward with some personal scenario will involve your acceptance of the consequences to make it work. In other words, once you make up your mind to do something that might cause some ripples, you do not complain. You enjoy the time you spend with the children in your life. Casual activities are very meaningful.

Your loved ones may find you especially fun to be with this evening. There are giggles and no frowns.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You are the center of attention today. You are admired and appreciated for your problem solving abilities. You have insight into tangled matters. This is a day of much eagerness and drive; perfect for starting something new or taking care of business. You are at your mental best with sharp ideas and clear thoughts. This is an excellent time to make decisions and take care of mental or physical work. Exercise or outside activity can be scheduled with your friends for later today. You are good at making the effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of others. You may be of tremendous help to an associate or stranger because of your compassionate nature. Try to hear the whole story . . . something is missing in the next story you hear.

Pooch Cafe

ACROSS A guided missile fired from shipboard against an airborne target.

4. (computer science) Protocol that allows users to copy files between their local system and any system they can reach on the network.

7. Designer drug designed to have the effects of amphetamines (it floods the brain with serotonin) but to avoid the drug laws.

11. An accountant certified by the state.

12. The longer of the two telegraphic signals used in Morse code.

13. Not only so, but.

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

15. Jordan's port.

17. The syllable naming the fourth (subdominant) note of the diatonic scale in solmization.

18. (informal) Exceptionally good.

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

22. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

23. A metallic element having four allotropic forms.

24. A software system that facilitates the creation and maintenance and use of an electronic database.

26. A plant hormone promoting elongation of stems and roots.

27. (sports) The chief official (as in boxing or American football) who is expected to ensure fair play.

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

31. Stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings.

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

38. Aircraft landing in bad weather in which the pilot is talked down by ground control using precision approach radar.

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

41. A committee in the executive branch of government that advises the president on foreign and military and national security.

45. The branch of computer science that deal with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively.

46. (used as a combining form) Recent or new.

47. Covered or soaked with a liquid such as water.

48. A Tibetan or Mongolian priest of Lamaism.

50. The part of the nervous system of vertebrates that controls involuntary actions of the smooth muscles and heart and glands.

51. Goddess of criminal rashness and its punishment.

52. Wearing or provided with clothing.

DOWN 1. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.

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

3. God of death.

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

5. The basic unit of money in Bangladesh.

6. Drought-resistant Asiatic treelike shrub bearing pleasantly acid small red edible fruits commonly used in sherbets.

7. Type genus of the family Myacidae.

8. A Mid-Atlantic state.

9. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

10. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

16. A small cake leavened with yeast.

19. Talks a great deal about uninteresting topics.

21. Chromatic purity.

25. (British) A waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric.

29. A public promotion of some product or service.

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

32. Realistic Norwegian author who wrote plays on social and political themes (1828-1906).

33. Metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace or ribbon.

34. Thigh of a hog (usually smoked).

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

36. Submerged aquatic plant having narrow leaves and small flowers.

39. Make reference to.

42. Ratio of the adjacent side to the hypotenuse.

43. A group of African language in the Niger-Congo group spoken from the Ivory Coast east to Nigeria.

44. Considerate and solicitous care.

49. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Big changes affecting your career, status and reputation are likely at a time like this.

Daring to be different gets you noticed and could get you ahead in ways you never expected. You could be most persuasive with others and powerful in speech and communication. The situation is a natural for self-expression of your particular ideas and thoughts. You emit the essence of a creative and original individual. Everything works in your favor and it appears as though you will have whatever help you may need; just for the asking. Your witty sense of humor can be a surprise to those who only see you when you are expressing your views on life. You appear strong and in control; with perhaps a calm persona about you.

Non Sequitur

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You feel energized and this gives you a sense of security. It would be a good idea to check all aspects of a project you are working on and discover where you can best be of benefit. You are able to cut through the red tape and get at what is behind any of the problems you may encounter. Teaching, learning, communicating and social contacts have a way of outlining new directions in your life and in your work. There is much activity and involvement with these kinds of issues. If you are not already in love, the love bug is nearby. Interactions with friends and family are free of complications this afternoon. This evening is the perfect time to spend with your loved ones. Someone reveals a secret this evening. All is good.

Leo (July 23-August 22) The power of organization on a social scale, business, political and such seems to take on a larger-than-life aura. It is as if ambition and authority are answers in themselves, rather than only a means to an ideal objective. A friend from the past will come across your path today. People change and you may spend some of your time wondering how you have changed over the years. Respect, status and achievement are central goals for you as a new phase begins in your life.

Creating a structure to empower and maintain your ideals and principles becomes a high priority. The growth of those around you may spur you into reassessing your own goals. There is time this evening for a video, movie or book, creating a pleasurable end to this very busy day.

Zits

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You work to turn your professional dreams into reality. Your ideals are always high and you believe that the sky is not the limit. This is a time when you can expect a little boost, some extra support or recognition from those around you. Monetary rewards as well as recognition for your work is at hand. You will find yourself completing projects and admiring your own good work.

Anything you feel like putting your efforts into today will have your attention to see it through to the end. This could be anything from helping a child tie their shoes to competing in some type of sports competition. You may feel that you are in touch and in harmony with others—the lines of communication are open. The support you need is there.

Libra (September 23-October 22) Compliments are easy to come by today. You help to create a work place in which it is easy for everyone to carry out their tasks.

You could be most persuasive with others today, making the situation a natural for self-expression. Outer circumstances tend to work in your favor. You may find that you are more organized than before—able to reach new levels of self-discipline. This is a smooth time during which events seem to arrange themselves to your advantage. You like the good life and although you are top notch at managing your finances, you are in the mood to splurge a bit now. You think about your earning power and you want to increase it. This is a good time for financial planning. Take plenty of time to be with your loved ones tonight.

Mother Goose and Grimm

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) This is a very lucky day for making plans or decisions—you feel successful. You are at your most practical when it comes to dealing and working with others. Good advice from a guide or older person may be given to you, whether you really need it or not. You are wise to be patient with others; people know they can trust you. Your gracious response will not go unnoticed. You and your friends may want to exercise a bit after work. Overall vitality increases greatly with the emphasis on good health and romantic pursuits. A practical approach to a personal quandary will bring a resolution quickly; the main word here is, practical. Juggling your responsibilities can be challenging but you make it work. A small animal becomes part of your life; bird, lizard, etc.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You enjoy your particular job situation today. Expect a sense of support from those around you. There is a tendency for you to be extremely hard working and you will be pleased at the results of your hard work by monthís end.

It is important, however, to develop a team attitude so as not to alienate fellow workers. You will be quite pleased at the positive results of the projects you work on today. This evening would be a good time to catch up on some reading. Ideas and thoughts will have greater meaning and form. You may want to partake in the enjoyment of your hobby and leave others to do their work. You may enjoy getting away from routine and doing something completely different this evening. An early movie would be fun.

Yesterday’s Solution

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) This is an easy, calm day that should find everything running in a smooth manner. Conference, work summaries and all sorts of interaction with authority figures or older people are in order. Your instincts for success are in full bloom and you will find you have lots of eagerness to put into using your expression of speech in creating positive as well as powerful results. You may be a writer or lecturer or teacher and the warning is to enjoy your work but do not overdo. People are always ready to learn from your wise words but they may not have much staying power. This evening everything conspires to reveal you at your most elegant, particularly in social situations. You will have a grasp for abstract ideas and enjoy the words of others. You encourage others.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Gossip could be

Yesterday’s Solution

an easy pitfall to fall into today as there are temptations. When you discover that there is a little gossip in the office, you can come up with a surplus of solutions. You teach without being offensive. Later today you will find some good opportunities to write with real originality; perhaps a proposal for your company. Inventions and breakthroughs are possible. This is a very lucky day for making plans or decisions and finding your way through just about any problem you may discover. Your attitude is positive and you are feeling successful and able to contend with any challenges. Close personal ties to other people are a focal point for your attention this evening and that may mean a marriage or a relationship.

INTERNATIONAL CALLS Kuwait Qatar Abu Dhabi Dubai Raas Al Khayma Al-Shareqa Muscat Jordan Bahrain Riyadh Makkah - Jeddah Cairo Alexandria Beirut Damascus Allepo Tunisia Rabat

00965 00974 009712 009714 009717 009716 00968 009626 00973 009661 009662 00202 00203 009611 0096311 0096321 0021610 002127

Washington New York Paris London Madrid Zurich Geneva Monaco Rome Bangkok Hong Kong Pakistan Taiwan Bonn New Delhi Mumbai Madras Hyderabad

001212 001718 00331 004471 00341 00411 004122 0033 00396 00662 00852 0092 00886 0049228 009111 009122 009144 009140

Word Sleuth Solution

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Taking care of business is most important and you want to do your best in order to progress. Ambition is a powerful motivation and can lead you into conflict if you let it get out of control. Properly channeled, it results in great achievements and brings recognition. You yearn to broaden horizons and learn new things. Perhaps religion, politics, education or travel plays a part in this change. Whatever the case—this is the time to board the ship—so to speak. A period of intellectual creativity has dawned in your life; expressing yourself with flair comes to mean more to you. Beating the odds through cleverness is appealing. A lover or child who is bright and articulate gains your attention and you can be helpful in their future success.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

17 Flight Schedule Arrival Flights on Saturday 17/04/2010 Airlines Flt Route Royal Jordanian 802 Amman Wataniya Airways 188 Bahrain Wataniya Airways 306 Cairo Gulf Air 211 Bahrain Turkish A/L 772 Istanbul Ethiopian 620 Addis Ababa DHL 370 Bahrain Pakistan 239 Sialkot Emirates 853 Dubai Etihad 305 Abu Dhabi Qatari 138 Doha Jazeera 503 Luxor Jazeera 637 Aleppo Jazeera 527 Alexandria Jazeera 529 Assiut Kuwait 412 Manila/Bangkok British 157 London Kuwait 416 Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur Falcon 201 Bahrain Kuwait 204 Lahore Kuwait 302 Mumbai Fly Dubai 053 Dubai Kuwait 332 Trivandrum Kuwait 676 Dubai Kuwait 284 Dhaka Kuwait 344 Chennai Kuwait 362 Colombo Emirates 855 Dubai Arabia 121 Sharjah Qatari 132 Doha Etihad 301 Abu Dhabi Jazeera 425 Bahrain Gulf Air 213 Bahrain Wataniya Airways 182 Bahrain Middle East 404 Beirut Alnaser 711 Baghdad/Najaf Jazeera 165 Dubai Wataniya Airways 102 Dubai Jazeera 447 Doha Jazeera 113 Abu Dhabi Saudi Arabian A/L 2066 Jeddah Jazeera 171 Dubai Egypt Air 610 Cairo Jazeera 457 Damascus Kuwait 672 Dubai Kuwait 774 Riyadh Royal Jordanian 800 Amman United A/L 982 Washington Dc Dulles Wataniya Airways 432 Damascus Egypt Air 621 Assiut Fly Dubai 057 Dubai Wataniya Airways 422 Amman Jazeera 257 Beirut Saudi Arabian A/L 500 Jeddah Kuwait 552 Damascus Nas Air 745 Jeddah Qatari 134 Doha Mahan Air 5066 Mashad Jazeera 173 Dubai Kuwait 786 Jeddah Iran Aseman 6791 Mashad Kuwait 118 New York Nas Air 703 Medinah Mihin Lanka 403 Colombo/Dubai Jazeera 427 Bahrain Etihad 303 Abu Dhabi Rovos 061 Baghdad/Najaf Emirates 857 Dubai Gulf Air 215 Bahrain Cargolux 792 Luxembourg Wataniya Airways 402 Beirut Saudi Arabian A/L 510 Riyadh Jazeera 493 Jeddah Jazeera 239 Amman Jazeera 433 Mashad Arabia 125 Sharjah Srilankan 227 Colombo/Dubai Syrian Arab A/L 341 Damascus Wataniya Airways 304 Cairo Kuwait 104 London Wataniya Airways 106 Dubai Kuwait 502 Beirut Kuwait 542 Cairo Kuwait 618 Doha Wataniya Airways 202 Jeddah Kuwait 548 Luxor/Sharm El Sheikh Iran Air 607 Mashad Jazeera 177 Dubai Jazeera 459 Damascus Kuwait 674 Dubai Singapore A/L 458 Singapore/Abu Dhabi Bahrain Air 344 Bahrain Kuwait 562 Amman Kuwait 614 Bahrain Rovos 093 Kandahar/Dubai Fly Dubai 061 Dubai Oman Air 647 Muscat Indian 993 Chennai/Mumbai Middle East 402 Beirut Jet A/W 572 Mumbai Egypt Air 618 Alexandria KLM 0445 Amsterdam Wataniya Airways 404 Beirut DHL 372 Bahrain Jazeera 183 Dubai Gulf Air 217 Bahrain Emirates 859 Dubai Qatari 136 Doha Kuwait 178 Geneva/Frankfurt Jazeera 429 Bahrain Jazeera 117 Abu Dhabi Jazeera 449 Doha Lufthansa 636 Frankfurt Egypt Air 612 Cairo Bangladesh 043 Dhaka Jazeera 185 Dubai India Express 393 Kozhikode/Cochin Egypt Air 606 Luxor Kuwait 788 Jeddah Wataniya Airways 108 Dubai Jazeera 263 Beirut

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

Departure Flights on Saturday 17/04/2010 Airlines Flt Route Time Jazeera 528 Assiut 00:05 Shaheen Air 442 Lahore 00:10 Egypt Air 607 Luxor 00:15 KLM 0447 Amsterdam 00:30 Indian 576 Goa/Chennai 00:50 637 Frankfurt 00:50 Lufthansa Turkish A/L 773 Istanbul 02:15 Ethiopian 620 Bahrain/Addis Ababa 02:30 DHL 371 Bahrain 03:15 Pakistan 240 Sialkot 03:30 Emirates 854 Dubai 03:45 Etihad 306 Abu Dhabi 04:00 Qatari 139 Doha 05:00 Wataniya Airways 101 Dubai 06:50 Royal Jordanian 803 Amman 07:00 Jazeera 164 Dubai 07:00 Jazeera 112 Abu Dhabi 07:15 Jazeera 422 Bahrain 07:35 Jazeera 446 Doha 07:40 Gulf Air 212 Bahrain 07:45 Wataniya Airways 181 Bahrain 07:50 Rovos 094 Dubai/Kandahar 08:00 456 Damascus 08:05 Jazeera Wataniya Airways 431 Damascus 08:10 British 156 London 08:25 Jazeera 256 Beirut 08:35 Fly Dubai 054 Dubai 08:40 Kuwait 671 Dubai 09:00 Jazeera 170 Dubai 09:00 Wataniya Airways 421 Amman 09:10 Kuwait 551 Damascus 09:10 Arabia 122 Sharjah 09:20 Kuwait 101 London/New York 09:30 Emirates 856 Dubai 09:40 Qatari 133 Doha 10:00 Kuwait 773 Riyadh 10:00 Etihad 302 Abu Dhabi 10:10 Kuwait 785 Jeddah 10:25 Kuwait 547 Luxor/Sharm El Sheikh 10:55 Wataniya Airways 401 Beirut 11:35 Gulf Air 214 Bahrain 11:35 Kuwait 165 Rome/Paris 11:45 Cairo 11:50 Wataniya Airways 303 Middle East 405 Beirut 11:50 Jazeera 172 Dubai 11:55 Rovos 062 Baghdad 12:00 Kuwait 541 Cairo 12:00 Jazeera 432 Mashad 12:05 Alnaser 712 Najaf/Baghdad 12:15 Jazeera 492 Jeddah 12:15 Jazeera 238 Amman 12:30 Saudi Arabian A/L 9366 Jeddah 12:45 Kuwait 501 Beirut 13:00 Wataniya Airways 201 Jeddah 13:45 Jazeera 426 Bahrain 13:55 Egypt Air 611 Cairo 13:55 Jazeera 458 Damascus 14:00 Wataniya Airways 105 Dubai 14:30 Royal Jordanian 801 Amman 14:30 058 Dubai 14:35 Fly Dubai Kuwait 561 Amman 14:35 Egypt Air 622 Assiut 14:40 Jazeera 176 Dubai 14:55 Wataniya Airways 403 Beirut 15:10 Kuwait 673 Dubai 15:10 Kuwait 617 Doha 15:35 Nas Air 746 Jeddah 15:45 Saudi Arabian A/L 505 Jeddah 16:00 Qatari 135 Doha 16:20 Jazeera 182 Dubai 16:50 Kuwait 613 Bahrain 16:55 Iran Aseman 6792 Mashad 17:00 Mahan Air 5065 Mashad 17:05 Nas Air 704 Riyadh 17:10 304 Abu Dhabi 17:35 Etihad Mihin Lanka 404 Dubai/Colombo 17:40 Kuwait 787 Jeddah 17:55 Emirates 858 Dubai 18:05 Gulf Air 216 Bahrain 18:05 Wataniya Airways 305 Cairo 18:05 Kuwait 543 Cairo 18:10 Jazeera 262 Beirut 18:15 Arabia 126 Sharjah 18:20 Saudi Arabian A/L 511 Riyadh 18:35 Jazeera 116 Abu Dhabi 18:40 Cargolux 792 Hong Kong 18:45 Kuwait 285 Chittagong 18:45 Jazeera 448 Doha 18:55 Jazeera 184 Dubai 19:00 Jazeera 428 Bahrain 19:10 Srilankan 228 Dubai/Colombo 19:10 Wataniya Airways 407 Beirut 19:25 Syrian Arab A/L 342 Damascus 19:30 Wataniya Airways 107 Dubai 19:40 Wataniya Airways 321 Sharm El Sheikh 19:45 Kuwait 283 Dhaka 20:00 Iran Air 604 Isfahan 20:05 Bahrain Air 345 Bahrain 20:10 Jazeera 512 Sharm El Sheikh 20:15 Singapore A/L 457 Abu Dhabi/Singapore 20:45 Fly Dubai 062 Dubai 20:50 Kuwait 331 Trivandrum 21:00 Oman Air 648 Muscat 21:15 Middle East 403 Beirut 21:20 Jet A/W 571 Mumbai 21:30 Egypt Air 619 Alexandria 21:35 Wataniya Airways 187 Bahrain 21:35 KLM 0445 Bahrain/Amsterdam 21:40 Jazeera 240 Amman 21:50 Gulf Air 218 Bahrain 21:55 DHL 373 Bahrain 22:00 Kuwait 675 Dubai 22:10 Emirates 860 Dubai 22:25 Kuwait 381 Delhi 22:30 Falcon 102 Bahrain 22:30 Qatari 137 Doha 22:35 Kuwait 301 Mumbai 22:45 Kuwait 205 Islamabad 22:55 Jazeera 480 Sabiha 23:05 Jazeera 526 Alexandria 23:20 Jazeera 502 Luxor 23:30 United A/L 981 Washington Dc Dulles 23:40 Kuwait 411 Bangkok/Manila 23:40 Egypt Air 613 Cairo 23:55

FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION 161 Some of the flights to the European sector have been cancelled.

For further details contact your travel agent or the airport authority.

ACCOMMODATION Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya with Keralite family in a CAC building with separate bathroom from 31st March. Call: 99412951. (C 2136) 17-4-2010 One room available for 2 executive bachelors (Indian) share with Mangalorean family in a CAC 2B/R flat in Salmiya behind Apollo hospital. Tel: 25610431/ 97821037. (C 2133) 15-4-2010 Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya for visiting family or two working ladies or couples in new CAC fully furnished two bedroom two bathroom (attached) flat from 6th June 2010. Contact: 66013882.

(C 2127) Sharing room available for rent in CAC flat opp. Farwaniya bridge on airport road Khaitan just one minute to all bus routes for family/couple. Contact: 97468551. (C 2126) 14-4-2010

international trainer is available to facilitate you achieving and exceeding your fitness goals. For bookings, call 65859449. (2139) 17-4-2010

FOR SALE Chery Extra, 2008 model, received from agency, zero mileage, new. KD 2,250.

Tel: 66451465. (C 2137) Jeep Cherokee 1996 in very good condition, price KD 675 o.n.o. Call 25630791/66805577.

(C 2138) Mitsubishi Jeep Nativa, model 2007, white color, 6cylinder engine, alloy rim, ABS registration up to 11-411 excellent condition, cash price KD 2,850, negotiable, installment possible. Contact: 99105286. (C 2134) 17-4-2010 Nissan Jeep, first owner, model 2002, black, excellent condition.

Tel: 99649749. (C 2132) 15-4-2010

SITUATION VACANT SITUATION WANTED

A decent housemaid wanted urgently for a family in Mangaf. Call 66391085, 23715767.

Kuwaiti decent family looking for live-in maid, any nationality. Tel: 66104141.

(C 2131) 15-4-2010

MIDCELLIANEOUS Personal Training: For help in motivation, commitment, effective technique and results. An experienced

Available experienced Srilankan lady (Christian) for household, babysitting, livein maid for American, European family only. Call: 99028693. (C 2135) 17-4-2010 Indian male, M.Com, well experienced in accounts and finance, seeks suitable position. Should have transferable residency. Please contact: 99158323.

(C 2130) 15-4-2010

CHANGE OF NAME

I, Alfred Fernandes, R/o H.No.1103 Socorro Zosvaddo, P.O. Porvorim BartzesGoa, S/O late Matias Fernandes, would like to correct my name on my passport no.:F-7953723, issued in Kuwait, from Alfredo Fernandes to Alfred Fernandes.

(C 2129) I, Sebastiana Sousa, R/o Katem Baina, Vasco-DaGama Marmagoa, D/o Late Antonio Sousa, would like to correct my surname on my passport no F-0508935 issued in Kuwait from Sebastiana D’sousa to Sebastiana Sousa. (C 2129) I, Ana Rita Sousa, R/o 343, next to M.P.T. Hospital Vasco-Da-Gama Goa, D/o Late Antonio Sousa, would like to correct my surname on my passport no. F-1471318, issued in Kuwait, from Ana

Rita Godinho to Ana Rita Sousa. (C 2129) 14-4-2010

MATRIMONIAL Wanted groom for 26 years, young, slim, normal complexion girl, from KK district, (Tamil Nadu) CSI Christian Nadar, working in Kuwait MOH. Vacation: May - June.

Contact: nesamvinitha@yahoo.com (C 2123) 14-4-2010

TV PROGRAMS

18

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Orbit / Showtime Listings

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 22:00 23:00

Big Love Dawson’s Creek Bones One Tree Hill Dawson’s Creek The Closer Inside the Actors Studio Big Love The Pacific Survivor Bones One Tree Hill Inside the Actors Studio The Closer Bones Dawson’s Creek The Pacific Survivor House CSI Glee Drop Dead Diva The Closer Nip/Tuck

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

Animal Cops Phoenix Untamed & Uncut Animal Witness Animal Witness Animal Cops Houston Miami Animal Police Monkey Business Animal Battlegrounds E-Vets: The Interns SSPCA: On the Wildside Meerkat Manor Pet Rescue The Planet’s Funniest Animals The Planet’s Funniest Animals Animal Cops Phoenix E-Vets: The Interns The Planet’s Funniest Animals Animal Planet’s Most Outrageous Britain’s Worst Pet Animal Crackers Dogs 101 Life of Mammals Life of Mammals Life of Mammals Life of Mammals Life of Mammals Predator’s Prey Predator’s Prey Galapagos Cell Dogs Untamed & Uncut Untamed & Uncut Animal Cops Miami

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

Days That Shook The World 2 Point 4 Children Robin Hood Holby Blue The Weakest Link Days That Shook The World Bargain Hunt Teletubbies Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Cash In The Attic Cash In The Attic Eastenders Bargain Hunt The Weakest Link Holby City Holby City Doctor Who Doctor Who Confidential Robin Hood The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle Suburban Shootout The Smoking Room Jack Dee: Live At The Apollo

BBC LIFESTYLE 00:10 Ainsley’s Gourmet Express 00:35 Come Dine With Me 01:00 Come Dine With Me 01:25 The Naked Chef 01:50 The Naked Chef 02:15 Living In The Sun 03:10 What Not To Wear 04:00 New British Kitchen 04:30 Ainsley’s Gourmet Express 05:00 Daily Cooks Challenge 05:30 Cash In The Attic USA 05:55 Hidden Potential 06:20 What Not To Wear 07:10 New British Kitchen 07:35 Ainsley’s Gourmet Express 08:00 Antiques Roadshow 08:50 Antiques Roadshow 09:40 Antiques Roadshow 10:30 Antiques Roadshow 11:20 Antiques Roadshow 12:10 Antiques Roadshow 13:00 Saturday Kitchen 13:30 Saturday Kitchen 13:55 Living In The Sun 14:50 Cash In The Attic 15:30 Cash In The Attic 16:15 Cash In The Attic 17:00 Bargain Hunt 17:45 Come Dine With Me

00:15 Streets Of Hollywood 00:40 E!es 01:30 25 Most Stylish 02:20 Sexiest 03:15 E!es 05:05 Dr 90210 06:00 E! Investigates 07:45 Extreme Hollywood 08:35 E! News 09:00 The Daily 10 09:25 Ths 11:05 Kendra 11:30 Kendra 12:00 E! News 12:25 The Daily 10 12:50 Behind The Scenes 13:15 Behind The Scenes 13:40 Pretty Wild 14:05 Pretty Wild 14:30 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:25 30 Most Outrageous Celebrity Feuds 17:10 Behind The Scenes 17:35 Behind The Scenes 18:00 E! News 18:25 The Daily 10 18:50 Kendra 19:15 Kendra 19:40 Ths 20:30 Ths 21:20 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:45 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:00 Chasing Time 00:30 Lonely Planet 01:30 Don’t Tell My Mother...

02:30 By Any Means 03:30 Bondi Rescue 04:00 Finding Genghis 04:30 Surfer’s Journal 05:00 Treks In A Wild World 05:30 Madventures 06:00 Chasing Time 06:30 Lonely Planet 07:30 Don’t Tell My Mother...

08:30 By Any Means 09:30 Bondi Rescue 10:00 Finding Genghis 10:30 Surfer’s Journal 11:00 Food Lovers Guide To The Planet 11:30 Food School 12:00 Word Of Mouth 12:30 Word Travels:The Truth Behind 13:00 Word Travels:The Truth Behind 13:30 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 14:00 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 14:30 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 15:00 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 15:30 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 16:00 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 16:30 Treks In A Wild World 17:00 Food Lovers Guide To The Planet 17:30 Food School 18:00 Word Of Mouth 18:30 Word Travels:The Truth Behind 19:00 Word Travels:The Truth Behind 19:30 The Ride: Alaska to Patagonia 22:30 Treks In A Wild World 23:00 Food Lovers Guide To The Planet 23:30 Food School

The Good German on Super Movies 18:10 18:35 19:00 19:25 19:50 20:15 20:40 21:05 21:30 22:00 22:25 23:15

Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Come Dine With Me Chuck’s Day Off Chuck’s Day Off Trish’s Mediterranean Kitchen Gino D’Acampo - An Italian In Mexico Saturday Kitchen Saturday Kitchen Living In The Sun Cash In The Attic

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

01:00 03:15 05:15 07:15 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:15 23:00

Henry And June-18 Unfaithful-18 Ripley’s Game-PG15 Max And Co.-PG All Hat-PG15 Napoleon Part 3-PG When We Were Kings-PG15 I Love You, I Love You Not-PG15 Napoleon Part 4-PG Coeurs-PG Nearing Grace-18 In The Cut-R

00:00 Border Security 00:30 Destroyed in Seconds 01:00 Miami Ink 02:00 Street Customs 2008 02:55 Fifth Gear 03:20 Fifth Gear 03:50 Mean Machines: Transatlantic Challenge 04:20 Mean Machines: Transatlantic Challenge 04:45 Mythbusters 05:40 How It’s Made 06:05 Dirty Jobs 07:00 Nextworld 07:55 Brainiac 08:50 Mythbusters 09:45 How Stuff’s Made 10:10 Twist the Throttle 11:05 Street Customs Berlin 12:00 Fifth Gear 12:30 Fifth Gear 12:55 American Chopper 13:50 Heartland Thunder 14:45 Built from Disaster 15:40 Mega Engineering 16:35 Extreme Explosions 17:30 How Stuff’s Made 18:00 Destroyed in Seconds 18:30 Destroyed in Seconds 19:00 Against the Elements 20:00 Ultimate Survival 21:00 Extreme Fishing 22:00 River Monsters 23:00 Rampage!

00:00 My Friends Tigger And Pooh 00:20 Lazytown 00:45 Special Agent Oso 01:10 Imagination Movers 01:35 Jungle Junction 02:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:25 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:45 Handy Manny 03:10 Special Agent Oso 03:35 Brandy & Mr Whiskers 04:00 Fairly Odd Parents 04:25 Hannah Montana 04:45 I Got A Rocket 05:10 Wizards Of Waverly Place 05:35 Phineas & Ferb 06:00 Lazytown 06:25 Imagination Movers 06:45 Handy Manny 07:10 Jungle Junction 07:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 08:00 Fairly Odd Parents 08:25 Suite Life On Deck 08:50 Wizards Of Waverly Place 09:15 Jonas 09:40 Hannah Montana 10:00 Sonny With A Chance 10:30 Viva High School Musical Mexico 12:00 Hannah Montana 12:25 Jonas 12:50 Replacements 13:15 Fairly Odd Parents 13:40 Sonny With A Chance 14:00 Suite Life On Deck 14:25 A Kind Of Magic 14:50 Phineas & Ferb 15:15 Fairly Odd Parents 15:35 Replacements 16:00 Wizards Of Waverly Place 16:25 Hannah Montana 16:45 Fairly Odd Parents 17:00 Suite Life On Deck 17:25 Wizards Of Waverly Place 17:50 Jonas 18:10 Hannah Montana 18:35 Sonny With A Chance 19:00 Aladdin & The King Of Thieves 20:35 Hannah Montana 21:00 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 21:25 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 21:45 The Replacements 22:00 Hannah Montana

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

06:00 Jimmy Two-Shoes 06:25 American Dragon 06:50 Pokemon DP: Battle Dimension 07:15 Phineas & Ferb 07:40 KICK BUTTOWSKI 08:05 Suite Life On Deck 08:30 I’M IN THE BAND 09:00 K9 ADVENTURES 09:30 Zeke & Luther 10:00 The Suite Life of Zack & Cody 10:30 I’M IN THE BAND 11:00 Suite Life On Deck 11:30 SHREDUCATION 12:05 Zeke & Luther 12:35 Phil Of The Future 12:50 Iron Man: Armoured Adventures 13:30 Aaron Stone 14:00 Kid vs Kat 14:30 Phineas & Ferb 15:00 KICK BUTTOWSKI 15:30 Suite Life On Deck 16:00 I’M IN THE BAND 16:30 Zeke & Luther 17:00 Jump In 18:30 SHREDUCATION 19:00 NEXT X EUROPE 19:10 Phineas & Ferb

The Colony The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Space Pioneer Beyond Tomorrow Ten Ways How Does That Work?

Mean Green Machines Weird Connections The Colony Junkyard Mega-Wars Robotica Science of the Movies Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry Fantastic Food Factories Fantastic Food Factories Kitchen Chemistry Kitchen Chemistry How Stuff’s Made Weird Connections Weird Connections

NYC: Inside Out Mighty Ships Patent Bending Patent Bending Nextworld The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Science of the Movies Mythbusters Mythbusters Nextworld

00:00 Food Network Challenge 00:00 Great British Menu 01:00 Grill It! with Bobby Flay 01:00 Iron Chef America 02:00 Grill It! with Bobby Flay 03:00 Giada At Home 03:00 Great British Menu 04:00 Food Network Challenge 05:00 Giada At Home 05:00 Iron Chef America 06:00 Great British Menu 06:00 Iron Chef America 07:00 Chopped 07:00 Great British Menu 08:00 Great British Menu 08:00 Kitchen Criminals 09:00 Best Thing I Ever Ate 09:00 Great British Menu 10:00 Food Network Challenge 10:00 Great British Menu 11:00 Great British Menu 11:00 Iron Chef America 11:50 Everyday Italian 12:00 Teleshopping 12:40 Everyday Italian 13:00 Teleshopping 13:30 Nigella Express 14:20 Nigella Express 15:00 Teleshopping 15:10 Nigella Express 16:00 Nigella Express 17:00 Barefoot Contessa 17:00 Teleshopping 18:00 Great British Menu 19:00 Great British Menu 19:00 Teleshopping 21:00 Great British Menu 21:00 Teleshopping 22:00 Great British Menu 23:00 Great British Menu 23:00 Return of the Chef

00:30 A Haunting 01:20 FBI Files 02:10 Undercover 03:05 Fugitive Strike Force 04:00 Forensic Detectives 04:55 Real Emergency Calls 05:20 Dr G: Medical Examiner 06:10 Ghosthunters 06:35 Ghosthunters 07:00 Forensic Detectives 07:50 FBI Files 08:40 Undercover 09:30 The Prosecutors 10:20 Forensic Detectives 11:10 FBI Files 12:00 On the Run 12:50 Disappeared 13:40 Royal Inquest 14:30 Forensic Detectives 15:20 FBI Files 16:10 Undercover 17:00 The Prosecutors 17:50 Forensic Detectives 18:40 FBI Files 19:30 On the Run 20:20 Disappeared 21:10 Ghost Lab 22:00 A Haunting 22:50 A Haunting 23:40 Psychic Witness

00:55 Sunday Bloody Sunday 02:45 Lord of the Flies 04:15 Colors 06:10 No Man’s Land 07:55 Beach Party 09:30 Little Dorrit Part 1 12:20 Little Dorrit Part 2 15:20 Just Between Friends 17:10 Futureworld 18:55 Sticky Fingers 20:20 The Mechanic 22:00 Woman of Straw 23:55 A Girl To Kill For

00:00 How I met your mother 00:30 Two and a half men 01:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 01:30 The Colbert Report 02:00 Late night with Jimmy Fallon 03:00 Cougar Town 03:30 American Dad 04:00 Sauturday Night Live 05:00 How I met your mother 05:30 Late night with Jimmy Fallon 06:30 Everybody Loves Raymond 07:00 Dharma & Greg 07:30 Three sisters 08:00 Frasier 08:30 Tyler Perry’s House of Payne 09:00 The Nanny 09:30 Family Biz 10:00 Everybody Loves Raymond 10:30 Dharma & Greg 11:00 Frasier 11:30 The Bernie Mac show 12:00 The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson 13:00 Two and a half men 13:30 Tyler Perry’s House of Payne 14:00 The Nanny 14:30 Three sisters 15:00 How I met your mother 15:30 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Family Biz 17:00 Everybody Loves Raymond 17:30 Frasier 18:00 The Bernie Mac Show 18:30 Dharma & Greg 19:00 How I met your mother 19:30 Gary Unmarried 20:00 Late night with Jimmy Fallon 21:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Curb your Enthusiasm 22:30 Flight of the Conchords 23:00 Sauturday Night Live

00:00 What’s Good For You 01:00 10 Years Younger 01:30 Look A Like 02:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 03:00 The Monique Show 04:00 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 05:00 GMA (repeat) 07:00 GMA Health 07:30 What’s the Buzz 08:00 What’s Good For You 09:00 Look A Like 09:30 10 Years younger 10:00 Jimmy Kimmel Live!

11:00 The View 12:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 13:00 The Martha Stewart Show 14:00 Parenting 14:30 Job Club 15:00 GMA Weekend Live 16:00 GMA Health 16:30 What’s the Buzz 17:00 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 18:00 Downsize Me 19:00 The View 20:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 21:00 Jimmy Kimmel Live!

00:30 Stop-Loss-18 02:30 Frozen River-PG15 04:15 Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging-PG15 06:00 Valkyrie-PG15 08:00 Not Easily Broken-PG15 10:00 Closed For Winter-PG15 12:00 Eagle Eye-PG15 14:00 Skin-PG 16:00 Not Easily Broken-PG15 18:00 Confessions Of A Shopaholic-PG 20:00 Battle In Seattle-18 22:00 Beowulf-18

01:00 Rob Zombie’s Halloween-18 03:00 Felon-18 05:00 Newton Boys-PG15 07:00 H.I.T.-PG15 09:00 Resident Evil: Degeneration

11:00 Dark Mind-PG15 13:00 Thor: Hammer Of The Gods 15:00 Resident Evil: Degeneration 17:00 The Vanishing-PG15 19:00 Blood: The Last Vampire-18 21:00 One Missed Call-PG15

00:00 Blue State-PG15 02:00 Martha Meet Frank, Daniel And Lawrence-PG15 04:00 Ping Pong Playa-PG15 06:00 City Slickers-PG15 08:00 Mr. Baseball-PG 10:00 King’s Ransom-PG15 12:00 Before You Say I Do-PG15 14:00 The Odd Couple 2-PG15 16:00 Blue State-PG15 18:00 Kettle Of Fish-18 20:00 Bob Roberts-18 22:00 Half Baked-R

00:00 Barbie And The Three Musketeers-PG 02:00 Sunshine Barry And The Disco 04:00 Never Ending Story 2: The Next Chapter-FAM 06:00 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-PG 08:30 Barney’s Great Adventure-FAM 10:00 Never Ending Story 2: The Next Chapter-FAM 12:00 Barbie As Rapunzel-FAM 14:00 Sunshine Barry And The Disco 16:00 The Trumpet Of The Swan-FAM 18:00 Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium-FAM 20:00 D3: The Mighty Ducks-PG 22:00 Barbie As Rapunzel-FAM

00:00 Demons 01:00 Demons 02:00 Breaking Bad 03:00 Lipstick Jungle 04:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 04:30 Coach 05:00 Life on Mars 06:00 Better off Ted 06:30 Billable Hours 07:00 Flash Forwards 08:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 08:30 Coach 09:00 Lipstick Jungle 10:00 Life on Mars 11:00 Flash Forwards 12:00 Better off Ted 12:30 Billable Hours 13:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 13:30 Coach 14:00 Demons 15:00 Demons 16:00 Life on Mars 17:00 Survivor : Samoa 18:00 Emmerdale 18:30 Coronation Street 19:00 Psych 20:00 Law & Order: Criminal Intent 21:00 In Treatment 21:30 In Treatment 22:00 24 23:00 Breaking Bad

01:00 Premier League - Preview Show 02:00 Premier League World 02:30 Premier League 04:30 Premier League Preview Show 05:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 06:00 Premier League Classics 06:30 Premier League Classics 07:00 Premier League Preview Show 08:00 Premier League World 08:30 Live Super 14 10:30 Live Super 14 12:30 Premier League Preview Show 13:30 Premier League World 14:00 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 14:45 Live Premier League 16:45 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 17:30 Futbol Mundial 18:00 Goals Goals Goals 18:30 Premier League World 19:00 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 19:30 Live Premier League

12:00 Premier League Preview 12:30 ICC Cricket World 13:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 13:30 European Tour Weekly 14:00 World Sport 14:30 Live Super 14 16:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 17:00 World Sport 17:30 ICC Cricket World 18:00 Live Super 14 20:00 World Sport

00:00 WWE Smackdown 02:00 WWE Bottomline 03:00 Bushido 04:00 NCAA Basketball 06:00 Live V8 Supercars Series 08:00 WWE NXT 09:00 WWE Smackdown 11:00 WWE Vintage Collection 12:00 WWE Bottomline 13:00 WWE Smackdown 15:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 15:30 Rugby League Challenge Cup 17:30 Rugby League Challenge Cup 19:30 Live Guinness Premiership 21:30 UFC All Access 22:00 WWE Smackdown

00:00 Saw V-R 01:30 Blood Diamond-PG15 04:00 Take The Lead-PG 06:30 The Moon And The Stars-PG 09:00 Reservation Road-PG15 11:00 Race To Witch Mountain-PG15 13:00 Genghis Khan-PG15 15:30 Broken Lines-PG15 17:30 Reservation Road-PG15 19:15 Rocky Balboa-PG15 21:00 Mamma Mia-PG15 23:00 The Good German-18

01:25 The Screening Room 01:50 Welcome To Hard Times 03:30 The Screening Room 04:00 The Comedians 06:30 The Screening Room 07:00 The Last Time I Saw Paris 08:55 I’ll Take Sweden 10:30 Some Came Running 12:45 After The Fox 14:25 The Screening Room 14:50 The Last Time I Saw Paris 16:45 The File Of The Golden Goose 18:35 My Favorite Year 20:05 Clash Of The Titans 22:00 10 Rillington Place 23:50 Martin’s Day

00:30 Engineering Disasters 01:20 Mega Movers 02:10 Cities Of The Underworld 03:00 Ax Men 2 03:55 Tunnellers 04:50 The Universe 05:40 Extreme Trains 06:30 Engineering Disasters 07:20 Mega Movers 08:10 Cities Of The Underworld 09:00 Ax Men 2 09:55 Tunnellers 10:50 The Universe 11:40 Extreme Trains 12:30 Engineering Disasters 13:20 Mega Movers 14:10 Cities Of The Underworld 15:00 Ax Men 2 15:55 Tunnellers 16:50 The Universe 17:40 Extreme Trains 18:30 Engineering Disasters 19:20 Mega Movers

20:10 Cities Of The Underworld 21:00 Beyond The Moon: Failure Is Not An Option 2 22:50 Ancient Discoveries 3 23:40 Eliot Ness

00:00 Dr 90210 01:00 Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane 01:30 The Dish 02:00 How Do I Look?

03:00 Split Ends 04:00 Dr 90210 05:00 Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane 05:30 Area 06:00 How Do I Look?

07:00 Style Star 07:30 Style Her Famous 08:00 Clean House 09:00 What I Hate About Me 10:00 Ruby 11:00 How Do I Look?

12:00 Clean House 13:00 Married Away: Italian Wedding 14:00 Dress My Nest 15:00 Giuliana & Bill 20:00 Most Outrageous Weddings 21:00 Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane 22:00 Dallas Divas & Daughters 22:30 Dallas Divas & Daughters 23:00 Dr 90210

00:00 Globe Trekker 01:00 Angry Planet 01:30 The Thirsty Traveler 02:00 Globe Trekker 03:00 Intrepid Journeys 04:00 Angry Planet 04:30 Culture Shock 05:00 Globe Trekker 06:00 Planet Food 07:00 The Thirsty Traveler 07:30 Angry Planet 08:00 Globe Trekker 09:00 Spring 09:30 Travel Today 10:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 11:00 Distant Shores 11:30 Distant Shores 12:00 Distant Shores 12:30 Distant Shores 13:00 Globe Trekker 14:00 Planet Food 15:00 Chef Abroad 15:30 Chef Abroad 16:00 Floyd On Africa 16:30 Essential 17:00 Globe Trekker 18:00 Globe Trekker 19:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 20:00 Floyd Uncorked 20:30 Chef Abroad 21:00 Chef Abroad 21:30 Sophie Grigson in the Souk 22:00 Planet Food 23:00 Top Travel 23:30 Destination Art

01:00 Vh1 Music 05:00 Chill Out 07:00 Smooth Wake Up 09:00 Vh1 Music 11:00 Vh1 Weekly Album Chart 12:00 Top 10 Drummers 13:00 Music For The Masses 14:00 Robbie Williams Weekend 17:00 (P) Final Countdown Best 80s Rock Anthems 21:00 (P) 100 Most Shocking  Music Moments  Pt2 22:00 (P) 100 Most Shocking  Music Moments  Pt3 23:00 Saturday Night Fever

00:30 Premier League Preview Show 01:00 Premier League Darts 05:00 World Sport 05:30 European Tour Weekly 06:00 Mobil 1 06:30 ICC Cricket World 07:00 AFL Toyota Premiership 10:00 Premier League Preview Show 10:30 ICC Cricket World 11:00 NRL Premiership 13:00 Premier League Preview Show 13:30 Futbol Mundial 14:00 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 14:45 Live Premier League 16:45 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 17:00 Live Premier League 19:00 Live Toshiba Super Saturday 19:30 Live Premier League 21:30 Toshiba Super Saturday

00:00 NRL Premiership 02:00 Super 14 04:00 Premier League Preview 04:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 05:00 Goals Goals Goals 05:30 Brazil League Highlights 06:00 Futbol Mundial 06:30 European Tour Weekly 07:00 Premier League World 07:30 Premier League Preview 08:00 Live PGA European Tour

Stop-Loss on Show Movies

Star Listings (UAE Timings) S TAR Mo vies 20:45 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause 22:20 Nine Months 00:05 The Fly 01:40 Bye Bye Love 03:30 Alvin And The Chipmunks 05:05 Nine Months 06:50 The Fly 08:25 Shutter 09:55 Street Kings 11:40 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Iii 13:20 The Happening 14:50 New York, New York 17:30 Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End S TAR Wo rld 20:00 American Idol 22:00 [V] Tunes 23:00 [V] Tunes 00:00 Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

01:00 [V] Tunes 02:00 [V] Tunes 03:00 [V] Tunes 04:00 American Idol 05:00 Stone Undercover 06:00 Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

07:00 Scrubs 07:30 The Bold And The Beautiful 08:00 The Bold And The Beautiful 08:30 The Bold And The Beautiful

09:00 09:30 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00

The Bold And The Beautiful The Bold And The Beautiful October Road American Idol [V] Tunes Stone Undercover Scrubs According To Jim According To Jim Samantha Who? Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

American Idol Samantha Who? Rules Of Engagement Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

G ranada TV 20:00 The Friday Night Project - Sharon Osbourne 20:30 Astounding Celebrities 21:00 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

(Series 7) 22:00 All About George (Series 1) 23:00 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

(Series 7) 00:00 SuperAgents 00:30 Poor Little Rich Girls (Series 2) 01:00 At Home With The Braithwaites (Series 2) 02:00 Big Bad World (Series 1) 03:00 Blue Murder (Series 3) (Double Bill)

05:00 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

(Series 7) 06:00 Emmerdale (WEEKEND OMNIBUS) 07:30 Help I’m A Teen Mum 08:00 All About George (Series 1) 09:00 Young, Posh and Loaded 09:30 The Sunshine Girls 10:00 60 Minute Makeover (Series 3) 11:00 Come Dine With Me (Primetime Series 2) 12:00 Divas ** 13:00 Stars In Their Eyes (Series 12) 14:00 Prime Drama: Beating Jesus 16:00 Come Dine With Me (Primetime Series 2) 17:00 Divas ** 18:00 Stars In Their Eyes (Series 12) 19:00 Prime Drama: Beating Jesus Chann el [V] 21:00 [V] Special 22:00 [V] Tunes 22:30 [V] Tunes 23:00 Backtracks 23:30 Double Shot 00:00 Loop 00:30 [V] Tunes 01:00 [V] Plug 01:30 Loop 02:00 Backtracks 03:00 XO 03:30 [V] Tunes

04:00 04:30 05:00 06:00 06:30 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 09:30 10:00 11:00 13:00 13:30 14:00 15:00 15:30 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00

[V] Plug The Playlist [V] Special [V] Tunes [V] Tunes Backtracks Double Shot [V] Tunes XO Loop Backtracks [V] Countdown [V] Tunes [V] Tunes Loop [V] Tunes [V] Tunes [V] Tunes XO Loop Backtracks [V] Countdown

Fo x N ews 00:00 Happening Now 01:00 The Live Desk 03:00 Studio B with Shepard Smith Live 04:00 Your World with Neil Cavuto 05:00 Glenn Beck with Glenn Beck 06:00 Special Report with Bret Baier

07:00 The FOX Report with Shepard Smith 08:00 The O’Reilly Factor 09:00 Hannity 10:00 On the Record with Greta Van Susteren 11:00 The O’Reilly Factor 12:00 Hannity 13:00 On the Record with Greta Van Susteren 14:00 Glenn Beck with Glenn Beck 15:00 Fox Report 16:00 Special Report with Bret Baier 17:00 Hannity (repeat) 18:00 The O’Reilly Factor (repeat) 19:00 FOX and Friends Saturday hosts David Briggs, Alisyn Camerota & Clayton Morris 20:00 FOX and Friends Saturday hosts David Briggs, Alisyn Camerota & Clayton Morris 21:00 FOX and Friends Saturday hosts David Briggs, Alisyn Camerota & Clayton Morris 22:00 Bulls and Bears 22:30 Cavuto On Business 23:00 FORBES on FOX 23:30 Cashin’ In Natio nal G eo graphic Channel 20:00 Fight Masters -Special Forces 21:00 Riddles Of The Bible -The Secrets Of Revelation S1 22:00 Mystery Files : The Romanovs 3 22:30 Mystery Files : Rasputin 4 23:00 Theme Week -Inside : Speed Week

00:00 Locked Up Abroad -Boy Soldiers 01:00 Generals At War -The Battle Of Kursk 02:00 Warplanes -Airplane To Air Force 03:00 Nat Geo Junior -Wild Detectives : Monk Seals 03:30 Nat Geo Junior -Food Lovers Guide To The Plane : Hi Tech Taste 13 04:00 Health Secrets Behind Korean Cuisine 05:00 Monkey Thieves -Searching For Sanctuary 16 05:30 Monkey Thieves -Urban Exile 17 06:00 Street Monkeys -Boys In The Hood 07:00 Nat Geo Weekends -Shark Men : Big Mama 08:00 World’s Toughest Fixes -Solar Tower 09:00 ABOUT ASIA -Secrets Of The First Emperor 10:00 ABOUT ASIA -Warzone Gone Wild 11:00 4Real -Yawanawa 1 11:30 4Real -City Of God 2 12:00 Warplanes -Airplane To Air Force 13:00 Nat Geo Weekends -Shark Men : Size Matters 14:00 Inside -Inside- Narco State 15:00 Mystery Files : The Romanovs 3 15:30 Mystery Files : Rasputin 4 16:00 Warplanes -Airplane To Air Force 17:00 Nat Geo Weekends -Shark Men : Size Matters 18:00 Megastructures -Megastructure : UK Super Train

NEWS

Saturday, April 17, 2010

19

Sudan vote count begins after landmark elections KHARTOUM: President Omar Al-Beshir looked set to keep his grip on power as counting began yesterday in Sudan’s first multi-party election in 24 years after five days of polling marred by logistical snags and charges of fraud.

In a classroom-turned-polling station in Khartoum, National Election Commission officials read out each ballot paper’s result under the watchful eye of local observers and representatives of the different political groups.

“Al-Khitim (‘stamp’ in Arabic). Omar Hassan Ahmed Al-Beshir,” said an NEC staffer to prove a ballot paper had been officially stamped before announcing the chosen candidate’s name.

When one party member contested a ballot paper, staffers dived for their electoral law manuals before agreeing that the ballot paper in question should indeed not be counted. The election was marred by an opposition boycott and the withdrawal of two presidential candidates, the Umma party’s Sadiq Al-Mahdi and the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s Yasser Arman.

The two had been considered strong challengers to Beshir, but their withdrawal means the veteran president is set for a near-certain win, with Hatim Al-Sirr of the Democratic Unionist Party coming a distant second.

“Yasser Arman”, read out the NEC staffer at the Khartoum polling station, confusing all those present. Arman and Mahdi withdrew after ballot papers had already been printed, so people could theoretically still cast a vote for them.

Around 16 million registered Sudanese voters had been asked to choose their presidential, legislative and local representatives. Southerners also voted for the leader of the autonomous government of south Sudan.

Participation is “more than 60 percent” based on preliminary figures, the NEC said yesterday afternoon. Results are expected on Tuesday.

The Sunday-Thursday vote was Sudan’s first multi-party election since 1986. Polling had been originally due to last three days, but a series of delays and logistical problems prompted the NEC to

prolong voting by two days.

On Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the election and urged all sides to conclude the electoral process without violence.

Ban congratulated all those who had participated in the vote, “which, despite the reported irregularities and opposition boycotts, took place without any major incident of violence.”

Ban “calls on all political leaders and their supporters to refrain from actions that could jeopardize the peaceful conclusion of the electoral process,” a UN statement said. Voting proceeded calmly in most parts of Africa’s largest country, but the results could ignite tensions in more contested areas, particularly in south Sudan. The process was seen as a bid to restore Beshir’s stature after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March 2009 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western region of Darfur. An aide to Beshir, Nafie Ali Nafie, said on Thursday that Beshir’s re-election would prove allegations against him are “false.” -_ AFP

Gaddafi urges support for ‘wise and peaceful’ Obama SIRTE, Libya: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has urged global support for the “peaceful” policies of “wise” US President Barack Obama in his pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons.

“I appeal to everyone to give Obama time and to support his policies, as long as his program remains peaceful,” Gaddafi told a gathering late Thursday in a huge tent erected in the desert near the eastern coastal city of Sirte.

He was speaking during commemorations marking the anniversary of the bombing by American planes on April 15, 1986 of Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi which killed 41 people, including Gaddafi’s adoptive daughter.

Then president Ronald Reagan ordered the raids in retaliation for the bombing blamed on Libyan agents of a Berlin disco in which a US serviceman was among three people killed. “We have confidence in our son Baraka (“chance” in

SIRTE: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addresses a gathering late Thursday in a huge tent erected in the desert near the eastern coastal city of Sirte during commemorations marking the anniversary of the bombing by US planes on April 15, 1986 of Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi which killed 41 people, including Gaddafi’s adoptive daughter. — AFP Arabic) Obama and, if he continues his wise and peaceful policies, we will help and support him so that they succeed,” Gaddafi, dressed in white suit and black shirt, told the crowd of

around 1,000 people.

At the same time, the Libyan leader urged Washington to change its policies towards the Palestinians so as to garner support in the Arab world, saying

“the Arabs hate the United States” because of its support for Israel.

He said Obama “should abandon his naive solution” to the Middle East conflict through his support for international peace efforts which aim to create two separate states-one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.

Such a solution, Gaddafi said, has “no chance of succeeding.”

Instead he proposed the creation of a single democratic state for Israelis and Palestinians-an idea he floated before the UN General Assembly last September.

US-Libyan ties have been improving since 2003, when Gaddafi renounced the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and agreed to compensate families of the victims of the 1988 plane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The lifting of US sanctions in 2004 paved the way for US oil companies to return to Libya after being absent since 1986. — AFP

China quake toll crosses 1,000 C on tin u ed fro m Pag e 1 of chafing at Chinese rule. “We can overcome the disaster and improve national unity in fighting the calamity,” Wen was quoted saying, as state media put the number injured at more than 11,000.

The quake flattened thousands of the mud-and-wood homes inhabited by ethnic Tibetans, who make up more than 90 percent of the northwest region’s people, and also heavily damaged sturdier concrete structures such as schools.

State media said the dead included 103 students and 12 teachers as schools and dormitories collapsed, with dozens more buried or missing.

The casualties recalled the devastating 2008 earthquake in neighboring Sichuan province, in which thousands of students were among the 87,000 killed or missing in that disaster amid allegations shoddy construction was to blame.

Initial shipments of what will be

eventually be 41,000 tents, 160,000 coats and 188,000 quilts began to arrive Friday afternoon, as well as an expected 185 tons of food and supplies ranging from cots to mobile toilets, the government said.

Newly homeless Jiegu residents expressed fears about disease due to large numbers of human and animal bodies left rotting in the open. At a briefing in Beijing, government officials said no signs of epidemic had yet been seen but promised stepped-up efforts to head off the threat. “(Authorities) have already started treating human waste and bodies in the disaster-stricken area to prevent any dangerous impact on the local environment,” said Chen Xianyi, a health ministry official.

Diggers and other heavy equipment were among the machinery trickling into Jiegu but they remained unequal to the scale of the destruction and locals continued to pick frantically through

collapsed buildings.

“There are people in here. We have got to find them. We can’t stop until we find them,” said a Tibetan Buddhist monk, one of several sorting through a pile of r ubble in central Jiegu that reeked of the foul stench of dead bodies.

The thousands of rescuers who have poured into the mountainous region were battling temperatures that dipped to five degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) as well as a lack of oxygen in the altitude of nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet). Thousands of soldiers were joining police and other personnel in the effort.

Officials have assured the public that despite such challenges, the disaster will be dealt with but warned of delays due to difficulty in reaching the remote quake-hit area.

President Hu Jintao cut short a Latin American tour and Wen postponed a trip to Southeast Asia to deal with the disaster. — AFP

Volcanic ash cloud turns Europe into no-fly zone Continued from Page 1 million per day in lost revenues,” the International Air Transport Association said in a statement.

Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to six months if the eruption continues, but even if it short-lived the financial impact on airlines could be significant.

The fallout hit airline shares yesterday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair down between 1.4 and 3.0 percent.

David Castelveter, a spokesman with the Air Transport Association of America trade group, said US airlines had cancelled at least 170 flights to and from Europe.

Mounting costs The flight cancellations would cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about 10 million pounds ($16 million) a day, transport analyst Douglas McNeill said. “To lose that sum of money isn’t a very pleasant experience but it’s of limited commercial significance as well,” he told BBC TV. “A couple of days like this won’t matter too much. If it goes on for weeks, that’s a different story.”

In France, state-controlled airports operator Aeroports de Paris faced losses of 5 million euros a day or more, analysts

said.

Joe Sultana, head of network operations at European air control agency Eurocontrol, said the situation was unprecedented.

“We understand the economic impact, both to the airlines and the general European economy, but safety comes first,” he said. The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, hurling a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere.

Officials said it was still spewing magma and although the eruption could abate in the coming days, ash would continue drifting into the skies of Europe. Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverized rock that can damage engines and airframes.

In addition to travel problems, health officials warned that the volcanic ash could also prove harmful to those with breathing difficulties.

In 1982, a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding towards the ground before it was able to restart its engines.

The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it prepared for ash clouds.

Plume drif ting In Brussels, European aviation control

officials told a news conference that some 12,000 to 13,000 flights were likely to operate in European airspace yesterday, compared with about 29,500 normally. The ash was expected to spread further south and east.

An official at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume. “We can only predict the time that flights will resume after the eruption has stopped, but for as long as the eruption is still going on and still leading to a significant eruption, we cannot say,” said Scylla Sillayo, a senior official in the WMO’s aeronautical meteorology unit.

Polish officials said Sunday’s funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday looked set to go ahead as planned.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, returning from a trip to the United States, was diverted to Portugal and was expected to spend the night in Lisbon.

The air problems have proved a boon for other transport firms. All 58 Eurostar trains between Britain and Europe were operating full, carrying some 46,500 passengers, and a spokeswoman said they would consider adding more services.

London taxi firm Addison Lee said it had taken requests for journeys to Paris, Milan, Zurich and Salzburg in Austria.

— Reuters

PARIS: Kuwaiti Undersecretary at the Foreign Ministry Khaled Suleiman Al-Jarrallah (left) and French Junior Minister for Cooperation and Francophony Alain Joyandet sign an agreement between France and Kuwait on nuclear energy in Paris yesterday. HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon look on. — AFP

Europe grapples with Muslim dress code Continued from Page 1 Unlike the Belgians or the Dutch — who see a clear and straightforward public security issue — the French are struggling with the constitutionality of outlawing a religious dress code. Until now, it has been up to city governments in Belgium to crack down on burqa-style outfits. “Enforcement by local governments has been patchy,” says Dierick.

“The point is public security, the need to show one’s face in public. Not religious freedom.” The proposed Belgian ban partly underscores how populist politicians across Europe are making a big imprint on attitudes and policies toward immigrants and minorities, especially Muslims.

Belgian lawmaker Filip Dewinter says mainstream politicians back a ban on burqa-type attire for fear of losing more ground to his far-right Flemish Interest party — a fringe factor 15 years but who today hold 17 of the 150 parliamentary seats.

“We were the first to propose a burqa ban,” says Dewinter. “Now the parliament votes for a ban drafted by a traditional government party. Whatever! It’s the outcome that counts.” Umar Mirza, a 22-year-old student and editor of the Dutch Muslim website “We’re Staying Here” says sentiment toward Muslims and immigrants began to harden in the Netherlands 10 years ago.

“People my age have not known anything else,” he says, adding the prevailing view of Muslims “has gotten much harder and sharper and less targeted at solutions.” In the Netherlands, polls indicate that Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom Party could nearly triple its presence in parliament and win 25 or so seats in June elections, up from nine today.

Wilders and like-minded supporters of

the far-right hold that Muslims threaten European values by wearing head scarves and more conservative dress that fully covers body and head, such as the burqa, the chador and the niqab. They say that liberal Europe can no longer afford to tolerate the illiberalism of newcomers.

“Islam is more of an ideology than a religion,” Wilders is fond of saying. “I do not believe in a European Islam. The Islamization of the Netherlands and Western Europe will make us lose the freedoms we have today.” Numbers put growing fears of Europe becoming “Eurabia” into perspective.

Although their ranks are growing, Muslims make up only small minorities in Western Europe. France has the largest Muslim population of an estimated 5 million, or 7.5 percent of the population, followed by the Netherlands with 6 percent, Germany with 5 percent, Austria with 4.2 percent, Belgium with 3 percent and Britain with 2.7 percent, according to a 2009 study of the Pew Research Center in Washington.

There is broad support in the Dutch parliament to ban face-obscuring clothing except if required by law for safety or health reasons. Talk of a ban is on hold, for now. Fewer than 500 women wear such outfits in the Netherlands, out of a population of 16.5 million. “Banning the burqa in Belgium is easy. The vast majority of Muslim women here don’t wear one,” says Maryam H’madoun, an activist in Antwerp for Muslim women’s right to wear head scarves in public places. Last year, the city of Brussels fined only 29 women — down from 33 in 2008 — for wearing a burqa-type dress, leading critics to say the regulations are an empty populist gesture. Local rules ban the burqa, but the new law would outlaw it on a national level.

In January, Denmark’s center-right government called the burqa and the niqab out of step with Danish values. It held off on a ban after finding that only two or three women in Denmark (pop.

5.5 million) wear burqas and perhaps 200 wearing niqabs.

In France (pop. 65 million), the government estimates 1,900 women cover their faces with “niqabs,” a scarf that exposes only the eyes, or “sitars,” a filmy veiled cloth thrown over the head to cover the entire face. France banned Muslim head scarves — as well as Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses — from schools in 2004. President Nicolas Sarkozy says the burqa “is not welcome” in France, but the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, has served notice that an outright ban may be unconstitutional.

Politicians in Germany, Spain and Italy have toyed with banning Islamic wear, but so far to no effect. Muslims say their Islamic dress expresses their freedom of religion.

The headscarves debate “shows we still aren’t able to accept the fact that the headscarves are part of our society,” says Mirza, the editor of the “We’re Staying Here” website.

“In the UK, they even made special police uniforms for women with headscarves. That shows willingness from the government and improves participation in society of these groups.” Isabelle Praile, vice president of the Belgian Muslims Executive says while a burqa ban targets very few women “it speaks to a fear of the other who is Muslim.

This is Islamophobia.” To Muslims in Europe, she said, “the economy, the cost of living and decent housing” are more pressing issues that worrying about a burqa ban. — AP

A volcano sneezes, world gets paralysis Continued from Page 1 Five German soldiers wounded in Afghanistan on Thursday and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg were diverted to Turkey on a flight back to Germany. The airport in Cologne to which they would usually fly is closed. Poland faced a somber quandary: What do you do about a historic presidential funeral when many of your world leader guests may not be able to show up? The family of late President Lech Kaczynski has urged that his state funeral be held tomorrow in Krakow as planned. The president and his wife died in a plane crash Saturday in western Russia along with 94 others, and funeral guests include Obama, Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

A delay was dubbed only a “last resort” option — but it is an option. The White House said late Thursday that Obama was still planning to fly to Poland today. But it was unclear when Poland would reopen its airports, and whether it would be in time for the ceremony.

“A two-day perspective ahead of the arrival of those planes is a relatively long time,” Justyna Zajaczkowska, Krakow airport spokeswoman, told The AP. “All we can do is wait.” Iraqi Airways was forced to cancel the inaugural flight of its new Baghdad to London route and postpone the ceremony celebrating the first commercial flight between the two cities in 20 years, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Kerim Al-Temimi.

The flight, through Malmo, Sweden to London was the first since 1990 when the UN imposed sanctions after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

Not a single rental car could be found in Paris or any of its suburbs Friday. With no flights out of Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, and more than 20 others across northern France, travelers aiming to get out of France tried whatever they could to reach points south. France’s famed highspeed trains were not much of an option.

Some drivers for the SNCF rail authority are on strike, disrupting traffic. And many French families are heading off on school vacation starting Friday night. All long-distance trains heading south of Paris were booked Friday.

Anissa Isker arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport early Friday morning in hopes of taking her son Ryan, who has a rare genetic disease that has bound him to a wheelchair, to Miami for specialized

treatment that could help him walk. The hard-to-schedule treatment costs $3,000, a sum she is set to lose if they can’t leave this weekend. The French civil aviation authority is keeping airports in northern France closed until at least today morning.

“I think it’s going to be tough,” she said.

“When I told him we cannot leave, he got nervous, because he understood the situation,” Isker told AP Television News.

Potentially lifesaving organs, too, were stranded. A spokeswoman for the German Foundation for Organ Transplant said that in coordination with the European organization Eurotransplant, all organs that usually get flown out to patients were instead being distributed regionally.

Patients were currently being considered for organ transplants on the basis of how close they are to a delivery.

“Hearts, lungs and livers, which are normally transported by air, are now delivered regionally and by ground travel,” said spokeswoman Nadine Koerner.

Disruptions extended to Africa. A group of five people from Sierra Leone and Liberia had to abandon a fact-finding trip to the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor in The Hague because of the volcano. Groups from Sierra Leone and Liberia regularly visit the court as part of an outreach program. They then can go home and inform their communities about the trial of Taylor, who is accused of arming and supporting murderous rebels during Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Special Court for Sierra Leone spokesman Soloman Moriba said the five travelers had been forced to scrap their trip because the Icelandic ash cloud grounded planes to Belgium and the Netherlands.

In Madrid, the flight disruptions hit a meeting of European Union finance ministers working on the Greek debt crisis.

Delegations from Ireland, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden were among those missing their ministers or otherwise altered. Two EU heavyweights — Economy Commissioner Olli Rehn and Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier — caught the last flight out of Paris’ Orly airport Thursday, but only after having considered making an overnight train ride from Brussels to the Spanish capital, a journey unheard-of for modern EU officials, accustomed to jetting across borders several times a week.

“I’m very glad to be here, despite all the volcano fallout,” Rehn said once he made it to Madrid. “Barnier and I, we were about

to resort to a kind of middle-aged Interail.”

A few royals, generally accustomed to smooth travel, had to bail out on a big birthday party: That of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, turning 70.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia and Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson are among dignitaries who couldn’t make it to Copenhagen because of the ash cloud. Others in doubt included Britain’s Prince Philip, Belgium’s Crown Prince Philippe and his wife Princess Mathilde. The monarchs of neighboring Sweden and Norway missed the first part of the program on Thursday. The ash snarled business plans, from an Italian winemaker trying to get to a wine festival in Norway to Dutch flower importers.

“The imports that were planned for today are still on the ground, mainly in Kenya and Israel. Kenya roses and Israel summer flowers,” said Winny Paauw, of flower auctioneer FloraHolland.

She said the ash cloud had not yet significantly hit the multibillion dollar Dutch cut flower industry, however, as most exported flowers go by road or rail and the tulip season is past its peak.

She said she did not know when flowers would start being flown in again. Even when flights resume. “I suspect passenger planes will get priority.” With planes in Norway grounded Friday and trains booked up, British comedian John Cleese resorted to a 30,000-kroner ($5,100) taxi ride to get home from Oslo, where he taped an appearance on a popular Norwegian talk show Thursday night.

The taxi ride will take him as far as Brussels, where he hopes to catch a Saturday train to London, Cleese’s Norwegian publicist, Kjetil Kristoffersen, told The AP. To find a taxi willing to make the 15-hour drive, Kristoffersen called a childhood friend, who drove his taxi to Oslo Friday morning from his hometown of Horten, about an hour south of the Norwegian capital. “He did me a big favor,” Kristoffersen said. “He’s probably going to miss his 40th birthday party today because of this. He’d planned it in advance, invited guests, everything.”

Kristoffersen said it was unclear exactly who would furnish the driver with his fare, but that he and Cleese would iron out the details later.

Kristoffersen said Cleese’s reaction to the setback was good-humored. “He told me, ‘It seems the Icelanders can’t control their banks or their volcanos.”‘ — AP

SPORTS

20

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Danger lurks for Cavs, Lakers in pursuit of playoff glory LOS ANGELES: Star power notwithstanding, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers will find plenty of danger lurking in the NBA postseason.

The Lakers head into the playoffs vying for a second straight championship, hoping that a little rest at the end of the regular season will have re-energized superstar Kobe Bryant for the stretch run. The Cavaliers built the best regular-season record - but then again they did that last year only to fall to Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals. This time around the Cavs hope they can go all the way, having brought in veteran Shaquille O’Neal and Antawn Jamison to help out superstar LeBron James.

“We still have a long way to go. It’s going to be tough for us, because we’re going to face a lot of dif-

ferent types of teams on this run, hopefully,” said Cleveland coach Mike Brown. The Cavaliers open their postseason campaign today against Chicago, who secured the final playoff berth on the final night of the season. In other Eastern Conference series, Milwaukee face Atlanta, Boston take on Miami and Orlando take on Charlotte. The Celtics lost seven of their last 10 regular season games, but the 2008 NBA champs expect to pick things up with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen healthy.

They’ll need to be at their best against a Heat team led by Dwyane Wade. “It’s going to be a tough series,” Miami forward Quentin Richardson predicted. “We’re going to be ready.” The Lakers’ first test will be Oklahoma City, while in other Western

Conference series Utah play Denver, Phoenix take on Portland and Dallas take on familiar Texas foes San Antonio. “I don’t think anybody is afraid of anybody,” Dallas owner Mark Cuban said. “We think we can beat anybody and anybody thinks they can beat us. That’s how good the teams are.”

Los Angeles, who beat Orlando for the title last year in five games, are vying to become the first team with three straight trips to the finals since O’Neal and Bryant led them to three straight championships from 2000-02. The Thunder will try to bring a quick end to that bid with the help of Kevin Durant, who averaged 30.1 points to become the NBA’s youngest scoring champion. Durant stressed that he didn’t see the series playing out as a show-

down between himself and Bryant. “It’s not going to be KD versus Kobe. It’s the Thunder versus the Lakers,” Durant said. “Of course, fans want to get into the one-on-one matchups but it’s far from that.

It’s all about team basketball and getting wins any way you can.”

Phoenix missed the playoffs last year but turned it on late in the season to seize the third seed in the West. “I don’t know if you start matching us up with all the teams in the league how talented we are, but I think as a collective group we’re pretty doggone good,” Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. All eight Western Conference teams won 50 games. The Lakers remain the undisputed leaders, but have battled injuries late in the season - notably Bryant’s

broken finger and sore knee.

“The West is wide open. A lot of great teams out there,” said Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki.

“The Lakers, if they’re healthy with (Andrew) Bynum and everybody, I think they’re still the favorites, but everybody else is kind of bunched up and on the same level. Anything is possible.” San Antonio have also battled injuries, but the aging Spurs say Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are all ready to try to avenge their loss to Dallas in the first round last year. “We’re playing better than we have all year long, there’s no doubt about that,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.

“Whether that’s good enough to do anything of note in the playoffs, we’ll see.” — AFP

Hurricanes trounce ACT Brumbies Q8 Rowing CANBERRA: The Wellington Hurricanes scored two second-half tries in a dour match to keep their Super 14 playoff hopes alive with a 23-13 win over the ACT Brumbies yesterday. It was the Hurricanes’ first win in six matches and moved the New Zealand side up to seventh place, seven points outside a potential semifinal spot. The Brumbies, plagued by handling errors, dropped to 6-3 but are four points ahead of the Hurricanes in sixth.

It was the first loss of the season for the Brumbies at Canberra Stadium, and came in outgoing coach Colin Cooper’s 100th match in charge of the Hurricanes over five years. The Brumbies led 5-3 at halftime after a try by Patrick Phibbs in the 34th minute.

Brumbies flyhalf Matt Giteau, who scored the other ACT try, and Aaron Cruden for the Hurricanes both missed early penalty shots, but Cruden kicked a penalty at the halftime buzzer. Cruden went

some hard words in here about discipline and about adjusting,” Cooper said. “The Brumbies, seeing the defensive side of Jonathan, they paid for that in the second half ... we adjusted.”

Stormers dethrone Chiefs in Super 14 rugby

Stormers flatten Chiefs In another development, Lock Andries Bekker and hooker Tiaan Liebenberg scored tries and helped set up several others as the Stormers beat the Waikato Chiefs 49-15 yesterday to solidify their place in the top four of rugby’s Super 14. Liebenberg scored the third and Bekker the fifth of the Stormers’ six tries as the South African side overwhelmed last year’s finalists to move into first place with a 7-2 record and 33 points. Springboks winger Bryan Habana, with help from Bekker and Liebenberg, scored what may have been the try of the season in the 22nd minute when the ball passed through more than a dozen pairs of

Super 14 on to kick two more penalties and two conversions after second-half tries by Conrad Smith and Victor Vito.

Wellington captain Andrew Hore said the win will give the Hurricanes some confidence for the remainder of the season. “We’ve come up short in the last three or four games, but we’ll go back to Wellington confident,” Hore said.

“We defended pretty well tonight, it came down to having some pride.”

ACT captain Stephen Hoiles admitted it was a “scrappy” game and lamented his side’s inability to score more frequently in the opening half when it had 70 percent possession.

“We were a little bit impatient in the first half, and overall we’re really disappointed,” Hoiles said. ACT coach Andy Friend said the Brumbies didn’t play as a team.

“If you want to do things solo ... that’s a big issue,” he said. “It’s been the story of our season that we get into that attacking zone and we’re just not team-enough and collective-enough to get the ball across the line.” Cooper said his team adjusted well to the strict refereeing of Jonathan Kaplan, who penalized the Brumbies five times in the second half. “At the second half, we had

hands.

The try-scoring movement began with fullback Geo Aplon and spread across the field as center Jaque Fourie handled twice and Bekker and Liebenberg were involved before Habana scored near the left-hand corner. Bekker also played a part in Liebenberg’s try in the 44th minute, then scored himself in the 62nd minute. “I’m really proud of the boys,” Stormers captain Schalk Burger said. “It’s really hard in this competition to go back to back so it’s really good to do it tonight.”

The Stormers have beaten the Auckland Blues and the Chiefs in successive matches in New Zealand and next face the Queensland Reds in Brisbane before returning to South Africa for the last three rounds of the season. The Stormers took a 27-10 lead which increased with later tries to Sireli Naqelevuki, Bekker and replacement hooker Deon Fourie. Fullback Tim NanaiWilliams scored a late try for the Chiefs. Stormers flyhalf Peter Grant kicked eight out of 10 attempts for 19 points, building on last week’s performance when he kicked seven goals from seven attempts. — Agencies

Bute faces hard-hitting Miranda in title defense MONTREAL: Unbeaten Lucian Bute will defend his International Boxing Federation super middleweight title for the fifth time today, when he takes on hard-hitting Puerto Rican Edison Miranda.

“Miranda is a puncher and anything can happen with a puncher,” Bute’s trainer, Stephan Larouche said, adding that likely made the bout attractive to US cable channel HBO. “They know that if he gets knocked out, he’ll get knocked out hard, which is good for TV. He won’t quit.

He won’t put a knee on the floor.”

Miranda (33-4, 29 KOs) has worked for nine months with veteran trainer Joe Goossen in a bid to polish his boxing skills - which don’t measure up to his power. Bute, who brings a record of 25-0 with 20 knockouts to the bout, said he doubted Miranda would be able sustain a new style under pressure.

“It’s hard to change the style you used during your whole career in nine short months. When you’re in an intense situation you quickly turn back to your old habits,” the southpaw said.

Goossen, however, said Miranda was a quick study. “I’m really impressed by the capacity of Edison to follow my directives.

When I saw him lose the decision vs Andre Ward in 2009, he only had a heavy right hand to rely on. “I’ve asked him to try new things, and he did them all with extreme precision.

I’ve seen see a lot of fighters in my career and Edison has the abilities and capacities of a great athlete.

He’s one of the best athletes I’ve seen in my gym.” Romanian-born Bute will be fighting for the first time since he stopped Librado Andrade in the fourth round in Quebec City in November.

In another development, Argentina’s Sergio Martinez plans to make the most of his opportunity

against middleweight king Kelly Pavlik today. Martinez, the World Boxing Council super-welterweight champion, earned his shot at Pavlik, the WBC and World Boxing Organization middleweight champ, when he dropped a close decision to power-puncher Paul Williams in December.

Despite suffering the second defeat of his career, Martinez delivered a fight that was entertaining enough to put him back in the spotlight. “You will see a great fight and definitely I will take my championship back to Argentina,” Martinez said. “All this year I was praying for this particular fight and everybody knows I’m ready for a war.” Pavlik (36-1, 32 KOs) is coming off a fifth round win over Miguel Espino three months ago.

The charismatic Martinez, a former cyclist and footballer, boasts tremendous speed, great movement and ring management skills that delight boxing purists. “He’s got tremendous athleticism and conditioning, he’s always in shape, he’s always quick,” said promoter Lou DiBella. “He fights in a style all his own, and that’s why he’s one of the best 154-pounders in the world.” But Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KOs) has been on the losing end of some doubtful decisions in his biggest bouts. He fought Kermit Cintron last February in Sunrise, Florida, earning a draw even though many ringside observers thought he won easily.

He returned to the ring against Williams, losing a majority decision in one of the best fight of the year.

“If they’re worried about the referees and the judges, you won’t even need to bring the judges that night.

They won’t be needed,” Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew, said. “They can stay home that night, because it won’t go the distance.”— Agencies

HAMILTON: South Africa Stormers’ Andries Bekker (left) is tackled by New Zealand Chiefs’ Liam Messam (back) and Mike Delany (right) during their Super 14 Rugby match at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton yesterday. — AP

Competition

KUWAIT: A month ago an initiative was put forward by a group of few sports and sea loving enthusiast in town aiming to revive and bring back the popularity of the once famous Raft Race which used to be organized in the good old days at Messilah Beach Hotel. The Q8 Rowing Competition, however, will be organized with a totally new concept.

The participating teams will be given the chance to train and race with similar, custommade official white water rafts, thus competition will be fair and any group can attend regardless to financial background and technical capabilities (in the last couple of years the event lost its popularity mainly because smaller teams could not afford to invest several thousand Kuwaiti Dinars in building a raft - or simply did not have enough time or workshop facilities to do so - and they gradually lost interest seeing that their team would not be able to compete with well-to-do teams).

The Q8 Rowing Competition (Q8RC) is aiming to start a series of sports event and this year’s competition will take place on April 30, 2010 at Hilton Kuwait Resort offering the possibility of participation to any enthusiastic, sports-loving and health I fitness conscious resident of Kuwait. The aim of the organizers is to offer the possibility of participation to students, teachers, company colleagues, association members, expat communities etc. at this open event ensuring fair competition.

All teams will have the possibility to practice on the splendid beach of Hilton Kuwait Resort on standard, heavy duty, inflatable rafts (carrying capacity up to 8 persons) from 1st of April to the day of the Competition. The Competition will take place between teams rowing on above standard rafts; there will be a maximum of 5 rowing lanes separated by individual buoys and floating markers; each lane will have its own turn-around buoy. Rafts must

pass the buoys marking the course of the lane on the starboard side (right) of the raft.

Since the Rafts are light weight (approximately 45 kilograms) the minimum number of team members is 6 and maximum is fixed in 8 team mates.

There will be three categories; men, women and mixed (in mixed crew teams number of men and women should be equal). No special skills are required; the rafts can be powered by muscle force only using uniform paddles provided with the rafts. All visitors and guests will be allowed entry against purchase of a ticket at following rates: KD 12.000/ adults-KD 6.000/ children up to 14 years. Free for children upto the age of 5. All tickets automatically enter for the raffle draw (prizes will be displayed at the entrance of the Resort). It will be a day full of fun, sports and entertainment for all ages. The competition will take place at Beach 5 of the Hilton Kuwait Resort; 150 meters of sandy shore. There will be several activities on the beach catering for all needs and interest. Besides the rowing competition those interested can participate in a special beach volleyball and football tournament. For spectators: just cheer the competing teams, enjoy the tunes of our DJ. Kids moments: bouncy castle, face painting, hair braiding and other exciting activities.

Entry tickets include participation in above activities and free, assorted soft drinks, salads, hot and cold snacks, ice cream and pastry. Come alone, with friends or with your family and enjoy the competition and the diverse activities on the beach! Tickets to the event are available on a preevent sale basis and can be reserved by visiting the Competition’s web-site at: www.g8raftcompetition.com and sending a request to: info@q8raftcompetition.com.

There will be a limited number of tickets available at the Resort entrance on the day of the competition, too.

Women’s rugby on rise ahead of 2016 Olympics WAYNE: Long denied the chance to compete in contact sports, American women are now joining rugby clubs in record numbers and relishing the hard-nosed nature of what’s been called a gentleman’s game for ruffians. On a recent afternoon, the Wayne State College women’s club team practiced right along with the men in a meadow on the north edge of campus.

They locked arms and heads and otherwise contorted themselves in scrums. Women big and small chased each other, and held car tires as they ran laps to build strength and conditioning. No passersby seemed to blink. Women make up the fastestgrowing segment of rugby players in the United States. With youth programs still in their infancy, and rugby becoming an Olympic sport in 2016, the future of the sport in this country depends on club teams like the one here at this 3,600-student school tucked among the farm fields of northeast Nebraska.

Most of Wayne State’s players - men and women alike - didn’t know the difference between a rugby ball and a grapefruit when they signed up.

The women migrated from sports such as basketball, volleyball and softball. Giving the chance to play the sport from which American football spawned, they gush about the rush they get from “blowing up” an opponent and the pride with which they wear their bumps and bruises.

Jennifer Becker bragged about the time two years ago that she broke her nose trying to tackle a University of Michigan player. “She turned a different way and I nailed my nose into the side of her face,” the senior from Madison, Nebraska, said.

“But I kept playing. They wiped up the blood, plugged up my nose a little bit and I went on. I had to show those people from Michigan that we weren’t quitters.” Such bravado doesn’t surprise US women’s national team coach Kathy Flores.

“Women have always wanted to be physical,” she said, “but they haven’t had the opportunity.”

That’s changing. USA Rugby, the sport’s governing body in the United States, has recorded a 235 per-

NEBRASKA: The Wayne State rugby men’s and women’s teams practice side by side in Wayne, Neb. — AP cent increase in registered female players since 1999, from 6,104 to 20,430. Officials expect that number to continue growing with rugby’s return to the Olympics in 2016 for the first time since 1924.

There will be competition for both genders, but in a seven-on-seven format rather than the traditional 15-to-a-side game.

Some future Olympians very well could be playing for a powerhouse such as Penn State or Stanford in the college club national playoffs in California and Florida this weekend. Or they could be running about on a small college campus like the one at Wayne, which has won its league, or union, eight straight years and has knocked off club teams from bigger schools such as Nebraska, Iowa State and Texas Tech, among others.

The college club players aren’t much different than those currently on US national teams. Few played rugby before high school or college, and most hold full- or part-time jobs on the side. Flores said basketball players tend to convert into the best rugby players because of their hand-eye coordination, ability to catch and run and the fact they are accustomed to a game that has quick changes of possession. Soccer players also make an easy tran-

sition, she said. US Women’s National Sevens coach Ric Suggitt said an athlete unable to achieve elite status in her primary sport can excel in rugby.

“There might be an athlete who is two-tenths of a second away from qualifying for the Olympics, and rugby might suit her,” Suggitt said. “That’s the type of athlete we need to identify. We need to leave those avenues open for the track athletes and the basketball, soccer and lacrosse players. It’s a dream for kids to go to the Olympics, and this might give them that chance.” Sometimes the biggest hurdle for women is mental. “There are those who think they’ll appear manly if they play,” Flores said.

“But girls are tough. Sometimes they just don’t know it.”

That could change if the sport gains exposure.

Suggitt said he hopes to see girls begin training in rugby in elementary school, as is common in other sports. As of now, Sebastian River (Florida) High is the only high school in the nation that has a varsity girls rugby team, though there are about 150 high school girls’ club teams. The NCAA gave women’s rugby “emerging sport” status in 2002, allowing Division I programs to award as many as 12 scholarships. So far, Eastern Illinois is the only

school to start a program, but the athletic department funds the equivalent of less than one scholarship divided among 20 players.

There are about 400 college club teams, with some offering scholarships, but most requiring members to pay a fee to play and cover their own travel expenses. Though the sport gets minimal exposure in the United States - it’s extremely popular in Australia and Europe - Americans have generally fared well since international competition for women started in 1987. The United States will play in the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England in August. The Americans finished fifth in 2006.

Flores said the United States is considered a “sleeping giant” because of the nation’s wealth of athletes.

The challenge for Suggitt and Flores is to find the ones who can help the United States achieve at the highest level, whether at the Olympics for the seven-player game or at the World Cup for the traditional game. Wayne State in 2002 produced a topcaliber player in Angela Matthews, who made the U.S. under-19 team. “Ronnie Lott with shaved legs,” Wayne coach Darrin Barner said, referring to the former NFL star. “She was flat-out the meanest-tackling thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Her first year here, I would have started her on the men’s team.” No current Wayne player has the skill of Matthews. Passion? That’s another matter.

Whitney Nielsen, a senior from Sioux City, Iowa, was a member of the Wayne State softball team for less than a week as a freshman before she quit to take up rugby. “I had never played a contact sport before, and it was so much fun,” Nielsen said.

“Women don’t get a lot of opportunity to experience contact. I was intrigued by it.” Nielsen got a mixed reaction from her family when she broke the news that she was giving up softball. “My grandma was terrified for me,” she said. “My dad thought it was awesome. You watch volleyball and softball, and then you watch a tackling sport ... He was like, ‘Yeah, my daughter is going to kick butt.’ “ But thuggery is not part of the game. — AP

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Little-known Kim sets pace at the China Open SUZHOU: Although Kim Do-hoon almost failed to make it into the China Open field, the South Korean has his eyes firmly set on victory after taking a one-stroke lead in the second round yesterday. Kim carded a steady round of 69 for an 11-under 133 total going into the weekend, his only blemish on day two being a bogey on the par-four 18th.

“I was the last Korean to get a spot

(in the field),” said the unheralded 21year-old. “So I just wanted to make the

Golf cut coming here.

But now I’m in the lead I will be aggressive and hope to win.”

South Korean Yang enjoys hot streak Kim was ahead of a trio of players tied for second place, including Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee who had shared the lead following the opening round. South Korea’s Yang Yong-eun and Briton Jamie Donaldson were also on 10 under.

Thongchai had four birdies and two

bogeys for a 70, while Donaldson added a 68 to his first day 66. Yang made the most of the warmer conditions yesterday as he enjoyed a hot streak to sink four successive birdies from the 11th to finish on six-under 66. At one stage it seemed as if he could catch or even sur-

pass Kim’s score but an undercooked approach on the short par-4 16th left him short. Erratic irons on the 17th and 18th also lost him ground and he was lucky to make par on both holes.

“Yesterday was a bit chilly to say the least and that affected my overall game,” said Yang. “The elements were much friendlier today so I was more aggressive.”

Canadiens upset Capitals WASHINGTON: Tomas Plekanec scored 13:19 into overtime to give the eighthseeded Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 victory over the top-seeded Washington Capitals on Thursday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference playoff series.

Plekanec beat Jose Theodore with a drive from the high slot.

Mike Cammalleri scored for Montreal on a power play in the first period, and Scott Gomez tied it at 2 with 12:26 to play. Jaroslav Halak stopped 35 shots.

Joe Corvo had a first-period goal, and Nicklas Backstrom scored early in the third for the Capitals, whose top-rated power play went 0 for 4. Theodore made 45 saves. Two-time reigning league MVP Alex Ovechkin did not have a shot on goal.

Game 2 is Saturday night in Washington.

Sabres 2, Bruins 1 At Buffalo, New York, Ryan Miller made 38 saves, and Craig Rivet scored the go-ahead goal with a slap shot from the right circle with 6 minutes left in the second period in Buffalo’s playoffopening victory over Boston.

Thomas Vanek also scored in Buffalo’s first playoff game in three years.

Miller stopped 23 shots in the second period alone, in building on a stellar season in which he won a club-best 41 games and backstopped the United States to a silver medal at the Vancouver Games. Mark Recchi scored for the Bruins, who finished the regular season sixth in the Eastern Conference.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 Eastern Conference quarterfinal is Saturday in Buffalo.

Canucks 3, Kings 2, OT At Vancouver, Mikael Samuelsson scored his second goal 8:52 into overtime to give the Canucks a win in Game 1 of the first-round Western Conference series.

Both goalies made game-saving stops before Samuelsson ended it.

Los Angeles’ Jonathan Quick got across quickly on Henrik Sedin’s one-timer on a 2-on-1 break 4 minutes into the extra period. Two minutes later, Roberto Luongo lunged back to swipe the puck off the goal line with his glove after Jack Johnson’s rebound attempt hit his blocker and trickled toward the goal.

Samuelsson won it 3 minutes later, taking Sedin’s pass from behind the net into the high slot and quickly firing a shot over Quick’s glove.

Jarret Stoll and Fredrik Modin scored power-play goals, and Quick made 41 saves in the Kings’ first playoff game since 2002.

Daniel Sedin scored and set up Samuelsson’s secondperiod power-play goal, and Luongo finished with 25 saves for the Canucks. Game 2 is today night in Vancouver. — AP

Pablo Larrazabal of Spain and Finland’s Mikko Ilonen were a stroke further back in fifth place.

Colin Montgomerie restored a little pride in the battle of the Ryder Cup captains.

Although American Corey Pavin finished round two tied for eighth place with a total of seven under, his European counterpart closed the gap to make the cut with four-under. — Reuters

Controversy erupts in Indian cricket

MONACO: Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain during their quarterfinal match of the Monte Carlo Tennis Masters tournament in Monaco yesterday. — AP

Merciless Nadal dismisses Ferrero

MONTE CARLO: Juan Carlos Ferrero had high hopes of advancing into the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters but instead smacked into an impenetrable brick wall named Rafael Nadal yesterday.

Nadal’s shock fourth round defeat at last year’s French Open was long forgotten as the claycourt master, four-times a winner at Roland Garros, powered past his fellow Spaniard 6-4 6-2. Ferrero, who had won 17 of his 18 matches on the slow surface this season, tried to attack Nadal’s backhand. Nadal in turn reacted by stifling Ferrero. The

second seed, looking for a record sixth win in Monte Carlo and a first ATP title in 11 months, will next face compatriot David Ferrer, a 7-5 7-6 winner of German Philipp Kohlschreiber.

The all-Spanish showdown had to be halted midway through the first set after gusting winds and rain caused havoc on court.

World number three Nadal wiped off dust in his eyes in the third game, while VIPs on the terrace had the sunshades pulled back into place after sudden gusts of winds sent white napkins flying. But Ferrero

refused to get distracted by the airborne debris and grabbed a 3-2 lead in the tense encounter when the players were ordered back into the locker room.

Tennis While some fans took cover from the elements by draping Spanish flags around their shoulders, a clearly disgusted Nadal wore a grumpy look as he trudged out of centre court for around 30 minutes. Upon

resumption Nadal stepped up a gear to break for 5-4 with a stunning forehand, following up on serve to clinch the opening set with a service winner. The former world number one kept up pressure, breaking in the first game of the second set as Ferrero gradually ran out of steamand hope. A crosscourt forehand winner gave Nadal another break for 4-1, which delighted his father Sebastian who kept a close eye on the match from under his panama hat.

Ferrero found unlikely angles to save a couple match points but

bowed to the inevitable on the third, returning a serve into the net.

Ferrer, seeded 11th, ran into a spot of bother against Kohlschreiber.

The Spaniard broke decisively in the 11th game to take the opening set when Kohlschreiber netted a forehand. With Ferrer serving for the match, Kohlschreiber came out strong to break back to love and send the contest into a tiebreak.

The decider was a no contest, Ferrer winning it 7-1 when Kohlschreiber misfired a routine backhand into the stands as the skies faded to grey. —Reuters

NEW DELHI: What began with a Twitter post has erupted into a full-blown national controversy that has enveloped the hugely successful Indian Premier League, led to calls for the resignation of a government minister and brought income tax authorities to a top cricket officialís doorstep. The events stem from a plan to add two more teams to the three-year-old league, which has entranced sports fans with its fast-paced version of the traditionally leisurely sport, its cheerleaders in racy outfits, its star players being bought and sold for millions of dollars and its stadium-shaking power pop. It has also attracted investors hoping to cash in on cricket’s most-watched league.

In a seemingly uncontroversial auction last month, a group of investors made a stunning and successful - bid of more than $330 million to start a franchise in the southern Indian city of Kochi next year.

IPL chief Lalit Modi, however, was unhappy and in a rapid fire series of Tweets on Sunday revealed undisclosed information about the makeup of the owners, and questioned why 25 percent of the team was given for free to a group of people.

One of those receiving a free stake was a friend of Shashi Tharoor, India’s junior foreign minister, who has been hit with accusations that her shares were really intended as a hidden gift to him.

Opposition politicians demanded Tharoor resign, but the politician hit back, saying there was no reason for the investors to bribe him since his ministry has nothing to do with the league and he had no way to influence an auction determined solely by who bid the most money.

He said he did help put together the winning investment group, but only because he wanted to bring a team to the state of Kerala, part of which he represents in parliament. “I have not benefited, and do not intend to benefit, in any way financial from my association with the team now or at a later stage,” Tharoor said in a statement that he tried to deliver over opposition shouting in parliament and eventually read to reporters outside the building. For his part, Modi has been accused of trying to derail the Kochi group so that another group of bidders which he favors can take its place.

Yesterday, he accused Tharoor of secretly planning to move the Kochi franchise to Abu Dhabi, presumably because gem merchants based in the United Arab Emirates were among the team’s investors.

“Tharoor has a different agenda and it will be shut down, believe me,” Modi told India’s Times TV. Tharoor denied the accusation.

Kochi’s owners have demanded the precise ownership structures of all the other teams be made public. Among the owners of IPL teams are top industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya, Bollywood film stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta as well as Narainswamy Srinivasan, the cricket board secretary who is also the head of a major steel-manufacturing company.

With the affair dominating India’s media for the entire week, income tax investigators appeared at Modi’s offices Thursday to probe the IPL’s books as well the accounts of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The BCCI, the richest cricket organization in the world, enjoys a tax exemption that the government has repeatedly threatened to revoke.

The cricket board’s president, Shashank Manohar, has questioned why Modi revealed the ownership structure of the Kochi team. He also summoned the IPL’s governing council for a meeting next week to find a way out of the muddle.

Choi rides Masters momentum to Heritage lead HILTON HEAD ISLAND: South Korea’s KJ Choi, who tied for fourth with Tiger Woods at the Masters last week, continued his strong play Thursday to seize the first-round lead at the Heritage. Choi, who played with Woods all four rounds at Augusta National, showed no sign of a let-down as he fired a seven-under 64 to take a two-shot lead. Canadian Mike Weir and England’s Greg Owen shared second on 66, with a big group on 67 including Spain’s Sergio Garcia, American Jim Furyk and Davis Love, a five-time winner here.

While many of last week’s Masters standouts, including champion Phil Mickelson and Woods, are taking this week off, Choi was happy to try to build on his momentum.

“I’ve been playing good and I guess I

wanted to keep the rhythm going,” he said. “And now that I’m here and I see the reactions of the gallery, the sponsors, I feel a lot of support here.”

Choi nabbed three birdies over four holes on the front nine at Harbour Town to take the lead. He separated himself with a similar burst on the back nine as he notched his lowest score of the season.

Choi rolled in a 30-footer for birdie on the 13th to catch Jerry Kelly and Love. He closed his charge by sticking his approach shot within two feet at 16 for birdie. Choi, who will be 40 next month, said he reveled in every Masters moment with Woods. He said playing with the embattled superstar, whose every move was under the microscope after a sex scandal that led to a five-month

absence, helped him improve his patience. “I think that is only going to help me more, and I’m thankful for the experience I had with Tiger,” he said.

Choi has only played this tournament once before, missing the cut in 2001. Usually he heads to his home in Texas to rest after the Masters.

“Yeah, the aura, the atmosphere is a little different” than last week, Choi said. “But when you step on the tee box in the first hole, you still get that competitive pressure.” Weir, too, had only played here once before, in 1999.

But the 2003 Masters champion is planning to take a break this summer for some family celebrations - he and wife Bricia’s 40th birthdays, his brother’s 50th and his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary - so he wanted

to play some earlier tournaments.

“I forgot how narrow (Harbour Town) is, how tight some of the pin positions are, and how precise you have to be on a certain number of shots,” he said. “So that usually suits my game.” Indeed, Weir, who started on the 10th, had an eagle on the parfour first hole, holing an eight-iron from 144 yards.

Owen has missed five cuts this season and withdrew from his last event, the Houston Open. His round was his lowest in more than two months. There was a fun flashback for Jerry Kelly, whose hole-in-one at the par-three fourth was his second at the same hole, which he aced in 2007.

“Same club, too,” Kelly said of his four-iron, which helped him join the group on 67. — AFP

HILTON HEAD ISLAND: KJ Choi of South Korea hits his tee shot on the 18th hole during the first round of the Verizon Heritage at the Harbor Town Golf Links in Hilton Head lsland, South Carolina. — AFP

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Swiss Buemi unfazed after high-speed crash SHANGHAI: Swiss racing driver Sebastien Buemi survived a spectacular 300 kilometers-per-hour crash in yesterday’s practice for the Chinese Grand Prix-but said he did not fear returning to the track.

Buemi, 21, was lucky to escape uninjured after his car suffered a dramatic mechanical failure that saw both front wheels fly off as he braked before hitting the barriers at turn 14.

Amazingly, he walked away and shrugged it off, saying he was unfazed by the whole horrifying accident.

“The track is really wide there, with a lot of run-off space. It looked quite spectacular, but from inside the car, it was not so big,” he said. “I just lost both wheels.” “Afterwards, for me, it took a bit of time to understand what happened, but it was not too bad.

Something broke. It happens.

We’ve changed the car and it will be fine to go out again,” he added. “As a driver, I just don’t think about it anymore.” Buemi said he was more concerned at the problems he will face in trying to qualify with a good time after missing so much of yesterday’s practice. “I will have to rely on Jaime (Alguersurai) for his data and then just do my best,” he said.

“But I have to say, I am extremely disappointed that, once again, through no fault of my own, I have been unable to run for almost all three hours.” One of the front wheels from his car flew over a safety fence and into a spectator area while the other shot through a hole in the fence after hitting a trackside television camera.

His Toro Rosso team said the crash was caused by a failure of a front-right upright which caused an immediate failure on the equivalent part on the left side at the front of the car.

Debris was left strewn across the track and the session had to be red-flagged to a halt. Buemi’s Toro Rosso team-mate Spaniard Alguersuari was called in by the team.

A team spokesman said: “Buemi’s incident in FP1 (free practice one) was caused by the failure of the front-right upright. Both cars had been fitted with new uprights for this race.

They had not been used previously. “The exact cause of the failure within the component has yet to be identified.

“For FP2 and the rest of the weekend, both cars will be fitted with uprights from a validated batch.”

Meanwhile, a last-minute dash across Europe enabled McLaren to avoid the impact of an Icelandic volcano and transport car parts needed for this weekend’s Chinese grand prix.

Members of the Formula One team were scheduled to bring the parts from England on Thursday but their flight was cancelled because of the massive plume of ash from Iceland that has disrupted air traffic across Europe. “It is quite a miraculous story.

Someone jumped into a car and drove five hours to Paris,” said team head Martin Whitmarsh.

The Paris flight took off just 10 minutes before the airport was shut. “The parts were delivered here. We have got a few people who were going to be latecomers who won’t be here now, but we’ve got everything we need to perform this weekend,” Whitmarsh added.

The rush delivery included a mixture of aerodynamic parts and component spares, some of which might prove essential in tomorrow’s race. “You never know. The fact is, you bring the parts, you bring the spares. Some parts you bring to a race meeting you hope you don’t need.

But you never know what’s going to happen,” he said. The volcano, which has erupted under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, normally a popular hiking ground in southern Iceland, was still spewing ash into the air on Friday and showed little sign of letting up. — Agencies

McLaren skirts volcano with ‘miraculous’ drive

SAHNGHAI: Toro Rosso Formula One driver Sebastien Buemi of Switzerland loses his front wheel as he crashes during the first practice session at the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit yesterday. — AP

S Africa police pelted with ‘missiles’ in World Cup drill JOHANNESBURG: A screaming crowd pelted South African police with bottles and cans and threw petrol bombs-just to make sure the riot squad is ready for trouble during June’s World Cup. The crowd of mock protesters hurled plastic bottles filled with water, drinks cans and petrol bombs from close range at a line of police sweating in the hot sun under their helmets and padded uniforms in a training exercise shown to the press.

The chanting protesters-army soldiers in civilian clothes-were so enthusiastic they broke at least one plastic police shield with missiles as the riot squad repeatedly charged to push them back outside Johannesburg’s Ellis Park stadium. Petrol bombs exploded around the police and stun and smoke

grenades were thrown in an exercise intended to be as realistic as possible ahead of the World Cup, when South Africa wants to be ready for any soccer hooligans who beat border controls.

South Africa’s police have been trained for months by crowd control experts from the French gendarmerie, whose officers watched the display.

General Herve Niel, a senior police officer from the Interior Ministry in Paris, told reporters the South Africans were following the same techniques as used in France. “The type of simulation you have seen today is a typical example of what we will do regularly up to the eve of the World Cup. I think we are on the right path but there is still work to be done,” he said. Niel added: “We see the enthu-

siasm with which South Africans are resolutely working and we are really optimistic about the World Cup in terms of crowd control and public order.”

HOOLIGANS He refused to say how the South Africans compared to French police in their readiness to deal with European hooligans, but South African police chief Bheki Cele said few of them would be able to enter this country. Cele, whose flamboyance in a beige pin striped suit, black winkle-pickers and a cowboy hat contrasted with the reserve of Niel, said South Africa had worked with foreign security agencies and Interpol to identify trouble-makers.

“Hooligans are not coming here. We are work-

ing with all security agencies wherever they are. If they come there will be very few that have slipped in but they are not coming, don’t worry,” he said.

But French sources said the South Africans faced a challenge because of lack of familiarity with soccer hooligans.

They said the gendarmerie was concerned that South African police might rapidly move to firing rubber or real bullets in the case of serious crowd trouble, as they do frequently at protests in this country.

The French have concentrated on teaching the police how to control crowds without resorting to firearms. Cele said certain matches in the World Cup and certain teams would be watched particularly carefully because of

Hamilton fastest in Chinese GP practice

WCup ticket sales surge JOHANNESBURG: More than 100,000 World Cup tickets have been sold in less than two days since cash sales began in South Africa, but the likely number of foreign fans has been halved, chief organizer Danny Jordaan said.

Over-the-counter sales of tickets in South Africa, which began on Thursday, ignited real World Cup fever here for the first time and there was chaos as thousands of fans rushed to buy, crashing the computer system.

MATCH, the travel agent arm of soccer’s governing body FIFA, apologized for the problems, during which fans fought in queues after waiting for hours. Police used pepper spray on brawling fans in Pretoria and a pensioner died of a heart attack in Cape Town. Jordaan, boss of the local organizing committee, told Reuters on Friday that 101,000 tickets had been sold in the final phase before the World Cup kicks off on June 11. Some 12,000 were international sales and the rest in South Africa. He said only seven of the 64 matches still had tickets available in the special $20 category available only to South Africans. All matches of the national team Bafana Bafana and most games with the other five African squads were sold out.

FIFA said tickets for 29 of the 64 World Cup matches were no longer available including the July 11 final, two semi-finals, the June 11 opening match and all matches in Durban and Cape Town. But it said a small number of returned tickets could still come back on the market. Jordaan said estimates for the number of foreign fans coming for the World Cup, hit by the global economic slump, high air fares and accommodation costs, had been revised to around 200,000, compared to the original forecast of 450,000.

He appealed to South Africans last week to snap up the remaining 500,000 tickets from a total of 2.7

security concerns.

He refused to give much detail but said England’s opening match, against the United States on June 12 in Rustenburg, would be taken “very seriously”.

South African officials have said in the past that no particular terrorist threat had been identified around the World Cup but that a risk could be created by teams that were known to be the target of extremist groups.

Neither terrorism nor crowd trouble are thought likely to be the biggest challenge facing 41,000 police mobilized for the World Cup. They will be intent on protecting foreign and local fans against criminals in one of the world’s most violent countries outside a war zone. — Reuters

SOWETO: South African Sanchez Dickson shows off her 2010 FIFA soccer World Cup tickets after purchasing them at the Maponya Mall in Soweto. — AP million, after seats were returned from overseas and corporate customers. He said on Friday the response was “Tremendous....they reacted with huge enthusiasm and some of them spent 15 hours waiting for a ticket.” He said the last time South Africans lined up like this was in 1994 when they elected Nelson Mandela in the polls that ended apartheid. “It was a wonderful experience to see,” he said.

SURPRISE AT RESPONSE Asked if he expected all the remaining tickets to be sold, Jordaan said he was surprised how many had gone already considering sales started before workers were

paid on Fridays or the end of the month. “We are just into the second day and over 100,000 were sold. We are very happy with the way things are going. We will see more at the end of the month,” he said. There were queues again on Friday outside ticket offices and some fans returned after waiting for hours on Thursday but the atmosphere was much calmer and the computer system was functioning better, witnesses said.

Jordaan said the number of foreigners arriving for the World Cup would be similar to the last long haul tournament in South Korea and Japan. He said at the last World Cup in Germany in 2006, the big

European fan base could come for single matches, boosting attendance but not the economic impact.

“Of course we cannot compare with Germany because it sits in the middle of Europe... South Africa is a long haul destination so we expect fans to come in and stay for a long period and therefore the (economic) impact will be greater,” he said.

Jordaan said the biggest economic impact for South Africa would come from FIFA spending, which amounted to about $1 billion, followed by commercial sponsors and the local organizing committee which is spending 3.2 billion rand ($431 million). — Reuters

SHANGHAI: McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton claimed his car was back to its 2008 championship-winning best after leading yesterday’s practice at the Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton set the best time of the day, ahead of Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg. Their teammates, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher, were third and fourth fastest. “It’s reminiscent of 2008 kind of balance, and hopefully that will enable us to be competitive tomorrow in qualifying,” Hamilton said, recalling his Formula One title-winning year.

After botched qualifying sessions in Australia and Malaysia, Hamilton was eyeing a front-row grid spot and a chance to claim his first win of the season. “In the past two races, our race pace was good but we had to come from too far back,” Hamilton said. “Ideally tomorrow we’d like to get into Q3 and have a top five start which will enable us to have a competitive run for the win.”

The Red Bull cars of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were fifth and sixth yesterday, though their pace in the longer runs was similar to McLaren. The team is aiming for back-to-back 1-2 finishes, both this season and in China. “It looks very close.

The Mercedes look competitive, as well as the McLarens and Ferraris,” Vettel said. “It will be tight tomorrow, but we will see.”

Championship leader Ferrari had Fernando Alonso in 10th and Felipe Massa 11th, with the mediocre times possibly indicating that the Italian team was testing its high fuel settings ahead of tomorrow’s race.

Of more concern was the failure of Alonso’s engine in the opening practice, with the Spaniard parking the car trackside in a billow of smoke and with flames from the exhaust. The engine was the one used in practice and qualifying at the season opener in Bahrain. The team elected to use it again this weekend following a similar engine blowout at the previous race in Malaysia. That reversion to a used engine indicated the team was already concerned about getting through the 19-race season on just eight engines, as the rules stipulate.

However, Alonso was playing down yesterday’s failure and the growing worries

SAHNGHAI: McLaren Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain smiles during a press conference at the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. — AP about Ferrari’s reliability. “It was something we were expecting, either here or Barcelona, because we knew this engine was degraded,” Alonso said. “Everything is according to plan so far. Unfortunately we’ve lost two engines. This one we were expecting, the Malaysia one was a little more a surprise.” Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi had a more alarming mechanical issue in the first practice when his two front wheels flew off simultaneously upon braking at the end of the main straight. The Swiss driver was unhurt but agitated when he returned to the garage, having an animated discussion with race engineers about a malfunction that could have had far more serious consequences. “I braked, the wheels came off and that was it,” Buemi said. “Physically I was fine, but I have to say, I am extremely disappointed that, once again, through no fault of my own, I have been unable to run for almost all of the three hours available.” — AP

Toro Rosso said the failure was of the right “upright” - the device which attaches the wheel to the suspension and the left one gave way immediately due to added stress. It was a new part fitted for this race.

The team reverted to the old uprights for second practice, though Buemi’s car was too damaged for him to participate.

Mercedes had a superficially strong showing yesterday, close to McLaren’s times. However, the team was not heralding a victory challenge in China. “I am quite confident for the rest of the weekend even if the overall ranking will not change much from the first three races,” Schumacher said. “We seem to have got closer to some of the guys in front, but we have to prove that tomorrow.” _ AP

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Fixture switch Barca face tricky derby angers Bayern test, Real host Valencia

MUNICH: Bayern Munich are crying foul after Lyon were given permission to hold over a domestic league match scheduled to be played between the first and second legs of their Champions League semi-final. Lyon face Bayern in the first leg on April 21, and now have a clear six days to recover before the second leg on April 27 after succeeding in having their French first division match with Monaco on April 24 postponed until May. “The French authorities believe that they can with this decision give Lyon a better chance of reaching the (Champions League) final, and I reckon they are right,” Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said in an interview with German daily tz.

Despite having their noses put out of joint Bayern are stopping short of lodging a protest with Champions League organizers UEFA as requested by van Gaal. “There is no official procedure, this decision is sovereign as it comes from the French League,” a Bayern spokesman explained.

The French League announced the postponement of the Lyon v Monaco match on Thursday, explaining that “this game has been moved to May 12 in order to get Lyon in the best condition”. Whilst Lyon can prepare for the return leg without any domestic distractions Bayern must travel to Monchengladbach on April 24 for a Bundesliga game. — AFP

Double-chasing Chelsea players salute Ancelotti LONDON: Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole has praised manager Carlo Ancelotti for putting the team on course for its first ever league and cup double in his first season in English football. The man who led AC Milan to two Champions League titles has guided

visit to relegation-threatened Wigan. Man United’s bid to become the first team to win the league title four years in a row could be virtually over if it loses at City today if Chelsea wins at Spurs. When the neighbors met in the league at

English Premier League Preview Chelsea to a four-point lead at the top of the Premier League and into the FA Cup final against Portsmouth, which is last in the league and sure to be relegated.

The west London team, which last won the league in 2006 under Jose Mourinho, is 1-4 favorite with the bookmakers to win both competitions.

“Ancelotti is a (great) manager,” Cole said.

“He’s shown in the last few weeks what he’s all about with his team selections. The boys really get on with him. He has brought in a great camaraderie and we have a team spirit developing again.

“Because of that, winning the double would be a massive achievement for Chelsea, for everyone at the club.” Four points ahead at the top of the standings with four games to go, Chelsea can take another big step towards the Premier League title if it beats Tottenham today and Manchester United loses to neighbor Man City. “The title race isn’t over,” Cole said.

“The good thing is that we have our future in our own hands now and we have to keep winning and winning and that will only edge us closer and closer.

We have had a cracking season and it would be great to finish with a couple of trophies “We went into four trophies at the start of the season.

If we were to come out of it at the end with two then it would be an amazing achievement.” First Chelsea goes to White Hart Lane where Tottenham severely hurt the title hopes of Arsenal on Wednesday with a 2-1 victory over its north London neighbor.

Arsenal is now six points behind Chelsea in third place and manager Arsene Wenger, who is without several players through injury, admits it will be very difficult for his team to win the title for the first time since 2004. “I don’t think Chelsea will drop more than six points now,” he said.

Although striker Robin van Persie is fit again after five months out, Arsenal is without Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin, Thomas Vermaelen, William Gallas, Aaron Ramsay and Alex Song for Sunday’s

Old Trafford, United won a 4-3 thriller. United also knocked City out of the League Cup in the semifinal despite losing the away leg 2-1.

United had City striker Carlos Tevez at Old Trafford before he moved on to its neighbor at the end of last season but manager Alex Ferguson says he has no regrets that the Argentina star will be facing his team again.

“There is no bitterness from me,” he said. “Players leave here from time to time.

Some do well, others don’t. We move on. “Carlos had a good first season with us, I must admit. In the second he didn’t

feature in as many games. I cannot dispute that he is having a great goalscoring season (with 22 league goals).” City is out to hold on to fourth place which would mean playing in next season’s Champions League. The team is a point ahead of Tottenham.

Meanwhile, the struggle to avoid relegation alongside last place Portsmouth may take another twist today. Hull and Burnley appear to be favorites to go down, level on 27 points and with four to make up on 17th place West Ham. Hull visits ninth-place Birmingham and Burnley goes to Sunderland, which is virtually safe in 13th place and 38 points. West Ham does not play until Monday when it has a tough game at Liverpool.

Today’s other games are Blackburn-Everton, FulhamWolves and Stoke-Bolton.

Although sure to go down, Portsmouth still has an FA Cup final against Chelsea to look forward to and, on Sunday, hosts Aston Villa in the league. — AP

LONDON: Chelsea’s Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti gestures during their FA Cup semi-final football match against Aston Villa at Wembley Stadium. — AFP

Matches on TV (local timings) English Premier League Man City v Man United ................14:45 ShowSports 1 ShowSports 2 Blackburn v Ever ton ...................17:00 ShowSports 2 Tottenham v Chelsea ..................19 :30 ShowSports 1 ShowSports 2 Spanish League Sevilla v Spor ting Gijon...............19:00 Aljazeera Sport +4 RCD Espanyol v Barcelona...........21:00 Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport +3 Villarreal v Atletico de Madrid......23:00 Aljazeera Sport +2 Italian League Chievo Verona v Livorno ..............19:00

Aljazeera Sport +1 German League Schalke 0 4 v Borussia M................16:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start Hamburger v FSV Mainz 05...........16:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start SC Freiburg v Nur nberg................16:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start VfL Wolfsburg v Werder Bremen....16:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start Stuttgart v Bayer 04 Leverkusen....16:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start Bayern Munich v Hannoverscher....19:30 Premiere Sport 1 Premiere Start

MADRID: Barcelona are strong favorites to win this season’s league title but coach Pep Guardiola warned that this today’s derby game at Espanyol was the most difficult in the title run-in.

Barcelona have tricky trips to Sevilla and Villarreal but first up are neighbors Espanyol who beat Barca 2-1 at Camp Nou last season and the champions also labored to a 1-0 home win in the current campaign. “It will be like a final and is the key game in this part of the season,” said Guardiola, whose side lead Real Madrid at La Liga summit.

Spanish League Preview He added: “(Mauricio) Pochettino is their coach and it is the hardest game we have left. We must prepare well because they will be up for it.”

Real Madrid bounced back from their demoralizing defeat to Barcelona in ‘El Clasico’ with a 2-1 comeback over Almeria on Thursday to keep the title race alive but have a tough test at home to Valencia tomorrow. With six games left Real need to win all their games to close the three-point gap, although technically it is four points as Barca have a better head-to-head record and would win if the teams finished level on points.

Real saw their 100 percent home record in the league ended by the painful Barcelona defeat and underfire coach Manuel Pellegrini will hope to appease the home fans with a convincing win against Valencia at the Santiago Bernabeu. “We said before El Clasico that whoever won the match still cannot afford to think they are the champions and that whoever lost cannot believe the league is over,” said Pellegrini. “We just have to go out to win every game.”

Valencia are third, seven points ahead of Mallorca and a win over Real would push them even closer to their desired Champions League berth. With six games left Real Mallorca are surprisingly occupying fourth and the final Champions League spot, a point ahead of Sevilla.

Mallorca’s season has been based around their home form with 13 wins from 15 games and they are back at their fortress stadium on Monday to host Osasuna. Sevilla fell to a shock 2-1 loss at Valladolid Tuesday for their ninth away defeat so will be glad to be home for today’s match against Sporting Gijon.

Atletico Madrid will face Sevilla in the King’s Cup final but their league form continues to infuriate their fans who watched in shock as their team crashed to a 2-1 home reverse against bottom side Xerez on Wednesday. In the league Atletico are down in 10th with 14 defeats leaving them eight points off the top six going into today’s game at Villarreal before the Europa League semi-final first leg against Liverpool on Thursday. Like Atletico, Villarreal were aiming for the Champions League but they may also miss out on Europe lying two points off the top six at present.

Athletic Bilbao occupy sixth and are even in with an outside shot of the Champions League places, four points behind Mallorca, heading into Monday’s home game against Real Zaragoza. At the bottom, things are tense and two of the most endangered sides, Valladolid and Malaga, face off in a vital six-pointer tomorrow. Valladolid took the scalp of Sevilla on Tuesday and former Spain coach Javier Clemente has revitalized the club with four points from six.

Promoted Xerez have looked doomed for months but the win over Atletico Madrid gives the bottom side a chance of a Houdini-like escape although they still lie six points from safety. Xerez host fellow strugglers Racing Santander tomorrow. — AFP

MADRID: (From left) Barcelona football club’s Honor President dutch Johan Cruyff, Barcelona football club’s President Joan Laporta, Madrid’s Mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon and Spanish Football Federation President and UEFA Vice-President Angel Maria Villar pose with the UEFA Champions League Trophy during the presentation of the trophy at Cibeles Palace yesterday. The UEFA Champions League final will be played in Madrid on May 22, 2010.—AFP

Cole on the bench against Tottenham Cole return could boost Chelsea as title beckons

COBHAM: Injured England defender Ashley Cole could be back in action for Premier League leaders Chelsea at Tottenham Hotspur today, manager Carlo Ancelotti said yesterday.

Cole, England’s first-choice left back, broke his left ankle at Everton at the start of February and his return will be a boost for the west Londoners as they close in on a league and Cup double.

With the World Cup starting in South Africa on June 11, it is also good news for England manager Fabio Capello. “Ashley Cole is in the squad tomorrow,” Ancelotti told reporters at Chelsea’s training ground, an oasis of calm with the usual array of Bentleys and Ferraris in the car park. “He is ready, he’s fit, he’s totally recovered from his injury and he will start from the bench tomorrow.” The Italian had said previously that Cole could be back for the game against Stoke City on April 25 but was not surprised that the player had become available ahead of schedule. “He worked very well, also the medical staff worked very well on him,” he said.

The manager added: “If he is not involved tomorrow he will play a friendly game next

week but it is not necessary. He trained very well this week with the team and did a tackle without any problems. He is really fit 100 percent.” Ancelotti said the only three players who were sure to start at White Hart Lane were Joe Cole, Deco and on-form French midfielder Florent Malouda. “The other players I don’t know. I think that until 5.30 tomorrow I will choose the other eight. I prefer to sleep well tonight,” he laughed.

Chelsea are four points clear of Manchester United, who play local rivals Manchester City in the early kickoff match today, with four games remaining. They also have an FA Cup final against already-relegated Portsmouth coming up but, despite being firm favorites for the double, Ancelotti maintained a cautious stance with Tottenham beating Arsenal 2-1 on Wednesday and challenging for a Champions League place. “It’s not a formality,” he said of the league title. “We have to play some very difficult and important games and we have to pay attention. We know we have to fight.”

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp said: “We need to beat Chelsea to try to keep pushing for that fourth spot. After tomorrow we’ll

have a much clearer picture of what’s going to happen. It’s a tough run-in and they don’t come any tougher than Chelsea. “Chelsea are looking the strongest team.

The atmosphere at White Hart Lane on Wednesday night was amazing and we need that again now. We need a lift to keep us going.

We have got a lot of tired players at the moment.” Long-term injury victims Aaron Lennon and Jermaine Jenas will miss the game along with Croatians Niko Kranjcar and Vedran Corluka, casualties from the FA Cup semi-final loss to Portsmouth.

Lennon, who is desperate to get fit for the World Cup finals, is making slow progress in returning from an groin injury that has kept him out since December. Jenas, who scored the first goal of Fabio Capello’s England reign, should be back in contention for the visit to Manchester United a week having been laid low by a virus following his recovery from a hernia operation. The only good team news for Spurs is the prospect of Ledley King playing back-to-back games after his impressive performance on Wednesday having not played since February. — Reuters

Celtic determined to spoil Rangers party GLASGOW: Celtic have the chance to ruin a potential title party for Rangers tomorrow if they beat Hibernian at Parkhead the day before. The Hoops midweek win over Motherwell coupled with Rangers’ goalless draw with Dundee United means the gap at the top of the Scottish Premier League has been reduced to 11 points. And with five games remaining the league leaders need Celtic to drop points against Hibs if they are to clinch the title on home turf against Hearts.

However, they can expect no favors from their fierce rivals who would love nothing more than to ruin their celebrations. A disappointing season for Celtic was capped off when they crashed to a 2-0 defeat to First Division Ross County in their Scottish Cup semi-final clash last weekend. And interim manager Neil Lennon wants his players to finish the season on a high as they attempt to make amends with their supporters. “I want to win the next five games. That’s three league games we have won in a row - which is very pleasing - with a huge aberration in the middle of them in terms of losing to Ross County,” Lennon said.

“I don’t look back, but I don’t look too far forward, either. Obviously, that stench from the semi-final will linger for a while until we can rectify it in the eyes of the supporters.”

This weekend’s match has come too quickly for Celtic’s trio of injured central defenders Thomas Rogne, Glenn Loovens and Jos Hooiveld who are close to making a return.

One positive for Rangers that came out of their draw with United was the return to action of Madjid Bougherra after two months out injured.

Scottish Premier League Preview The central defender said the players were disappointed to only pick up a point at Tannadice and admitted they would be cheering on Hibs in their game against Celtic so they could wrap up the title as quickly as possible. “There is a possibility that we could win the title at Ibrox tomorrow but it depends on the Celtic result. We will see what happens there,” Bougherra said. “We want a draw or a defeat for Celtic so there can be a good atmosphere at Ibrox if we win. It is better to have the title at home. I hope Hibs do

well.

“We need to be careful because in football you don’t know what will happen. Yes, we have a big gap, but we have to win it quickly so we can be sure. “The players are still very confident. In training, the atmosphere is normal. It is the same on the pitch. There is no more pressure. We are enjoying it.” Rangers have no injury problems for the match against Hearts with long-term injury Kirk Broadfoot back in training. Only goal difference is keeping a Falkirk side who have won their last two games bottom of the league.

They travel to Pittodrie to take on an Aberdeen team in crisis having only chalked up one win in their last 15 matches. Hamilton host a Kilmarnock side desperate for points as they hover one point above the relegation zone. St Mirren, who are only above Falkirk on goal difference, face a tough fixture away to a St Johnstone side that narrowly missed out on a place in the top six.

Also tomorrow, Motherwell host Dundee United at Fir Park. Motherwell are still in the hunt for a European spot despite three defeats in a row while United are chasing Celtic for second place. — AFP

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MILAN: Inter Milan Argentine defender Walter Samuel goes for an header with Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini as Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon looks on during a Serie A soccer match at the San Siro stadium yesterday. — AP

Inter back on top, blank Juve 2-0

MILAN: Maicon scored a dazzling volley as Inter Milan went back to the top of the Serie A table with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Juventus at the San Siro yesterday. AS Roma can regain top spot tomorrow if they beat Lazio in the Rome derby. The stuttering champions won for only the fourth time in 12 league matches but the first-half sending off of Mohamed Sissoko proved crucial as Juve finally wilted under the nerazzurri’s second period onslaught.

Two goals in the final 15 minutes did for the visitors with Cameroon forward Samuel

Eto’o tapping home an injury time second.

Sixth-placed Juve could now find themselves six points off a Champions League qualification position with four games to play if Sicilian club Palermo win at Sardinian outfit Cagliari tomorrow. Juventus may have been the underdogs but they made the brighter start with Inter goalkeeper Julio Cesar forced into saves from Vincenzo Iaquinta and Alessandro Del Piero in the first two minutes.

And on four minutes Claudio Marchisio was given space outside the area to set his

sights but fired over the bar. Inter’s first chance came on 12 minutes as Wesley Sneijder blazed a free-kick over before Thiago Motta tried from distance but Gianluigi Buffon plunged to his right to beat away the effort.

Inter looked destined to score on 26 minutes as Eto’o escaped down the left on the counter-attack but he cut inside on his right and Sissoko made a last ditch sliding tackle to block.

The Mali midfielder then got in the thick of things for all the wrong reasons. First he

was booked for a pushing match with Thiago Motta and then on 37 minutes he received his marching orders following a second yellow for a rash challenge on Javier Zanetti.

After a pretty dire first half Eto’o had a great opportunity to open the scoring early in the second but after he’d bundled past Fabio Cannavaro, the ball took a nasty bobble and he ballooned his shot high over the bar.

Maicon then robbed Fabio Grosso in the box and crossed for Diego Milito but Inter’s top scorer flicked his shot from inside the six-yard box wide of the far post. Inter were

Ronaldo keeps title hopes alive GOOD RESPONSE Real are out of the Champions League and the King’s Cup and remain in danger of ending the season without any silverware despite an investment of close to a quarter of a billion euros ($341 million) in players for this season.

President Florentino Perez spent a record 94 million euros to buy Ronaldo from Manchester United and the 25-year-old’s goal against Almeria was his 19th in the league this season, eight short of Barca’s La Liga top scorer Lionel Messi on 27. “At the start we were a bit flat because of what happened on Saturday (against Barcelona) but then we got into the match very well and created a lot of chances,” Ronaldo told reporters. “We didn’t play a fantastic match but we managed to win and that’s the important thing.”

Barca, the Spanish and European champions, can stretch their La Liga lead back to six points with a win at city rivals Espanyol on Saturday and play the first leg of their Champions League semi-final at Inter Milan on Tuesday.

Real host third-placed Valencia on Sunday, with Unai Emery’s side a massive 21 points behind them after their 20 home win over Athletic Bilbao in Thursday’s late kickoff. Spain midfielder David Silva struck either side of halftime at the Mestalla to lift Valencia seven points clear of fourth-placed Real Mallorca, who drew 1-1 at relegation threatened Real Zaragoza on Wednesday. — Reuters

edge of the box and slammed a stunning volley past a helpless Buffon. Balotelli was a lick of paint away from adding a second as he thumped a free-kick onto the bar 10 minutes from time.

Juve did have a late chance to salvage something when Giorgio Chiellini came up from the back to earn a free-kick just outside the box but Julio Cesar saved Diego’s curler. In injury time Ghana midfielder Muntari Sulley crossed for the unmarked Eto’o to stroke home into an empty net from six yards. — AFP

Debt-ridden Liverpool up for sale MANCHESTER: Liverpool’s American owners put the debt-ridden Premier League club up for sale yesterday, heralding the end of their three-year tenure after mounting pressure from banks and furious fans. Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. have finally conceded they no longer have the resources to strengthen the Liverpool team and build the new stadium they promised after buying the 18-time English champions. Amid their own feuding and heated fan protests, the tycoons tried in vain for more than two years to find an investor who would be willing to pump money into the club and reduce the debt of 237 million pounds ($364 million) resulting from their leveraged takeover.

After failing to attract a minority investor, Hicks and Gillett yesterday tasked Barclays Bank to lead the search for a buyer, while hiring British Airways chairman Martin Broughton to assume the same role at Anfield and oversee the sale. “There has been a long process of Hicks and Gillett looking for investors - the decision has now been made to exit,” said Broughton,

Real grab 3 points; Silva double lifts Valencia

MADRID: Cristiano Ronaldo scored a trademark solo goal and Rafael van der Vaart struck a clinical winner to give Real Madrid a 2-1 comeback victory at mid-table Almeria on Thursday and keep alive their La Liga title hopes. Leaders Barcelona followed up Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Real with a 3-0 home win against Deportivo Coruna on Wednesday to go six points clear on 83 but Real’s success in Andalucia has trimmed the gap back to three with six games left.

Almeria came under some early pressure at their Juegos Mediterraneos stadium before an unmarked Albert Crusat gave the home side a surprise lead in the 14th minute, sweeping a low Kalu Uche cross past Real goalkeeper Iker Casillas. World Cupbound Portugal forward Ronaldo sliced through the home defense to level with an angled shot in the 27th and Real squandered several chances to grab the lead before halftime.

Midfielder Guti struck a powerful drive against the post on the half hour and Argentina striker Gonzalo Higuain had an effort cleared off the line before Van der Vaart lashed home from just outside the penalty area in the 69th. “We still have a chance to win the league but we have to win all our remaining matches,” the Netherlands midfielder, who will be a key member of the Dutch team at the World Cup, said in a pitch-side television interview. “I had a lot of chances and missed two or three in the first half so I’m very happy with the goal,” he added.

dominant against the 10 men but Juve almost sprung a surprise as Cannavaro met Diego’s corner eight yards out only to direct his header straight at Julio Cesar before up the other end Walter Samuel headed wide from similar range. Milito then headed wide from barely a yard out after Mario Balotelli had flicked on Sneijder’s corner as the champions pushed ever closer to the opener.

And the goal duly arrived a quarter of an hour before the end as Maicon juggled the ball past a weak Amauri challenge on the

who is a fan of Premier League rival Chelsea. “This is not the ad hoc process that has been along so far.”

Broughton said a takeover would be completed “in a matter of months.”

Hicks and Gillett would be expecting at least 500 million pounds, which Dubai International Capital offered in 2008 and was rejected by the squabbling owners. “Owning Liverpool Football Club over these past three years has been a rewarding and exciting experience for us and our families,” Hicks and Gillett said in a brief joint statement.

“We have now decided together to look to sell the club to owners committed to take the club through its next level of growth and development.”

During the sale process, Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia will not call in the Americans’ loans and there will be no fire-sale of players.

“I think the club is moving forward and that’s positive,” said manager Rafa Benitez, who the owners infuriated by looking at replacing him with Juergen Klinsmann and whose own future still remains in doubt. While Hicks and

Gillett did buy Torres for a club-record 20.3 million pounds (then $40.6 million) in 2007, the lack of funds last year to spend on players has had an impact on Liverpool’s performance on the field this season.

Runners-up last season, Liverpool is languishing in sixth place this season, six points adrift of fourth place and the final English berth in next season’s Champions League.

While Liverpool is in the semifinals of the Europa League, it is in Europe’s second-tier knockout competition because it was eliminated from the group stage of the Champions League, which it won in 2005.

Liverpool has been financially hamstrung by the economics of its 45,000capacity Anfield stadium, where there are limited luxury suites and amenities to generate extra revenue. Preliminary building work on a 60,00-seat replacement started in the adjacent Stanley Park in June 2008, but it was halted in October due to the global economic meltdown. “There is an overwhelming logic to any buyer to complete the new stadium,” Broughton said. — AP

Ferguson not intimidated

by City’s spending power

ALMERIA: Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal controls the ball during a Spanish La Liga soccer match against Almeria at the Mediterraneo stadium in Almeria, Spain. — AP

MANCHESTER: Sir Alex Ferguson insists Manchester United won’t be affected by Manchester City’s spending power even if his club’s bitter rivals qualify for the Champions League.

United manager Ferguson prepares for today’s Manchester derby at Eastlands knowing that City are in a strong position to clinch fourth place and the final spot in next season’s Champions League.

Given the vast wealth at City’s disposal thanks to their billionaire Abu Dhabi-based owners, the lure of playing in the Champions League should make the club an irresistible proposition for many of the world’s leading players when the transfer window re-opens at the end of the season. But Ferguson is

unmoved by the potential challenge and claims that City’s dreams of buying enough top players to compete for next season’s Premier League title are not guaranteed to end in success.

“They have still got the small problem of ourselves, Chelsea, Arsenal and possibly Liverpool, they have had a disappointing season but I’m sure they will be revved up to do better next season,” Ferguson said yesterday. “The thing is City can buy. They have such an amazing amount of buying power. They can go and buy another team. If they qualify for the Champions League, you can rest assured they will buy players. “From our point of view we have a reasonable structure in place. We may need to tweak the squad here and there but we

like to buy young players who we can develop - and we’ve been good at that.

“We’ve signed (Javier) Hernandez from Mexico and we may sign one or two more players, at the most, because that is the way we are, that is all we need, our structure is okay. “I don’t think we will be in competition with City for players because they will be after different types of players. Nobody knows what their plans are but the point is they have a buying power that is different from all the other clubs.” One player whom United have already lost to City’s superior spending power is Argentina forward Carlos Tevez who has enjoyed a stunning season since moving to Eastlands, scoring 28 goals to date for Roberto Mancini’s side. — AFP